“O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth?”

There can be no authority save that which is infallible and Divine, that is, God speaking to us directly in His Word.  “O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth?” (Jer 5:3). The word truth in Scripture refers to both doctrine and practice. It points to both the “error” and the “lie.” It classes both together. It condemns both. False speaking, whether in reference to teaching or witness bearing, is declared to be abominable to God. His eyes are upon the truth. They watch over it, to guard it, and to maintain it. lat God is now recalling humanity to the book that was written for it. By the very attacks made on it by enemies, as well as by the studies of its friends, He is bringing us back to this one volume, as the light shining in a dark place. That we may know the past, the present, and the future, He is bidding us betake ourselves to it. Let us read it, let us study it, let us love it, let us reverence it. It will guide, it will cheer, it will enlighten, it will make wise, it will purify. It will lead us into all truth. It will deliver us from the fermenting errors of the day. It will save us from the intellectual dreams of a vain philosophy, from the vitiated8 taste of a sensational literature, from the specious 9 novelties of spiritual mysticism, from the pretentious sentimentalisms of men who soar above all creeds and abhor the name of “law,” from Broad Church-ism, and High Church-ism, and no Church-ism. It will lead us into light and love, into liberty and unity, imparting strength and gladness. This Book is “the Word of God.” It contains “the words of God,” but it is “the Word of God,” the thing that God hath spoken to man. Being the Word of God, that which it contains must be the words of God. That He should speak in words of His own choosing is what we should above all things desire, for then we should know that His thoughts were really presented to us; that He should speak in words of man’s choosing (if such a thing could be), is altogether undesirable and unlikely; for then we should not know whether the language and the thought were in the least coincident; nay, we should feel that we had gotten an incorrect and untrustworthy volume, that we had been cheated and betrayed, that instead of bread we had got a stone, and instead of an egg we had got a scorpion. lat Reading God’s Word One feels, in our day, how little there is of simple reading of the divine Word, and simple understanding of it, unwarped by system, or undiluted by speculation. Not that Scripture is left unstudied, but it is little studied for the simple end of learning the mind of God, and of having the way that leads to the kingdom traced out for our personal guidance. One searches it in order to prove that the life of Christ is a mere mythical deception, imposing unrealities upon us for realities and histories. Another searches it in order to show that there is in it no such thing as prophecy, or miracle, or sign, or wonder, or mighty deed, and that the common laws of nature will account for all. Another goes to it for the purpose of demonstrating that it contains no such dogma10 as that of resurrection from the dead. Another gropes about in it for human flaws or fancied contradictions to prove that it is not wholly divine, and that the question of its entire inspiration is as yet unsettled and uncertain. Another goes to it for its beauty, its poetry, its lofty sentiments, just as he goes to Shakespeare, or Milton, extolling it beyond measure, yet never finding in it “the Christ of God” (Luk 9:20), the life of his soul, the peace that “passeth all understanding” (Phi 4:7). One goes to it for truth, but loses sight of the TRUE ONE, thereby deceiving himself with the mere shadow or specter of knowledge and religion. Another goes to it for the True One—a person, not an abstraction—but, losing sight of the truth, he works out for himself a scheme of mysticism and dreaminess, which has in it, indeed, the appearance of warmth and vitality; but is still little better than religious sentimentalism.