The Greatest Fight in the World! 2

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How often we have seen the Word made effectual for consolation! It is a difficult thing to deal with broken hearts. What a fool I have felt myself to be, when trying to bring forth a prisoner out of Giant Despair's Castle! How hard it is to persuade despondency to hope! How have I tried to trap my game by every art known to me; but when almost in my grasp—the creature has burrowed another hole! I had dug him out of twenty already, and then have had to begin again. The convicted sinner uses all kinds of arguments to prove that he cannot be saved. The inventions of despair are as many as the devices of self-confidence. There is no letting light into the dark cellar of doubt, except through the window of the Word of God.

Within the Scripture, there is a balm for every wound, a salve for every sore. Oh, the wondrous power in the Scripture to create a heart of hope, within the ribs of despair, and bring eternal light into the darkness which has made a long midnight in the inmost soul! Often have we tried the Word of the Lord as "the cup of consolation", and it has never failed to cheer the despondent. We know what we say, for we have witnessed the blessed facts: the Scriptures of truth, applied by the Holy Spirit, have brought peace and joy to those who sat in darkness and in the valley of the shadow of death.

We have also observed the excellence of the Word in the edification of believers, and in the production of righteousness, holiness, and usefulness. We are always being told, in these days, of the "ethical" side of the gospel. I pity those to whom this is a novelty. Have they not discovered this before? We have always been dealing with the ethical side of the gospel; indeed, we find it ethical all over. There is no true doctrine which has not been fruitful in good works. Payson wisely said, "If there is one fact, one doctrine, or promise in the Bible, which has produced no practical effect upon your temper or conduct—be assured that you do not truly believe it."

All Scriptural teaching has its practical purpose, and its practical result; and what we have to say, not as a matter of discovery—but as a matter of plain common sense, is this—that if we have had fewer fruits than we could wish with the tree, we suspect that there will be no fruit at all when the tree has gone, and the roots are dug up. The very root of holiness lies in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and if this is removed with a view to more fruitfulness, the most astounding folly will have been committed. We have seen a fine morality, a stern integrity, a delicate purity, and, what is more, a devout holiness, produced by the doctrines of grace. We see consecration in life, we see calm resignation in the hour of suffering, we see joyful confidence in the article of death, and these, not in a few instances—but as the general outcome of intelligent faith in the teachings of Scripture.

We have even wondered at the sacred result of the old gospel. Though we are accustomed often-times to see it, it never loses its charm. We have seen poor men and women yielding themselves to Christ, and living for him, in a way that has made our hearts to bow in adoration of the God of grace. We have said, "This must be a true gospel which can produce such lives as these!" If we have not talked so much about ethics as some have done, we remember an old saying of the country folk: "Go to such a place to hear about good works—but go to another place to see them." Much talk, little work. Some have preached good works until there has scarcely been left a decent person in the parish! While others have preached free graceand dying love in such a way, that sinners have become saints, and saints have been as boughs loaded down with fruit to the praise and glory of God. Having seen the harvest which springs from our seed, we are not going to change it at the dictates of this whimsical age!

Especially we have seen and tested the efficacy of the Word of God when we have been by the sick bed. I was—but a few days ago, by the side of one of our elders, who appeared to be dying; and it was like heaven below to converse with him. I never saw so much joy at a wedding—as I saw in that quiet chamber. He hoped soon to be with Jesus; and he was joyful in the prospect. He said, "I have no doubt, no cloud, no trouble, no need; nay, I have not even a wish. The doctrine you have taught has served me to live by, and now it serves me to die by. I am resting upon the precious blood of Christ, and it is a firm foundation." And he added, "How silly all those letters against the gospel now appear to me! I have read some of them, and I have noted the attacks upon the old faith—but they seem quite absurd to me now that I lie on the verge of eternity. What could the new doctrine do for me now?" I came down from my interview greatly strengthened and gladdened by the good man's testimony; and all the more was I personally comforted because it was the Word which I myself had constantly preached which had been such a blessing to my friend. If God had so owned it from so poor an instrument, I felt that the Word itself must be good indeed. I am never so happy amidst all the shouts of youthful merriment, as on the day when I hear the dying testimony of one who is resting on the everlasting gospel of the grace of God. The ultimate outcome, as seen upon a dying-bed, is a true test, as it is an inevitable one. Preach that which will enable men to face death without fear, and you will preach nothing but the old gospel.

Brethren, we will array ourselves in that which God has supplied us in the armory of inspired Scripture, because every weapon in it has been tried and proved in many ways; and never has any part of our panoply failed us.

Moreover, we shall evermore keep to the Word of God, because we have had experience of its power within ourselves. It is not so long ago that you will have forgotten how, like a hammer, the Word of God broke your flinty heart, and brought down your stubborn will. By the Word of the Lord you were brought to the Cross, and comforted by the atonement. That Word breathed a new life into you; and when, for the first time, you knew yourself to be a child of God, you felt the ennobling power of the gospel received by faith. The Holy Spirit wrought your salvation through the Holy Scriptures. You trace your conversion, I am sure, to the Word of the Lord; for this alone is "perfect, converting the soul." Whoever may have been the man who spoke it, or whatever may have been the book in which you read it, it was not man's Word, nor man's thought upon God's Word—but the Word itself, which made you know salvation in the Lord Jesus. It was neither human reasoning, nor the force of eloquence, nor the power of moral persuasion—but the omnipotence of the Spirit, applying the Word itself, that gave you rest and peace and joy through believing. We are ourselves trophies of the power of the sword of the Spirit; he leads us in triumph in every place, the willing captives of his grace. Let no man marvel that we keep close to it.

How many times since conversion has Holy Scripture been everything to you! You have your fainting fits, I suppose; have you not been restored by the precious cordial of the promise of the Faithful One? A passage of Scripture laid home to the heart speedily quickens the feeble heart into mighty action. Men speak of waters that revive the spirits, and tonics that brace the constitution; but the Word of God has been more than this to us, times beyond count. Amidst sharp and strong temptations, and fierce and bitter trials, the Word of the Lord has preserved us. Amidst discouragements which damped our hopes, and disappointments which wounded our hearts, we have felt ourselves strong to do and bear, because the assurances of help which we find in our Bibles have brought us a secret, unconquerable energy.

Brethren, we have had experience of the elevation which the Word of God can give us—upliftings towards God and heaven. If you get studying bookscontrary to the inspired volume, are you not conscious of slipping downwards? Yes; and I may add, that to forego your Bible reading for the perusal even of good books, would soon bring a conscious descending of the soul. Have you not found that even gracious books may be to you as a plain to look down upon, rather than as a summit to which to aspire? You have come up to their level long ago, and get no higher by reading them—it is idle to spend precious time upon them. Was it ever so with you and the Book of God? Did you ever rise above its simplest teaching, and feel that it tended to draw you downward? Never! In proportion as your mind becomes saturated with Holy Scripture, you are conscious of being lifted right up, and carried aloft as on eagles' wings. You seldom come down from a solitary Bible reading without feeling that you have drawn near to God. I say a solitary one; for when reading with others, the danger is that stale comments may be flies in the pot of ointment.

The prayerful study of the Word is not only a means of instruction—but an act of devotion wherein the transforming power of grace is often exercised, changing us into the image of Christ, of whom the Word is a mirror. Is there anything, after all, like the Word of God when the open books finds open hearts? When I read the lives of such men as Baxter, Brainerd, McCheyne, and many others, why, I feel like one who has bathed himself in some cool brook after having gone a journey through a dirty country, which left him dusty and depressed; and this result comes of the fact that such men embodied Scripture in their lives, and illustrated it in their experience. The washing of water by the Word is what they had, and what we need. We must get it where they found it.

To see the effects of the truth of God, in the lives of holy men is confirmatory to faith and stimulating to holy aspiration. Other influences do not help us to such a sublime ideal of consecration. If you read the Babylonian books of the present day, you will catch their spirit, and it is a foreign one, which will draw you aside from the Lord your God. You may also get great harm from divines in whom there is much pretense of the Jerusalem dialect—but their speech is half of Ashdod: these will confuse your mind and defile your faith. It may chance that a book which is upon the whole excellent, which has little taint about it, may do you more mischief than a thoroughly bad one. Be careful; for works of this kind come forth from the press like clouds of locusts.

Scarcely can you find in these days, a book which is quite free from the modern leaven, and the least particle of it ferments until it produces the wildest error. In reading books of the new order, though no palpable falsehood may appear, you are conscious of a twist being given you, and of a sinking in the tone of your spirit; therefore be on your guard. But with your Bible you may always feel at ease; there every breath from every quarter brings life and health. If you keep close to the inspired book, you can suffer no harm; you are at the fountain-head of all moral and spiritual good. This is fit food for men of God—this is the bread which nourishes the highest life.

After preaching the gospel for forty years, and after printing the sermons I have preached for more than thirty-six years, reaching now to the number of 2,200 in weekly succession, I am fairly entitled to speak about the fullness and richness of the Bible, as a preacher's book. Brethren, it is inexhaustible. No question about freshness will arise—if we keep closely to the text of the sacred volume. There can be no difficulty as to finding themes totally distinct from those we have handled before; the variety is as infinite—as the fullness. A long life will only suffice us to skirt the shoresof this great continent of light. In the forty years of my own ministry I have only touched the hem of the garment of divine truth; but what virtue has flowed out of it!

The Word is like its Author—infinite, immeasurable, without end. If you were ordained to be a preacher throughout eternity, you would have before you a theme equal to everlasting demands. Brothers, shall we each have a pulpit somewhere amidst the spheres? Shall we have a parish of millions of leagues? Shall we have voices so strengthened as to reach attentive constellations? Shall we be witnesses for the Lord of grace to myriads of worlds which will be wonder-struck when they hear of the incarnate God? Shall we be surrounded by pure intelligences enquiring and searching into the mystery of God manifest in the flesh? Will the unfallen worlds desire to be instructed in the glorious gospel of the blessed God? And will each one of us have his own tale to tell of our experience of infinite love? I think so, since the Lord has saved us "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church of the manifold wisdom of God." If such be the case, our Bibles will suffice for ages to come—for new themes every morning, and for fresh songs and discourses world without end.

We are resolved, then, since we have this arsenal supplied for us of the Lord, and since we want no other—to use the Word of God alone, and to use it with greater energy. We are resolved—and I hope there is no dissentient among us—to know our Bibles better. Do we know the sacred volume half so well as we should know it? Have we labored after as complete a knowledge of the Word of God as many a critic has obtained of his favorite classic? Is it not possible that we still meet with passages of Scripture which are new to us? Should it be so? Is there any part of what the Lord has written—which you have never read?

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