SUNDAY 2/21/2021

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON - THE IMPORTANCE AND ADVANTAGES OF PERSONAL WORK

THE IMPORTANCE AND ADVANTAGES OF PERSONAL WORK

In our study of the various forms of Christian activity, we begin with “Personal Work,” that is, hand-to-hand dealing with men, women and children. We begin with it because it is the simplest form of Christian work and one that everyone can do.

I. Importance of Personal Soul-Winning Work

It is also the most effective method of winning lost souls.

The apostle Peter was brought to Jesus by the hand-to-hand work of his brother, Andrew. Andrew first found Christ himself, then he went to Peter quietly and told him of his great find. And thus he led Peter to the Saviour he himself had found.

We do not know that Andrew ever preached a sermon. If he did, it was not recorded. But he did a great day’s work when he led his brother to Jesus. Peter preached a sermon that led to the conversion of three thousand people. Where would Peter’s great sermon have been if Andrew had not first led him to Christ by quiet personal work?

Mr. Edward Kimball, a Boston businessman, led D. L. Moody, the young Boston shoe clerk, to the Saviour. Where would all Mr. Moody’s wonderful work for Christ have been if he himself had not been led to the Saviour by the faithful personal work of his Sunday school teacher?

I believe in preaching. It is a great privilege to preach the Gospel. But this world can be reached and evangelized far more quickly and thoroughly by personal work than by public preaching. Indeed, it can only be reached and evangelized by personal work.

When the whole church of Jesus Christ shall rouse to its responsibility and privilege in this matter and when every individual Christian becomes a personal worker, evangelization of the world will be close at hand.

When the membership of any local church shall rouse to its responsibility and privilege in this matter and each member become a personal worker in the power of the Holy Spirit, a great revival will be close at hand for the community in which that church is located.

Personal work wins but little applause from men, but it accomplishes great things for God.

Many think personal work beneath their dignity and gifts. A blind woman once said to me, “Do you think that my blindness will hinder me from working for the Master?”

"Not at all. It may be a great help to you, for others seeing your blindness will come and speak to you, then you will have the opportunity of giving your testimony for Christ and of leading them to the Saviour," I answered.

"Oh, that is not what I want," she replied. "It seems a waste of time when one might be speaking to five or six hundred at once just to be speaking to an individual."

I answered that our Lord and Saviour was able to speak to more than five thousand at once, yet He never thought personal work beneath His dignity or His gifts. Indeed, it was the work the Saviour loved to do.

We have more instances of His personal work recorded in the Gospels than of His preaching. The one who is above personal work is above his Master.

II. Its Advantages

1. All can do it. In an average congregation there are not more than four or five who can preach to edification. It would be a great pity too should all attempt to become preachers; it would be a great blessing if all would become personal workers.

Any child of God can do personal work, and all can learn to do effective personal work. The mother who is confined at home by multiplicity of home duties can still do personal work, first with her own children, then with any helper in the home, with the butcher, the grocer, the tramp who calls at the door---in fact with everybody who comes within reach.

I once knew a mother very gifted in 'the matter of bringing her own children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, who lamented that she could not do some work for Christ. I watched this woman carefully. I found that almost everyone who came to the house in any capacity was spoken to about the Saviour. She was, in point of fact, doing more for Christ in the way of direct evangelistic work than most pastors.

Even the one shut up at home by sickness can do personal work. As friends come to the sickbed, a word of testimony can be given for Christ, or even an extended conversation can be held.

A little girl of twelve, the child of very poor parents, lay dying in Minneapolis. She let her light shine for the Master and spoke, among others, to a godless physician, to whom, perhaps, no one else had ever spoken about Christ.

A poor girl in New York City, who was rescued from the slums and died a year or two afterwards, was used of God to lead about one hundred men and women to Christ while lying upon her dying bed.

Even a servant girl can do effective personal work. Lord Shaftsbury, the great English philanthropist, was won to Christ in a godless home by the effective personal work of a nurse girl.

Traveling· men have unusually good opportunities for doing personal work as they travel on the trains from town to town; as they stop in one hotel after another and go from store to store.

A professional nurse once came into my Bible class in Chicago and, at the close of the meeting, approached me and said, "I was led to Christ by Mr. So-and-so [a traveling man connected with a large wholesale house]; I was in a hotel parlor. This gentleman saw me and walked across and asked if I was a Christian. When I told him I was not, he proceeded to show me the way of life. I was so startled and impressed to find a traveling man leading others to Christ that I accepted Him as my Saviour then and there. He told me if I ever came to Chicago to come to your Bible class."

I have watched this woman for years since, and she herself is a most devoted Christian and effective worker.

How enormous, wonderful and glorious would be the results if all Christians should begin to be active personal workers to the extent of their ability! Nothing else would do so much to promote a revival in any community and in the land at large. Every pastor should urge this duty upon his people, train them for it, then see that they do it.

2. It can be done anywhere.

There are but few places where one can preach; there is no place where one cannot do personal work. How often, as we pass factories, hotels, schools and other places where crowds are gathered, do we wish that we might get into them and preach the Gospel; but generally this is impossible. But it is altogether possible to go in and do personal work. Furthermore, we can do personal work on the street, whether or not street meetings are allowed. We can do personal work in the homes of the poor and in the homes of the rich, in hospitals, workhouses, jails, station houses and all sorts of institutions—in a word, everywhere.

3. It can be done at any time.

The times when we can have preaching services and Sunday schools are quite limited. As a rule, in most communities we cannot have services more than two or three days a week, and only three or four hours in the day, but personal work can be done seven days in the week and any time of day or night.

Some of the best personal work done in this country has been done on the streets late at night. Those who love souls have walked the streets looking for wanderers and have gone before dens of vice seeking the lost sheep, and hundreds of them have thus been found.

4. It reaches all classes.

There are large classes of men that no other method will reach. There are the shut-ins who cannot get out to church, the busmen, the policemen, railroad conductors, firemen, the very poor and the very rich. Some cannot and others will not attend church or cottage meeting or mission meeting, but personal work can reach them all.

5. It hits the mark

Preaching is necessarily general; personal work is direct and personal. There is no mistaking who is meant; there is no dodging the arrow; there is no possibility of giving what is said a way to someone else. Many whom even so expert a gospel preacher as Mr. Moody has missed have been afterwards reached by personal work.

6. It meets the definite need and every need of the person dealt with.

Even when men are aroused and convicted and perhaps converted by a sermon, personal work is necessary to bring out into clear light and into a satisfactory experience one whom the sermon has thus aroused, convicted and converted.

7. It avails where other methods fail.

One of my best workers told me that she had attended church for years and had wanted to become a Christian. She had listened to some of the best-known preachers and still was unsaved. But the very first inquiry meeting she went into she was saved because someone came and dealt with her personally.

8. It produces very large results.

There is no comparison between what will be effected by good preaching and what will be effected by constant personal work.

Take a church of one hundred members; such a church under an excellent pastor would be considered as doing an exceptionally good work if on an average fifty were added annually to this membership.

But suppose that church was trained to do personal work and fifty of the one hundred members actually went at it. Certainly one a month won to Christ by each one would not be a large average. That would be six hundred a year instead of the fifty mentioned before.

A church of many members, with the most powerful preaching possible, that depends upon the minister alone to win men to Christ by his preaching would not accomplish anything like what would be accomplished by a church with a comparatively poor preacher where the membership generally were personal workers.

- R. A. Torrey (From Personal Work. Published by Fleming Revell.)

THE WORD OF GOD, NOT BROKEN AND NOT BOUND – Part 1 of 2

“If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

“Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound” (2 Timothy 2:9).

Four framers of the Constitution spoke often in the First Constitutional Convention. Roger Sherman spoke 138 times; James Wilson, 168 times; James Madison, Jr., 161 times; and Gouverneur Morris, 173 times—a total of 640 times.

But were many with eloquence and wisdom far beyond the reach of these four great men to speak of the Bible, they could express only a meager measure of its greatness—so wonderful in its antiquity, yet never antedated.

This wonderful Book of sixty-six books, a vast library in one volume, written by forty men of different capacity and temperament and position over a period of sixteen hundred years, has one message—progressive, constructive, complete:

All who wrote are immortalized by their writing of this great Book, supernatural in origin, divine in authorship, human in penmanship, infallible in authority, infinite in scope, universal in interest, personal in application, regenerative in power, inspired in totality—the miracle Book of diversity in unity, of harmony in infinite complexity.

This Word of God, the Masterpiece of God, the Book above and beyond all books as a river is beyond a rill in reach, as the sun is beyond a candle in brightness, as Niagara is above and beyond a mud puddle in glory, is immortal in its hopes—a complete code of laws, the most entertaining and authentic history ever published, the best covenant ever made, the best deed ever written, the best Will ever executed.

It comes to us drenched in the tears of millions of contritions, worn with the fingers of agony and death, expounded by the greatest intellects, steeped in the prayers of many saints, stained with the blood of martyrs.

The accuracy of its statements and prophecies in substantiated by every turn of the excavator’s spade in Bible lands, by history, by multitudinous inscriptions deciphered among classic ruins by the unlocking of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

From rusty coins and corroded marbles we find confirmations of its own veracity. Infinite in height and infinite in depth it is—and will forever be. Volumes that would fill the shelves of many libraries have been written on single chapters, single verses and single words. Yet those chapters and verses are as fresh, as fertile, as inexhaustible as ever.

The fountain in which dying martyrs cooled their hot faces, the pillow on which saints of all ages have rested their heads, the Word of God breaks the fetters of the slave, takes the heat out of life’s fierce fever, the pain out of parting, the sting out of death, the gloom out of the grave.

Addressing itself to the universal conscience, speaking with binding claims, commanding the obedience of all mankind, it is the one and only source of information concerning divine revelation, the world’s creation, the soul’s salvation, human destiny and the realities of eternity. Only the Bible can state, “Thus saith the LORD.”

And we need to recall God’s statement in Isaiah 8:20:

“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

We wonder at its indestructibility when we know how it has been severely abused in the hands of its enemies and sorely wounded in the house of its friends. Our faith in its eternal indestructibility is strengthened when we read, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).

Isaiah wrote, “The word of our God shall stand for ever” [Isaiah 40:8].

Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away” (Mark 13:31).

Wonderful in its inspiration, translation, preservation, unification, salvation, sanctification and consummation, it makes nations and civilizations, homes, individuals, to breathe and grow. Free from earthly mixtures—original, unborrowed, solitary in its greatness—outliving all other books as a mighty factor in civilization, it is unique and peerless; it is always identified with the promotion of liberty.

Wonderful in its authority, it is the companion. of pioneers in commerce, the foundation of civil government, the source and support of learning—always containing and fostering the best literature.

Let us think a while of the wonder of its total inspiration.

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

All sacred writings are given by inspiration—and inspired not according to the ordinary theory, which says that the Bible writers were inspired as were Tennyson and Browning. Their inspiration was mere human genius.

Nor is the Bible inspired according to the fractional theory, which states that only parts are divinely inspired. This fractional theory of inspiration leaves us in the plight of incompetence to decide which parts are inspired. This theory eliminates the truth; “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” –false in one, false in all.

I like what Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage said on this:

“I never so much as now felt the truth in the entire Bible. I prefer the old robe that has kept so many warm amid the cold pilgrimage of this life and amid the chills of death. Give me the old robe rather than the thin gauze offered us by the wiseacres who believe the Bible in spots.”

Nor is the Bible inspired according to the thermometer theory, which claims that parts of the Bible are more inspired than other portions. We must remember that a thing is true or not true. And one truth cannot be more truthful than another truth. Psalm 23 is not more inspired than chapter 7 of Proverbs. To say that Lindbergh flew to Paris is not more truthful than the truth that Benjamin Franklin had a tail to his kite.

Nor is the Bible inspired according to the moral theory held by some. This theory declares that the moral and spiritual teachings of the Bible are inspired but that the historical elements may be true or may be false. This is inconsistent and would have us believe the Bible only when it speaks on certain subjects.

Nor is the Bible inspired according to the spiritual illumination theory—by which is meant a heightened form of spiritual illumination. But that is an experience common to all true Christians. Let those who put forth their spiritual illumination theory demonstrate it by writing some Scripture—another chapter eight of Romans, for example.

All Scripture is theopneustos—literally God-breathed. This makes it plain that what we call inspiration is not the man, but the book—not the writer, but his writing; not the speaker, but his words.

The purpose of God in inspiration was not to give us a number of infallible men who would soon pass away, but to give us an infallible Book that would never pass away. Between this position and infidelity there is no, neutral ground.

All Scripture is inspired. Therefore, no Scripture can be uninspired. Scriptures supporting verbal inspiration are abundant:

To the Christians at Thessalonica, Paul wrote:

“When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

To the church at Corinth, Paul wrote:

“The things that I write unto you are the commandments of the LORD” (1 Corinthians 14:37).

Luke records the Spirit-filled Zacharias as saying:

“He spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began” (Luke 1:70).

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says:

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets” (Hebrews 1:1).

Of Moses ‘tis recorded:

“And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD” (Exodus 24:4).

To Jeremiah, God said:

“Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book” (Jeremiah 30:2).

To the same prophet He also said:

“Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth” (Jeremiah 1:9).

Note especially now:

“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man s wisdom teacheth; but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (I Corinthians 2:13).

In this way spoke all whom God ever inspired to speak to us.

“For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him” (John 3:34).

I feel joyfully and gratefully inclined right here to give what Dr. J. R. Graves, mighty in intellect and great in heart, wrote:

“The question now is: Are all parts of each of the books of our sacred Scriptures inspired at all, or, if so, equally inspired with the other parts? It will be admitted by all that THE WHOLE INCLUDES THE SUM OF ALL ITS PARTS.

“Then what is true of the Scriptures as a whole or of each book as a whole, is equally true of each and every part of it. Let us once more hear the statement of the unerring Spirit: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.”

“Each part, then, of each book is inspired of God; and since no distinction is made in the amount of inspiration of any part received, we are not at liberty to intimate a difference. Each part is therefore equally inspired with any other part. If the whole is God’s Word, each and every portion and part of it, every paragraph and period, every sentiment and sentence and WORD is equally God’s Word.”

And along with these strong words, note the last words of David:

“Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,

“The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.

“The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me” (2 Samuel 23:1-3).

All this we have written and will speak around the center set forth by the words, “The word of God is not bound.”

Let us think now of the—

1. Apostle

The apostle is the ambassador in bonds, Paul—pulling in the poles of the world of his day and binding them to the cross. Sacrifice and suffering were his life’s law. Calvary was his passion. As Christ is the incarnation of the doctrine of God, Paul is the incarnate definition of the doctrine of God. His moral grandeur casts its shadow across our times—and his head and· shoulders are seen above the most mountainous of men.

Born at a time when the tramp of returning legions could be heard coming back from the fields of conquest, when Roman arches, telling the power of Roman prowess and Roman civilization, were being erected on every square, his mother, knew not that the babe who fed at her breast with no language but a cry would grow up to be a man who could speak Greek, Latin, Hebrew and know the Aramaic and Syriac vernacular—to sit at the feet of Gamaliel and drink deep draughts of Hebrew history, law and tradition.

On the way to Damascus, he met Jesus—and then made a voyage from the teacup of himself into the ocean of God’s self.

- For Christ, he was in peril of his life in Damascus.
- For Christ, he was coldly suspected by his fellow believers in Jerusalem.
- For Christ, he was stoned in Lystra,
- For Christ, he was beaten with many stripes and put in jail in Philippi.
- For Christ, he was assaulted in Iconium.
- For Christ, he was pursued by callous enmity in Berea.
- For Christ, he was attacked by the lewd and envious crowd in Thessalonica.
- For Christ, he was blasphemed in Corinth.
- For Christ, he was despised in Athens.
- For Christ, he gave his life in Rome.
For Christ, Paul made the mightiest journey and crossed the widest distance ever accomplished by mortal man—the distance between Jewish exclusiveness and pagan liberalism. Passing out of the realm of narrow provincialism, he entered the broad realm of a dying and needy world.

Concerning him, Dr. I. M. Haldeman said that one watchword alone was in his life—the mightiest phrase which a human life can utter, and human hearts can feel:

“FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.’’

When foes assailed him, when friends betrayed him, when his heart broke because of human meanness, when the night grew dark and he was alone, the irresistible watchword which stirred· through his soul and held him was:

“FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.”

In hard labors abundant, receiving one hundred ninety-five stripes from the Jews, beaten thrice with rods, in frequent journeys, in perils of robbers, in perils of waters, in perils of the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness, in painfulness, in watching often, in hunger, in thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold and nakedness, bearing the burden of the care of the churches (II Corinthians 11:24-28), he was never without his song of gratitude as he counted all things but loss that he might know Jesus and “the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:10).

He said concerning himself:

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea-doubtless. and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my LORD: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” [vss. 7, 8].

Certainly, these things would qualify Paul to make an—

II. Assertion

The wonderful assertion is, “The word of God is not bound.”

This mightiest of all missionaries, this valiant soldier of Christ’s cross, this great preacher who compassed the earth with the truths of redemption and left a trail of glory across the Gentile world, this marvelous man who dotted plains and cities with churches he built, this profound theologian, this tenderhearted pastor, this great hero, wrote with frenzied pen.

His letters are now Bible books—wellsprings of doctrine, the scaffolding of church theology, gospel truths dropped from his pen like golden pollen from the stems of shaken lilies.
His pen is inactive now, but his Epistles speak—speak as softly sometimes as a mother’s lullaby, as loudly often as the thundercloud’s voice, as wooingly sometimes as a lover’s voice.

Wonderful and weighty the assertion he made after he stated that he suffered trouble as though he were an evildoer, that he was treated as if he were a criminal—as if he were one of the worst of lawless malefactors. He said, “The word of God is not bound.” Happy and triumphant this assertion of Paul-showing his kinship with the thought and words of Jesus who, in verbal combat with His enemies, said, “The scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Still the Bible is unbound—as glorious as a starry night, as fresh as the break of day. As God made man and breathed into him the breath of life and he became living soul, so God made the Scriptures and breathed into them he breath of life.

God is in this Book. His thoughts, feeling, heart are there. His anger blazes from its pages of power. His love trembles in its tones. His lamentations sigh and sob in its sentences. His power and wisdom throb in the whole of it.

It is a living Book—and in reading it, we come into contact and communication with Him who is LORD over all and blessed forever.

- Book of the church militant is the Bible.
- Book of the church triumphant.
- Book our mothers stained with grateful tears.
- Book our fathers touched with reverent hands.
- Book that unrolls the panorama of creation.

It is:

- the Book that gives the lofty imagery of the prophets.
- the Book that gives the portraiture of Christ.
- the Book that gives the philosophy of salvation.
- the Book that gives the facts of sin and the fact of the Saviour.
- the Book that gives the truth of, man lost and man redeemed.

The Bible is:

- the Book that gives the fact of death as “the wages of sin,”
- the Book that gives the truth of eternal life as “the gift of God.”

In breadth and sweep of theme:

- it is more vast than any other book.
- in flight more lofty.
- in depth more profound.

Upon it, Reformers fed the holy fires that flamed in their bosoms.

In this Word of God which can never be bound or imprisoned:

the historian has found his most thrilling chapters;
the artist, his loveliest conceptions;
the poet, his loftiest themes.
God’s prophets, their divinest messages.
ethics, its greatest authority.
philosophy, its profoundest inspiration.
oratory, its most beautiful quotations to bejewel its grandest flights.

In many writers, multitudinous themes and suggestions that blossom like rare, fragrant flowers in the world’s vast garden of literature.

Think now of this,

111. Antithesis

Paul was in bonds. To King Agrippa he had said:

“I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds” (Acts 26:29).

His feet and ankles were accustomed to stocks; his wrists were weighted with chains. But the Word of God could not be bound. There, as now, it traveled many highways, walked many bypaths, knocked at many doors and spoke to many people in their mother tongues.

The Word, marvelous and mighty, could not be fettered and imprisoned. The Word circulated with freedom. No chains could weight it down. No shears could clip its wings. No enemy could put it behind penitentiary walls or on the executioner’s block.

No yoke could enslave the Word—even though Paul, appointed to preach the Word, spoke of how his “bonds in Christ” were “manifest in all the palace, and in all other places” –enabling the brethren to wax confident and become “more bold to speak the word without fear” (Philippians 1:13, 14).

And that the Gospel should be unfettered was the great matter. His own imprisonment was of comparatively little consequence.

“Not bound” –what an antithesis to his own imprisonment! The Gospel is preached in spite of the imprisonment of Paul—not now by and through himself but by others. “Therefore will 1. . . glory” –-because “the word of God is not bound.” The unimpeded course of the Gospel is to the apostle proof of its all-embracing power. Such thoughts inspired him to suffer.

Fettered was Paul, but not the Word. Imprisoned was Paul, but not the Word. It went abroad giving freedom. In years past, martyrs’ blood reddened the mouths of lions or simmered in the fire, but the Word goes on.

Still it is abroad as bread and people say, “J did eat [thy word]; and thy word was unto me . . . joy.”
Still it is abroad as fire-warming a cold world.
Still it is abroad as a light—being a lamp unto people’s feet and a light unto their paths.
Still it is abroad as milk that nourishes.
Still it is abroad as honey that sweetens.
Still it is abroad as water that cleanses.
Still it is abroad as gold that enriches.
Still it is-abroad as the sword of the Spirit—giving victory over the world, over the flesh, over Satan.

Let us think of some,

IV. Affirmations

By this I mean what some great and notable people have said who affirm the power and value of the Bible in civilization and in every realm where human welfare is sought and the glory of God attended.

Horace Greeley: “It is impossible mentally or physically to enslave a Bible-reading people.”

Thomas Huxley: “The Bible has been the Magna Carta of the poor and oppressed.”

King George V: “The Bible—the most valuable thing this world affords.”

Woodrow Wilson: “The Bible is the Word of life.”

Ulysses S. Grant: “To the influence of the Bible we are indebted for the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look for our guide in the future!”

William H. Seward: ‘’The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.”

Sir Walter Scott: “Bring me the Book. There is but one Book.”

Francis Bacon: “There never was found in, any age of the world either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible.”

Benjamin Franklin: “Create a firm belief in the Bible is my advice to. young men.”

Guiseppe Garibaldi: ‘’The Bible is the cannon that will make Italy free.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “The Bible is a book of eternally effective power.”

Victor Hugo: “A Bible for every cottage.”

Napoleon Bonaparte: ‘’The soul can never go astray with the Bible for its guide.”

Robert E. Lee: “The Bible, a book in comparison with which, in my eyes, all others are of minor importance, has never failed to give me strength.”

Josh Billings, filled with humor and honesty: “I believe all the Bible—all of it. I do not understand it all, but I believe it all. I would not exchange my faith for any man’s knowledge.”

Helen Keller: “Forty· years I have loved the Word of God. I feel the blessed pages under my hand with special thankfulness, as a rod and a staff to keep my steps firm through the valley of shadow of depression and world calamity. Truly, the Bible, the teaching of our Saviour, is the only way out of the dark.”

Looking upon the family Bible as he was dying, Andrew Jackson said, “That Book, sir, is the rock on which the Republic rests.”

With her hand on that Book, Victoria, queen of England, empress of India, was to sum up her history as a power amid the nations of the earth, when, replying to the question of an ambassador, “What is the secret of England’s superiority among the nations?” she answered, not alluding to her army and navy, “Go ·tell your prince that this [the Bible] is the secret of England’s political greatness.”

William Gladstone: “I have spent seventy years of my life studying the Book to satisfy my heart; it is the Word of God. I bank my life on the statement that I believe this Book to be the solid rock of Holy Scripture. All the wonders of Greek civilization were not as wonderful as the single Book of Psalms!”

This Book we need, the Book that holds men back from madness and despair. It comes into communities of unrighteousness as the leaven of regenerative force. The plot of Heaven-blessed, vitalized soil out of which has blossomed all the sweetness and righteousness in the world today and out of which has blossomed our every social and national blessing, the Bible causes philanthropic and redemptive enterprises, together with educational and therapeutic institutions, to arise and stand, a tribute to its vitalizing power.

When Gutenberg invented the· movable type printing press, he profoundly aroused civilization and gave the Bible to the people. And Bible in hand, the people rose to freedom and enlightenment from the serfdom and darkness of the ages, leaped over the antique walls of civilization, destroyed the prejudice deeply rooted in the immemorial past, and widened the blind alley of ignorance into endless highways of wisdom.

William Lloyd Garrison: “Take away the Bible and our foundation is removed.”

Michael Faraday—scientist nonpareil, Christian superlative: “Why will people go astray when the have this blessed Book to guide them?”

John Herschel: “All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths contained in the Holy Scriptures.”

Isaac Newton: “If all the great books of the world were given life and were brought together in convention, the moment the Bible entered, the other books would fall on their faces as the gods of Philistia fell when the ark of God was brought into their presence in the temple of Dagon.”

Samuel Morse: “I like to study the Guide Book to the country where I am going.”

Francois Guizot: “I bow to the mysteries of the Bible. It is the watchdog of the faith.”

George Washington: “It is impossible to govern rightly the world without God and the Bible.”

Thomas Jefferson: “The studious perusal of the sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, better husbands.”

By the Holy Spirit, David affirms:

“The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward” (Ps. 19:8-11).

Thank you, men of greatness!

Now hush! Let the Christ of whom the Book is written tell us what He knows. Let us hearken in the authority that is supreme. Christ, Son of God, what do You think of the Book of God?

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” [Matthew 5:17, 18].

He also says:

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39).

Continued in the evening . . .

THE WORD OF GOD, NOT BROKEN AND NOT BOUND, Part 2

Let us think now of the—

V. Authority

God is the authority. Men who summon the Bible to appear at the bar of human reason and substitute a “Thus saith the mind of man” for a “Thus saith the LORD” forget that fact. The Word of God is the voice of the Almighty.

Now I would have us, as Dr. AT. Pierson has set forth so beautifully and potently, consider the Bible, the Word of God, in relation to God.

Since God is eternal, His Book will not necessarily be the product of any single generation or century or age of history.

Since God is infinite, His Book will be independent of those finite limitations which characterize man’s work.

Since God is immutable, His Book, however long the period of its production, will reveal changeless elements—and be throughout essentially and fundamentally consistent.

Since God is one, however varied the human writers of His Book and the times in which prepared and the themes of which it speaks, it will be one Book and will reveal a definite and homogenous plan. That is why I so often call it the miracle Book of diversity in unity—the Book so harmonious in infinite complexity.

Since God is omniscient, we can expect His Book to deal with facts of past history or future destiny with equal certainty as the present.

Since God is wise—never errs and is never chargeable with folly—His Book will be marked by convictions, conclusions, and counsels according to highest truth and wisdom.

Since God is almighty, His Book will display and record achievements far beyond the unaided powers of possibilities of human strength.

Since God is the Creator of all things, we may expect to find in His Book the marks of a creative hand and mind.

‘Since God is righteous, His Book will exhibit a high standard of moral teaching and practice and be consistent with the unchangeable principles of right and wrong.

Since God is holy, His Book will be a revelation of His holiness—of infinite beauty and excellence, of highest sympathy with what is faultlessly perfect for its own sake.

Since God is benevolent, His Book will both teach and exemplify unselfish goodness· and love, will inculcate forgiveness, mercy, and self-sacrifice.

Since God is mysterious and incomprehensible, His Book will probably contain mystery, paradox, and apparent contradiction. It will be with infinite magnitudes as well as moral certitudes.

Since God is superhuman and supernatural, His Book will speak as the language of one who knows man and the secrets of his whole being—and of the universe—and to whom what man deems marvelous and impossible is possible and simple.

Since God is unimpeachable, we can expect His Book to be instinct with vitality—a living Book, indestructible by man, divinely preserved by the Author.

Since God is a God of absolute faithfulness, His Book will be an uncompromising rebuke of human falsehood, vice, inconsistency—catering never to human sin, pandering never to vice, compromising never with evil.

Since God is a God of purpose, His Book will have a plain design consistent with Himself.

Since God is omnipresent, His Book is independent of the limitations of locality.

Since God is a God of divine providence, His Book represents God as controlling both the present and future—having oversight of all persons and events.

Since God is Judge, His Book reveals Him as judicially dealing with men—rewarding virtue and punishing vice partially in this life, and fully and finally in the life to come.

Since God is sovereign, His Book represents Him as supreme, even over foes. He makes even the wrath of man to praise Him and restrains the remainder. He performs all His pleasure, despite all His enemies and their plots.

Since God is Spirit, His Book shows Him as independent of physical organs and limitations.

Though all this be true, there is still manifest toward the Bible devilish—

VI. Antagonisms

The Bible has had and still has many enemies. Considering the persecution, the Bible has encountered, its survival is the miracle of history and the history of miracle.

(1) There was the pagan persecution under Diocletian in A.D. 303, when this infamous scoundrel set forth his sanguinary persecution of Christians.

(2) There was the papal persecution of the Bible in a different form—locking it up from the common people and putting the key in the hands of the priests. Rome became the jailer of. the word of God. Human legend and tradition took its place—until the Reformation. Then once more it was let out of captivity and made accessible to humble believers—increasingly translated and diffused in various vernaculars.

(3) Then another enemy of the Bible stood up as Goliath of Gath challenging Israel—rationalism, the deification of human reason. This enemy, asserting that whatever is above the reach of reason is unreasonable and incredible, attacked and still attacks the Bible with cogent weapons. The Bible miracles are denied—as contrary to the uniformity of natural laws. Prophecy at best is “sagacious human guesswork,” merely shrewd conjecture, and can never be the inspired forecast of the future.

The deity of Jesus is denied. Myths are the incarnation and resurrection. Rationalism admits the excellency of the Bible. as a mere book and sometimes assigns it a foremost place in all literature, but this enemy of the Bible persistently treats the Bible as a mere human book..Thus does rationalism rob the Bible of every supernatural and superhuman element.

With a polite and patronizing attitude that becomes occasionally rude and coarse, and denunciatory, rationalism prostitutes divine inspiration to the level of human genius—comparing the inspiration of the Scriptures with that of Homer and Shakespeare.

Whether rationalism is calmly philosophical or boisterously infidelic, whether it sometimes
praises and exalts or sometimes derides and degrades, whether it appears to be sometimes openly hostile and sometimes professedly Christian (“stealing the livery of Heaven to serve the Devil”), it is an avowed enemy of the Bible as the one unique Book. No matter under what veils of pretense it makes its assault, rationalism regards the Bible as a human product.

(4) Pantheism, making the divine element to pervade all things, even matter, lowers and degrades God’s Word by lifting everything else to a divine level—declaring with a sort of reluctance that God is in the Book, but in the Book like He is in all things else.

(5) Modernism, which mutilates the Bible and minimizes sin and humanizes God and deifies man, assaulting the Word of God, claims to be friendly toward the Bible. But, with perverse persistence and persistent perversity, it points out what it calls errors and defects, plausibly accounting for its “blemishes and mistakes” on the grounds of human weakness and the fallibility of its writers.

The attitude of modernism, making “maybes” mighty in many minds, is the practical denial of any really supernatural and superhuman elements in the Bible.

Yes, the Bible has had many enemies in years gone by. It has many enemies today, though it is the original code of the republic. Kings and rulers have tried to destroy it. Philosophers have tried to drown it in the muddy waters of their philosophy and ignorance. Science has tried to laugh it out of court. Two hundred fifty years ago, or thereabouts, with skeptical battle shouts, Voltaire said: “One hundred years from now the world will hear no more of the Bible.”

The archaeologist with his crowbar, the geologist with his hammer, the physicist with his battery—all these have fought against the Book.

Some scientists and. astronomers lifted up haughty mouths, ‘darkening counsel by words without wisdom,’ against the Book.

The dissecting knives of some theological anatomists have cut at its milk vein.

Inexorable censors have sat and sit now, like Jehoiakim before the fireplace in his winter house, Bible on knee, penknife in hand, calmly mutilating the only reliable franchise of our Christian hopes.

Snipers, some from behind pulpit stands, some from behind college chairs, some from editorial desks, are accustomed to aim ill-grounded propositions against the Scriptures.

We have many open and avowed leaders of infidelity—organizations that are definitely against the Bible and God.

We have the troops of Ulysses hurled against the wall of Troy and the enemy in the belly of the wooden horse.

We have not only those who disgracefully are skeptically close kin with Bradlaugh of England and Ingersoll and Darrow of America, but the body of militant critics, some of them wearing the sacred garb of the theological professor, who attempt to draw the bolts of the citadel from the inside.

Ancient and modern are its enemies. Diocletian, as I have said, tried to exterminate it in the fourth century. Celsus tried to undermine its message. The astute Porphyry hurled his venomed shafts. Hume, with rare subtlety, wielded cogent weapons against the Bible. He said, “Methinks I see the twilight of Christianity.”

The trouble with Hume in his fuming was that he could not tell what time of day it was. What he thought was sundown going toward midnight was sunup going toward noonday.

In England in the time of Henry V, Bible reading was made a crime. A law was enacted saying:

“Whosoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land, chattel, life and goods from their heyres forever—and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies of the crown and more errant traitors to the lande.”

Thomas Paine tried to drown it in infidel ink. From a bow strongly bent, Ingersoll shot tens of thousands of malicious arrows of scorn and jeers, sniffs and sneers. But the Book lives on!

“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” at those who think they destroy His Word and its triumphs.

- Voltaire cut not one twig from its great forest.
- Paine drowned neither one page nor one word of any page in his infidel ink.
- Ingersoll, with intent to kill, shortened not its life by one hour.
- Diocletian broke not one string on its harp of ten thousand strings.
- Agnostics who kindled their bonfires upon it burned not away one thread of its garments.
- Atheists have not been able to steal one flower from its gorgeous flower gardens.

Unbelieving scientists, with microscope and telescope and test tube have not been able to dilute one drop from its sweetness.

Theological smoke screeners who have tried to hide in clouds and thick darkness the cross and the blood and the empty tomb in Joseph’s garden, have not been able to invert its torch or to quench one ray of its light. Still, it is our “pillar of fire” among all books. Not one jot or one tittle of its moral code has perished in the last century.

Self-elected scholarship, with the presumptuous step of a know—much, has pronounced the Bible out-of-date and dead.

Dr. Haldeman told about the doing of this self-styled scholarship:

“Again and again, the Bible’s funeral services are held. Kind and condescending eulogies are uttered over its past history and good intent. With considerate hands it is lowered into its grave. But before the critical mourners have returned to their homes, it has risen from the dead, passed with surprising speed the funeral coaches and is found—as of yore—in the busy centers of life, thundering against evil, offering consolation to the sorrowing and hope to the dying.”

The only objection against this Book is a bad life. Voltaire’s printing press at Fernay was actually employed by the Geneva Bible Society in printing the Holy Scriptures. The first meeting for the reformation of the Auxiliary Bible Society of Edinburgh was held in the very room in which Hume died. Gordon Colthrop said, “Practically, many do get rid of the Bible, but what do they gain? Only the loss of a guide.”

Yes, the Bible lives.

The Book That Lives Forever

The earth shall pass away some day,
But my word shall not pass away;
The sun may fade, the moon decay,
But God’s word lives forever!

The flags of nations may be furled,
The mountains to the seas be hurled,
One thing will still outlast the world
God’s word will live forever!

Now let us think of a woeful and tragic—

VII. Attitude

That is the attitude of practical indifference. In our homes, the Bible is often the least read—not to say anything about it being so little studied and understood. The daily newspaper and monthly magazine and movie practically crowd God’s word out—or into a spiderwebbed corner.

Professor J. A. Carlson, in his book ‘Your Body’, speaks of hunger. He says most birds can go nine days without food; most dogs, twenty days; turtles, five hundred days; snakes, eight hundred days; some fishes, one thousand days; some insects, twelve hundred days; without death. But food is necessary for all God’s creatures.

Moreover, according to Professor Carlson, the human body in the process of starvation does not emaciate equally. The loss in percentage to the brain is 35 percent; to the lungs, 15 percent; to the bones, 14 percent; to the kidneys, 26 percent; to the heart, 27 percent; to the liver, 54 percent; and fat, 97 percent.

I think that we are not unkind to say there are some “turtle” Christians who go five hundred days without a solid meal of real Bible meat, and many “bird” Christians who go more than nine days without Bible food, and some “fish” Christians who go one thousand days without an abundance of Bible food, and not a few “snake” Christians who exist poorly eight hundred days without rating much honey from the Bible hive, without eating much bread from the Bible oven. And from this starvation diet and attitude of indifference and woeful neglect, ignorance, shameful ignorance of God’s word is born.

So great is the land wide, citywide, schoolwide ignorance of God’s Word that answers to the simplest of Bible questions would, if published, make an amazing contribution to American humor.

An amazed editor of a well-known religious periodical wrote:

“By giving a simple test in the knowledge of biblical lore to thirty-four advanced students in Winthrop College, a history teacher in that institution learns that the thirty-four do not know anything at all about Holy Writ. And by carefully examining the Sunday school literature of his church, the teacher learns exactly why his senior and junior students are unable to distinguish Lot from Abraham.

Most of the tested students have heard of Pontius Pilate, but there their knowledge ends. They are not certain, who built the ark or who fashioned the gold calf or who prepared the tables of stone. Maybe it was Hiram of Tyre who built the temple or maybe it was Jezebel. And maybe it was Goliath of Gath who was fed by the ravens.”

Fairly shocked was the Winthrop College teacher because of such ignorance of the Bible. And the editor said this:

“He undertook to find out why it is that advanced students are unfamiliar with the Word of. God. So, he collected all the current Sunday school literature that is supplied by his denomination, which, incidentally, is one of the leading Protestant denominations of the world. And in that literature, he found the explanation he sought.

Those Sunday school quarterlies and bulletins and magazines do not teach the Bible. They do not teach the facts of the Bible. To some extent they teach what certain church leaders think of the Bible. And they teach to a great extent certain theories in sociology and politics that conform to Bible teachings. But none of them teach the Bible itself.”

The Bible—taboo, if not booed, in our public schools—is the Book little known by many as to its contents. It ls buried often in the home beneath gaudy “funnies” or pushed into a remote corner or given a place where spiders spin their webs and raise their families unto the third and fourth generation without disturbance.

The Bible is oft a sentimental relic receptacle. When. someone asked a little girl if she knew anything that was in the Bible, her tragic answer was, “Yes, there’s a pressed squirrel tail, a rose from Aunt Molly’s grave, a lock of Grandpa’s hair, an insurance receipt and Pa’s Masonic emblem”!

A Yale student, when asked to say something about Golgotha, said, “Golgotha was a giant who slew the apostle David.

Answers made by 18,434 Virginia high school students to a questionnaire showed that 16,000 of them could not name three prophets of the Old Testament; 12,000 could not name the four Gospels; 10,000 could not name three of Christ’s disciples.

The following statements, showing. tragic ignorance of the contents of God’s word, were given:

- Esau wrote fables and sold his copyright for a mess of potash.
- Brutus was the betrayer of Jesus.
- Moses was the man who built the ark
- Noah made a name for himself by getting his ship to a mountaintop.

In considering other answers to other questions, we find t6at David, Abraham and John the Baptist were given credit for leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. The wisest man was Adam—some said Aesop was the man in the Bible who taught by fables.

“Creation” was repeatedly mentioned as the first book of the Bible, while the number of the commandments was variously given as from five to five hundred.

If such ignorance obtains among the “best families,” what must be the ignorance of those who have no precious blessings in parentage? Can we indulge the hope that with many, their knowledge of Bible contents would go beyond the ignorance of the students as revealed to the teacher who asked ninety-four high school students some questions on Bible contents?

Forty-four did not know who Joseph was; fifty-one could not place Luke; forty-six did not know who Herod and Pilate were; sixty did riot know the name of the mother of Jesus; eighty did not know the name of the mother of John the Baptist; ten did not know where Christ was born; five did not know the first phrase of the Lord’s Prayer; ninety did not know the Ten Commandments.

There it is—collective and individual ignorance.

The time has surely come for us to take up again the old Book. It will give us something which we have lost sight of and which we cannot get on without. This divine library holds a secret without which we cannot prosper. If we have eyes blind to its pages and ears deaf to its voice, we shall see in many lives and homes tragedies such as Caesar met on his way to the Roman Senate.

Artemidorus, lover of Caesar, wrote him a warning:

“Caesar beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark well Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. If thou beest not immortal, look about you: security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee!”

But Caesar never read the letter. And later, with twenty-three wounds in his body made by the daggers of his assassins, “in his mantle muffling up his face, even at the base of Pompey’s statue, great Caesar” died.

How long will it take us to learn that in homes, in churches, in schools, in nations, tragedies are enacted because so many fail to read the Bible and refuse to fashion their lives by its precepts?

In this day, when the land is faint under heavy burdens, when many are lost in a tangled wilderness of worldly disappointments, we need to listen to what John Greenleaf Whittier wrote:

We search the world for truth. We cull
The good, the true, the beautiful
From graven stone and written scroll
And all old flower fields of the soul.
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back, laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.

But—lastly—think upon the Bible’s greatest—

VIII. Attraction—Jesus

The name of Jesus, the Supreme Personality, the center of the world’s desire, is on every page—in expression or symbol or prophecy or psalm or proverb. Through the Bible, the name of Jesus runs like a line of glimmering light. The thought of Jesus—literature’s loftiest ideal and philosophy’s highest personality and criticism’s supreme problem and theology’s fundamental doctrine and spirituality’s cardinal necessity and the desire of all nations—threads the great Book as a crystal river winds its way through a continent.

This living word of our living God stars Jesus. And you cannot hold onto Christ and give up the Bible. You cannot believe in the cross and surrender the infallible authority of the Bible. Faith in the deity of Christ is married to faith in the inspiration of the Bible.

Yes, Jesus Christ—the Creator of all things in earth and Heaven, the one Mediator between God and man, the Redeemer who “bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), the Conqueror of everyone and everything opposed to God—is the glorious One whose personality vitalizes and energizes the word of God. The center of the Book is the cross of Christ. The circumference of the Book is the glory of Christ.

All the Bible’s types, all the Bible’s analogies, all the Bible’s pictures, all the Bible’s truths, are so related to Christ Jesus that He alone explains them. And the explanation is filled with such perfection of harmony in every detail; the relationship between them and our Lord Jesus is so strikingly self-evident that any discussion of it would be useless.

No one ought to have to argue with anyone to get him to see that the diversified and systematic sacrifices of the Jews, the significant shadows of redemptive entity still ahead, the adumbrations of a substance yet to come, were elemental, preparatory, rudimental, introductory, and pointed to Christ, the propellant Center to which the faith of mankind, before and since, has gravitated.

The promises to fallen man in Eden and the ceremonies of Judaism mean Christ. The music of Israel’s sweetest harps and the light that burns in prophecy mean Christ.

Jesus is the vital substance that gives meaning to the Bible’s genealogies, its histories, and its chronologies. Taking Jesus out of the Bible would be like taking calcium out of lime, carbon out of diamonds, truth out of history, invention out of fiction, matter out of physics, mind out of metaphysics and numbers out of mathematics.

Christ alone is the secret of the Bible’s strength, beauty, and unity. Christ Jesus—sometimes called “one hour of God on earth” –-the full, comprehensive, all-sufficient, ultimate revelation of God, is the foundation and keystone of the arches of the great Bible building. Jesus Himself said:

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:39, 45-47).

Dr. I. M. Haldeman rightly said:

“Take Christ out of the Bible, and it is, a harp without a player, a song without a singer, a palace with all doors locked and all windows removed, a labyrinth with no Ariadne’s thread to guide.”

But with Christ as the supreme theme of the Bible, it is an organ whose full breath is thunder beneath God’s fingers pressed.

With Christ as the center, the Bible is the music of all scriptural choirs poured forth in one anthem.

With Christ occupying the throne in the Bible, which the Bible assigns to Him, the Bible is a palace, every door of which has His truth inscribed on it and every window of which pours forth light to His honor.

With Christ Jesus assigned His rightful place in the Bible, it is a garden where all flowers cluster around Him who is the Lily of the Valley and the Rose of Sharon— ‘the fairest of ten thousand and the One altogether lovely.’

With Christ as the central theme, the Bible is a starry sky where all stars do obeisance to Him who is the “bright and morning star,” even as in Joseph’s dream where he and his brethren were “binding sheaves in the field,” and Joseph’s sheaf arose and stood upright, and the sheaves of his brethren ‘stood round about and made obeisance to Joseph’s sheaf’ (Genesis 37:7).

- The Old Testament conceals Christ; the New Testament reveals Christ.
- The Old Testament enfolds Christ; the New Testament unfolds Christ.
- The Old Testament promises Christ; the New Testament presents Christ.
- The Old Testament prophesies Christ; the New Testament produces Christ.
- The Old Testament localizes Christ; the New Testament universalizes Christ.
- The Old Testament symbolizes Christ; the New Testament sacrifices Christ.
- The Old Testament is Law, which Christ fulfilled in its lowest and most exacting demands; the New Testament is love, which Christ exhibited in the highest degree.

Of this Book, truly it can be said that “the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

What an inspiration it is to know that the greatest Book ever printed on earth has as its theme the greatest Being who ever trod the earth, even Christ Jesus, who is to earth’s best character as music to raucous discord, as immaculate snow to besmirching soot, as tender blessing to bitter cursing, as an Eden of flowers to a Sahara of burning sands, as unquestionable holiness to devastating sin, as bright life to darksome death, as flooding light to fearsome darkness.

Oh! Let all mourners read and study this Word; it will wipe away their tears.

- Let all bereaved read and study it; it will give assurance that a Father of the fatherless and a Husband of the widow is God in His holy habitation.
- Let the poor read and study it; it will soothe them under their privations.
- Let the rich read and study it; it will sanctify their abundance.
- Let the old read and study it; it will support their tottering age.
- Let the young read and study it; it will help them walk in that path which ‘grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.’
- Let us heed these words urging us to give strength and time to the words in the word of our God:

“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deuteronomy 6:71).

“Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the-commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Proverbs 6:21-23).

Then we will be wise to know the Word in the head, to stow it in the heart, to sow it in the world, to show it in the life.

Then we will set forth to the world the truth that the Bible is a lamp to our feet, a light to our paths, a gate to Heaven, a standard for childhood, a guide for youth, an inspiration for the matured, a comfort for the aged, food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, rescue for the heathen, salvation for the sinner, grace for the Christian.

- R. G. Lee (From Great Preaching on the Bible)

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