02.07. The Word of God, the Nutriment of the Christian Life
07. The Word of God, the Nutriment of the Christian Life In the preceding chapters I have dwelt principally on the nature of the Christian Life. I have shown you what it is to live without God. I have called your attention to the great Turning-point in the Christian Life. I have directed you to Christ, as the Center of that Life — Himself the very life of the soul. I have described to you what it is to live to God; and what is the great work, and also the chief end and object of the Christian Life. In the next four chapters, I shall show you how this life is sustained and kept up in the soul. And I shall speak first of the Word of God, as the Nutriment of this spiritual life. May God help me to speak wisely and usefully.
God has called us to live to Him; and He has made our happiness to consist in doing so. Ten thousand are the ways by which He brings us from death unto life — by the voice of conscience; by the gentle working of His Spirit; by the preaching of His Word; by some startling visitation; by some arrow, shot perhaps at a venture, but directed to the heart by the Lord Himself. Yes, He has not one method merely, but many, for raising a soul from the cold grave of sin and worldliness — to the resurrection life of grace. But God does not leave us there. Lazarus, when a new life was granted to him, needed food to support his bodily frame — just so do we need spiritual support. And God has specially provided it. Among those means of grace, which He has mercifully appointed, His Word stands first and foremost, as the food and nourishment of the renewed soul.
Let us consider the subject under these three heads:
I. The Word of God is the appointed means of our spiritual instruction.
II. That Word must be received into the soul, as its daily nourishment.
III. When so received, it brings joy and rejoicing to the heart.
I. The Word of God is the appointed means of our instruction.
1. God would have us KNOW Him. Suppose we had been brought up without any instruction from our Parents, without a Minister to teach us, or without a Bible to make the truth of God known to us — what would be our state? We would know nothing of God, nothing of a Savior, nothing of the eternal world. We might have a feeling of need in our hearts — which nothing here could satisfy; a feeling of emptiness — which nothing here could fill. We might guess that there was a God above; and conscience might tell us that we have wronged Him, and strayed from His ways. But where could we look for pardon? Where could we find the desired atonement? We could know nothing of the Cross, nothing of a Savior who has died, ’the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.’ Something within might tell us that there is a world to come — but how dark and uncertain would be our views concerning it!
Blessed be God, He has revealed these things to us. He has made Himself known to us in His own Word. There we may read of His love in giving us a Savior; and there we are told of that Savior dying for us, and of His having gone before us to prepare a place for His elect. The Bible teaches us to know God and Jesus whom He has sent. It is true that the mere head-knowledge of this will not save us; but if God gives us His Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds, and to touch our hearts — then, as we read His Word, we shall get to know Him, to our comfort, peace, and salvation.
2. God would also have us OBEY Him. He is the Lord and Master of the world. And it is just in proportion as we obey Him that we shall be happy. Surely, if we are God’s people, our grand inquiry will be how we may do His will — how we may serve Him most effectually — how we may please Him. And where can we learn this? There is no voice from Heaven now, saying to us on every occasion, ’It shall be told you what you must do.’ God does not send His angels to us, as He did to Jacob or to Manoah. He does not declare His mind to us in a vision, as He did to Paul. He does not send a special messenger to us, as He did to King Hezekiah, or to Cornelius the Centurion. All His counsel is written in that sacred Book which we possess. And as we read that Book, we may discover in its pages directions for a holy and a happy life.
3. God would have us also to LOVE Him. And how can we love Him, except we know Him? And how can we show our love, but by obeying Him? ’If you love me,’ says our Lord, ’keep my commandments.’
We are to love a Father whom we have never beheld — and an unseen Savior. But there, in the Bible, we have His glorious character placed before us. There we may see what He is, and what He has done for us. And thus our affections are drawn out, and our hearts won over to Him.
Let anyone read his Bible earnestly and with prayer, and his heart cannot but burn within him, as he pictures to himself the goodness, and mercy, and love of his Almighty Friend. And the more God’s truth lays hold of his heart — the deeper and warmer will be his affection to Christ, who has done so much, and suffered so willingly for his sake. ’We love Him — because He first loved us.’ Do you find it hard to love God, to love the Savior — hard to lift your leaden heart from off the soil of this world, and to soar upwards on the wings of gratitude? Read some passage in the Gospels or elsewhere, at the same time uttering a heartfelt prayer for a blessing; and, though you may have read the passage many times before, God can and will make it the means of giving fresh tenderness and fervor to your heart.
II. This Word must be received into your soul as its daily nourishment. Our souls must be fed, as well as our bodies — and I have shown that God has provided for this. He has given His Word to be the spiritual food of the new-born soul, ’that we may grow thereby.’
Now food is of no use to the body, unless it is inwardly received by us. There may be an abundance of food in our country; there may be ample provisions in our houses — but if we do not feed upon them, we shall starve. So it is with God’s Word. We may have the Bible on our shelves. It may be near us. We may see it day by day. We may even read it with our eyes. And yet our souls may not be nourished. They may starve in the midst of plenty.
God’s Word must sink below the surface, down into our very hearts. ’The entrance of your words,’ says David, ’gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.’ And again, ’Your word have I hid in my heart.’
What did the Prophet Jeremiah do with God’s Word? First he tells us that he found it, ’Your words were found.’ Have you found God’s Word to be the most precious treasure you can possess? You have had it within your reach all your life — but have you discovered its value? A friend of mine was the possessor of a large tract of land. To the outward eye it seemed much like other land. But one day a bed of metal called manganese was discovered in one of his fields. From that moment the value of the field was increased twenty-fold. The rich mine had existed there all along — but he knew it not.
Perhaps it has been so with your Bible. Once you had it in your possession without knowing its value. But now you have found it out, to your exceeding joy! That was a great discovery which is mentioned in 2 Kings 22:1-20, where we are told that Hilkiah the Priest found in some old chest belonging to the Temple, a copy of the law of Moses, which had been lost for years, and well-near forgotten. He goes immediately to Shaphan the scribe, and says, ’I have found the Book of the law in the House of the Lord!’ Shaphan eagerly read it himself; and then took it to the King, and read some passages of it aloud to him. Good King Josiah knew well its value, and prized it accordingly.
Martin Luther, too, the great German Reformer, who lived three hundred and fifty years ago, when we were all under the dark cloud of Romanism — one day was groping about in the library of his convent, and is said to have come accidentally upon a copy of the Bible. It was to him as bread to the hungry. He feasted his soul upon it; and God brought it home to his inmost heart. That again was a great discovery. And so too in these days, when it pleases God by His Spirit to awaken any one — then the Bible becomes as it were a new book. The soul hungers for God’s truth, and there it finds the nourishment it needs. But Jeremiah tells us another thing. ’Your words were found,’ he says, ’and I ate them.’ He fed upon them to the satisfying of his soul.
Look upon God’s Word in this light — as your spiritual nourishment. Say to yourself, ’I need enlightening, comforting, strengthening. I will sit down to the reading of Scripture as I would to my meal. I will ask God to bless me, and feed me with this bread of life.’
You can use no better petitions than those of our well-known Collect, ’Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning — grant that we may hear them, read them, mark them, learn them, and inwardly digest them.’ Our ordinary food, when swallowed, must be digested; and so must the words of Scripture. We must think over them, meditate upon them, and let them sink down into our hearts.
I believe that our Bible-reading would be a very different thing, if we came to it in this spirit. What is it to many of us? A mere task, a dry, uninteresting duty which we feel it right to go through. No wonder that such people find no benefit from their reading. They have no appetite for God’s Word, and therefore they cannot say, ’Your words were found, and I ate them — and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart!" Jeremiah 15:16
Remember, then, it must be your constant daily nourishment. When anyone says, ’I read my Bible sometimes’ — I can guess pretty well the state of that person’s soul. What! brethren, is it so with your ordinary meals? Do you sit down to them only sometimes? Do you let your dinner-hour or your supper-hour pass by, because you have other things to do? Do you ever spend a day without food, and yet not so much as notice it? If so, you cannot be in health. There must be something wrong with you!
Just so, if you have no appetite for God’s Word, if you do not feel that your soul longs for this spiritual nourishment — all cannot be right with you. There cannot be health within. If all was well with your soul, you would sooner suffer a famine of food, or a thirst of water — than of reading or hearing the Word of the Lord. A real love for the Bible, a hungering for its truths which nothing but a constant daily reading of it will satisfy — this is a sure sign of a converted soul.
Read the Bible then every day. Have your fixed hour for it, as you would for any one of your meals. Read it with earnest prayer for the teachings of the Spirit. Ask God to make it a nourishing word to you. This is the kind of reading that will do you good. Thus will your soul thrive.
III. The Word, when so received, brings joy and rejoicing to the heart. I referred just now to Jeremiah. Well he had ’eaten’ — or fed upon, God’s words. And what was the effect they produced upon his soul? Did this spiritual meal answer his expectation, or disappoint him? Hear what he says, ’Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart!’ This was his testimony. And such too was David’s. He also ate the same spiritual food. And what is his account of it? ’How sweet are your words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey unto my mouth!’ And Job’s experience is the same, ’I have esteemed the words of your mouth more than my necessary food.’
Imagine yourself for a moment in the deserts between Jerusalem and Gaza. You see a man coming along in his chariot, and reading as he travels. He is very thoughtful. The Book he is intent upon is deeply interesting to him. He is an Eunuch of Ethiopia; and he is reading a portion of the Prophet Isaiah. Presently one joins him, to whom that Book is familiar. He explains it to him. The Eunuch now sees that it speaks of Christ. At once a new light breaks in upon him. A new rill of joy is opened in his soul. He believes, and ’goes on his way rejoicing.’ Or again, imagine yourself in one of our English prisons some three hundred years ago. There you would have seen a venerable man, a Minister of Christ, bound under sentence of death; a prisoner of the Lord; a martyr for the cause of Christ. As he sits in his solitary cell, there is one companion that cheers him — a Companion that is forever whispering to him, ’Let not your heart be troubled, neither be afraid.’ ’Rejoice, and be exceeding glad — for great is your reward in Heaven!’ That Companion is his Bible, his precious Bible. That brings peace and comfort to his soul.
Once more; go into some sick room, under a poor cottage roof. There will you find lying upon his bed, some poor worn-out sufferer. He has lain there perhaps for months. Sleep seldom closes his eyes. He scarcely knows what it is to be free from pain. His pale countenance speaks plainly of a fatal disease within. And yet he is calm, peaceful and resigned. And more than this — he is happy. And what makes him so? See him pull his well-worn Bible from beneath his pillow. And mark what a bright ray of hope beams upon his countenance, as he reads his morning Psalm, or traces the loving words of gospel truth. There Christ is made known to him — as the great deliverer from sin and sorrow.
Truly this brings ’joy and rejoicing to the heart.’ Proud Pharisees may pass over the words of God with indifference, just as ’the full soul loathes a honeycomb;’ but the humble child of God will ever thankfully exclaim, ’Your testimonies have I claimed as my heritage forever!’ And why? ’They are the very joy of my heart!’
Let me then once more counsel you to take up your Bible as the food and drink of your soul. If you wish to get your faith strengthened, your heart warmed, your spiritual knowledge deepened; if you wish to stand firm on the rock, unshaken by the opinions of men; if you wish to be a bold, strong, earnest Christian — then live upon God’s word; get acquainted with its blessed truths; feed upon those green pastures which He has provided for His flock. Do not be content with getting a few Scripture phrases upon your lips — but get the spirit of Scripture into your heart. Get your soul leavened with its heavenly fragrance. This will bring you to know God, and make you ’wise unto salvation.’
One word more. Never take up the sacred volume without remembering that He, whose Book it is, must open its pages to your view. You cannot understand it — you cannot feel its power — unless God lifts up the veil from your heart. It will be to you ’as the words of a book that is sealed’ — unless He unlocks it. Never do we need light and grace so much, as when we are reading God’s Word. And never, I believe, is He so ready to bestow it. May the Lord enable you more and more to prize your Bible! May you be ready to say, ’I have found the Word of God to be precious to my soul. Once I cared more for the outside — than for its contents. Once it had a place on my table — but no place in my heart. Once I looked into it now and then as a matter of duty or to while away a half-hour. Now it is my constant companion, the food of my soul, the comfort, the delight, the joy and rejoicing of my heart!’