“Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Thy word,” was David’s acknowledgment in that matchless Psalm 119, verse 67.
Theories, criticisms, ideas, will do very well for fair-weather days when the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the zephyr breezes are fanning the cheek. But let the storm and darkness come, let peril cross our path, and we find that we need a refuge, a haven, aye, above all a Friend, who will stick closer than a brother, who can be described as “the Rock that is higher than I.”
Thus it is in these days of storm and stress multitudes are turning to the Bible with a fresh interest.
Especially is this the case with those who have allowed themselves to be turned aside into false beliefs that the Scriptures are not fully inspired, that many of its chief truths must be taken seriously.
A case in point is interesting. A well-known minister, who had tampered with “Higher Criticism,” and who ranked himself as “among the number of the uncertain,” writes the following most significant sentences:
“We have re-discovered the value of the Psalms and the Prophets: they bear to us today a startling message from God. In the dim light of our study they have meant little to us; but in the terrible light of life, reddened with human blood today, we have learned their Divine meaning. Would that we had listened earlier!”
How full of pathos is this writer’s closing sentence, “Would that we had listened earlier.” Better late than never, though even at that it is sad indeed.
How inexpressibly sad will it be, if it should become never, and the sad eternal wail will be, “Would that we had listened.” The blessing missed for ever!
Thank God, this writer had listened at last, but oh! the sadness of the confession, “Would that we had listened EARLIER.” How much blessing and comfort he had missed by not doing so.
There is no voice of absolute truth outside the Word of God. Every human opinion is biased more or less. Pilate might well ask, “What is truth?”
It stood incarnate before him in the person of Jesus, and—nowhere else. All who are influenced by Him are influenced by the truth; and the more they are influenced by Him the more are they influenced by the truth. But He was absolute truth.
And His word is absolute truth. Weakness in belief of one part of the truth involves weakness in belief of all. Though composed of sixty-six books written by almost as many writers extending over many centuries, it is one component whole. It is like an arch. Take out one stone and the whole is weakened.
To be weak in a belief of the Psalms and Prophets is to be weak in a belief of Christ Himself, for they spake of Him. React the matchless Psalm 22. “In the dim light of the study” one would have thought that the divine page would have shone with startling light, as showing the mind of the Spirit, the mind of Christ, filled with the cross even to its details, a millennium before it occurred—the cross evidently
“… the centre of two eternities
Which look backward and forward with
rapt adoring eyes.”
Or take those magnificent verses, Isaiah 9:6-7—just two out of the whole of the prophets: “Unto us a Child is born, to us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
What a magnificent sweep! How it starts in a fathomless searchless past eternity, brings in the wonderful incarnation of the Son of God, the perfection of His work, and looks forward to the time when this sobbing, trembling earth, purged by His judgments, and prepared by deep repentance, shall be soothed to peace and rest by His smile, who shall be King of kings and Lord of lords.
The greatest comfort is to know Him and that He cares with an infinite tenderness for His people, that He loves them with a love the spring of which lay in Himself and not in us.
It is as we know Him that all Scripture opens out to our wondering gaze.
May we listen, earnestly, reverently, believing, and find in the Word of God the compass of all true knowledge and truth, and avoid as far as possible by God’s help the sad acknowledgment, “Would that we had believed earlier.”