“Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read” (Isa. 34:16).
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35).
I wonder if some of us realize what a legacy and inheritance the Bible really is—God’s Word to us. It is yellow with age, and travel-stained. It has come through many ages, many hands, and many lands. It has come out of the world of Noah and his Ark, of Abraham and his flock, into a world their shepherd races could not dream of, but it has come inspired with such a power as our world can hardly understand. It comes to us, in the stress and strain of our life today, like music from a far country. It is like cooling waters in a hot and thirsty land. It is like a still small voice that speaks to a troubled soul in the night and says, “Be strong and of a good courage.”
The Book of God! And is there then a book
Which on its front that awful title bears?
Who hold it, what high duty must be theirs,
And what high privilege, therein to look,
To read, mark, learn, digest! But in this nook
Of earth, pent up and blinded by earth’s cares,
Its hopes and joys, if man the treasure dares
To scorn, such scorn shall the great Author brook!
How longed the holy men and prophets old
God’s truth to see! How blest, whom He hath willed
To see His truth in His own Book enrolled!
Pure is the Book of God, with sweetness filled;
More pure than massive, unadulterate gold,
More sweet than honey from the rock distilled.
—Bishop Mant.
If asked the remedy for the heart’s deepest sorrow, I must point to “the old, old story,” told in an old, old Book, and taught with an old, old teaching, which is the greatest and best gift ever given to mankind.—William Gladstone.
The men who have been studying the Bible for fifty years have never got down to the depths of the ever-living stream.—D. L. Moody.