HEARING AND KEEPING GOD’S WORD
‘A certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked. But He said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.’
The wonder is not that this woman spake as she did, but that oftener men do not speak in the praise of that Blessed Lord, of Whom we read, ‘Never man spake like this Man.’
I. A blessing not to be denied.—In our great eagerness to keep clear of anything like superstitious reverence of the Virgin Mary, some of us have scarcely given to her her due. The Virgin Mary was blessed, for the blessing which she received had been desired for years; it had been predicted that ‘the Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head,’ and all Israel had longed to behold the Promised One, the Restorer of the race. The blessing came to Mary as a great boon, and she herself received the blessing as such.
II. The blessing to be preferred.—We see the preferable blessedness—to hear the Word of God and keep it is a blessing preferable to having been the mother of our Lord. We are sure of this, because in the weighing of the blessings the blessed Master of beatitudes holds the scales. Will not you yield at once to what He says, Whose words are sure truth? These words place the highest blessing that is conceivable within our reach, if we can only reach to the standard of hearing and keeping the Word of God. Remember that this made up the height of Mary’s blessing, for she was a believer. She hid these holy things, and pondered them in her heart; she rejoiced in God her Saviour. Mary’s blessedness lay mainly in the fact that she believed; that she acquiesced in the Divine message that He was the Saviour Whom she nursed in her arms! It was her faith that made her blessed.
III. The blessedness may be even now enjoyed.—This blessedness belongs to the present. ‘Blessed are they that are hearing the Word of God and keeping it.’ It might strictly be rendered so. That ought to fill you with a calm, serene delight. This blessedness is not dependent upon outward circumstances. ‘Hear, and your soul shall live.’ Every man wants happiness; blessedness is the aspiration of us all. Will you have it? The Word is nigh thee, on thy lip, and in thy heart; if thou hear the Word of God and keep it, there shall come to thee a double blessing; God will bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed.
Illustration
‘I would suggest to everybody, whatever may be the occupation of his or her life, that they should make it their duty to read every day, whether they feel inclined to do so or not, part of the Holy Scriptures appointed in the lectionary as the lesson for the day. Every day, in the morning, you should read a few verses if you have not time to read all the lesson. You would probably find some thought which would carry you through the difficulties of the day. Every night before you lie down to rest just read a few verses of one of the evening lessons. By so doing you join yourself to the greatest of all Bible Unions—the Anglican Church all over the world.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
THE POWER OF THE BOOK
Just now there is a certain feeling of anxiety in the minds of some persons with regard to the Holy Bible. We fear criticism. Now if the Bible is really the Word of God, do you think that any human criticism can destroy its glowing brilliancy and pathos, or its power? Our Lord said, ‘The words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.’ Any fear, therefore, with regard to what is called the Higher Criticism is utterly irrational. There is a religion which may be called a religion of the Book, and there is a religion which may be called a religion of the Person. The literature has one definite object and one only, and that is to lead the mind on to be independent of the literature, that it may live in constant communion with the Person.
I. The power of the book.—There is a certain inherent power with the Holy Bible which is only to be accounted for upon the hypothesis that it is the Word of God. There are stories too numerous to repeat of the power that has come from single utterances in the Holy Scriptures (see illustrations). We have this wonderful literature which bears its own guarantee by its power in the world, that it is indeed the Word of God. There is not a height that is not scaled by it, not a depth which cannot be plumbed by it, not a heart which cannot be consoled by it.
II. The value of criticism.—This wonderful literature was fixed in its present form by the Council of Carthage, and we accept it as the result of the criticism of the wise and holy men of that day who rejected a large number of books and gathered together others. But the power of criticism did not cease with the Council of Carthage, and during the past fifty years there has been brought to bear very careful, reverent criticism. Men like Professor Driver of Oxford and others have, with the utmost care, scientifically searched into the authorship of the books of the Bible. All the obvious interpolations which have got into it through over-zealous scribes have been expunged, with the result that so far from the book being in danger, and people being obliged to rush to the public Press to defend it, the book has been given back to us infinitely more valuable, with a far more definite assurance than it ever possessed before. There is no harm whatever in the application of honest, reverent, and careful criticism to the Holy Scriptures. Having come to us by the inspiration of God Himself, all the criticism that can be brought to bear upon the Bible can only increase its value, lustre, and power.
III. A book to live by.—Our Lord’s words implied that the Bible is a book to live by. ‘Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.’ Are we doing that? Do we search the Scriptures, we who belong to the race which boasts of having possession of the open Bible? We of the English nation which supplies the world with its Bibles, are we hearing and keeping its precepts? Everybody has a Bible, but it is not everybody who has an open Bible. When you lose your taste for the Bible there is something wrong with your spiritual perception. It is a note of warning.
IV. The book reveals Christ.—Love the literature, follow it, but do not rest on it as an end in itself. Look upon it as a means to an end, and that end a personal knowledge of and personal union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Each one of us can say, ‘I wonder how far in my own heart I have been keeping the Word of God?’ It is not always the greatest students of Holy Scripture who have the fullest realisation of the blessedness spoken of by our Lord. What hinders many from coming to the Lord is a sort of unexpressed idea that He might demand sacrifice. ‘There is a great deal in my life,’ we say, ‘which might be contrary to His will and purpose.’ But if our Lord demands sacrifice, He always gives something better in its place. There is not one single case in history of those who have really come to our Blessed Lord, and have had to make sacrifices to do so, who have not been abundantly recompensed with some higher, nobler joy. The blessedness of hearing and keeping the Word of God is that it brings us face to face with the Lord Jesus.
Archdeacon Wilberforce.
Illustrations
(1) ‘We all know how the Czar Alexander, who emancipated the serfs in Russia, said that when he was young someone put into his hands a Bible. He studied it greedily, and he said to his tutor, “If ever I grow up to be Czar, I will set free all the slaves in Russia: this book teaches it to me.” There is power about the Bible.’
(2) ‘We all remember how Voltaire made the prophecy that in one hundred years the Bible would have passed away, yet in the very room in which he was, the Geneva Bible Society, not long after, started its operations, and the very press which Voltaire had used for the propagation of his atheistic opinions was used for the printing of the Scriptures; and under that very roof, within twenty years, there were above twenty tons of Bibles.’
(3) ‘Men of profound intellect, men who have risen to the very top of literary success, like Sir Walter Scott, have lived by the Bible. It was the one thing he cared for when he was a dying man. He said, “Read me the book,” and they said to him, “What book?” and he said, “There is only one book.” ’
(4) ‘Robert Ingersoll, the great atheist of America, said once to an intellectual Boston lady who loved her Bible: “Madam, you seem very fond of your Bible. Why are you?” “Well,” said she, “the fact is, the Author of this book is a very particular, personal friend of mine.” ’
(5) ‘Not every one recognises the blessedness of the book. Take the case of such a brilliantly intellectual man as Bishop Butler. What does the world not owe to that great logician? The man who demolished not only the outworks but the very foundations of intellectual atheism. Yet he did not understand this feeling until he lay a dying man. He said to his chaplain, “Do you think that I have a right to believe that the Lord will receive me?’ And the chaplain quoted to him the words, “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” And the bishop said, “I have preached on that text scores and scores of times, I have turned it over in my mind, but I never saw the light in it until this moment.” ’