Taking God at His word
When I say that we ought to take God at His word, I assert the most evident of truths, and I appear to be laying down the easiest of rules. But practically, I believe, none is harder; certainly there is no rule so little kept.
I. Between man and man the social law of faith is so strict that, if you do not believe what a man says, you are held to commit the greatest wrong that you can inflict upon him. It is wonderful how everyone accepts his fellow-creature's word. It is the basis of all civil transactions. Take away that confidence, and society itself must break up. At this moment there is nothing which most of us would resent so keenly as the shadow of an imputation upon the credit of his word. And has not the true God the same sense of jealousy for His own truthfulness, and the same indignant feeling of wrong and outrage when His word is questioned? Do you wonder that unbelief is placed among the most heinous of sins?
II. Note one or two ways by which we may cultivate that blessed art, that deep secret, of taking God at His word. (1) First, you must go back to the simplicities of childhood. It is the characteristic of a little child that it trusts. And if its confidence has never been abused, and its habit of faith never rudely violated, a very little child takes everybody at his word; it sees everywhere the reflection of its own transparency. It is the prerogative of physical and of spiritual childhood to believe. (2) You must take honouring views of what God's word is. There is not a word which God ever spoke to you, but all the attributes of God went to make that word. Make experiments every day with God's word. Every experiment you make upon a promise will confirm its truth and power; and experiments daily repeated will soon become the habit of taking God at His word. (3) But, far more than all, you must acquaint yourself with the Speaker. You must know, before you can know the word, the heart that speaks it you must know the heart of Jesus. How shall we trust the word, if we do not trust the Speaker?
J. Vaughan, Sermons,1868, p. 165.
References: John 4:50. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 3 2 John 1:4 :54. W. Milligan, Expositor,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 268. John 4 A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 248. John 5:1. Expositor,1st series, vol. viii., p. 390; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxi., No. 121 1 John 5:1-9. Ibid.,vol. xiii., No. 744; Homilist,3rd series, vol. ii., p. 144.John 5:1-16. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 209. John 5:1-18. Ibid.,vol. xiv., p. 154; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 88.