More to be desired are they than gold.
The Holy Scriptures
I. The excellence of the holy scriptures. None are ignorant of the value of money. Money gives access to every other possession. Point out the vanity of riches. They cannot benefit the possessor beyond this life. They are unsatisfying in their nature. The attainment of them is only within the reach of a few in every community. And they bring temptations to sin. Then, is not the Word of God more to be desired than gold?
II. The way to know the value of Scripture, and to taste its sweetness. Many are but formal readers. To read aright, you must be renewed in the spirit of your minds. There must be a Divine illumination. Pray more for the Spirit’s influence. If we would understand the value of the Scriptures, we shall find it useful to reflect upon their designs and our circumstances. And we must read them with patient perseverance. (Carus Wilson.)
The Bible valued above all else
On yon stormy shore, where, amid the wreck the night had wrought, and the waves, still thundering as they sullenly retire, had left on the beach, lies the naked form of a drowned sailor boy. He had stripped for one last, brave fight for life, and wears nought but a handkerchief bound round his cold breast. Insensible to pity, and unawed by the presence of death, those who sought the wreck, as vultures swoop down on their prey, rushed on the body, and tore away the handkerchief--tore it open, certain that it held within its folds gold, his little fortune, something very valuable for a man in such an hour to say, I’ll sink or swim with it. They were right. But it was not gold. It was the poor lad’s Bible--also a parting gift, and the more precious that it was a mother’s.
The priceless worth of the Bible
A Christian soldier told us of a comrade who called the Bible “his Klondyke,” and, as samples of what he called “good lumps of gold,” gave us Psalms 91:15. “I will answer him. I will be with him. .. I will deliver him. .. satisfy him, and show him My salvation.” Let us put in for a claim in this Klondyke, and dig for its hid treasures.
The excellence of the Scriptures
I. The important discoveries which the Scriptures contain. They make known to us the glory of the invisible God, as a pure and perfect Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. An explicit revelation of His will to man, and of the manner in which He requires to be worshipped and served. Here is discovered to us our once innocent and exalted, but now guilty and fallen, state. Here is made known to us the way of salvation, by which we may be restored to the favour, the image, and the enjoyment of God.
II. The effects which they produce upon the condition of mankind. Even in respect of outward civilisation much advantage has arisen to the world from the introduction of the Scriptures. Even where they are not attended with saving efficacy they are often seen to produce a considerable influence upon the external manners, and sometimes too upon the inward dispositions of men. But the transcendent excellence of the Scriptures is peculiarly manifested in their efficacy, when accompanied with the influence of Divine grace. The Scriptures are the means of spiritual illumination, of conversion and regeneration, of sanctification and a meetness for eternal life.
III. The admirable adaption of the scriptures to the various circumstances of men. Here is something suited to every rank and every age. The Scriptures set forth a perfect rule of duty, with which no system of heathen morality is once to be compared, and they exhibit incitements and encouragements, as well as examples of holiness, which are nowhere else to be found. Their excellency is especially seen in their tendency and efficacy to afford consolation in time of trouble and in the prospect of death. Lessons--
1. Admire the distinguishing goodness of God toward us.
2. Diligently use God’s gift.
3. Recognise the obligation to circulate the Scriptures among our fellow men. (D. Dickson.)
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
The Bible sweeter than honey
Among the insects which subsist on the sweet sap of flowers there are two very different classes. One is remarkable for its imposing plumage, which shows in the sunbeams like the dust of gems; and as you watch its jaunty gyrations over the fields, and its minuet dance from flower to flower, you cannot help admiring its graceful activity. In the same field there is another worker, whose brown vest and straightforward flight may not have arrested your eye. His fluttering neighbour darts down here and there, and sips elegantly wherever he can find a drop of ready nectar; but this dingy plodder makes a point of alighting everywhere, and wherever he alights he either finds honey or makes it. What is the end? The one died last October along with the flower; the other is warm in his hive tonight, amidst the fragrant stores which he gathered beneath the bright beams of summer. Honey is the sweetest of all substances, and the ancients, who were unacquainted with sugar, attached even more importance to it than we do. “A land flowing with milk and honey” presented the very strongest attractions to the Oriental taste. The idea conveyed by the text is this: that the truth of God, as revealed to us in the Bible, affords more real pleasure to the soul than that which epicures consider the most desirable luxury does to the palate. In that remarkable book, The Eclipse of Faith, there is a chapter entitled “The Blank Bible,” in which the author describes a dream, wherein he fancied that on taking up his Greek Testament one morning, to read his accustomed chapter, the old familiar volume seemed to be a total blank. Supposing that some book like it had, by accident, got into its place, he did not stop to hunt it up, but took down a large copy of the Bible, and this, to his amazement, proved also to be a blank from beginning to end. While musing on this unaccountable phenomenon, his servant came in and said that thieves must have been in the house during the night, since her Bible had been carried off, and another volume of the same size, but containing but blank paper, had been left in its place. The dreamer then went forth into the street, and heard a similar report from all whom he met. It was curious to observe the different effect of this calamity on the various characters whom he encountered. An interest, almost universal, was now felt for a book which had hitherto been sadly undervalued. Some to whom their Bible had been a “blank” book for twenty years, and who would never have known whether it was full or empty but for the lamentations of their neighbours, were among the loudest in their expressions of sorrow. In marked contrast with these was the sincere regret of an aged woman, long kept a prisoner in her narrow chamber by sickness, and to whom the Bible had been, as to so many thousands more, her faithful companion ill solitude. I found her gazing intently on the blank Bible (says our author), which had been so recently bright to her with the lustre of immortal hopes. She burst into tears as she saw me. “And has your faith left you too, nay gentle friend?” said
I. “No,” she answered; “and I trust it never will. He who has taken away the Bible has not taken away my memory, and I now recall all that is most precious in that book which has so long been my meditation. I think I can say that I loved it more than any possession on earth.” Even the warnings of the Bible are wholesome for us, for by them we are made to know our own evil. Merle d’Aubigne, during a visit to England, related an incident which happened in 1855, in connection with the circulation of the Bible among soldiers. A colporteur reached Toulon just as the French troops were embarking for the Crimea. He offered a Testament to a soldier, who asked what book it was. “The Word of God,” was the answer. “Let me have it, then,” said the man; and when he had received it he added most irreverently, “it will do very well to light my pipe.” The colporteur felt sorry that a book which might have been of service to somebody had been thus thrown away; but there was no help for it, and he went his way. About a year later he happened to be in the interior of France, and took lodging at an inn, where he found the family in great distress, from the recent death of a son. The poor mother explained that the young man had been wounded in the Crimean War, and had only been able to reach home to die. “I have much consolation,” she added; “he was so peaceful and happy, and he brought comfort to his father and to me.” “How was this?” asked the colporteur. “Oh,” she said, “he found all his comfort in one little book, which he had always with him.” So saying, she showed him a soiled copy of the New Testament (the very one which he himself had given to the reckless young soldier), and read on the inside of the cover, “Received at Toulon (with the date), despised, neglected, read, believed, and found salvation.” “Sweeter than honey” are these Divine oracles of God, and “in keeping of them there is great reward.” (Anon.)