Dissatisfaction is never welcome, but it is a true friend. Through it you may reach blessed attainments and soul-enriching grace. Value it and use it rightly, and it will prove a great blessing, though it may often be a blessing in disguise.
Do I believe the old Book? Do I really believe it? My heart answers that I do. The deepest consciousness of my soul testifies that it is true. I will tell you some of the reasons why I believe it.
The Oldest, and Still the Newest, of Books.
God’s book written in the rocks is old, exceedingly old, but God’s book the Bible reaches back still farther. It goes back not only to the “beginning” of this terrestrial world, but into eternity; for the expression, “in the beginning,” used by John, reaches back long before this world was. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From past eternity its majestic sweep covers the whole range of being and reaches into the future eternity. It is, in fact, the book of eternity, and within its folds lie the grandeur and sublimity of the great unknown future. It never gets out-of-date. Other books have their run of popularity and are forgotten, but the Bible never grows old; no matter how familiar we become with it, it is ever new. To the Christian it never grows stale, but is always fresh and always satisfying. It ever reveals new depths that we fail to fathom, new heights that we can not scale, and new beauties that enrapture our vision.
We read it over and over, and ever and anon we see new jewels sparkling within its pages, jewels that delight the eye and reflect the light of God. From it refreshing waters break out where we least expect them, and our souls are refreshed like a thirsty man who suddenly finds water on the desert. We may have read a text a thousand times, yet when we look at it again it opens up and presents to us a vista of marvelous truth of which we were before entirely unconscious. What other book can do these things? When we read a book written by man, however interesting it may be, it soon loses its interest and its charm; we do not find new beauties in it as we do in the Bible. Its treasures are soon exhausted, but the Bible is ever new, and so I do not believe that the Bible is man’s book nor that it could be man’s book. Its depths are too deep to come from the heart or mind of man; its heights are too great for him to reach; and its wisdom is more than human. It can but be divine.