READ AND DEPEND on the Spirit of God. How often do we open the
sacred book and read a chapter through, perhaps at family-prayer, or
perhaps in our own private devotions, and having read from the first verse
to the last, we shut up the book, thinking we have done something very
right and very proper, and in a vague way somehow profitable to us. Very
right and very proper indeed, and yet, right and proper as the thing is, we
may really have gained nothing thereby. We may, in fact, have only drilled
ourselves in the merely external part of religion, and may not have enjoyed
anything spiritual, or anything that can be beneficial to our souls, if we
have forgotten the divine Spirit through whom the Word has come to us.
Ought we not even to remember that in order properly to understand the
holy Word we need to have the Holy Spirit to be his expositor? The hymn
says concerning Providence —
“God is his own interpreter
And he will make it plain;”
and certainly it is so with regard to the Scriptures. Commentators and
expositors are very useful indeed, but the best expositor is always the
author of a book himself. If I had a book which I did not quite understand,
it would be a very great convenience to me to live next door to the author,
for then I could run in, and ask him what he meant. This is just your
position, Christian. The book will sometimes puzzle you, but the divine
author, who must know his own meaning, is ever ready to lead you into its
meaning. He dwelleth in you, and shall be with you, and saith Christ Jesus,
“When he, the Spirit of truth is come, he shall lead you into all truth.”
But to understand the word is not enough. We need also that he make us to
feel its power. How can we do this except through the Holy Ghost? “Thy
Word hath quickened me,” O God, but it is only as thou didst quicken me
through it. The Word of God is to be read literally, but “it is the letter that
killeth,” only “the Spirit giveth life,” and, excellent as are its statements, yet
even they have no spiritual force in themselves. Unless the Holy Ghost
shall fill them even they shall become as wells without water, and as clouds
without rain. Have you not often found it so yourselves? I appeal now to
your own experience. You have sometimes read a portion of Scripture, and
the page has seemed to glow, your heart has burned within you and you
have said that the Word came home to you with power.
Just so; but it was the Holy Spirit who was bringing it close home to your
spirit in its true power and making it a sweet savoir of life unto life to you.
At other times, you may have read the very same page, and missed
painfully the sweetness which once you had tasted, and lost the lovely light
that once flashed from it upon your mind’s eye.
Everything must depend upon the Spirit speaking through it, for even the
light of the Word of God is to a great extent but moonlight, that is to say,
it is a reflection of the light which streams from God himself, who is the
one, the true source of light. If God shineth not upon the Word when we
read it, then, the Word shineth not back upon us, but becomes a dark Word
to us, or as one saith “rather an obscuration than a revelation, rather
concealing God from us, than revealing him to us.” Look up, reader! the
next time the book is in thy hands, look up before thou openest it, and
while thine eye is running down the page, look up and pray that God would
shine upon it; and when the chapter is finished and thou puttest the book
away, afford a minute again to look up and ask his blessing. If by reading
the Scriptures we were only always reminded of the Holy Spirit, if we got
no other good from the Scripture itself except the turning of our souls to
think upon that divine and blessed one, that would be in itself an
inestimable boon. Do read, then, thoughtfully remembering the great
author.
C.H. Spurgeon
How To Read the Bible
September 5, 1912
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