Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and EcclesiastesMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes
'Stay yourselves on the Lord your God,' Well, then, faith is not
believing a number of theological articles, nor is it even accepting
the truth of the Gospel as it lies in Jesus Christ, but it is
accepting the Christ whom the truth of the Gospel reveals to us. And,
although we have to come to Him through the word that declares what He
is, and what He has done for us, the act of believing on Him is
something that lies beyond the mere understanding of, or giving
credence to, the message that tells us who He is and what He has done.
A man may have not the ghost of a doubt or hesitation about one tittle
of revealed truth, and if you were to cross-question him, could answer
satisfactorily all the questions of an orthodox inquisitor, and yet
there may not be one faintest flicker of faith in that man's whole
being, for all the correctness of his creed, and the comprehensiveness
of it, too. Trust is more than assent. If it is a Person on whom our
faith leans, then from that there follows clearly enough that the bond
which binds us to Him must be something far warmer, far deeper, and
far more under the control of our own will than the mere consent or
assent of our brains to a set of revealed truths. 'The Lord your God,'
and not even the Bible that tells you about Him; 'the Lord your God,'
and not even the revealed truths that manifest Him, but Him as
revealed by the truths--it is He that is the Object to which our faith
clings.
Jehoshaphat, in the same breath in which he exhorted his people to
'believe in the Lord, that they might be established,' also said,
'Believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.' The immediate reference,
of course, was to the man who the day before had assured them of
victory. But the wider truth suggested is, that the only way to get to
God is through the word that speaks of Him, and which has come from
the lips either of prophets or of the Son who has spoken more, and
more sweetly and clearly, than all the prophets put together. If we
are to believe God, we must believe the prophets that tell us of Him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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