Sound Doctrine Church

The Greek word rendered search signifies a strict, close, diligent, curious search, such as men make when they are seeking gold, or hunters when they are in earnest after game.

We must not rest content with having given a superficial reading to a chapter or two, but with the candle of the Spirit we must deliberately seek out the hidden meaning of the word. Holy Scripture requires searching—much of it can only be learned by careful study. There is milk for babes, but also meat for strong men. The rabbis wisely say that a mountain of matter hangs upon every word, yes, upon every title of Scripture. Tertullian exclaims, “I adore the fulness of the Scriptures.” No man who merely skims the book of God can profit thereby; we must dig and mine until we obtain the hidden treasure. The door of the word only opens to the key of diligence.

The Scriptures claim searching. They are the writings of God, bearing the divine stamp and guarantee—who shall dare to treat them with levity? He who despises them despises the God who wrote them. God forbid that any of us should leave our Bibles to become swift witnesses against us in the great day of account. The word of God will repay searching. God does not bid us sift a mountain of chaff with here and there a grain of wheat in it, but the Bible is winnowed corn—we have but to open the granary door and find it.

Scripture grows upon the student. It is full of surprises. Under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to the searching eye it glows with splendour of revelation, like a vast temple paved with wrought gold, and roofed with rubies, emeralds, and all manner of gems. No merchandise is like the merchandise of Scripture truth.

Lastly, the Scriptures reveal Jesus: “These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” No more powerful motive can be urged upon Bible readers than this: he who finds Jesus finds life, heaven, and all things. Happy then is he who, searching his Bible, discovers his Saviour.

—Charles H. Spurgeon

One thing we shall notice is that wakefulness is a great need in the entire spiritual life. I believe it to be one of the great wants of the church now. I question whether most of us are awake spiritually. I question whether I am. I wish to be wakened far more to a sensibility of the power of the world to come, and a tenderness in regard to spiritual truth. Slumber is so natural to us.

“Well,” says one, “but we talk about the things of God.” Yes, but people talk when they are asleep, and a good deal of Christian conversation is very much like the talk of sleepers. There is not the force in it—the life in it that there would be in conversation if we were really awakened to feel the power of eternal verities.

“Yet,” says one, “I hope we act consistently.” I trust you do, but there are many people who walk in their sleep, and, alas! I know some Christian professors who appear to be trying very hazardous feats of sleep-walking just now. I see some Christians, if indeed they be Christians, running awful risks which I think they would never venture upon unless they had fallen into the deep sleep of carnal security. Speak of a man slumbering at the mast-head, it is nothing to a professor of religion at ease while covetousness is his master, or worldly company his delight. If professors were awake, they would see their danger, and avoid sinful amusements and ungodly associations, as men fly from fierce tigers or deadly cobras.

“Well, but we are doing much good and useful work,” says one: “teaching in Sabbath schools, distributing religious tracts, or labouring in some other form of service; we are spending our time in commendable engagements.” I am glad to hear it; but people can do a great deal in their sleep. We have heard many strange instances of how habit at last has enabled persons to pursue their callings, to answer signals, and keep up all the appearance of industry, and yet they have been at the time asleep.

I would take down the trumpet and give a blast, or ring the alarm-bell till all the faculties of the sluggard’s manhood are made to bestir themselves, and he cries with new born determination, “I myself will awake.”

—Charles Spurgeon

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The new life is a life of inconceivable power. What hinders this power and the reception of the new spiritual life is chiefly two things. The one is ignorance of its nature, its laws and workings. Man, even the Christian, has of himself not the least conception of the new life that comes from God: it surpasses all his thoughts. His own perverted thoughts of the way to serve and to please God, namely, by what he does and is, are so deeply rooted in him, that, although he thinks that he understands and receives God’s word, he yet thinks humanly and carnally on Divine things. (Jos. 3:4; Isa. 4:8,9; Matt. 16:23) Not only must God give salvation and life; He must also give the Spirit to make us know what He gives. Not only must He point out the land of Canaan, and the way thither; we must also, like the blind, be led every day by Himself. The young Christian must try to cherish a deep conviction of his ignorance concerning the new life, and of his inability to form right thoughts about it. This will bring him to the meekness and to the childlike spirit of submission, to which the Lord shall make His secret known. (Ps. 25:5,8-9; 143:8; Isa. 42:16; 64:4; Matt. 11:25; 1 Cor. 1:18-19; 2:7,10,12; Heb. 11:8)

There is a second hinderance is because this mighty life is not visible or cannot be felt, but works in the midst of human weakness, the young Christian often becomes of doubtful mind. He then fails to believe that he shall grow with Divine power and certainty. He does not understand that the believing life is a life of faith whereby he reckons on the life that is in Christ for him, although he neither sees, feels, nor experiences anything. (Hab. 2:4; Matt. 6:27; Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38)

Let every one then that has received this new life, cultivate this great conviction: it is eternal life that works in me: it works with Divine power: I can and shall become what God will have me be: Christ Himself is my life: I have to receive Him every day as my life given by God to me, and He shall be my life in full power.

—Andrew Murray

We shall never get beyond the need of using daily the Lord’s prayer. He has bound by the conjunction and the prayer for forgiveness with that for daily bread, as though to teach us that we shall need the one as long as we need the other. At the end of the best day that we ever spent, when we are not aware of having consciously sinned in act, or speech, or thought, we shall still have need of the precious blood. We may know nothing against ourselves, yet we shall not be thereby justified; because He that judges us is our holy Lord, and the standard by which we are judged is his own perfect character. A piece of cambric looks extremely fine to the eye, but how coarse to the microscope! Sheep look white against the dark ground of the early spring; but how dark if there should be a fall of snow! Our characters seem stainless, only because we compare ourselves with ourselves, or with others.

But, when our eyes are opened to see God, to behold the whiteness of the great white throne, and we stand in the searching light of heaven, we are as those who have just emerged from a ditch. I heard the other day of a woman being proud of having lived without sin for ten years! So we deceive ourselves. No, at the best we are sinful men and women, needing constant cleansing; even though we may be kept from known sin by the grace of Christ. It was at an advanced period in the life of the great Apostle, and when he lived nearest God, that he realized himself to be the chief of sinners.

—F.B. Meyer

My Child, you can never be perfectly free unless you completely renounce self, for all who seek their own interest and who love themselves are bound in fetters. They are unsettled by covetousness and curiosity, always searching for ease and not for the things of Christ, often devising and framing that which will not last, for anything that is not of God will fail completely.

Hold to this short and perfect advice, therefore: give up your desires and you will find rest. Think upon it in your heart, and when you have put it into practice you will understand all things.

My child, you should not turn away or be downcast when you hear the way of the perfect. Rather you ought to be spurred all the more toward their sublime heights, or at least be moved to seek perfection.

I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich . . . (Revelation 3:18)

Rich in heavenly wisdom which treads underfoot all that is low. Put aside earthly wisdom, all human self-complacency.

It’s been said: exchange what is precious and valued among men for that which is considered contemptible. For true heavenly wisdom; not to think highly of self and not to seek glory on earth does indeed seem mean and small and is well-nigh forgotten, as many men praise it with their mouths but shy far away from it in their lives. Yet this heavenly wisdom is a pearl of great price, which is hidden from many.

—Thomas A. Kempis

The more we fear crosses, the more we have to conclude that we need them. And the heavier our crosses are, the more we have to believe that God loves us. We ought to judge the seriousness of our illnesses by the strength of the treatment the spiritual Physician applies to them.

We must be very corrupt, and God must be very merciful, since he takes great pains to heal us—even though the process of healing may be difficult. So let us turn our crosses themselves into a source of love, comfort and faith, saying with Saint Paul, ‟For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison”.

Happy are those who go forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, for they will bring in an indescribably joyful harvest of eternal life!

—François Fenelon

Philippians 2:5-8 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

This wonderful description of Christ’s descent to our shame and sorrow is here cited by the Apostle, that it might be a living impulse and inspiration to ourselves, not to look upon our own things, not to hold them with a tight grasp, but to be willing to stoop for others to shame, sorrow, and spitting; fulfilling God’s purpose of mercy to the world, even as Jesus Christ, who became the instrument and organ through which God’s redemptive purpose wrought. ‘Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.’ Think these thoughts. Never look exclusively upon your own interests, never count anything of your own worthy to stand in the way, but always be prepared to the last point to deny yourself, that the redemptive purpose of God may flow through the channel of your life to those that sorely need His blessed help. It is a wonderful thing that, day by day, in our poor measure, we may repeat the purpose and the work of Jesus Christ our Emmanuel.

—F.B. Meyer

Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it. If this is true of the book of Revelation, it is even truer of the Bible in general. God has opened a very large treasure for us, to supply our needs. We thank God for giving us so much. If we are too lazy to gather it, this means our thanksgiving is insincere. There is enough material in the Bible to keep us busy for a lifetime. Those who have learned the most realize how little they know. The subject is inexhaustible. As God is infinite, the science of divinity is full of unsearchable wonders. The Psalmist says, To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless. There is enough in this divine science to employ the understandings of saints and angels to all eternity.

—Jonathan Edwards

Most of the employments of life are in themselves lawful; and all those that are so may be made substantial part of our duty to God if we engage in them only so far, and for such ends, as is suitable to being who are to live above the world all the time that they live in the world. This is the only measure of our application to any worldly business—let it be what it will, where it will, it must have no more of our hands, our hearts, or our time than is consistent with a hearty, daily, careful preparation of ourselves for another life.

Now he who does not look at things of this life in this degree of littleness cannot be said either to feel or believe the greatest truths of Christianity. For if he thinks anything great or important in human business, can he be said to feel or believe those Scriptures which represent this life, and the greatest things of life, as bubbles, vapors, dreams, and shadows?

A tradesman may justly think that it is agreeable to the will of God for him to sell such things as are innocent and useful in life, such as help both himself and others and enable them to assist those who want to be assisted. But if, instead of this, he trades only with regard to himself, if it be his chief end to grow rich that he may live in fame and indulgence and to be able to retire from business to idleness and luxury, his trade, as to him, loses all its innocence and is so far from being acceptable service to God that it is only a more plausible source of covetousness, self-love, and ambition.

Enough, I hope, has been said to show you the necessity of thus introducing religion into all the actions of your common life, and of living and acting with the same regard to God in all you do as in your prayers and alms.

—William Law

People who are genuinely sorry for their sins are grateful for every opportunity to do an act of kindness for those whom they have a wronged. How much good would be done in our churches and in our nation if we lived in contrition and repentance! How many amends would be made that are pleasing to Jesus! Wounds and breaches would be healed, and in the end we would see that by the grace of God many a good thing has come from our sins and failures. If true contrition and repentance seeks and loves punishment, as Luther says, how much more will it seek to make amends! A penitent heart will seek to do all that lies within its power. Thus there is nothing that brings about so many good fruits in our life as a contrite, penitent heart.

And so repentance is the sole foundation upon which everything in the kingdom of God is to be built. Then our spiritual “house” will have a firm foundation and it will not be swept away when a storm comes. All our service in the kingdom of God that is not built upon contrition and repentance will not be of eternal duration. It will not bring true fruit. O that repentance would once more be a gift we would covet for ourselves personally and for our churches! It contains the greatest blessing and grace for us all.

—Basilea Schlink