How to Study the Bible
“And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water-gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel, and Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the water-gate from the morning unto midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.” — Nehemiah viii. 1-3.
The children of Israel had been in captivity for seventy years, and now they had come back into their own land; and the description given in these verses is what we should call a Bible reading, just getting the people together and reading the Word of the Lord to them. And perhaps it would be a good thing if we could have more meetings where the Word of God is read and explained. It is better to hear God rather than man, and I believe we are living in a day when the Bible is neglected, although we are living* in a land of Bibles.
The children of Israel had been in a strange land, and God wished them to understand his law. It says that they were attentive to the law; that is to say, they were just leaning forward and drinking in the words that were read to them. You have sometimes seen a nest of birds, and the mother comes with a little worm to feed them, and in an instant every mouth is wide open; and in like manner every one of us ought to have our ears wide open to catch the meaning of the Word of God when it is read to us; and if there is anything we don’t understand, we ought to go to the minister and have an inquiry-meeting with him, and ask him to explain it to us.
We read in the 9th verse, “For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto the Lord: neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’’ What we want, nowadays, brethren, is a joyful church. If we are in Babylon, with our harps hanging on the willow trees and our heads bowed down, we are not likely to succeed in winning souls to Christ. No; it is when we are back again on the resurrection ground that we may hope to succeed in that. A backslidden church is a nuisance in the world. It is just a stumbling-block, and nothing more. In the 17th verse we read, “And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness.” And there always will be great gladness when a backsliding people come back to God.
When the Israelites were going to Babylon, trodden down by their oppressors and led away into a foreign land, we read in Jeremiah xx. 9, “Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in his name: but his Word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my boes, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” Yes, it is a good thing to have the
WORD OF GOD IN OUR HEARTS,
so that it burns within us, and we cannot hold our peace. The psalmist said it was hidden in his heart. Some one has remarked that it was a good thing in a good place for a good purpose. We want the Word to burn right down into our souls; then a man cannot restrain himself, it begins to burn so that it would actually burn him up if he held his peace and did not speak out. “Is not my Word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, and if you young converts want to be used of God, you must feed on His Word. Your experience may be very good and very profitable at the outset, and you may help others by telling it to them; but if you keep on doing nothing else but telling your experience, it will soon become stale and unprofitable, and people will weary of hearing the same thing over and over again. When you have told how you have been converted, the next thing is to feed on the Word. We are not fountains ourselves, but the Word of God is the fountain. And if we feed on the Word, it will be very easy then to speak to others; and not only that, but we shall be growing all the while in grace, and others will take notice of our walk and conversation.
Now, I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of the Bible. We must have the Word itself, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. Now, if you read the sermon spoken by Moses before he left the children of Israel, you will find it was just a rehearsal of what God had done for them, and of their deliverance from the cruel hands of Pharaoh; of the destruction of their enemies in the Red Sea, and their safe conduct through the wilderness; and yet I do not suppose there was a boy in the camp who could not have told it all over. And you will find that Joshua did the same, and when Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Lord was in him, and he went on quoting Scripture to the people, and that was the arrow that went down into their souls. Then, again, what did the devout and martyred Stephen do but just rehearse and expound the Scriptures from the time of Abraham downwards?
People are constantly saying, We want son&thing new, some new doctrine, some new idea. Depend upon it, my Mends, if you get tired of the Word of God, and it becomes wearisome to you, you are out of communion with Him. What you want is some one who will unfold and expound the Scriptures to you. We cannot overcome Satan with our feelings. The reason why some people have such a bitter experience is, they try to overcome the devil by their feelings and experiences.
CHRIST OVERCAME SATAN BY THE WORD.
He simply said: “It is written;” and a second time, “It is written;” and Satan came and tried to misquote the Scripture, but Christ said again, “It is written;” and that was the arrow that shot right into him and drove him away. The devil does not care a bit about our feelings. He can play on our feelings just as a man can on a harp. He can make our feelings good or bad; he can take us up on the mountain, or down into the valley; and we can only vanquish him by the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit.
And then bear in mind there is no situation in life for which you cannot find some word of consolation in Scripture. If you are in affliction, there is a promise for you; if you are in adversity and trial, there is a promise for you; in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness, in poverty or in riches, in every condition in lifey God lias a promise stored up in His Word for you.
I can imagine some person asking, How can I get to be in love with the Bible? Well, if you will only rouse yourselves to the study of it, and ask God’s assistance, He will assuredly help you. I think there are
THREE BOOKS EVERY CHRISTIAN OUGHT TO POSSESS.
The first, of course, is the Bible. 1 believe in getting a good Bible, with a good plain print. I have not much love for those little Bibles you have to hold right up under your nose to read the print; and if the church happens to be a little dark you cannot see the print, but it becomes a mere jumble of words. Yes; but some of you say you cannot carry a big Bible in your pocket. Very well, then, carry it under your arm; and if you have to walk five miles, you will just be preaching a sermon five miles long. I have known a man convicted by seeing another carrying his Bible under his arm. You are not ashamed to carry hymn-books and prayer-books, and the Bible is worth all the hymn-books and prayer-books in the world put together. And if you get a good Bible you are likely to take better care of it. Suppose you pay five or ten dollars for a good Bible, the older you grow the more precious it will become to you. But be sure you don*t get one so good that you will be afraid to mark it. Then next I would advise you to get Cruderts Concordance, and a “Scripture Text-book” — not a “Birthday Text-book.” These books will help you to study the Word of God with profit. If you have not got them, get them, for every Christian ought to have them.
Then I find one of the best ways to study the Scriptures is to
STUDY TOPICALLY.
I used at one time to read so many chapters a day; and if I did not, I thought I was getting cold and backsliding; but mind you, if a man had asked me two hours afterwards what I had read I could not tell him. I had forgotten it nearly all. When I was a boy, I used, among other things, to have to hoe turnips on a farm, and I used to hoe them so badly, to get over so much ground, that at night I had to put down a stick in the ground so as to know next morning where I had left off. That was somewhat in the same fashion as running through so many chapters every day. A man will say: “Wife, did I read that chapter?” “Well,” says she, “I don’t remember,” and neither of them can recollect; and perhaps he reads the same chapter over and over again, and they call that studying the Bible. I don’t think there is a book in the world we neglect so much as the Bible. Merely reading the Bible is no use at all without we study it thoroughly, and hunt it through for some great truth. Suppose a friend were to see me searching about this building, and were to come up and say: “Moody, what are you looking for? Have you lost something?” and I were to say: “No, I haven’t lost anything; I’m not looking for anything particular,” why, he would let me go on by myself, and think me very foolish. But if I were to say, “Yes, I have lost my pocket-book,” why, then I might expect him to help me find it. Read the Bible, my friends, as if you were seeking for something of value. It is a good deal better to take a single chapter and spend a month on it than to go on
READING THE BIBLE AT RANDOM
for a month.
I find some people now and then who boast that they have read the Bible through in so many months. Others read the Bible chapter by chapter, and get through it in a year; but I think it would be almost better to spend a year over one chapter. If I were going into a court of justice, and wanted to carry the jury with me, I would get every witness I could to testify to the one point on which I wanted to convince the jury. I would not get them to testify on everything, but just on that one thing; and so it should be with the Scriptures. I took up the word “love,” and I don’t know how many weeks I spent in studying the passages in which it occurs, till at last I couldnH help loving people. I had been feeding so long on love that I was anxious to do everybody good that I came in contact with. Take up grace; take up faith; take up
ASSURANCE.
Some people say, I don’t believe in assurance. I never knew anybody who read their Bible but believed in assurance. It teaches nothing else. Paul says: “I know in whom I have believed.” Job says: “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” It is not, “I hope,” “I trust.” The best book on assurance was written by one called “John,” at the back part of the Bible. He wrote an epistle on assurance.
Sometimes you get a word that will be a sort of key to the epistle, and which unfolds it. Now if you turn to John xx. 31, you will find it says: “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.” Then, if you turn to 1 John v. 13, you will read thus: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” That whole epistle is written on assurance. I have no doubt John had found some people who had doubts about assurance, and doubted whether they were saved or not, and he takes up his pen and says, “I will settle that question;” and he writes that 13th verse in the 5th chapter of his firgt epistle, I have heard some people say it was not their privilege to know that they were saved; they had heard the minister say that no one could know whether they were saved or not, and so they took what the minister said instead of what the Word of God said. Others read the Bible to make it fit in and prove their favorite creed or notions, and if it did not do that they would not read it. It has been well said that we must not read the Bible by the blue light of Presbyterianism, nor the red light of Methodism, nor the violet light of Episcopalism, but by the light of the Spirit of God. Now, if you will just take up your Bible and study assurance for a week, you will soon find it is your privilege to know that you are a child of God. Then take another thing —
THE PROMISES OF GOD.
Let a man feed for a month on the promises of God, and he will not be talking about how poor he is. There are said to be truly one thousand of them in the Bible. You hear people say — “Oh, my leanness! how lean I am 1” My friends, it is not their leanness, it is their laziness. If you would only go from Genesis to Revelation, and see all the promises made by God to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to the Jews and the Gentiles, and to all his people evewhere; if you were to spend a month feeding on the precious promises of God, you wouldn’t be going about with “prayer.” 49
your heads hanging down like bulrushes, complaining how poor you are; but you would lift up your heads with confidence, and proclaim the riches of His grace, because you couldn’t help it. After the Chicago fire, a man came up to me, and said in a sympathizing tone, “I understand you lost everything, Moody, in the Chicago fire.” “Well, then,” said I, “some one has misinformed you.” “Indeed! Why, I was certainly told that you had lost all.” “No; it’s a mistake,” I said; “quite a mistake.” “Have you got much left then?” asked my friend. “Yes,” I replied; “I have got much more left than I lost, though I cannot tell how much I have lost.” “Well, I am glad of it, Moody; I did not know you were that rich before the fire.” “Yes,” said I, “I am a good deal richer than you could conceive; and here is my title-deed — ‘He that overcometh shall inherit all things, They say the Rothschilds cannot tell how much they are worth, and that’s just my case. All things in the world are mine; I am joint-heir with Jesus the Son of God.”
Then suppose you spend a month on
“PRAYER,”
run through the Scriptures on prayer; why, the Bible will become a new book to you. Then take up hope, and faith, and grace, and feed on them. I remember the first time I studied grace I got so full of it that I stopped every man and woman I met, and told them how God loved them. When Christ came with his message of grace to the Jews, their bottles would not hold it; it burst the bottles, and began to flow on to the Gentiles all around. And then they got angry with him and sought to put him to death. You may pray for the blessing, but if you neglect your Bible you won’t get it.
Then another way is to
STUDY ONE BOOK AT A TIME.
If you take Genesis, it is the seed-plant of the whole Bible; it tells us of life, death, and resurrection; it involves all the rest of the Bible. Or take just one word that runs through a book. Some time ago I was wonderfully blessed by taking the seven blessings of the Revelation. If God did not wish us to understand the Revelation he would not have given it us at all. A good many say it is so dark and mysterious common readers cannot understand it. Let us only keep digging away at it and it will unfold itself by-and-by. Some one says it is the only book in the whole Bible that tells about the devil being chained; and as the devil knows that, he goes up and down Christendom, and says, “There is no use in your reading the Revelation; you cannot understand the book; it’s too hard for you.” The fact is, he doesn’t want you to understand about his own defeat. Just
LOOK AT THE BLESSINGS
it contains. In chapter i. 3. “Blessed is he that readeth the word of this prophecy;” xxii. 14, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city;” chapter xvi. 15, “Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth His garments;” chapter xxii. 7, “Blessed is he that keepeth the saying of the prophecy of this book.” Then there is a blessing on them that are kept from the world. We do not belong to the world, but belong to the new creation. God has taken us out of the old and put us in the new, and therefore we keep ourselves from the world; xiv. IS, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; for they shall rest from their labors;” xx. 6, “Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection; for on such the second death hath no power; and they shall live and reign with Christ a thousand years;” xix. 9, “Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Or you may take the eight overcomes of Revelation, and you will get wonderfully blessed with them. They take you right up to heaven; you climb by them right up to the throne of God.
Rev. ii. 7, “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life.” Rev. ii. 11, “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” Rev. ii. 17, “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.” Rev. ii. 26, “To him that overcometh will I give power over the nations.” Rev. iii. 5, “He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment.” Rev. iii. 12, “Him that overcometh I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” Rev. iii. 21, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne.” Rev. xxi. 7, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.”
In considering the good things God gives us I have found much satisfaction in thinking over the
SEVEN PRECIOUS THINGS
we have in Peter. There are: 1 Peter ii. 4. Precious Lord. 1 Peter ii. 1. Precious Corner-Stone. 1 Peter ii. 7. Precious to believers. 1 Peter i. 19. Precious Blood. 2 Peter i. 1. Precious Faith. 1 Peter i. 7. Precious Trial of Faith. 2 Peter i. 4. Precious Promise.
There are the seven points in Galatians — What we are in Christ. Gal. i. 6. Called. Gal. iii. 13. Redeemed. Gal. ii. 16. Justified. Gal. iii. 27. Baptized. Gal. ii. 20. Crucified. Gal. v. 2. Made free. Gal. iv. 7. Heirs of God.
Then there is
THAT WORD “KNOW,”
it occurs six times in 1 John iii. In the 5th verse it says: “And ye know that he was manifest to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” The next is in the 19th verse: “Hereby we know that we are of the truth.” Some people tell us that it doesn’t make any difference; that a lie is as good as the truth if we are only sincere. Why, no doubt those false prophets on Mount Carmel were sincere; but John says, “Hereby we know that we are of the truth” Then, in the 14th r6rse: “We Jcnow that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” There’s assurance for you. Then, in the 15th verse: “He that hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” The Christian is not full of jealousy, envy, hatred, and malice; but he is full of “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” These are the fruits I shall bear if I have Christ in me. Yes, that 5th chapter of Galatians will soon tell us if we have the right kind of fruit. Make the tree right, and you will soon have the right fruit. Then, in the 24th verse: “He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the spirit He hath given us.” Then, in the 2d verse, which is to me the most precious of all: “Beloved, now are we. the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” There’s assurance for you again! In that one chapter there are six assurances. Every truth I get, seems to make me lighter and lighter, till I expect to fly away by-and-by. I once heard Rev. Mr. Aitken tell about a boy who had some gas-bags fastened round him, and they were so light that when he came to a fence or a ditch he had only just to touch the bags and away they carried him right over. And it is just the same when we read the Bible, it makes us lighter and lighter, and we leap over the obstacles in our way. The truth makes us free. A brother in the Lord gave me some key-notes recently. He said Peter wrote about hope. The key-note of Paul’s writing appeared to be faith; and John’s theme was love. “Faith hope, and charity;” these were the three characteristics of the three men — the key-note to the whole of their teachings. A Scotch woman complimented on her faith, replied, her “faith was very weak but it was in a very strong God.” So when Christians are feeling discouraged they have only to think of the God in whom they trust. You take
WHAT OUR GOD IS ABLE TO DO.
Dan. iii. 17. Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace. Matt. iii. 9. God is able of these stones to raise up children. Rom. iv. 21. What he had promised he was able to perform. Rom. xiv. 4. God is able to make him stand. 2 Cor. ix. 8, God is able to make all grace abound. Eph. iii. 20. Able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. 2 Tim. i. 12. Able to keep that which I have committed unto him. Heb. ii. 18. Able to succor them that are- tempted. Heb. vii. 25. Able to save to the uttermost. Jude 24. Able to keep you from falling.
And there is the terrible warning to those who reject Christ in Matt. x. 28. Able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
A study of the
SEVEN WALKS IN EPHESIANS
will be helpful in deciding questions that perplex some Christians. Eph. ii. 1. Walk of obedience. Eph. v. 2. Walk in love. Eph. iv. 1. Walk worthy of the vocation. Eph. v. 15. Walk circumspectly. Eph. v. 8. Walk as children of light. Eph. ii. 10. Walk in good works. Eph. iv. 17. Walk not as other Gentiles walk.
Then, again, I have been greatly blessed by going through
As I said before, he wrote his gospel that we might believe. All through it is “believe, believe, believe.” If you want to persuade a man that Christ is the Son of God, John is the gospel for him. Take him right into and through the gospel of John. Matthew was a Jew, and he writes of Christ as a Jew — as the son of David coming to take his throne. He commences with Abraham, and he treats of the kingdom all the way down to Christ. Mark begins with Malachi. He begins where the Old Testament left off, and speaks of Christ as a servant coming to do the will of God. Luke begins with Zacharias. He takes up the human side and speaks of him as a physician, healing the sick, making the lame to walk, and giving sight to the blind. But John brings him out of the bosom of the Father. He goes beyond Malachi, beyond Abraham, beyond Adam — away beyond the morning stars, and brings Him out of the Father’s bosom, and with one stroke of the pen settles the question of Unitarianism forever. John was no Unitarian; every word he wrote was against it. He says the Son of God was manifest in the flesh. Go through John’s gospel, and study the “believes,” the “verilys,” the “I ams,” and go through the Bible in that way, and it will become a new book to you.
Some one has said that when God sent Moses down into Egypt, he gave him a blank check to be filled out with anything that he wanted. When he stood before Pharaoh he had only to say, The I am that I am has sent me, and the water was turned into blood; the frogs came, and finally death fell upon the first born in all the land, from Pharaoh that sat upon his throne, unto the maid-servant that is behind the mill. In the wilderness he wanted water, and God gave it. And bread was sent from heaven at Moses’ call.
THE “i AMS.” 57
of John’s gospel give us our food, show us our way, and carry us right up to where our risen Lord is. John vi. 35, “I am the Bread of Life.” John viii. 12, “I am the Light of the world.” John viii. 58, “Before Abraham was I Am.” John x. 7, “I am the Door.” John x. 11, “1 am the good Shepherd.” John xi. 25, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” John xiv. 6, “I am the Way.” John xvii. 24, “Be with me where I am.” I have recently gotten seven points in Christian attainment:
Psalms- xxiii. 2, “Lying down” — at rest. Luke xiv. 39, “Sitting” — to lean. Eph. vi. 13, 14, “Standing” — on the defensive. Isaiah xl. 31, “Walking” — on God’s errand. Heb. ii. 1, “Running” — eager to do God’s will. Psalms xviii. 21, “Leaping” — overcome difficulties. Isaiah xl. 31, “Mounting up on wings” — rising above the world.
Another plan, and a good one too, is when a preacher gives out a text, just take and mark it, and as he goes on preaching,
MAKE MARGINAL NOTES,
a few words in the margin, key-words that shall bring back the whole sermon again. By this plan of mak-
58 HOW TO STUDY THE iilBLE.
ing a few marginal notes, I can remember sermons I heard years and years ago. Every man ought to take down some of the preacher’s words and ideas, and then go into some lane or alley and preach them out again to others. We ought to have four ears, two for ourselves and two for other people. Then, if you are in a new town, and have nothing else to say, jump up and say, “I heard some one say so-and-so;” they will always be glad to hear you if you give them heavenly food. The wTorld is perishing for lack of it.
Some eight years ago, I heard an Englishman in Chicago preach from a curious text (Proverbs xxx. 24):” There be
FOUR THINGS
which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise.” “Well,” I said to myself, “what wrill you make of these little things? I have seen them a good many times.” Then he went on reading, “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” He said God’s people were like the ants. “Well,” I -said, “I have seen a good many of them, but I never saw one like me.” They were like the ants, he said, because they were laying up treasure in heaven, and preparing for the future; but the world rushed madly on, and forgot all about God’s command to lay up for ourselves incorruptible treasures. “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks,” He said the conies were very weak things; if you were to throw a stick at one of them you would kill it; but they were very wise, for they built their houses in the rocks, and where they are out of harm’s way. And God’s people are very wise, although very feeble, for they built on the Rock of Ages, and that Rock was Christ. “Well,” I said, “I am certainly like the conies.” Then came the next verse: “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them in bands; “and I wondered what he was going to make of that. Now God’s people, he said, had no king down here; the world said, “Caesar is our king;” but he was not our king, our king was the Lord of hosts. The locusts went out by bands, so did God’s people; here was a Presbyterian band, here an Episcopalian band, here a Methodist band, and so on; but by-and-by the great King would come and catch up all those separate bands, and they would all be one, having one fold and one Shepherd. And when I heard that explanation I said, “I want to be like the locusts.’* I have got so sick, my friends, of this miserable denominationalism, I wish it could all be swept away. Well, he went on again. “The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in the kings’ palaces.” Well, when he got to the spider, I said, “I don’t like that at all, and don’t like the idea of being compared to a spider.” But, he said, if you went into a king’s palace, there you might see the spider hanging on his gossamer web, and looking down with scorn and contempt on the gilded saloon; he was laying hold of things above. And so every child of God ought to be like a spider, and lay hold of the unseen things of God. “And so,”- he said, “you see, my brethren, we who are God’s people are like the ants, the conies, the locusts, and the spider, little things, but exceedingly wise.” I just put that down, and the recollection of it does me as much good now as when I first heard it.
I have carried this Bible wTith me a good many years. It is worth more to me than all the Bibles in this place, and I will tell you why; because I have so many passages marked in it, and if I am called upon to speak at any time I am ready. I have these little words in the margin, and they are a sermon to me.,. Whether I speak about faith, hope, charity, assurance, or any subject whatever, it all comes back to me; and however unexpectedly I am called upon to preach, I am always ready. Every child of God ought to be like a soldier, and always hold himself in readiness, but we can’t be ready if we don’t study the Bible. So whenever you hear a good thing, just put it down, because if it’s good for you it will be good for somebody else; and we should pass the coin of heaven round just as you do the current money of the land.
In 1872 an Englishman said to me,” Moody, did you ever notice this, that
JOB IS THE KEY TO THE WHOLE BIBLE;
if you understand Job you will understand the entire
Bible?” “No,” I said, “I don’t understand that. Job the key to the whole Bible! How do you make that out?” He said, “I divide Job into seven heads. You know ministers generally have a great many heads to their sermons. The first head is: A perfect man untried. That’s what God said about Job; that’s Adam in Eden. He was perfect when God put him there. The second head is: Tried by adversity; and Job fell as Adam fell in Eden. The third head is: The wisdom of the tvorld. The world tries to restore Job; the three wise men came to help Job. That wras the wisdom of the world centred in those three men. You cannot,” said he, “find any such eloquent language or wisdom anywhere in any part of
Clhe world as these three men had; but they did not know anything about grace, and could not therefore help Job.” And that’s just what men are trying to do now, and the result is they fail. Take the scientific men of our day who talk against the Bible. Have they made the world any better? the wisdom of man never made man any better. These three men did not help Job, but they made him worse. Some one has said the first man took him and gave him a good pull, and then the second and the third did the same, and the three of them had three good pulls at Job,
and then flat down they fell. A good many men fall when they get into an argument. Very unprofitable things these arguments are. Job could stand anything better than those three men; he could even have stood a scolding wife better than his three friends. “Then in the fourth place,’’ said he, “in comes the days-man, that is Christ. Then in the fifth place, God speaks, and in the sixth Job learns his lesson. ‘I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,’ and down he went in the dust; he had learnt his lesson. And the seventh head is this, that God restores him.” Thank God, my friends, it is so with us, and
OUR LAST STATE IS BETTER THAN OUR FIRST.
I would rather be a resurrected man with Christ than be Adam in Eden without Christ. Adam might have been in Eden ten thousand years, and then the devil might have come in and he might have fallen. But now Satan cannot get at us, so that we are better off than Adam was in Eden. God came down and gave man an earthly kingdom, and Satan came and said, “I will mar the work of God and destroy it.” But God came down again and said, “I will lift up Adam and all his sons higher, even unto the heavens, and will break the power of Satan;” and God kept his promise, when He gave His Son to die for us. A friend of mine said to me,” Look here, Moody, God gave to Job double of everything. He would not even admit that Job had lost his children, He had taken them all to heaven, and He gave him ten more.,, So Job had ten in heaven and ten on earth — a goodly family. So when our children are taken from us they are not lost to us, but merely gone before.
In conclusion I would advise all young converts to keep in the company as much as they can of more experienced Christians. I like to keep in the society of those who know more than I do, and I never lose a chance of getting all I can out of them. Study the Bible carefully and prayerfully, ask of others what this passage means and what that passage means, and when you have become practically acquainted with the great truths it contains, you will have less to fear from the world, the flesh, ar d the devil.
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