Now I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but one thing I can predict; that every one of our new converts that goes to studying his Bible, and loves this book above every other book, is sure to hold out. The world will have no charm for him; he will get the world under his feet, because in this book he will find something better than the world can give him.
What can botanists tell you of the lily of the valley? You must study this book for that. What can geologists tell you of the Rock of Ages, or mere astronomers about the Bright Morning Star? In those pages we find all knowledge unto salvation; here we read of the ruin of man by nature, redemption by the blood, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost. These three things run all through and through them.
There was never a sermon which you have listened to but in it Christ was seeking for you. I contend that a man cannot but find in every page of this book that Jesus Christ is seeking him through His blessed Word. This is what the Bible is for to seek out the lost.
Look at that Roman soldier as he pushed his spear into the very heart of the God-man. What a hellish deed! But what was the next thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! Oh! thank God, the blood covers sin. There was the blood covering that spear-the very point of it. The very crowning act of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of wickedness was the crowning act of grace.
It is said that old Dr. Alexander, of Princeton College, when a young student used to start out to preach, always gave them a piece of advice. The old man would stand with his gray locks and his venerable face and say: "Young man, make much of the blood in your ministry? Now, I have traveled considerable during the past few years, and never met a minister who made much of the blood and much of the atonement but God had blessed his ministry, and souls were born into the light by it.
Look at Him at Gethsemane, sweating as it were great drops of blood; look at Him on the cross, crucified between two thieves; hear that piercing cry, "Father, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." And as you look into that face, as you look into those wounds on His feet or His hands, will you say He has not the power to save you? Will you say He has not the power so redeem you?
I find that many Christians are in trouble about the future; they think they will not have grace enough to die by. It is much more important that we should have grace enough to live by. It seems to me that death is of very little importance in the meantime. When the dying hour comes, there will be dying grace; but you do not require dying grace to live by.
"Lord, you don't really mean that we shall preach the Gospel to those men that murdered you, to those men that took your life?" "Yes," says the Lord, "go and preach the Gospel to those Jerusalem sinners." I can imagine Him saying: "Go and hunt up that man that put the cruel crown of thorns upon My brow, and preach the Gospel to him. Tell him he shall have a crown in My kingdom without a thorn in it"
Merely reading the Bible is no use at all without we study it thoroughly, and hunt it through, as it were, for some great truth.