Trees are known by their fruit, and books by their effect upon the mind. It is not the elegance of its diction but the excellence of its influence by which a book is to be estimated.
By "the law of the Lord" David means the whole revelation of God, as far as it had been given in his day; but his remark is equally true of all that God has since been pleased to speak by his Spirit.
This holy law may be judged of by its effect upon our own selves; It touches man's very soul, with the best conceivable result; and hence the Psalmist speaks of it in the most eulogistic manner as both perfect and sure. Its effects prove it to be complete and certain.
I. THE WORK OF THE WORD OF GOD IN CONVERSION.Not apart from the Spirit, but as it is used by the Spirit for diverse ends, all needful to salvation.
1. To convince men of sin: they see what perfection is, that God demands it, and that they are far from it.
2. To drive men from false methods of seeking salvation, to bring them to self-despair, and to shut them up to God's method of saving them.
3. To reveal the way of salvation, by grace, through Christ, by faith.
4. To enable the soul to embrace Christ as its all in all. By setting forth promises and invitations, which are opened up to the understanding and sealed to the heart, etc.
The operations of grace by the Word are altogether good and not evil; and they are timed and balanced with infinite discretion. The Word of the Lord works marvelously, perfectly, and surely.
1. It removes despair without quenching repentance.
2. Gives pardon, but does not create presumption.
3. Gives rest, but excites the soul to progress.
4. Breathes security, but engenders watchfulness.
5. Bestows strength and holiness, but begets no boasting.
6. Gives harmony to duties, emotions, hopes, and enjoyments.
7. Brings the man to live for God, before God. and with God; and yet makes him none the less fitted for the daily duties of life.
A remarkable proof that the Bible is its own witness is given by a writer from Oporto, who records the following reply of a man he met crouching in a ditch, to an inquiry as to what book he was reading:-"Well, if you won't betray me, I acknowledge that this is a New Testament. I bought it of a man who was selling such books, and determined to know something of its contents. I dare not tell anybody that I have it, not even my wife. So I have no one to teach me. Yet it is not difficult to understand, for as I read it makes itself plain to me."
"The process of enlightenment in many Romanist minds," says an observer, "is shadowed forth by the experience of one whom I saw but last week. He sat down to read the Bible an hour each evening with his wife. In a few evenings he stopped in the midst of his reading, and said 'Wife, if this book is true, we are wrong.' He read on, and in a few days longer, said, 'Wife, if this book is true, we are lost.' Riveted to the book, and deeply anxious, he still read, and in a week more joyfully exclaainled, 'Wife, if this book is true, we may be saved.' A few weeks more reading, and taught by the Spirit of God through the exhortations and instructions of a City Missionary, they both placed their faith in Christ, and are now rejoicing in hope." — Christian Treasury
I have many books that I cannot sit down to read; they are, indeed, good and sound, but, like halfpence, there goes a great quantity to a small amount; there are silver books, and a very few golden books; but I have one book worth them all, called the Bible. — John Newton
The longer I live the higher is my estimate of an expository ministry, embracing the whole Word of God. I have on purpose tried certain truths to see if they will produce conversion, and I have not failed in any case. Outlying doctrines meet with certain outlying minds which could not be reached by the usual range of teaching. What would seem to be the eccentricities of truth are all needed for impressing eccentric conditions of thought and heart. I prayerfully preached the Resurrection and many were raised to spiritual life; I preached divine sovereignty when a revival was in full swing and it deepened and continued the work. The omission of certain truths from certain ministries may account for their barrenness. O that ministers would believe that the Word needs no improving, but is already perfect, "converting the soul"; and that it requires no suiting to the times, for it still makes wise the simple.
If there is any knowledge fully in our possession, it is certainly that which comes to us by experience. That a certain material will float in the water may be proved by a knowledge of its specific gravity; but we will feel more fully assured of the fact if we have seen it tried, and we will regard our answer to an objector, "1 have seen it floating in water frequently," as simply sufficient to silence all objections. Ay, we will regard such a statement as fully more conclusive than, "It must float, for its specific gravity is lighter than water." On this same principle-and it is the principle of common sense-how fully we can prove that the Bible is the Word of God! Yes, every Christian carries the proof with him in his own experience. A poor Italian woman, a fruit-seller, had received the Word of God in her heart, and became persuaded of the truth of it. Seated at her modest stall at the head of a bridge she made use of every moment in which she was unoccupied in her small traffic, in order to study the sacred volume. "What are you reading there, my good woman?" said a gentleman one day, as he came up to the stall to purchase some fruit. "It is the Word of God;' replied the fruit-vendor. "The Word of God! Who told you that? .... He told me so Himself." "Have you ever spoken with Him, then?" The poor woman felt a little embarrassed, more especially as the gentleman insisted on her giving him some proof of what she believed. Unused to discussion, and feeling greatly at a loss for arguments, she at length exclaimed, looking upward, "Can you prove to me, sir, that there is a sun up if the sky? .... Prove it!" he replied. "Why, the best proof is that it warms me, and that I can see its light." "So it is with me," she replied joyously; "the proof of this Book's being the Word of God is that it warms and lights my soul" — Bertram's Homiletic Encyclopedia
McCheyne somewhere says "Depend upon it; it is God's word, not man's comment on God's word, which converts souls." I have frequently observed that this is the case. A discourse has been the means of conviction or of decision; but usually upon close inquiry I have found that the real instrument was a scripture quoted by the preacher. A large fruit may contain and nourish a tiny seed; when the fruit falls into the ground and the shoot springs up, the real life was in the central pip, and not in the juicy fruit which encompassed it. So the divine truth is the living and incorruptible seed: the sermon is as needful as the apple to its pip; but still the vitality, the energy, the saving power, was in the pip of the Word, and only in a minor sense in the surrounding apple of human exposition and exhortation.