“The Bible found me.”
G. Campbell Morgan, pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, described a crisis of faith that centered around the Bible and the role that it would have in his life.
For two years my Bible was shut; two years of sadness and sorrow. Strange, alluring materialistic theories were in the air, and to these I turned . . . I became well-versed in the philosophies that were the vogue in England at that time, but from them I got no relief.
In my despair I took all the books that I had, placed them in a cupboard, turned the key, and there they remained for seven years. I bought a new Bible, and began to read it with an open mind and a determined will. That Bible found me.
The Book gave forth a glow which warmed my heart, and the Word of God which I read to therein gave to my troubled soul the relief and satisfaction that I had sought for elsewhere. Since that time I have lived for one end—to preach the teachings of the Book that found me.
G. Campbell Morgan
Without this transcendent Word in its life, the church has no rudder, no compass, no provisions.
Without the Word, it has no capacity to stand outside its culture, to detect and wrench itself free from the seductions of modernity.
Without the Word, the church has no meaning. It may seek substitutes for meaning in committee work, relief work, and various other church activities, but such things cannot fill the role for very long.
Cut off from the meaning that God has given, faith cannot offer anything more by way of light in our dark world, than what is offered by philosophy, psychology, or sociology.
Cut off from God’s meaning, the church is cut off from God; it loses its identity as the people of God in belief, in practice, in hope.
Cut off from God’s word, the church is on its own, left to live for itself, by itself, upon itself.
It is never lifted beyond itself, above its culture.
It is never stretched or tried.
It grows more comfortable, but it is the comfort of anesthesia, of a refusal to pay attention to the disturbing realities of God’s truth.
GOD IN THE WASTELAND David E. Wells
We need often to be in a solitary place, alone, for a hearkening to the Word of God in an hour like this. We need a shut door, a bowed heart, a listening ear, a believing soul, a mood of expectance, as we open again these pages.
This is the supreme hour to put away everything trivial, to demand of ourselves a more careful use of time, a severer discipline of mind, a determination that secondary things will not rule where primary things ought only to be enthroned.”
Wilbur Smith CHATS FROM A MINISTER’S LIBRARY
This Sunday, Randall Gruendyke will remind us again of the need for the Word of God to take priority in our lives. Come ready to think about scripture as a means of grace that God has provided us with to get to know him better. And may the Bible “find us” again as we worship.
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