The Word a Sword

The Word a Sword

DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 17, 1887,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12.

THOSE who are fond of a labyrinth of exposition will find a maze
perplexing to the last degree if they will read the various
commentators and expositors upon this verse. This is the question–By
the Word of God, are we here to understand the Incarnate Word, the
Divine Logos, who was in the beginning with God? Or does the passage
relate to this inspired Book, and to the Gospel, which is the kernel of
it, as it is set forth in the preaching of the Truth in the power of

the Holy Spirit?

You shall find Dr. John Owen, with a very large number of eminent
servants of God, defending the first theory, that the Son of God is
doubtless here spoken of. And I confess that they seem to me to defend
it with arguments which I should not like to controvert. Much more is
to be said on this side of the question than I can here bring before
you. On the other side, we find John Calvin, with an equally grand
array of divines, all declaring that it must be the Book that is meant,
the Gospel, the Revelation of God in the Book. Their interpretation of
the passage is not to be set aside and I feel convinced that they all
give as good reasons for their interpretation as those who come to the
other conclusion.

Where such Doctors differ, I am not inclined to present any
interpretation of my own which can be set in competition with theirs
though I may venture to propound one which comprehends them all and so
comes into conflict with none. It is a happy circumstance if we can see
a way to agree with all those who did not themselves agree. But I have
been greatly instructed by the mere fact that it should be difficult to
know whether in this passage the Holy Spirit is speaking of the Christ
of God, or the Book of God.

This shows us a great Truth of God which we might not otherwise have so
clearly noted. How much that can be said of the Lord Jesus may be also
said of the inspired volume! How closely are these two allied! How
certainly do those who despise the one reject the other! How intimately
are the Word made flesh and the Word uttered by inspired men, joined
together!

It may be most accurate to interpret this passage as relating both to
the Word of God Incarnate and the Word of God Inspired. Weave the two
into one thought, for God has joined them together, and you will then
see fresh lights and new meanings in the text. The Word of God, namely,
this Revelation of Himself in Holy Scripture, is all it is here
described to be, because Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, is in it. He
does, as it were, incarnate Himself as the Divine Truth in this visible
and manifest Revelation. And thus it becomes living and powerful,
dividing and discerning.

As the Christ reveals God, so this Book reveals Christ, and therefore
it partakes, as the Word of God, in all the attributes of the Incarnate
Word. And we may say many of the same things of the written Word as of
the embodied Word. In fact, they are now so linked together that it
would be impossible to divide them. This I like to think of, because
there are some nowadays who deny every doctrine of Revelation and yet,
indeed, they praise the Christ. The Teacher is spoken of in the most
flattering style and then His teaching is rejected, except so far as it
may coincide with the philosophy of the moment.

They talk much about Jesus, while that which is the real Jesus, namely,
His Gospel and His inspired Word, they cast away. I believe I do but
correctly describe them when I say that, like Judas, they betray the
Son of Man with a kiss. They even go so far as to cry up the names of
the doctrines, though they use them in a different sense that they may
deceive. They talk of loyalty to Christ and reverence for the Sermon on
the Mount–but they use vain words. I am charged with

sowing suspicion. I do sow it and desire to sow it. Too many Christian
people are content to hear anything so long as it is put forth by a
clever man, in a taking manner.

I want them to try the spirits, whether they are of God, for many false
prophets have gone forth into the world. What God has joined together,
these modern thinkers willfully put asunder and separate the Revealer
from His own Revelation. I believe the Savior thinks their homage to be
more insulting than their scorn would be. Well may He do so, for they
bow before Him and say, "Hail, Master!" while their foot is on the
blood of His Covenant and their souls abhor the doctrine of His
substi-tutionary sacrifice.

They are crucifying the Lord afresh and putting Him to an open shame by
denying the Lord that bought them, by daring to deride His purchase of
His people as a "mercantile transaction," and I know not what of
blasphemy beside. Christ and His Word must go together. What is true of
the Christ is here predicated both of Him and of His Word. Behold this
day the everlasting Gospel has Christ within it. He rides in it as in a
chariot. He rides in it as, of old, Jehovah "did ride upon a cherub and
did fly–yes, He did fly upon the wings of the wind." It is only
because Jesus is not dead that the Word becomes living and effectual,
"and sharper than any two-edged sword."

If you leave Christ out of it, you have left out its vitality and
power. As I have told you that we will not have Christ without the
Word, so neither will we have the Word without Christ. If you leave
Christ out of Scripture, you have left out the essential Truth of God
which it is written to declare. Yes, if you leave out of it Christ as a
Substitute, Christ in His death, Christ in His garments dyed in blood,
you have left out of it all that is living and powerful. How often have
we reminded you that as concerning the Gospel, even as concerning every
man, "the blood is the life thereof"–a bloodless Gospel is a lifeless
Gospel!

A famous picture has been lately produced, which represents our Lord
before Pilate. It has deservedly won great attention. A certain
excellent newspaper which brings out for a very cheap price a large
number of engravings, has given an engraving of this picture. But,
inasmuch as the painting was too large for the paper to print it all,
they have copied a portion of it. It is interesting to note that they
have given us Pilate here and Caiaphas there but since there was no
room for Jesus upon the sheet, they have left out that part of the
design. When I saw the picture, I thought that it was wonderfully
characteristic of a great deal of modern preaching.

See Pilate here, Caiaphas there, and the Jews yonder–but the Victim,
bound and scourged for human sin–is omitted. Possibly, in the case of
the publication, the figure of the Christ will appear in the next
issue. But even if He should appear in the next sermon of our preachers
of the new theology, it will be as a moral example and not as the
Substitute for the guilty, the Sin-bearer by whose death we are
redeemed. When we hear a sermon with no Christ in it, we hope that He
will come out next Sunday. At the same time, the preaching is, so far,
spoilt and the presentation of the Gospel is entirely erroneous so long
as the principal Figure is left out.

Oh, it is a sad thing to have to stand in any house of prayer and
listen to the preaching and then have to cry, "They have taken away my
Lord and I know not where they have laid Him"! Rest assured that they
have laid Him in a tomb. You may be quite certain of that. They have
put Him away as a dead thing and to them He is as good as dead. True
Believer, you may comfort your heart with this recollection–He will
rise again. He cannot be held by the bonds of death in any sense. And,
though His own Church should bury Him and lay the huge lid of the most
enormous sarcophagus of heresy upon Him, the Redeemer will rise again
and His Truth with Him and He and His Word will live and reign together
forever and ever.

Brethren, you will understand I am going to speak about the Word of God
as being like the Lord Jesus, the Revelation of God. This inspired
volume is that Gospel whereby you have received life unless you have
heard it in vain. It is this Gospel, with Jesus within it, Jesus
working by it–which is said to be living and effectual and "sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart." I shall only talk with you in very
simple style. First, concerning the qualities of the Word of God. And,
secondly, concerning certain practical lessons which these qualities
suggest to us.

I. First let me speak CONCERNING THE QUALITIES OF THE WORD OF GOD. It
is "quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." The Word
of God is said to be "quick." I am sorry the translators have used that
word because it is apt to be mistaken as meaning speedy and that is not
the meaning at all. It means alive, or living. "Quick" is the old
English word for alive and so we read of the "quick and the dead." The
Word of God is alive. This is a living Book. This is a mystery which
only living men, quickened by the Spirit of God, will fully comprehend.
Take up any other book except the Bible and there may be a measure of
power in it, but there is not that indescribable vitality in it which
breathes and speaks–and pleads and conquers in the case of this sacred
volume.

We have in the book market many excellent selections of choice passages
from great authors and in a few instances the persons who have made the
extracts have been at the pains to place under their quotations from
Scripture the name "David," or "Jesus," but this is worse than
needless. There is a style of majesty about God's Word and with this
majesty a vividness never found elsewhere. No other writing has within
it a heavenly life whereby it works miracles and even imparts life to
its reader. It is a living and incorruptible seed. It moves, it stirs
itself, it lives, it communes with living men as a living Word. Solomon
says concerning it, "When you go, it shall lead you. When you sleep, it
shall keep you. And when you awake, it shall talk with

you."

Have you ever known what that means? Why, the Book has wrestled with
me. The Book has smitten me. The Book has comforted me. The Book has
smiled on me. The Book has frowned on me. The Book has clasped my hand.
The Book has warmed my heart. The Book weeps with me and sings with me.
It whispers to me and it preaches to me. It maps my way and holds up my
goings. It was to me the Young Man's Best Companion and it is still my
Morning and Evening Chaplain. It is a living Book–all over alive–from
its first chapter to its last word it is full of a strange, mystic
vitality which makes it have pre-eminence over every other writing for
every living child of God.

See, my Brothers and Sisters, our words, our books, our spoken or our
printed words by-and-by die out. How many books there are which nobody
will ever read now because they are out of date? There are many books
that I could read profitably when I was a youth but they would teach me
nothing now. There are also certain religious works which I could read
with pleasure during the first ten years of my spiritual life. But I
should never think of reading them now, any more than I should think of
reading the "a-b ab," and the "b-a ba," of my childhood. Christian
experience causes us to outgrow the works which were the textbooks of
our youth.

We may outgrow teachers and pastors but not Apostles and Prophets. That
human system which was once vigorous and influential may grow old, and
at length lose all vitality. But the Word of God is always fresh and
new and full of force. No wrinkle mars its brow–no trembling is in its
foot. Here, in the Old and New Testaments, we have at once the oldest
and the newest of books. Homer and Hesiod are infants to the more
ancient parts of this venerable volume, and yet the Gospel which it
contains is as truly new as this morning's newspaper. I say again that
our words come and go–as the trees of the forest multiply their leaves
only to cast them off as withered things–so the thoughts and theories
of men are but for the season and then they fade and rot into
nothingness.

"The grass withers and the flower thereof falls away–but the Word of
the Lord endures forever." Its vitality is such as it can impart to its
readers. Hence, you will often find, when you converse with Revelation,
that if you yourself are dead when you begin to read, it does not
matter–you will be quickened as you peruse it. You need not bring life
to the Scripture. You shall draw life from the Scripture. Oftentimes a
single verse has made us start up–as Lazarus came forth at the call of
the Lord Jesus. When our soul has been faint and ready to die, a single
word, applied to the heart by the Spirit of God, has aroused us.

It is a quickening as well as a living Word. I am so glad of this
because at times I feel altogether dead. But the Word of God is not
dead. And coming to it we are like the dead man, who, when he was put
into the grave of the Prophet, rose again as soon as he touched his
bones. Even these bones of the Prophets, these words of theirs spoken
and written thousands of years ago, will impart life to those who come
into contact with them. The Word of God is thus exceedingly alive. I
may add it is so alive that you need never be afraid that it will
become extinct.

They dream–they dream that they have put us among the
antiquities–those of us who preach the old Gospel that our fathers
loved! They sneer at the doctrines of the Apostles and of the Reformers
and declare that Believers in them are left high and dry–the relics of
an age which has long since ebbed away. Yes, so they say! But what they
say may not after all be true. For the Gospel is such a living Gospel
that if it were cut into a thousand shreds every particle of it would
live and grow. If it were buried beneath a thousand avalanches of
error, it would shake off the incubus and rise from its grave, If it
were cast into the midst of fire it would walk through the flame as it
has done many a time, as though it were in its natural element.

The Reformation was largely due to a copy of the Scriptures left in the
seclusion of a monastery and there hidden till Luther came under its
influence and his heart furnished soil for the living seed to grow in.
Leave but a single New Testament in a Popish community and the
evangelical faith may at any moment come to the front–even though no
preacher of it may ever have come that way. Plants unknown in certain
regions have suddenly sprung from the soil–the seeds have been wafted
on the winds, carried by birds, or washed ashore by the waves of the
sea. So vital are seeds that they live and grow wherever they are
borne.

And even after lying deep in the soil for centuries, when the upturning
spade has brought them to the surface, they have germinated at once.
Thus is it with the Word of God–it lives and abides forever and in
every soil and under all circumstances

it is prepared to prove its own life by the energy with which it grows
and produces fruit to the glory of God. How vain, as well as wicked,
are all attempts to kill the Gospel. Those who attempt the crime, in
any fashion, will be forever still beginning and never coming near
their end. They will be disappointed in all cases, whether they would
slay it with persecution, smother it with worldliness, crush it with
error, starve it with neglect, poison it with misrepresentation, or
drown it with infidelity. While God lives His Word shall live. Let us
praise God for that. We have an immortal Gospel incapable of being
destroyed which shall live and shine when the lamp of the sun has
consumed its scant supply of oil.

In our text the Word is said to be "powerful" or "active." Perhaps
"energetic" is the best rendering, or almost as well, "effectual." Holy
Scripture is full of power and energy. Oh, the majesty of the Word of
God! They charge us with Bibliolatry. It is a crime of their own
inventing, of which few are guilty. If there are such things as venial
sins, surely an undue reverence of Holy Scripture is one of them. To me
the Bible is not God, but it is God's voice–and I do not hear it
without awe. What an honor to have as one's calling to study, to
expound and to publish this sacred Word! I cannot help feeling that the
man who preaches the Word of God is standing, not upon a mere platform,
but upon a throne.

You may study your sermon, my Brother, and you may be a great
rhetorician and be able to deliver it with wonderful fluency and force.
But the only power that is effectual for the highest design of
preaching is the power which does not lie in your word nor in my word
but in the Word of God. Have you ever noticed, when persons are
converted, that they almost always attribute it to some text that was
quoted in the sermon? It is God's Word, not our comment on God's Word,
which saves souls. The Word of God is powerful for all sacred ends. How
powerful it is to convince men of sin!

We have seen the self-righteous turned inside out by the revealed Truth
of God. Nothing else could have brought home to them such unpleasant
Truths and compelled them to see themselves as in a clear mirror but
the searching Word of God. How powerful it is for conversion! It comes
on board a man and without asking any leave from him, it just puts its
hand on the helm and turns him round in the opposite direction from
that in which he was going before. And the man gladly yields to the
irresistible force which influences his understanding and rules his
will. The Word of God is that by which sin is slain and Divine Grace is
born in the heart. It is the light which brings life with it.

How active and energetic it is, when the soul is convicted of sin, in
bringing it forth into Gospel liberty! We have seen men shut up as in
the devil's own dungeon and we have tried to get them free. We have
shaken the bars of iron but we could not tear them out so as to set the
captives at liberty. But the Word of the Lord is a great breaker of
bolts and bars. It not only casts down the strongholds of doubt but it
cuts off the head of Giant Despair. No cell or cellar in Doubting
Castle can hold a soul in bondage when the Word of God, which is the
master key, is once put to its true use and made to throw back bolts of
despondency.

It is living and energetic for encouragement and enlargement. O
Beloved, what a wonderful power the Gospel has to bring us comfort! It
brought us to Christ at first and it still leads us to look to Christ
till we grow like He. God's children are not sanctified by legal
methods but by gracious ones. The Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, is
exceedingly powerful in promoting sanctification and bringing about
that whole-hearted consecration which is both our duty and our
privilege. May the Lord cause His Word to prove its power in us by
making us fruitful unto every good work to do His will! Through the
"washing of water by the Word"–that is, through the washing by the
Word–may we be cleansed every day and made to walk in white before the
Lord, adorning the doctrine of God our Savior in all things!

The Word of God, then, is quick and powerful in our own personal
experience and we shall find it to be so if we use it in laboring to
bless our fellow men. Dear Brethren, if you seek to do good in this sad
world, and want a powerful weapon to work with, stick to the Gospel,
the living Gospel, the old, old Gospel. There is a power in it
sufficient to meet the sin and death of human nature. All the thoughts
of men, use them as earnestly as you may, will be like tickling
Leviathan with a straw. Nothing can get through the scales of this
monster but the Word of God. This is a weapon made of sterner stuff
than steel and it will cut through coats of mail.

Nothing can resist it. "Where the word of a king is, there is power."
About the Gospel, when spoken with the Holy Spirit sent down from
Heaven, there is the same omnipotence as there was in the Word of God
when in the beginning He spoke to the primeval darkness saying, "Let
there be light," and there was light. Oh how we ought to prize and love
the Revelation of God. Not only because it is full of life but because
that life is exceedingly energetic and effectual and operates so
powerfully upon the lives and hearts of men.

Next, the Apostle tells us that His Word is cutting. "Cutting" would be
as correct a translation as that of our own version–it is "more
cutting than any two-edged sword." I suppose the Apostle means by the
description "two-edged" that it is all edge. A sword with two edges has
no blunt side–it cuts both this way and that. The Revelation of God
given us in Holy

Scripture is edge all over. It is alive in every part and in every part
keen to cut the conscience and wound the heart. Depend upon it, there
is not a superfluous verse in the Bible nor a chapter which is useless.
Doctors say of certain drugs that they are inert–they have no effect
upon the system one way or the other.

Now, there is not an inert passage in the Scriptures–every line has
its virtues. Have you ever heard of one who read, as the lesson for the
Sabbath Day, that long chapter of names wherein it is written that each
Patriarch lived so many hundred years, "and he died"? Thus it ends the
notice of the long life of Methuselah with "and he died." The
repetition of the words, "and he died," woke the thoughtless hearer to
a sense of his mortality and led to his coming to the Savior. I should
not wonder that, away there in the Chronicles, among those tough Hebrew
names, there have been conversions worked in cases unknown to us as
yet.

Anyhow, any bit of Holy Writ is very dangerous to play with and many a
man has been wounded by the Scriptures when he has been idly, or even
profanely reading them. Doubters have meant to break the Word to pieces
and it has broken them. Yes, fools have taken up portions and studied
them on purpose to ridicule them and they have been sobered and
vanquished by that which they repeated in sport. There was one who went
to hear Mr. Whitefield–a member of the "Hell-fire Club," a desperate
fellow. He stood up at the next meeting of his abominable associates
and he delivered Mr. Whitefield's sermon with wonderful accuracy,
imitating his very tone and manner.

In the middle of his exhortation the Lord converted him and he came to
a sudden pause, sat down broken-hearted and confessed the power of the
Gospel. That club was dissolved. That remarkable convert was Mr.
Thorpe, of Bristol, whom God so greatly used afterwards in the
salvation of others. I would rather have you read the Bible, to mock at
it, than not read it at all. I would rather that you came to hear the
Word of God, out of hatred to it, than that you never came at all.

The Word of God is so sharp a thing, so full of cutting power, that you
may be bleeding under its wounds before you have seriously suspected
the possibility of such a thing. You cannot come near the Gospel
without its having a measure of influence over you. And, God blessing
you, it may cut down and kill your sins when you have no idea that such
a work is being done. Dear Friends, have you not found the Word of God
to be very cutting, more cutting than a two-edged sword, so that your
heart has bled inwardly and you have been unable to resist the heavenly
stroke?

I trust you and I may go on to know more and more of its edge till it
has killed us outright, so far as the life of sin is concerned. Oh, to
be sacrificed unto God and His Word to be the sacrificial knife! Oh,
that His Word were put to the throat of every sinful tendency, every
sinful habit and every sinful thought! There is no sin-killer like the
Word of God. Wherever it comes, it comes as a sword and inflicts death
upon evil.

Sometimes when we are praying that we may feel the power of the Word we
hardly know what we are praying for. I saw a venerable brother the
other day and he said to me, "I remember speaking with you when you
were nineteen or twenty years of age and I never forgot what you said
to me. I had been praying with you in the Prayer Meeting, that God
would give us the Holy Spirit to the full, and you said to me
afterwards, 'My dear Brother, do you know what you asked God for?' I
answered, 'Yes.' But you very solemnly said to me, 'The Holy Spirit is
the Spirit ofjudgment and the Spirit of burning and few are prepared
for the inward conflict which is meant by these two words.' " My good
old friend told me that at the time he did not understand what I meant
but thought me a singular youth.

"Ah," said he, "I see it now but it is only by a painful experience
that I have come to the full comprehension of it." Yes, when Christ
comes, He comes not to send peace on the earth, but a sword. And that
sword begins at home, in our own souls, killing, cutting, hacking,
breaking in pieces. Blessed is that man who knows the Word of the Lord
by its exceeding sharpness, for it kills nothing but that which ought
to be killed. It quickens and gives new life to all that is of God. But
the old depraved life which ought to die, it hews in pieces, as Samuel
destroyed Agag before the Lord. "For the Word of God is quick, and
powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword."

But I want you to notice next, that it has a further quality–it is
piercing. While it has an edge like a sword, it has also a point like a
rapier, "Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit." The
difficulty with some men's hearts is to get at them. In fact, there is
no spiritually penetrating the heart of any natural man except by this
piercing instrument, the Word of God. But the rapier of Revelation will
go through anything. Even when the "heart is as fat as grease," as the
Psalmist says, yet His Word will pierce it.

Into the very marrow of the man, sacred Truth will pass and find him
out in a way in which he cannot even find himself out. As it is with
our own hearts, so it is with the hearts of other men. Dear Friends,
the Gospel can find its way anywhere. Men may wrap themselves up in
prejudice but this rapier can find out the joints of their harness.
They may resolve not to believe and may feel content in their
self-righteousness but this piercing weapon will find its way. The
arrows of the Word of

God are sharp in the hearts of the King's enemies, whereby the people
fall under him. Let us not be afraid to trust this weapon whenever we
are called up to face the adversaries of the Lord Jesus. We can pin
them and pierce them and finish them with this.

And next, the Word of God is said to be discriminating. It divides
asunder soul and spirit. Nothing else could do that for the division is
difficult. In a great many ways writers have tried to describe the
difference between soul and spirit. But I question whether they have
succeeded. No doubt it is a very admirable definition to say, "The soul
is the life of the natural man, and the spirit the life of the
regenerate or spiritual man." But it is one thing to define and quite
another thing to divide.

We will not attempt to solve this metaphysical problem. God's Word
comes in and it shows man the difference between that which is of the
soul and that which is of the spirit. That which is of man and that
which is of God. That which is of Divine Grace and that which is of
nature. The Word of God is wonderfully decisive about this. Oh, how
much there is of our religion which is–to quote a spiritual poet–"The
child of nature finely-dressed, but not the living child"–it is of the
soul and not of the spirit!

The Word of God lays down very straight lines and separates between the
natural and the spiritual, the carnal and the Divine. You would think
sometimes, from the public prayers and preaching of clergymen, that we
were all Christian people. But Holy Scripture does not sanction this
flattering estimate of our condition. When we are gathered together the
prayers are for us all and the preaching is for us all, as being all
God's people–all born so, or made so by Baptism, no question about
that! Yet the way the Word of God talks is of quite another sort.

It talks about the dead and the living–about the repentant and the
impenitent. It talks about the believing and the unbe-lieving–about
the blind and the seeing–about those called of God and those who still
lie in the arms of the Wicked One. It speaks with keen discrimination
and separates the precious from the vile. I believe there is nothing in
the world that divides congregations, as they ought to be divided, like
the plain preaching of the Word of God. This it is that makes our
places of worship to be solemn spots, even as Dr. Watts sings–

"Up to her courts with joys unknown

The holy tribes repair;

The Son of David holds the throne,

And sits in judgment there.

He hears our praises and complaints;

And, while His awful voice

Divides the sinners from the saints,

We tremble and rejoice." The Word of God is discriminating.

Once more, the Word of God is marvelously revealing to the inner self.
It pierces between the joints and marrow– and marrow is a thing not to
be got at very readily. The Word of God gets at the very marrow of our
manhood–it lays bare the secret thoughts of the soul. It is "a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Have you not
often, in hearing the Word, wondered how the preacher could so unveil
that which you had concealed? He says the very things in the pulpit
which you had uttered in your bed-chamber. Yes, that is one of the
marks of the Word of God–that it lays bare a man's inmost secrets. It
shows him that which he had not even himself perceived. The Christ that
is in the Word sees everything. Read the next verse–"All things are
naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

The Word not only lets you see what your thoughts are, but it
criticizes your thoughts. The Word of God says of this thought, "it is
vain," and of that thought, "it is acceptable." Of this thought, "it is
selfish," and of that thought, "it is Christ-like." It is a Judge of
the thoughts of men. And the Word of God is such a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart that when men twist about and wind
and wander, yet it tracks them. There is nothing so difficult to get at
as a man. You may hunt a badger and run down a fox but you cannot get
at a man–he has so many doublings and hiding places. Yet the Word of
God will dig him out and seize on him. When the Spirit of God works
with the Gospel, the man may dodge and twist but the preaching goes to
his heart and conscience and he is made to feel it and to yield to its
force.

Many times, I do not doubt, dear Brothers and Sisters, you have found
comfort in the discerning power of the Word. Unkind lips have found
great fault with you. You have been trying to do what you could for the
Lord and an enemy has slandered you and then it has been a delight to
remember that the Master discerns your motive. Holy Scripture has made
you sure of this by the way in which it understood and commended you.
He discerns the true object of your heart and never misinterprets you.
And this has inspired you with a firm resolve to be the faithful
servant of so just a Lord. No

slander will survive the Judgment Seat of Christ. We are not to be
tried by the opinions of men but by the impartial Word of the Lord. And
therefore, we rest in peace.

II. I have been all this while over the first part of the discourse. I
have only a minute or two just to show ONE OR TWO LESSONS WE OUGHT TO
GATHER FROM THE QUALITIES OF THE WORD OF GOD that I have described.

The first is this–Brothers and Sisters, let us greatly reverence the
Word of God. If it is all this, let us read it, study it, prize it and
make it the man of our right hand. And you that are not converted, I do
pray you treat the Bible with a holy love and reverence and read it
with the view of finding Christ and His salvation in it. Augustine used
to say that the Scriptures are the swaddling-bands of the child Christ
Jesus–while you are unrolling the bands, I trust you will meet with
Him.

Next, dear Friends, let us, whenever we feel ourselves dead and
especially in prayer, get close to the Word, for the Word of God is
alive. I do not find that gracious men always pray alike. Who could?
When you have nothing to say to your God, let Him say something to you.
The best private devotion is made up half of searching Scripture in
which God speaks to us and the other half of prayer and praise in which
we speak to God. When you are dead, turn from your death to that which
still lives.

Next, whenever we feel weak in our duties let us go to the Word of God
and the Christ in the Word, for power. And this will be the best of
power. The power of our natural abilities, the power of our acquired
knowledge, the power of our gathered experience–all these may be
vanity–but the power which is in the Word will prove effectual. Get up
from the cistern of your failing strength to the fountain of
omnipotence. For they that drink here, while the youths shall faint and
are weary and the young men shall utterly fall, shall run and not be
weary and shall walk and not faint.

Next, if you need, as a minister, or a worker, anything that will cut
your hearers to the heart, go to this Book for it. I say this because I
have known preachers try to use very cutting words of their own. God
save us from that! When our hearts grow hot and our words are apt to be
sharp as a razor, let us remember that the wrath of man works not the
righteousness of God. Let us not attempt to carry on Christ's war with
the weapons of Satan. There is nothing so cutting as the Word of God.
Keep to that.

I believe, also, that one of the best ways of convincing men of error
is not so much to denounce the error as to proclaim the Truth more
clearly. If a stick is very crooked and you wish to prove that it is
so, get a straight one and quietly lay it down by its side. When men
look they will surely see the difference. The Word of God has a very
keen edge about it and all the cutting words you want you had better
borrow therefrom.

And next, the Word of God is very piercing. When we cannot get at
people by God's Truth, we cannot get at them at all. I have heard of
preachers who have thought they ought to adapt themselves a little to
certain people and leave out portions of the Truth of God which might
be disagreeable. Brothers, if the Word of God will not pierce, our
words will not–you may depend upon that. The Word of God is like the
sword of Goliath which had been laid up in the sanctuary, of which
David said, "There is none like it, give it to me."

Why did he like it so well? I think he liked it all the better because
it had been laid up in the Holy Place by the priests. That is one
thing. But I think he liked it best of all because it had stains of
blood upon it–the blood of Goliath. I like my own sword because it is
covered with blood right up to the hilt–the blood of slaughtered sins
and errors and prejudices has made it like the sword of Don Rodrigo,
"of a dark and purple tint." The slain of the Lord have been many by
the old Gospel. We point to many vanquished by this true Jerusalem
blade.

They desire me to use a new one. I have not tried it. What have I to do
with a weapon which has seen no service? I have proved the Sword of the
Lord and of Gideon and I mean to keep to it. My dear Comrades in Arms,
gird this sword about you and disdain the wooden weapons with which
enemies would delude you! Let us use this blade of steel, well tempered
in the fire, against the most obstinate, for they cannot stand against
it. They may resist it for a time but they will have to yield. They had
better make preparations for surrender. For if the Lord comes out
against them with His own Word, they will have to give in and cry to
Him for mercy.

Next, if we want to discriminate at any time between the soul and the
Spirit and the joints and marrow, let us go to the Word of God for
discrimination. We need to use the Word of God just now upon several
subjects. There is that matter of holiness, upon which one says one
thing, and another says something else. Never mind what they all
say–go to the

Book–for this is the umpire on all questions. Amidst the controversies
of the day about a thousand subjects, keep to this infallible Book and
it will guide you unerringly.

And lastly, since this Book is meant to be a discerner, or critic, of
the thoughts and intents of the heart, let the Book criticize us. When
you have issued a new volume from the press–which you do every day,
for every day is a new treatise from the press of life–take it to this
great critic and let the Word of God judge it. If the Word of God
approves you, you are approved. If the Word of God disapproves you, you
are disapproved. Have friends praised you? They may be your enemies in
so doing. Have other observers abused you? They may be wrong or right,
let the Book decide.

A man of one Book–if that Book is the Bible–is a man, for he is a man
of God. Cling to the living Word and let the Gospel of your fathers,
let the Gospel of the martyrs, let the Gospel of the Reformers, let the
Gospel of the blood-washed multitude before the Throne of God, the
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ–be your Gospel and none but that– and
it will save you and make you the means of saving others to the praise
of God. Adapted from The c.h. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0,