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The Fundamentals 6 :63 ), and so it is that “he that heareth My words”—that is, receiveth them into good and honest hearts—that heareth the Word and understandeth it, “hath everlasting life” (John 5 :24 ). Of no other book could such things as these be said. Hence we say, the Word of God is the instrument in His hand to work in us and for us regeneration and salvation; “ for of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth, the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls” (Jas. 1:18, 21). This leads us to say that we are related to God and the eternal verities revealed in this Book, not through intellectual apprehension and demonstration, but by faith. Not by reason ing, but by simple faith, do we lay hold on these verities, resting our faith in God, who is under and in every saving fact in the Book. (See 1 Pet. 1:21.) It seems to me, there fore, to be the supreme folly for men to be always speculating and reasoning about these spiritual and revealed things; and yet we meet constantly even good people who are thus deal ing with God’s Word. First of all, they treat the revelation as though it were only an opinion expressed concerning the things revealed, and so they feel free to dissent from or receive it with modification, and deal with it as' they would with the generalizations and conclusions,, more or less accurate, of the scientists, and the theories, more or less true, of the philosophers. If the Word commends itself to their judgment they accept it; thus making their judgment the criterion of truth, instead of submitting their opinions to the infallible Word of God. It is not seldom that we hear a person say they believe the Word of God to be true; and then the very next instant, when pressed by some statement or declaration of that Word, they say, “A h ! but then I believe so and so”— something entirely different from what God has declared. Then again, many people who profess to believe God’s Word seem never to think of putting themselves into practical and saving relation to it. They believe that Jesus Christ is the
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