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THE KING’ S BUSINESS
words are closed up and sealed till the time o f the end.” This certainly looks as if Daniel was writing about things he under stood not, and therefore could not have himself guessed or invented. Again, Baalam, while under inspiration, tried again and again, to give expression ta his own words for the sake o f the reward (Jude 11), but found it an absolute impos sibility and was compelled to make this remarkable confession : “ Have I now any power at all to say anything? The word that God putteth in my mouthy that shall I speak” (Numbers 22:38). It was the “ Spirit o f God which was in them that did signify” (1 Peter 1:10-12). These “ holy men o f God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” LIGHT IS FROM GOD O f course, there is a sense, a very real sense too, in which the meaning and expo sition o f the Scripture is from God. The Holy Spirit is the expositor o f the Word as He is its source. Study the prophets, but do not think you can study them any way you want to. There is a right way, and there is a wrong way. You may wrest the Scriptures, as did the false teachers, of whom the apostle speaks in 2 Peter 3 :16. The Holy Spirit is the interpreter, as Christ is the key to the understanding of the Scriptures. W e need yet to have the W ord opened unto us as Christ opened it unto the disciples on the way to Efnmaus. W e may err in the study o f the Bible. We need a guide, and that guide is the Holy Spirit. “ But God hath rqvealed them unto us by his Spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things o f God. Fpr what man knoweth the things o f a man, save the spirit o f man which is in him? even so the things o f God knoweth no man, but the Spirit o f God. Now we have received, not the spirit o f the world, but the spirit which is o f God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us o f God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost, teacheth com-
ings. That process by which the prophets revealed previously hidden or secret things is here called “ interpretation.” PROPHECY NOT HUMAN To sum up then: prophecy is not human in its origin, nor is it the word o f a pri vate individual, o f any one man or men at any time. It is a heavenly and supernat ural message made sure and certain by its fulfilments. The Scripture is, according to Peter, an illumination to which man could not have attained by any wisdom o f his own, nay, could not even have framed the Wish to attain unto. It lay hid among God’s mysteries, and could be loosed only by Him. Prophecy is by no means the fruit o f the prophet’s own calculations as to events likely to happen in the future. That the prophets did not originate their own message is clear also from another passage in the first epistle of Peter: “ O f which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied o f the grace that should come unto you; searching what or what manner o f time the Spirit o f Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings o f Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister ,the things,” etc. (1:10-12). In the light o f such a passage as this how can it be claimed that these prophets based their messages on conjecture or human cal culation? Prophecy is not the result of the sagacious and shrewd insight o f men, who, recognizing certain general principles o f God’s government o f the world with ref erence to righteousness and unrighteous ness, on the basis o f which, together with their study o f men and events, were thus enabled to predict future things. The very men who wrote these prophecies had to study them for themselves. It was for future generations and not for themselves that they were writing (1 Peter 1:10-12). Again, Daniel (12:8, 9), says, “ I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end o f these things? And He said, Go thy way, Daniel; for the
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