The Bible As A Power ~ F GOD has spoken to us in the Bible, and m ili this Divine revelation is our supreme and ~ final authority; and if its message is Christ, 1:£ as the manifestation of God for human life, c:':E the next point is, How can this message become vital, how can it be made real in our life and work?. The answer is, By the Holy Spirit. My subject, The Bible as a Power, is really the Holy Spirit in rela tion to the Bible. I. The Source of the Bible. \Ve believe that the Bible comes from God, a Divine Source, through and by means of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament prophets, for instance, claimed to be the recipients of Divine revelation. "The word of the Lord came;" "the Lord spake;" "the word of God;" "God said;" "the Lord commanded." Phrases like these are fo1111d 11early seven hundred times in the Pe11tate1tcli a/011e. Very many times Jeremiah claims to be actuated by God's commands. These phrases to which I have referred are found scattered throughout the Scriptures no less than three thousand times altogether. And there is one verse which, whatever else it means, certainly makes this plain: 2 Sam. 23 :2, "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was on my tongue." Now in harmony with this in the Old Testament, we have in the New Testament the presence and power of the Holy Spirit claimed. It is sometimes overlooked that in some passages there is no reference whatever t~ ~he human writer of the Scripture, but only to the D1vme Author. In Heb. 3 : "The Holy Ghost saith." What are we to make of that? It refers to Psa. 95. It was written by a man, David or some one else, yet here there is no
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