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The Fire of the Bible

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 20, 1870

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 1.

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The Fire of the Bible.

By D. F. Newton

“One fragment of His blessed word Into thy spirit burned, Is better than the whole half heard, And by thy interests turned.”
Improve your style of composition, will it? Wonderfully—nothing like it. It is fire, fire, all the way from Genesis to Revelation—the fire of beauty, the fire of sublimity. The Psalms are full of it, Isaiah is full of it, Jeremiah is full of it, Ezekiel is full of it, David is full of it, Hosea is full of it, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah, and Malachi, are full of it. “The blessed Jesus spake as never man spake”—beautifully, beautifully. Every word, all he said and did, are “apples of gold in pictures of silver”—gold, seven times purified. Paul is full of this holy fire, pentecostal; Peter, James, and John—fire on fire! Every thought is condensed, brought to a burning focus. Reader, do you wish your composition, your editorials, your public addresses—fire—on fire? first? midst? last? always? Editors, bookmakers, epistolary writers, what is your wish? fire? fire? “things beautiful? majestic? glorious? sparkling? bright as the noonday sun? full of fire? pure? virtuous? heavenly? Go to the Bible, the book of books, read it, search it, pray over it, meditate on it, drink in of its spirit, hide it in your heart, commit it to memory, go over it and over it, till you can say, “Oh! how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.” “How sweet are thy words to my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”
“This precious food our heart revives; What strength, what nourishment, it gives! Oh! let us evermore be fed With this divine, celestial bread.”
Students, go to the Bible. Little folks and great folks, go to the Bible. Form your taste for reading, form your style of writing and speaking, from the sacred oracles—the inspiration of Heaven, “quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword,” and every word from your pen and your lips will be fire, fire, tell on the conscience, the heart, the life—be a barbed arrow to the guilty one in the church, and out of it. Sinai’s thunders will crash, its lightnings flash. Oh! for this Bible fire! the fire of the Bible!—the Lord sent it. Thy word,
“Where’er it enters in, Is sharper than a two-edged sword, To slay the man of sin.”
Search the Scriptures to form your style, your taste, to know how to preach, how to write. There is no book like the Bible to kindle the soul, fire it with holy fire. Why is there so little energy, life, power, holy boldness, heart-searching, heart-singing, off-hand business, in the pulpit? in the editorial chair? so little of the prophetical and apostolical? the baptismal fire? and the tongue of fire? Is it not measurably owing to a lack of Bible knowledge? the fire of holy inspiration? the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai? the marrow and fatness of the gospel? the flint? the hammer? the burning lava of God’s word? the electrifying power, issuing directly from Heaven’s magazine? What kindled seraphically the souls of Isaiah? Jeremiah? Daniel? Paul? Peter? James? and John? What fired the souls of Luther? Wesley? Whitefield? Bunyan? Edwards? and other reformers? enabled them to stand firmly against the hosts of hell? cry aloud? spare not? lift their voices like trumpets fearlessly against every sin? lay the gospel as at the root of the Upas tree? What made those holy men of God eminently successful in winning souls to Christ? strong in the Lord and in the power of his might? Was it not chiefly owing to their having drunk freely at this living fountain? to their making God’s word the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, meditating, like David, day and night, on the Book of books, pouring out their whole souls on their bended knees before God for light, life, and salvation, through this blessed medium?
Here lies the secret of pulpit eloquence, editorial eloquence—eloquence that burns, flashes out, cuts like a razor or a two-edged sword, slays on the right and on the left, causes Satan to tremble—fall as lightning from Heaven. It is by searching the Scriptures that we receive wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy—the only true wisdom that makes the man for the times—the emergencies of the day, the minister, the editor, the watchman on Zion’s top. This secret of secrets, this secret of hiding God’s word in the heart, burningly, scorchingly treasuring it up, is like the stone cut out of the mountain, like Moses’ rod that swallowed up all rods.
Minister of Jesus, editor of Jesus, servants of the most high God, desire ye this gospel power? Heaven’s electricity? the tongue of fire? the baptism pentecostal? eternity’s life-giving flash? Take the Bible, read it, search it, pray over it, hide it in your heart—your inmost soul; let the word of God dwell in you richly in all wisdom—purifyingly—sanctifyingly; meditate on it day and night; rise at midnight for closet duty; walk softly before the Lord, as David did, saying, “I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.” Psa. 119:101.
“Oh! how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.”
“This is the Christian’s trusty sword, And shall his sword unburnished be? Shall rust corrode the blade? For want of practice shall he flee When Satan’s hosts invade?”
—D. F. Newton.