GOD'S WORD AND CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
By F. M. Burg
THE lives of Christians would be characterized by a much greater degree of happiness, they would experience a greater amount of that "peace of God that passeth knowledge," if they had a better understanding of the relation of the word of God to a real Christian experience. To how many is an effort to be a Christian nothing more than a heavy drudgery, whereas they might be in the enjoyment of that complete freedom and liberty which it would please our beneficent heavenly Father to bestow, and for which provision is made in his word. "Provision for a happy Christian experience in the word?"—Yes, most assuredly. And the lives of Christians will be but a foretaste of the bliss of heaven when they understand fully what the word of God may be—is designed to be—to them, not merely an intellectual knowledge, however, but an experimental knowledge of it. In the experience of how many is the word read with no appreciation of its real value, reading it, not as the voice of God direct to them personally, but, if not as some ordinary book, yet as something written in the dim past to someone else, the record, merely, preserved for us. Is the Bible the voice of God addressing us as verily as though he were visible and spoke audibly? Who will say it is not? Are not the relations between God and each individual soul as intimate and full as though the great plan of redemption were devised solely for his personal salvation? The sacred volume was written for all, expresses the matchless love of God to all, is his voice addressing all, and is, therefore, for each one. As the writer, a short time since, heard it expressed by one, that which is past, present, and future with us, finite beings, is with him, the infinite, the One with whom a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, an eternal present, an eternal now. He who is invisible to mortal eye, yet seen in matchless splendor in his word by that person who has experienced its transforming power, saw—let us say me, not someone else—saw me, in all my relation to circumstances; saw me lost, undone, in myself having no hope, doomed to die; yea, he knew all about me, and, in consideration of all I needed, he, in infinite pity, wrote this wonderful letter, and in it made provision for my every need in this world and for all that I can hope to have in the next. God made provision for my conversion; he made provision for my complete victory in every conflict in my Christian experience; and this victory over sin is what will give to Christians the "peace of God that passeth knowledge." That there is cleansing power in the word this article can no more than merely state. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made." See Ps. 33:6, 9. This word of God is the basis of our faith (Rom. 10:17), and faith is the "victory that overcometh the world" (1 John 5:4). Faith is victory, not hoping for it, and sad because we do not have it. Turn it around. Victory is faith, i. e., as stated in Heb. 11:1, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for," etc. What is it?—The substance, the possession, of that for which we hope, not wishing we had it, as it were, thinking to ascend into heaven to bring Christ down, or descending into the depths to bring him up, but taking hold of that for which the word makes provision, and rejoicing in its possession,—in our Christian experience laying hold of the victory for which provision is therein made. And, too, if one has the victory, he knows it; and this knowledge gives peace. He knows it how?—By faith. The difficulty is that Christians wait for something visible to indicate that they have the victory. But that is not faith. What has sight to do with it? The victory is in the word, not in the person. Claim it; take hold of it; rejoice in its possession. Be wholly submitted to God's will; then, and then alone, can you claim the victory. Otherwise the claim to victory is selfish boasting. Shall we not more fully appreciate the word of God, by which we must live?