p. 537 | THE WORD OF GOD by George Barrell Cheever

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 2, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 34.

THE WORD OF GOD.

By George Barrell Cheever

THAT is true faith in God, and loyalty to him, which is faith in God's word, and abides by it, and acts accordingly. And it was by such use of God's word that our Lord put Satan to flight, and not by an array of angels, or any exercise of supernatural power, but by doing what he knew to be the will of God, as it was written, by drinking the cup which the Father had given him. Thus was cast out the great dragon, "that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." Our blessed Lord might have launched at him a single thunderbolt, and transfixed him in that bottomless pit, from whence, by mysterious permission, he had broken loose, and was now ranging up and down Judea seeking whom he might devour. . . . He simply smote him with the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," and that was enough. He used no other argument, no other compulsion, than that of divine truth, in the simplest, plainest announcement of the will of God. He gave no other reason but this, that God says it, and that settled the matter. Even so his disciples were to overcome the accuser, the Diabolis of mankind, "by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony," loving not their lives unto the death.

It was an example for us all, for the ministry, for the churches, in the conflict against sin and Satan. We must throw ourselves on God's word, and use it, and apply it, not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the very word of God only. We are not to be afraid of it, not to play at blind man's buff with it (see 2 Cor. 4:4); we are not to doubt it; we are not to withhold it nor conceal it; we are neither to suffer its perversion, nor to thrust it as a sword into the scabbard, instead of into men's hearts and iniquities; but we are to draw it forth and smite with it on every side. Neither man's expediency nor permission is to be the rule, but only God's word "Thy word have I hid, in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." No emergency could have happened, no mischievous contingency been brought about by Satan, to which our blessed Lord would not have instantly applied some pertinent or commanding passage or example. "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword." Our Lord needed no other library, no other weapon, no other education; neither needs any Christian, for that is all and in all.—Dr. Geo. B. Cheever.