True Words for Brave Men | Page 6

Life--is here among us ready to feed our souls in the Holy Sacrament of His body and blood, as surely as that bread and wine will feed our bodies--yea--to feed our souls and bodies to everlasting life. "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and drink. Come, buy wine without money and without price."

III. IS, OR IS NOT, THE BIBLE TRUE?
"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me?"--JOHN viii. 46.
Is, or is not, the Bible true? To this question we must all come some day or other. Do you believe that that book which lies there, which we call the Bible, is a true book, or a lying book? Is it true or false? Is it right or wrong? Is it from God, or is it not from God? Let us answer that. If it is not from God, let it go; but if it is from God, which we know it is, how dare we disobey it?
That God, the maker of heaven and earth, should speak to men--should set His commands down in a book and give it to them--and that they should neglect it, disobey it--it is the strangest sight that can be seen on earth! that God in heaven should say one thing, and a human being, six feet high at most, should dare to do another!
If the Bible is from God, I say, the question is not whether it is better to obey it or not. Better? there is no better or worse in the matter--it is infinitely necessary. To obey is infinitely right, to disobey is infinitely wrong. To obey is infinitely wise, to disobey is infinite folly. There can be no question about the matter, except in the mind of a fool. Better to obey God's word? Better indeed--for to obey is heaven, to disobey is hell. That is the difference. And at your better moments does not the voice within you, witness to, and agree with, the words of that book? When it tells you to care more for your soul than your body--more for the life to come, which is eternity, than for the present life which lasts but a few years--does not common sense tell you that? The Bible tells you to reverence and love God the giver of all good--does not reason tell you that? The Bible tells you loyally to obey, to love, to worship our blessed King and Saviour in heaven. Does not common sense tell you that? Surely if there be such a person as Jesus Christ--if He is sitting now in heaven as Saviour of all, and one day to be Judge of all--by all means He is to be obeyed, He is to be pleased, whoever else we may displease. Reason, one would think, would tell us that--and it is just want of reason which makes us forget it.
What have you to say against the pattern of a true and holy man as laid down in the Bible? The Bible would have you pure--can you deny that you ought to be that? It would have you peaceable--can you deny that you ought to be that? The Bible would have you forgiving, honest, honourable, active, industrious. The Bible would have you generous, loving, charitable. Can you deny that that is right, however some of you may dislike it? The Bible would have you ask all you want from God, and ask forgiveness of God for every offence, great and small, against Him. Can you deny that that is right and reasonable? The Bible would have you live in continual remembrance that the great eye of God is on you--in continual thankfulness to the blessed Saviour who died for you and has redeemed you by His own blood--with daily and hourly prayer for God's Spirit to set your heart and your understanding right on every point. Can you deny that that is all right and good and proper--that unless the Bible be all a dream, and there be no Holy and Almighty God, no merciful Christ in heaven, this is THE way and the only way to live? Ay, if there were no God, no Christ, no hereafter, it would be better for man to live as the Bible tells him, than to live as too many do. There would be infinitely less misery, less heart-burnings, less suffering of body and soul, if men followed Christ's example as told us in the Bible. Even if this life were all, and there were neither punishment nor reward for us after death--does not our reason tell us that if all men and women were like Christ in gentleness, wisdom, and purity, the world as long as it lasted would be a heaven?
And do not your own hearts echo these thoughts at moments when