THE WORD (Part 2)

By Geoffrey T.Bull.
(From “God Holds The Key”Chap.11)

(Continued from THE WORD Part 1 )
We must come to the Word of God first, with due acknowledgment of the Author. ‘God spake all these words.’ We are going to be told something by Someone who is very Lord of the Universe and sitting on the Throne of the heavens. We are listeners and learners. We know nothing. He knows everything. We must come, then, not so much to analyse it ourselves, but to allow ourselves to be analysed by it. It must ever be ‘What saith my Lord unto His servant?’ Intellectually we may collate the information contained in Scripture, academically we may seek to assess the text and formulate its chronology, but spiritual food can only be spiritually assimilated. Faith is the only faculty that operates in this divine country. In coming to the Word we must believe that God is. We must believe that God has spoken. Further, we must believe that God’s voice can be really heard and understood by those who are willing to obey.
Before you decide upon a method of study examine first your attitude of approach. Your hope of authorised entry into the territory of Revelation lies there. A vital approach to the Word of God, you will find, involves this threefold recognition.
First we must come as ‘bowed to God the Father’. That is we must tread the ground as sacred worshippers. We must take our earth-soiled shoes from off our feet, for the ways of the world are not His ways. With bended knee and prostrated spirit we must bow in silent adoration waiting in silence for what He has to say. We are to marvel in our hearts that the Almighty God should ever deign to speak to sinners such as we. We must stand in awe that the unapproachable God should do graciously come near and speak into our very ear. Every opinion must be hushed, all our suggestions silenced. We are in the presence of supreme Authority. We, who believe, can only linger in the stillness longing and waiting for the Father’s Word and then, as it is given, rejoice in the intimacy of Hid loving counsel granted to Hid children.
Secondly, we must come as ‘blessed in God the Son’. All our life and all our light are found in Him. Out side of Him we have nothing and apart from Him can attain to nothing. He is all our salvation. He is all our joy and all our peace. We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. Our approach then is to be Christ-centred. He is the only lesson we have to learn, the only Person we need to see. From Genesis to Revelation as we pore over the pages our heart’s cry is to be ‘We would see Jesus.’ Our sole desire must be to draw our waters from the head-spring of the Fountain. Show me but the source and let me drink of Jesus, for the single theme of all the written Word is Christ. There is no question. The Word eternal is the only content of the Word inscribed.
Thirdly, we must come as ‘born of God the Holy Spirit’. He it is who led us to Christ. By Him it is that each believing soul is born anew. He is the appointed elucidator of the Word, the ordained nourisher of our souls. He is the sustainer of all our spiritual good. Apart from the Holy Spirit, we are ignorant of Christ. Without the Spirit, our hearts are devoid of holy desire, for ‘the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God’. Without Him we can neither worship in the sanctuary or minister to the people. Therefore as one born of the Spirit, He must be our exclusive Interpreter, our only Guide to the meaning of the Word.

We read then, as ‘bowed to God the Father’, for there is no higher authority than His.
We search, as ‘blessed in God the Son’, for there is no other lesson but Christ.
We learn, as ‘born of God the Spirit’, for there is no other teacher but the Holy Ghost.

The significance of this approach is, that when we enter the country of the Whole Godhead is for us - for ‘Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool... but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.’ (Isa. 66:1-2)
Bound up in the Approach is the full purpose of the Quest. The Holy Scriptures leave us in no doubt as to what that Quest should be, for the nature of the wisdom they unfold is clearly stated. They are ‘able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’. We are to come by their reading to the knowledge of God revealed in Christ Jesus. This is life eternal. This is a wisdom which excels all other. David could say in all humility. ‘I have more understanding than all my teacher for ‘Thy testimonies are my meditation.’ ‘I understand more than the ancients because I keep Thy precepts’. The youngest believer because of what he has received of God’s view of man in Christ, is infinitely superior in his outlook to the wisest pagan sage or any of the leading non-Christian philosophers. But true spiritual knowledge will always humble us, because it brings with it a consciousness of the greatness of God. ‘The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy.’ The quest is for this kind of wisdom, and as we read the Bible we find that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ. By the faith which the Word of God begets, Christ himself is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification even redemption. We are told of three degrees of spiritual knowledge which for us, are the true content of the Divine Wisdom.
There is the knowledge of God Himself in Christ, thus Paul prays ‘that I may know Him,/ For Pal this is the excellency of knowledge, compared with which all else is as the refuse of the field.
There is the knowledge of God’s will; thus Paul says ‘We do not cease to pray for you that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His Will.’
There is the knowledge of His gifts; thus Paul writes ‘We have received the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given us of God.’
It is in this knowledge that Christ Jesus is made unto us Wisdom. It will make fools of us before the world, but we can be quiet in the assurance that the wisdom of God shall at the last be justified in all her children.
This right approach in the quest, if sincerely and humbly pursued, will be the action of the Spirit produce the required result. This is evidenced primarily in our moral character. Spirituality is not measured by our ability to quote the text of the Bible or give the orthodox answers. Spirituality is measured in holiness. This is the emphasis that Pal gives to Timothy.
‘All Scripture,’ he says, ‘is given be inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’ When still quite young I was taught this truth concerning the function of God’s Word in this little formula.

As ‘doctrine’ it tells us what is right
As ‘reproof’ it tells us what is not right
As ‘correction’ it tells us how to get right
As ‘instruction in righteousness’, it tells us how to keep right.

The Bible does not teach us how to be clever. It teaches us how to be right. We are to be right with God. We are to be right with men. We are to be right within. When we read the Bible we are expected to obey. We are to make the applying of His Word to our personal lives one of the major tasks of our occupation. Present obedience is always God’s condition for obtaining an increased understanding.
The Scriptures abound with many figures of this application of the Word.
We have in our hands ‘the Seed’*. This is the Word of God as ‘doctrine’. Christian doctrine is the sum total of all the principles of Divine Life. To hear the Word of God, in the sense that Christ taught, is to receive that seed into the ground of the heart and let it germinate there until it brings forth fruit. There is to be tangible proof of the work of the Word in a moral sense. We say we believe the Word, but that faith is only valid if it brings forth works. If your study of the Scriptures does not make you increasingly holy in character, then it may be you have never entered the territory under the auspices of the Guide. Maybe you are studying it like a map of a foreign country. It is all very interesting. You know the names and are acquainted with the data, but actually you have never been there. You are still very much at home where you are. When we begin to obey God’s Word and hearken to the doctrine, we become like faithful Abraham. Its first result is to make us leave our kindred and our father’s house and move forward into better country. The Seed of the Word always breaks to pieces the ground in which it grows.
We have in our hands ‘the Sword’**. This is the Word of God as ‘reproof’. It divides asunder soul and spirit, discerning both thoughts and intents of the heart. Being two-edged it is inescapable. We must feel it before we can wield it. But once it has wounded us it can become our weapon in the Spirit.
We have in our hands ‘a fire’***. This is the Word of God as ‘correction’. It is purgative, not only showing what is wrong but purifying as it burns. Our God is a consuming fire and the Word of His mouth will scorch us clean.
We have in our hands ‘a lamp’****. This is the Word of God as ‘instruction in righteousness’. He delights to lead us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake, and this He does as a Shepherd calling to His sheep and lighting their way home.
Thus His Word which begets us in life, which pierces and arms us, which purges and cleans us, shall lastly guide us to glory. Progress in the Word is always progress in character.
The man who is spiritually occupied with the Word is a man who has his feet on earth but whose mind is instructed by the very wisdom of heaven. He is surrounded by corrupt fragmentary opinion and yet is hearing daily the counsels of the Father at the Throne of His power. The din and noise of the world’s traffic hurry past him but amidst it all he finds green pastures, still waters and the quietude of God. On every side is shifting sand but the Rock beneath him stands impregnable. With the advancing years his eye may dim but he endures as seeing Him who is invisible. All about him is riddled to decay and ready to pass away, not only man’s tiny buildings and his puny culture, but the entire panorama of the earth and sky. All shall be folded up as a garment, yet for this man there is in his heart that precious deposit which liveth and abideth for ever, the imperishable Word of the Almighty and Eternal God.

* * * * *

The turmoil of the conflict had passed away now and the guns of the atheists could be heard no more. All was still in my little bedroom in Hong Kong. The impossible moment had arrived. The bliss for which I longed was mine. Could it be three years since my fingers had turned the leaves of that much loved leather book lying face before me? Outside, from many a window in that block of flats at North Point, there stretched the long bamboo poles with the washing of the Chinese families, dangling in the great well of the buildings. Out in the gutters of the streets the indomitable Chinese costerfolk were selling their wares. There were no red flags. There was still poverty, but no terror. And in the quietness of my little chamber my mind relaxed. I was tired but still sane. In a brief while I would lie down on a comfortable bed and the boards of the cell would be forgotten, but what occupied me know was this Book. I opened it and there stole over me the atmosphere of solemn rite. As a mere man I was about to read the message of the Living God after several years. Ringing in my ears were forty months of man’s words, man’s wisdom, man’s argument, man’s hurt. Now on the page before me there ran the quiet yet pungent words of Holy Scripture. ‘Where is the wise... where is the disputer of this world?’ Even today I feel like running up and down the corridors of learning shouting out, ‘Yes where is he?’ Where is the wise? After the mad haranguings of the struggle meetings and the fanatical ragings of the Marxists, let me ask the multitude who read this book, ‘Where is the wise?’ Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Once more I gazed upon the Word of God and read His withering yet assuring words. ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ How gloriously iconoclast. Science, falsely so-called, shall surely cringe under the derision of our Maker. Every word and every line written or spoken independently of God, is doomed to be expunged. He does not want it, therefore in the end we do not need it. Godly scholarship is a faithful servant but the kind of intellectualism that crucifies the Son of God afresh and puts Him to an open shame, will meet the fate it deserves; especially so, when allied to a forceful policy that foists it fables on a public that can barely read. The leading poet of People’s China says that New China rises as a peak in Asia, but My God shall smite all godless rule in the day of His power. The stone cut out without hands shall smite the iron, the clay, the brass, the sliver and the gold of all human domination independent of the Most High. They shall be as chaff of the summer threshing floors. God creates and infinite worlds fill an infinite heaven. What then must His destruction be... I read a little further down the page and there the words shone forth ‘Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God’. My persecutors thought my God was foolish, but the foolishness of God is wiser than men. They thought Him weak but the weakness of God is stronger than men. ‘He that sitteth on the heavens shall laugh.’ The aesthetic government across the border boasted the allegiance of five hundred million souls. That they claimed, was the measure of their strength, yet after three years’ battle they had been unable to sever that single thread of God’s pure grace that kept my soul. They had been unable to break the grip of the Hand that held me. They had been unable in all their bitter and maintained bombardment to dislodge God’s Word within my heart. My Bible had been hidden away by the authorities so that I could not read it, but now I held it again. That was a great experience, but the greater thing was this, that God’s Word still held me.
A few minutes, maybe, and I would be eating bread and butter at the evening meal. I had eaten hardly any of that for nearly four years. My friends were so kind and I appreciated it so much, but really it did not matter any more. The words of the Saviour had become a reality, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every Word of God. I seemed to be emerging from a grave where emaciated souls lie crushed in a lifeless uniformity; where pale, immobile men expire, starved to spiritual skeletons for want of truth. I had lain with them and yet lived. The secret lay in no strength of mine but in the imperishable nature of the Word of God. When we have that which is eternal in our hearts we can never be destroyed. My heavens and my earth had passed away but His Word remained. It is the foundation of God and it standeth sure.
For those with eyes to see, the English versions of the Bible we so much treasure are penned in the blood of men like Tyndale. There is still the smell of smoke in the pages won through their agony inflicted by the sword and flame. They died that we might read. We say we have no time, but they had time. We want to live, but they were not afraid to die.
Yet if the slain men will not stir us, be it known the living God hath spoken. See then that you refuse not Him that speaketh. You stand today in the beloved but unfrequented country. What is your occupation? The time to answer is at hand.

*Luke 8:11 **Ephesians 6:17 ***Jeremiah 23:29 **** Psalm 119:105

By Geoffrey T.Bull.
(“God Holds The Key” (Out of Print)
Hodder and Stoughton Limited ..London 1959

Go back to the Articles

Home | Sermons | Articles | Illustrations
Contact Us | About Us

What We Believe | Become a Prayer Partner!