“Most people treat the Bible very politely. They have a small pocket volume, neatly bound; they put a white pocket-handkerchief round it and carry it to their places of worship; when they get home, they lay it up in a drawer till next Sunday morning; then it comes out again for a little bit of a treat, and goes to chapel; that is all the poor Bible gets in the way of airing. That is your style of entertaining this heavenly messenger. There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write ‘damnation’ with your fingers. There are some of you who have not turned over your Bibles for a long, long, long while, and what think you? I tell you blunt words, but true words. What will God say at last? When you shall come before Him he shall say, ‘Did you read my Bible?’ ‘No.’ ‘I wrote you a letter of mercy; did you read it? ’ ‘No.’ “Rebel! I have sent thee a letter inviting thee to me; didst thou ever read it?’ ‘Lord, I never broke the seal; I kept it shut up.’ ‘Wretch!’ says God, ‘then, thou deserves Hell, if I sent thee a loving epistle, and thou wouldst not even break the seal, what shall I do unto thee?’ Oh, let it not be so with you. Be Bible-readers; be Bible-searchers.”
– Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. I, sermon II
How is a man to live if he does not eat, or survive if he does not drink? How can a human function without rest or sleep or sustenance? Yet oh how many people who call themselves Christians appear to go day by day in complete comfort and ease without being fed by even one ounce of the food that Christ speaks of when he declares that “man does not live on bread alone, but on the Word of God”? (Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4) No one would question that there was something wrong with a person who never had any desire to eat or sleep or drink. Most often, it is a sign of sickness that prevents us from desiring to eat the foods we normally crave.
And, as always, what God has created as a reality in the physical world is simply a picture of what happens in the spiritual realms. If a man claims to be living and has no desire to eat or be filled, then there are only two options; one, that he is not truly living, for dead men need no food; or two, that he is sick and is in need of being fed lest he die. Just like a wise parent will require their child who is sick to the stomach to eat and drink at least bits and pieces of food so as to keep their body functioning, so at times it is necessary to feed and be fed when there is no desire. And just as a person who is dying from a painful disease may often forgo food because of the distraction of pain, so those who are on their way to spiritual death, though they may feel it not at all physically, will feel no need to fill themselves with God.
Fear, oh men and women who claim to be Christians and all of you who have no desire to read the Word of God, fear, for it may be a sign that there is no life in you. It is only the dead and those on their way to death who do not seek food. If you have no desire, I urge you, eat though you do not feel the need. It is only by eating and tasting that your appetite will be awakened. As Spurgeon cried to all who heard his voice over a hundred years ago, so I cry, “Be Bible-readers; be Bible-searchers!” For it is there, in those pages written by the very hand of God, that you will find life and peace and hope and joy. It is there, through those words, that the Lord shall breathe life into your dead body, and give it wings to reach heavenward. May it be so with you, and may you come to feel the delightful sweetness of His Word.
No Comments