If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They reported supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writings are divine rather than human in origin.
Ever Loving Truth Conference, 2016.
In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense. And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone. It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God’s relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances. It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity.
Trusting God, 1988, p. 18. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights reserved. Get this book!
One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed.
Are you holding fast to the Word of life? Are you revealing your desperation for the Bible by making it a priority to read it on a regular basis, both individually and as together as a family? Are you daily seeking to learn something new from the Scriptures? Do you follow what the Bible teaches regardless of the financial, emotional, or relational cost? Do you believe the Bible is sufficient to live a victorious spiritual life? Do you believe the Bible is the voice of God without error? Do you believe the Bible has authority over you? Do you hold fast to the Bible when everything in you during a trial screams at you to rely on your own wisdom? Do you believe you will have more joy and peace by following Scripture? Do you believe you live in a “crooked and perverse generation” that by necessity demands you hold fast to God’s Word? Are you standing firm in no way overcome by your trials because you are fully relying on the promises of God?
Sermon, Growing Deeper with the Lord, Philippians 2:14-18 – Part 1, November 20, 2022.
Has it ever struck you that we trust the word of our fellow-man more easily than we trust God’s word?
The Kneeling Christian, circa 1930, ch. 4.
