5. Stand by the Scriptures, whatever they may cost you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Bible a moral defence.
We read that Oliver Cromwell had in his army one regiment-a fine, strong regiment-called” The Ironsides.” They were very religious men. And it was quite the custom for almost every soldier to carry his Bible to battle with him. They used to carry their Bible under their dress; and more than once, in a battle, the soldier would have been ,shot through the heart but for his Bible. The bullet went through his Bible, or it would have gone through his heart. The Bible saved the heart! (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The Bible a victorious power
This is the sickle which cuts down all the tares which Satan sows among the good wheat; this is the ark of God before which all the idols of the Philistines fail fiat to the ground; this is the trumpet of Joshua whose noise overturneth the walls of Jericho. (Hacket.)
Bread alone.-
The bread of life
I. There is that condition of being in which man lives by bread.
1. It represents man as utterly subservient to material necessities. The springs of man’s noblest life are planted in necessity. How beautiful is this requisition for labour! A consequence of this law of effort is mutual service. An awful thing when man is reduced to a mere machine for getting bread. The wickedness of systems which tend to intensify such a condition. Such a man lives for something outside himself-for some interest which bread represents. Living by bread alone he estimates everything by the bread standard.
II. Let me urge upon you the higher life. “Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” “I have bread to eat that ye know not off”
1. Every good man does not live by bread alone, but by that God from whom it comes.
2. He realizes that he is not a mere instrument, but an end in himself.
3. He has a different standard of valuation from that of the mere bread standard. He thinks of utilities in a larger and nobler sense than other men. He values the true in the light of its truth, and not of its profit.
4. How we live upon traditions, upon the mere say-so of other people, the current of popular conviction, instead of coming and taking the word out of the mouth of God!
III. The point of the most fearful temptation is when men are tempted to sacrifice the interests of the higher life to the claims of the lower. You may lose fortune but gain goodness; you are made one with Christ. (E. H. Chaplin.)
Literally true that man does not live by bread alone
Do we think of the bread alone when it is placed on our tables? Are we not reminded from whence it comes-what wondrous mysteries have conspired to bring it there-the fair sunlight that shone upon the soil-the heavenly dew that moistened the earth-the mysterious processes of nature that brought forth, “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear?” Does man live by bread alone, or by Divine wisdom, power, and goodness, which conspire in the wondrous loom of nature to weave the result and form the agency by which we get that bread? (E. H. Chaplin.)
Mentally, man does not live by “bread” alone
Sometimes people go to a rich man’s house and wonder that he pays so much money for a picture. The money they think might bring in interest or might be applied to purposes of utility, and they consider it a waste to expend five or ten thousand dollars for a work of art. Little do they imagine how that picture enriches and refines that man’s soul, elevating it to a higher conception of all beauty; how it enables him to understand why the swamp mists become festoons and upholsteries of glory before the setting sun; why the grass is green, the heavens blue, and the rolling waves of the sea are interlaced with threads of sunlight; because, viewing them as proceeding out of the mouth of God, he comprehends them, and says, “The money that I have given for it, that could not make me richer, because it perfects me, and helps form me for an end.” (E. H. Chaplin.)
The poverty of the “bread” standard of life
He discerns as much the glory of God in the miniature world revealed in a single drop of water, as in a great planet. One man is overawed by the solemn aspect of the mountain, and the glory of the forest waving with the breath of the summer breeze. Another wonders how many hundred acres of land there are and how much timber in it. That is all the universe is to him. So the characters of men are revealed according to their standard of valuation; and, I repeat, if a man’s life is wholly down to the bread standard of life, he sees merely the material interests of this world. (E. H. Chaplin.)
Life in nature needs varied elements for sustenance
It is like saying that a tree cannot live merely upon water. It needs other elements which the rich earth must give. (Phillips Brooks.)
Every word-
Man’s spiritual food
I. Man has a spiritual as well as a corporeal nature-a spiritual nature which requires food.
II. The Word of God is the true food of the soul of man. It is spiritual food adapted to man’s spiritual nature, and also to its condition as guilty and impure. (Studies for the pulpit.)
Word of God compared to food
1.The propriety of the metaphor. As it is essential to the life of the soul, and the source of strength.
II. Its peculiar characteristics. Heavenly and Divine, superabundant, endless variety, gratuitous bestowment, universal communication.
III. Our duty with respect to it. We should thankfully receive it, believingly feed upon it, grow and improve by it, constantly apply it. (Dr. Burns.)
