Heart Talks. Charles Wesley Naylor
press on into the experience themselves. They go on from year to year to year and never make any real spiritual advancement. What is the trouble? Oh, they are just satisfied, that is all; and they will never get any further till their sleepy satisfaction is rudely broken in upon by something that startles them out of their security and awakens them to their needs. That will bring dissatisfaction and that in time will set them to seeking to have those needs supplied.
Some people are content just to drift with the tides. They go along with the crowd, whichever way sentiment goes, and are quite content. They are no real moral [pg 024] force in their community or in the church. They are aware of the fact, and they seem to be satisfied to have it so. They will never amount to very much so long as they are thus satisfied. Getting dissatisfied is the only thing that will ever make anything worth while of them.
There are those who know that they are less spiritual than they used to be; still, they are not much concerned about it. They are resting very easy. Such satisfaction is a curse. What such folks need is a good case of dissatisfaction; for that is the only thing that will keep them from drying up and withering away. I know of people who once had a glorious experience but who for years have been so satisfied with themselves that they have not progressed an inch. Instead, they have gone backwards, with the result that today they are cold and formal. They are still satisfied, they still profess to be justified and sanctified, but they amount to practically nothing for God or the church. There is no moral force radiating from their lives. To such persons the coming of dissatisfaction would be a great blessing. So long as they are satisfied with their present condition, so long they will be cold formalists.
Some people know that they are coming short both of their duty and of their privileges in the Lord, but in spite of this they seem content and are making no effort—at least no effective effort—to do better. O brother, sister, if you are satisfied where you ought to be dissatisfied, it is time you awakened, it is time you looked toward better things until your hunger for them stirred you to action to obtain them.
To those who are dissatisfied, who realize your needs [pg 025] and lacks, I say: Do not be discouraged. God means by this very feeling of dissatisfaction with yourself to spur you on to seek diligently for higher and better attainments. If you allow yourself to be discouraged, it will only hinder you. God will help you to obtain that which you need. Do not falter because your need seems great; God's supply is more abundant than your need. Cast off every weight. Press forward. God will help you. When once he has aroused you to effort, you will find him ready to help. Your dissatisfaction is most encouraging. Do not stay dissatisfied; press on till you obtain what you need. You will never attain your full measure of desire in this life, but you may obtain much, and what you do obtain will prepare you for that fulness and satisfaction which only eternity can bring you.
Dissatisfaction is never welcome, but it is a true friend. Through it you may reach blessed attainments and soul-enriching grace. Value it and use it rightly, and it will prove a great blessing, though it may often be a blessing in disguise.
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Talk Three. Why I Believe The Old Book
Do I believe the old Book? Do I really believe it? My heart answers that I do. The deepest consciousness of my soul testifies that it is true. I will tell you some of the reasons why I believe it.
The Oldest, and Still the Newest, of Books.
God's book written in the rocks is old, exceedingly old, but God's book the Bible reaches back still farther. It goes back not only to the “beginning” of this terrestrial world, but into eternity; for the expression, “in the beginning,” used by John, reaches back long before this world was. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From past eternity its majestic sweep covers the whole range of being and reaches into the future eternity. It is, in fact, the book of eternity, and within its folds lie the grandeur and sublimity of the great unknown future. It never gets out-of-date. Other books have their run of popularity and are forgotten, but the Bible never grows old; no matter how familiar we become with it, it is ever new. To the Christian it never grows stale, but is always fresh and always satisfying. It ever reveals new depths that we fail to fathom, new heights that we can not scale, and new beauties that enrapture our vision.
We read it over and over, and ever and anon we see new jewels sparkling within its pages, jewels that delight [pg 027] the eye and reflect the light of God. From it refreshing waters break out where we least expect them, and our souls are refreshed like a thirsty man who suddenly finds water on the desert. We may have read a text a thousand times, yet when we look at it again it opens up and presents to us a vista of marvelous truth of which we were before entirely unconscious. What other book can do these things? When we read a book written by man, however interesting it may be, it soon loses its interest and its charm; we do not find new beauties in it as we do in the Bible. Its treasures are soon exhausted, but the Bible is ever new, and so I do not believe that the Bible is man's book nor that it could be man's book. Its depths are too deep to come from the heart or mind of man; its heights are too great for him to reach; and its wisdom is more than human. It can but be divine.
The Most Loved of All Books.
Wherever the Bible goes, people learn to love and to treasure it above all other books combined. It is the one book that people love; it is the treasure that people hold fast even at the risk of their lives. In past ages when wicked rulers tried to keep it from the people, they could not. At the peril of their lives people would have it. They underwent dangers and tortures, and shrank not from anything, that they might possess this wonderful book. It is not for what it claims to be—though it claims much—nor for what men claim for it, but for what it is to the individual himself that it is so dearly loved. There is that in the Bible which endears itself to the human heart, and no other book has that quality. Other [pg 028] books are enjoyed and admired and praised and valued; but the Bible, in this respect, stands in a class by itself.
The educated and the ignorant, the high and the low, all races in all climes, when they learn to truly know the Bible, and when they submit themselves to the God of the Bible, learn to love it and to delight in it and are enriched and blessed by it; and because I too feel this deep love in my heart for the old Book, I believe it. I believe that, in some way, it was made for me by One who knew my needs, and that it corresponds to the very essence of my inner self; and I believe that I could not love it as I do if it were not God's book and if it were not true.
The Most Hated of All Books.
Not only is it the best-loved book, but it is also the most-hated book. No other book has had so many nor such bitter enemies. I suppose more books have been written against the Bible than against all other books combined. Men do not hate Shakespeare nor Milton nor Longfellow; they do not hate works on science nor philosophy; they do not hate books of travel or adventure or fiction; they do not hate the other sacred books of the world; they hate only the Bible. Why this hatred? It can be only because they find in the Bible something that they find nowhere else. What they find there is a true picture of themselves, and the picture is not pleasant to look upon, so they turn away their faces and will have nothing to do with it except to vilify and condemn it. They deliberately misrepresent it and write falsehoods about it; they satirize and ridicule it, using all sorts of weapons and all sorts of methods to combat it, and for [pg 029] only the one reason—that its truth pricks them in their consciences and they can by no other means escape from it.
It is judged by a standard far more stringent than any other book, not excepting the other sacred books. No critic would think of treating any other book as he treats the Bible, nor of requiring of any other book what he requires of the Bible. The more men hate God, the more they hate his Word; and this has a deep, underlying reason, and that reason, I believe, is that the Bible is God's book and that in it there is so much of God himself.
It Has Withstood All Assaults.
But though so bitterly assailed through all the ages, the Bible has withstood the assaults of all its enemies and stands victorious