And if you ask me how to try the spirits, how to know whether your
own thoughts, whether the sermons which you hear, the books which
you read, are speaking to you God's truth, or some lying spirit's
falsehood, I can only answer you, "To the law and to the testimony"--
to the Bible; if they speak not according to that word, there is no
truth in them. But how to understand the Bible? for the fleshly man
understands not the things of God. The fleshly man, he who cares
only about pleasing himself, he who goes to the Bible full of self-
conceit and selfishness, wanting the Bible to tell him only just
what he likes to hear, will only find it a sealed book to him, and
will very likely wrest the Scriptures to his own destruction. Take
up your Bible humbly, praying to God to shew you its meaning,
whether it be pleasant to you or not, and then you will find that
God will shew you a blessed meaning in it; He will open your eyes,
that you may understand the wondrous things of His law; He will shew
you how to try the spirit of all you are taught, and to find out
whether it comes from God.
SERMON IX. HELL ON EARTH
MATTHEW, viii. 29.
"And behold the evil spirits cried out, saying, What have we to do
with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither to torment
us before the time?"
This account of the man possessed with devils, and of his language
to our Lord, of our Lord's casting the devils out of the poor
sufferer, and His allowing them to enter into a herd of swine, is
one that is well worth serious thought; and I think a few words on
it will follow fitly after my last Sunday's sermon on Ahab and his
temptations by evil spirits.
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