The Gospel-24/7

Bible Reading Not Enough J. Wilbur Chapman

Follow Book & Flag

TOPIC and SUBTOPIC: The Bible, Just Reading It Is Not Enough.

TITLE: Bible Reading Not Enough!

Bible reading is not enough, with the open page in your hand, my friend, you may go to hell! I noticed the other day on the roadside a signpost and on it the words, To Edinburgh 7 miles. For Edinburgh was I bound and here was the welcome instruction from the dumb signboard. What would you think if I, footsore and weary and eager to be in your bonny city, had mounted that signboard, straddled stride legs upon it, and given the sigh of contentment and resolution to stick on its top? You would come by, and salute me first, as usual, about the weather; then Scotchman-like, it would be about the whither!

Oh, I'm going to Edinburgh. To Edinburgh? What are you doing up there then? Why, can't you read? Read, read and see. To Edinburgh 7 miles. Yes, isn't it grand to be here? On this signpost that speaks this blessed speech!

Well, you begin to feel eerie-sort and slip by, and you report to the policeman that there's a queer looking chap squatting on the roadside signpost seven miles from Edinburgh, and you're sure he must have escaped from Morningside Asylum! Ay, you would think rightly, and do rightly in that case, but oh! dear, dear soul, examine yourself, are you in your Bible-reading and resting just as silly and insane?

Are you straddled on the signpost to Calvary? Are you content with your chapter and chapter and chapter that but point you Behold the Lamb of God? Are you resting in your daily portion, your family-worship? Have you used this Bible just for what it was meant forto direct you to the Christ, the A and Z of it? Have you arrived at the signalled salvation? Are you converted, born again of this water of the word, and of this spirit of the person? Are you a Christian, Christs one?

J. W. C. From Present Day Parables by J. Wilbur Chapman.

Go To Topical Illustrations Index 1