Place for The Word

Where the Word of Jesus ought at once to be received, it is often rejected. These Jews were Abraham’s seed, but they had not Abraham’s faith.

Jesus knows where his Word is received, and where it has no place.

He declares that all else is unavailing: it was in vain that they were of the favored race if they did not admit the Savior’s Word into their hearts.

The practical result appeared in their lives: they sought to kill Jesus.

Let us honestly consider—

I. WHAT PLACE THE WORD SHOULD HAVE IN MEN’S HEARTS.

The Word comes from Jesus, the appointed Messenger of God; it is true, weighty, saving; and, therefore, it must have a place among those who hear it. It ought to obtain and retain—

1. An inside place: in the thoughts, the memory, the conscience, the affections. “Your Word have I hid in mine heart”: Psalm 119:11. See also Jeremiah 15:16; Colossians 3:16.

2. A place of honor: it should receive attention, reverence, faith, obedience. John 8:47; Luke 6:46; Matthew 7:24, 25.

3. A place of trust. We ought in all things to rely upon the sure Word of promise, since God will neither lie, nor err, nor change. Is. 7:9; 1 Samuel 15:29; Titus 1:2.

4. A place of rule. The Word of Jesus is the law of a Christian.

5. A place of love. It should be prized above our daily food, and defended with our lives. Job. 23:12; Jude 3.

6. A permanent place. It must so transform us as to abide in us.

II. WHY IT HAS NO PLACE IN MANY MEN.

If any man be unconverted, let us help him to a reason applicable to his case.

1. You are too busy, and so you cannot admit it.

   • There is no room for Jesus in the inn of your life.
   • Think of it,—“You are too much occupied to be saved”!

2. It does not come as a novelty, and therefore you refuse it.

   • You are weary of the old, old story.
   • Are you wearied of bread? of air? of water? of life?

3. Another occupies the place the Word of Jesus should have.

   • You prefer the word of man, of superstition, of scepticism.
   • Is this a wise preference?

4. You think Christ’s Word too holy, too spiritual.

   • This fact should startle you, for it condemns you.

5. It is cold comfort to you, and so you give it no place.

   • This shows that your nature is depraved; for the saints rejoice in it.

6. You are too wise, too cultured, too genteel, to yield yourself to the government of Jesus. John 5:44; Romans 1:22.

7. Is the reason of your rejection of the Word one of these?

   • That you are not in earnest?
   • That you are fond of sin?
   • That you are greedy of evil gain?
   • That you need a change of heart?

III. WHAT WILL COME OF THE WORD OF CHRIST HAVING NO PLACE IN YOU?

1. Every past rejection of that Word has involved you in sin.

2. The Word may cease to ask for place in you.

3. You may yourself become hardened, so as to decline even to hear that Word with the outward ear.

4. You may become the violent opponent of that Word, like these Jews.

5. The Word will condemn you at the last great day. John 12:48.

Let us therefore reason with you for a while.

Why do you not give place to it?

All that is asked of you is to give it place. It will bring with it all that you need.

Open wide the door, and bid it enter!

It is the Word of the Lord Jesus, the Savior.

It means your highest good, and will greatly bless you.

Common-Places

Readers of this enlightened, gold-nugget generation can form to themselves no conception of the spirit that then possessed the nobler kingly mind. VERBUM DEI MANET IN ÆTERNUM was the epigraph and life-motto which John the Steadfast had adopted for himself. The letters, V.D.M.I.Æ., were engraved on all the furniture of his existence, standards, pictures, plate, on the very sleeves of his lackeys, and I can perceive on his own deep heart first of all.—Thomas Carlyle.

O Book! Infinite sweetness! Let my heart

Suck every letter, and a honey gain, Precious for any grief in any part;

To clear the breast, to mollify all pain.

—George Herbert.

The only reason why so many are against the Bible, is because they know the Bible is against them.—G. S. Bowes.

At one time the Malagasy did not know of any book except the Bible. There was a Creole trader, in Antananarivo, who had greatly offended some of the natives. They mobbed his house, they seized his property, and men were seen rushing in all directions, carrying away whatever they had been able to lay their hands upon. One man had got possession of the trader’s ledger; and, holding it up aloft, he shouted at the top of his voice, “We have got the big Bible! We have got the big Bible!” It is to be feared that the trader’s ledger is in too many cases his Bible.—Mr. Cousins, of Madagascar.

The Bible has been expelled for centuries, by atheistic or sacerdotal hate, from the dwellings of many of the European nations. As a matter of course, the domestic virtues have declined; the conjugal relation is disparaged; deception and intrigue have supplanted mutual confidence; and society has become diseased to its very core. The very best thing we can do—the only thing which will be efficient—to arrest these evils, is to restore to those nations the Word of God; to replace in their houses that Bible of which they have been robbed. Only do for France and Italy, Belgium and Spain, Portugal and Austria, what has been attempted, and to a great extent accomplished, for our country; put a Bible in every family, and a mightier change will pass over Europe than can be effected by all the diplomacy of her statesmen, or all the revolutions projected by her patriots.—The Leisure Hour.

The following anecdote, well told by Mr. Aitken, shows that, in some men, the Word has no place, even in their memories:—“Only a short time ago, a friend of mine was preaching in one of our cathedral churches. As he was going to select for his text a prominent passage in one of the portions for the day, he thought it expedient to inquire of the clerk, ‘What did the Canon preach from this morning?’ The clerk became very pensive, seemed quite disposed to cudgel his brains for the proper answer; but, somehow or other, he really could not think of it just then. All the men of the choir were robing in the adjacent vestry, so he said that he would go and ask them. Accordingly, the question was passed round the choir, and produced the same perplexity. At length the sagacious clerk returned, with the highly-explicit answer, ‘It was upon the Christian religion, sir!’ I think those good people must have needed a reminder as to how we should hear; don’t you?”