The Bible - Oswald Chambers

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

October 21, 2011


 *“THE BIBLE”** 2011.10.21*

*(From: “Disciples Indeed” by Oswald Chambers)*


 “The Word” is Jesus Himself (John 1:1); therefore we must have an
experimental knowledge of Him before we understand the literal words of the
Bible.


 The danger today is that people are being nourished not with the Bible so
much as with conceptions which ignore Jesus Christ.


 Bible facts are either revelation facts or nonsense. It depends on me which
they are to me.


 God does not thunder His truth into our ears; our attitude of mind must be
submissive to revelation facts. Each one of us bring certain prejudices,
civilized pre-judgments, which greatly hinder our understanding of
revelation facts.


 Our attitude to the Bible is a stupid one; we come to the Bible for proof
of God’s existence, but the Bible has no meaning for us until we know that
God does exist. The Bible states and affirms facts for the benefit of those
who believe in God; those who don’t believe in God can tear it to bits if
they choose.


 People can dispute the Bible as they like, but get a soul in whom the
craving for God has come, and the words of the Bible create the new life in
him. “…being born again,…by the word God” (1 Peter 1:23).


 If we understood what happens when we use the Word of God, we would use it
oftener. The disablement of the devil’s power by means of the Word of God
conveyed through the lips of a servant of His, is inconceivable.


 The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an
amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with
regard to God’s Word.


 There is no true illumination apart from the written Word. Spiritual
impressions generated from my own experience are of no importance, and if I
pay attention to them I will pay no attention to the words of Jesus.


 The test of God’s truth is that it fits you exactly; if it does not,
question whether it is His truth.


 *BEWARE OF BARTERING THE WORD OF GOD FOR A *

*MORE SUITABLE CONCEPTION OF YOUR OWN*


 Every impulse must wed itself to the express statements of the Bible;
otherwise they will lead astray.


 The thing to ask yourself is, “Does the Bible say it?” not, “I don’t think
that is a good view of God.”


 Profoundly speaking, it is not sufficient to say, “Because God says it,”
or, “Because the Bible says it,” unless you are talking to people who know
God and know the Bible to be His Word. If you appeal from the authority of
God or of the Bible to a man not born again, he will pay no attention to you
because he does not stand on the same platform. You have to find a
provisional platform on which he can stand with you, and in the majority of
cases you will find that the platform is that of moral worth. If Jesus
Christ is proved Worthy on the plane men are on, they will be ready to put
Him as the Most Worthy One, and all the rest will follow.


 Whenever human nature gets driven to the end of things the Bible is the
only Book, and God the only Being, in the world.


 The reason some of us are not healthy spiritually is because we don’t use
the Bible as the Word of God but only as a text-book.


 Beware of making a fetish of a word God once spoke to you; if you stick to
the word God spoke you will leave Him, and the result is harshness and
stagnation, a refusal to budge from the precedent you have established.


 Watch every time the Word of God is made a sacrament to you through someone
else; it will make you re-tune your ears to His Word.


 There are saints who are being rattled out of holiness by fussy work for
God; whereas one five minutes of brooding on God’s truth would do more good
than all their work of fuss.


 *IT IS WHAT THE BIBLE IMPARTS TO US THAT IS OF VALUE*


 The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of
the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air
physically.


 If I have disobeyed, the Word of God is dried up; there is “no open
vision.” Immediately I obey the Word is poured in.


 To read the Bible according to God’s providential order in your
circumstances is the only way to read it, viz., in the blood and passion of
personal life.


 The statements of Scripture apart from the Holy Spirit’s illumination are
dull; it needs no spiritual insight to regard Jesus Christ as a Man who
lived beyond His time. But when I am born again I have insight into the
Person of Jesus, an insight that comes through communion with God by means
of the Bible.


 Beware of interpreting Scripture in order to make it suit a pre-arranged
doctrine of your own.


 Exegesis is not torturing a text to agree with a theory of my own, but
leading out its meaning.


 *BEWARE OF REASONING ABOUT GOD’S WORD – OBEY IT!*


 An absurd thing to say is – “Give me a text to prove it.” You cannot give a
text to prove any one of God’s revelations; you can only give a text to
prove your simplification of those revelations. A text-proof is generally
used to bolster up a personal spiritual affinity of my own.


 We are to be servants and handmaids of the Gospel, not devotees of the
Bible. Then God can make us living mediums whereby His Word becomes a
sacrament to others.


 *NOTE**: * “Disciples Indeed” is available in “The Complete Works of Oswald
Chambers” – through Alibris, Amazon, E-Bay and “Christian Book Distributors”
of Massachusetts – *www.christianbook.com** *


 In 1945 I came across a book that confirmed to me how important it is to
understand the nature of the Bible from God’s Viewpoint. He wants us to let
the Bible mean what it wants to mean, and for God to say what He wants to
say.


 For the first several years of my life as a believer, I gave this type of
emphasis to God and His Word. Later as I did Greek research I discovered
through E.W. Kenyon that God and His Word are one. John 1:1 states that
Jesus and the Word (Logos) are one.


 Oswald Chambers in the above article makes this same point abundantly
clear. This puts the complete “kibosh” to the unbelief, rebellion and pride
of Modernism or the New Theology. The Bible is NOT the book for unbelievers!
It is God’s book for BELIEVERS. Chambers also exhorts us to “brood on the
tragedy of Calvary!”


 Jim Watt


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