River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-12-31

that God, who created the heaven and
earth, had spoken just one sentence?
1t : ould be diamond sentence. We
would treasure it above all the wealth
of earth, The Word of God. Yet that
is what we have. For the word of
Cod The word written, the word
spoken, the word lived. The word
written as we have it in the Bible; the
word spoken as we speak it and trans
NIT to others; the word lived IS we
translate it into character and deed.
The Living Word.
"All Scripture is God-breathed." AS
God made man and breathed into him
the breath of life and he became liv-
ing soul, so he inspired men to write
the Scriptures, breathing into them
the breath of his life, and so their
words became his living words. So
we ought to treat Gods Book as a
living thing. We ought to have the
reverence for it that we have for life.
We have more reverence even for
vegetable life than for death. We GER
tainly respect a living, growing flower
more than an artificial thing. Where
there is life it is elevated to higher
realm, and life makes all the differ
ence between respect and disrespect,
reverence and dissertation.
When this word gets into our hearts
and lives 1t becomes active; it shows
life No Christian is respected who
does not show life. He may have the
constituent parts of the Christian in
different receptacles under the glass
case, and people can look at him with
a curious, grewsome sort OF interest
if he is dead but unless they see him
move, and move along the line of
Gods life, they have little respect for
him or his claims.
Some of us have smiled at the fool
ish fellow who stood here on a Chi
cago street and, looking through the
the window of the taXidermists shop,
saw an owl in the midst of the ami
mails and birds he was stuffing for eX-
hibition, and began to criticise the
owl The feathers were not arranged
right, the head was not on right, the
body was not poised right, and when
he got through his criticising the owl
turned around and winked at him.
The man walked off, feeling that he
was fool, and so he was. The mo-
ment that owl turned around and
winked he was beyond that fellows
criticism, and everything he said up
to that moment was true. If we have
stuffed sort of Christianity in the
window for exhibition the world will
pass by and criticise us and every
thing about us, but when we show
life the life Of God, we get beyond
the scalpels OF all the critics in the
world.
The Surgical Word.
And yet there is a sense in which
"the word of God" is surgical, Sharp
err than a two-edged sword, piercing to
the dividing asunder Of soul and spir-
it and Joints and marrow" The word
of God is not only living, but it Is
sharp-sbarper than a two-edged
sword. The business of the sword is
to pierce, and it can pierce between
soul and spirit, the joints and marrow,
cut right into the innermost being.
The soul here represents the natural
man; the spirit represents the spiritual
man. ct is sown a natural body; 1t Is
raised a spiritual body" "The natural
man discerneth not the things of the
Spirit" exactly the same words, "the
soul of man discerneth not the things
of the Spirit" and it takes the word
of God to discriminate between the
natural and spiritual. 1t is "the word
of God" that tells you whether you
are living simply natural life or a
e,pirifuaI life