@ReadingSpurgeon: Hosea 8:12 – The Bible (NPSP1S15)

Taking Hosea 8:12 as his text – “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing” – the theme of this sermon from C. H. Spurgeon is the Bible.

After charging some of his hearers with the sin mentioned in this verse, “God has written to you the great things of His law, but they have been unto you as a strange thing,” he moves on to say three things.

I. Its author

“I have written to him.” The Bible is the writing of the living God. “Each word in it dropped from the everlasting lips, each sentence was dictated by the Holy Spirit.”

How do you know that God wrote this book?

Spurgeon says that he could point to the grandeur of its style, or the subjects of which it treats, or its honesty as it shows the faults of its writers, or its unity and simplicity. But he then says that he doesn’t need to, for this reason: “I am a Christian minister and you are Christians, or profess to be so… You all admit that this is the Word of God.”

Rather he wants us to, first, “admire its authority” since it is God who wrote it; second, “mark its truthfulness,” as it is the only book that is untainted by an error and is perfect and pure; and thirdly, “stop and consider the merciful nature of God, in having written us a Bible at all.” God has not left us to grope around in the dark.

Therefore, “let us thank God for this Bible.  Let us love it.  Let us count it more precious than much fine gold,” and let us “be Bible readers [and] Bible searchers.”

II. Its subjects

“The great things of God’s law.” The Bible contains great things and only great things. There is nothing in the Bible which is unimportant. “While all things in God’s Word are important, all are not equally important.  There are certain fundamental and vital truths which must be believed or otherwise no man would be saved.”

What the fundamental and vital truths? They are what Spurgeon points to as the 3 R’s. Ruin, redemption, and regeneration.

“We were all ruined in the fall. We were all lost when Adam sinned and we are all ruined by our own transgressions. We are all ruined by our own evil hearts and our own wicked wills, and we all shall be ruined unless grace saves us… We are ransomed by the blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish and without spot.  We are rescued by His power.  We are ransomed by His merits.  We are redeemed by His strength… If we have been pardoned, we must also be regenerated.  For no man can partake of redemption unless he is regenerate… Unless he is regenerate and has a new heart, a new birth, he will still be in the first R, that is ruin.”

These are great things, things you ought to listen to.

III. Its treatment

“But they have been unto you as a strange thing,” People have treated the Bible as a strange thing by not reading it, saying it is so horribly dry, and by hating and despising it.

The sermon closes with an appeal: “Come and drink out of this fair fount of knowledge and wisdom and you shall find yourselves made wise unto salvation. Wise and foolish, babes and men, gray-headed sires, youths and maidens – I speak to you. I plead with you, I beg of you, respect your Bibles and search them out, for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of Christ.”