# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1860_S236
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

236 Instruction Against Doubt of the Divine Word and Its Truth.

punish by what His ears hear. Matt. 11:28: Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 1 Tim. 1:15: This is a faithful saying, and a most precious word, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 1 John 2:1: If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world, etc. When, I say, a penitent, grace-hungry heart hears one or more of such comforting sayings, it is at once and altogether joyfully cheered, kindled to powerful stirrings and inward joys, raises itself up, and stands upright, just as if it came out of darkness into light, and out of death into life. For this reason this holy Word is called a divine power unto salvation to all believers, Rom. 1:16, and a Word of God that is living, powerful, and sharper than a piercing two-edged sword, Heb. 4:12. No less is the same found true in other afflicted hearts, which are pressed with heavy crosses and great distresses, when they hear from this holy Book, Ps. 91:15: I am with him in trouble; I will deliver him and bring him to honor. Job 5:19: He will deliver you from six troubles, and in the seventh no evil shall touch you. From the Lamentations of Jeremiah, chapter 3, verse 31: For the Lord does not cast off forever, but though He causes grief, He will have compassion again according to the abundance of His mercy; for He does not afflict and grieve men from His heart. Job 36:16: He would have brought you out of distress into a broad place, where there is no restriction, etc. There they are so greatly relieved that they must, as is often experienced, praise it with believing astonishment in joy, and say with David, Ps. 119:92: If Your law had not been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction.

Such moving power and powerful movement we find in no writings of the heathen, however worldly-wise, learned, wise, and cunning they may have been; all their books and writings are unable to raise up even a single burdened conscience in the least of sins, much less any greater one, before God, nor to comfort it blessedly in that cross and affliction — but this Scripture of the holy Bible alone can do it. Whence, one may rightly ask, does Scripture then have such penetrating power? Let each man's own conscience answer that for him. The writings of the heathen, as has been said, are unable to do this, for they are nothing but mere human invention and do not have the eternal God for their foundation. Now if this Book of the Bible were likewise nothing more than a human invention, and did not have God Himself as its foundation, head, and Lord, it would then be able to accomplish nothing more than other heathen books. But since it is so living and life-giving that it can penetrate heart and soul with great power, and work therein its singular effect with mighty movement, it follows beyond contradiction that this Word must be more than a word of man,