THE TALKING BOOK – Charles Spurgeon

The Talking Book

Introduction

“When you awake, it shall talk with you.” — Proverbs 6:22

It is a very happy circumstance when the commandment of our father and the law of our mother are also the Commandment of God and the Law of the Lord. Happy are they who have a double force to draw them to the right—the bonds of Nature and the cords of Grace. They sin with a vengeance who sin both against a father on earth and the great Father in Heaven, and they exhibit a poisonous and violent form of sin who do despite to the tender obligations of childhood, as well as to the demands of conscience and God. Solomon, in the passage before us, evidently speaks of those who find in the parents’ law and in God’s Law the same thing, and he admonishes such to bind the Law of God about their hearts, and to tie it about their necks; by which he intends inward affection and open avowal.

The Law of God should be so dear to us, that it should be bound about the most vital organ of our being, braided about our heart. That which a man carries in his hands he may forget and lose, that which he wears upon his person may be torn from him, but that which is bound about his heart will remain there as long as life remains. We are to love the Word of God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; with the full force of our nature we are to embrace it; all our warmest affections are to be bound up with it. When the wise man tells us to wear it about our necks, he means that we are never to be ashamed of it; no blush is to mantle our cheek when we are called Christians; we are never to speak with bated breath in any company concerning the things of God. Manfully must we take up the Cross of Christ; cheerfully must we avow ourselves to belong to those who have respect unto the Divine Testimonies. Let us count true religion to be our highest ornament; and, as magistrates put on their gold chains, and think themselves adorned thereby, so let us tie about our neck the Commands and the Gospel of the Lord our God.

Three Reasons for Loving God’s Word

In order that we may be persuaded to do so, Solomon gives us three telling reasons; he says that God’s Law, by which I understand the whole run of Scripture, and especially the Gospel of Jesus Christ, will be a guide to us—“When you go, it shall lead you.” It will be a guardian to us—“When you sleep”—when you are defenseless, and off your guard—“it shall keep you.” And it shall also be a dear companion to us—“When you awake, it shall talk with you.” Any one of these three arguments might surely suffice to make us seek a nearer acquaintance with the Sacred Word!

We all need a guide, for “it is not in man that walks to direct his steps.” Left to our own we soon excel in folly; there are dilemmas in all lives where a guide is more precious than a wedge of gold. The Word of God, as an infallible director for human life, should be sought by us, and it will lead us in the highway of safety. Equally powerful is the second reason: the Word of God will become the guardian of our days. Whoever listens to it shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Unguarded moments there may be; times inevitable to our imperfection, there will be when, unless some other power protects us, we shall fall into the hands of the foe. Blessed is he who has God’s Law so written on his heart, and wears it so about his neck as armor of proof, that at all times he is invulnerable, kept by the Power of God through Faith unto Salvation!

But I prefer, this morning, to keep to the third reason for loving God’s Word. It is this: that it becomes our sweet companion—“When you awake, it shall talk with you.” The Inspired Law of God, which David in the 119th Psalm calls God’s testimonies, precepts, statutes, and the like, is the friend of the Righteous! Its essence and marrow is the Gospel of Jesus, the Law-Fulfiller, and this also is the special solace of Believers. Of the whole Sacred Volume, it may be said, “When you awake, it shall talk with you.”

I. The Word Is Living

We perceive here that THE WORD IS LIVING. How else could it be said—“It shall talk with you”? A dead book cannot talk, nor can a dumb book speak. It is clearly a living Book, then, and a speaking book—“The Word of God, which lives and abides forever.” How many of us have found this to be most certainly true! A large proportion of human books are long ago dead, and even shriveled like Egyptian mummies; the mere course of years has rendered them worthless; their teaching is disproved, and they have no life for us. Entomb them in your public libraries if you will, but from this day forth they will stir no man’s pulse, and warm no man’s heart. But this thrice-blessed Book of God, though it has been extant among us these many hundreds of years, is Immortal in its life, unwithering in its strength—the dew of its youth is still upon it! Its speech still drops as the rain, fresh from Heaven! Its Truths are overflowing fountains of ever-fresh consolation! Never book spoke like this Book—its voice, like the Voice of God, is powerful and full of majesty!

Why is it that the Word of God is living? Is it not, first, because it is pure Truth? Error is death, Truth is life. No matter how well established an error may be by philosophy, or by force of arms, or the current of human thought; the day comes it shall burn as an oven, and all untruth shall be as stubble before the fire. The tooth of time devours all lies; they are soon cut down, and they wither as the green herb. The Truth of God never dies; it dates its origin from the Immortals! Kindled at the source of light, its flame cannot be quenched; if by persecution it is for a time covered, it shall blaze forth anew to take reprisals upon its adversaries. Many a once-venerated system of error now rots in the dead past among the tombs of the forgotten; but the Truth as it is in Jesus knows no sepulcher, and fears no funeral; it lives on, and must live while the Eternal fills His Throne!

The Word of God is living, because it is the utterance of an Immutable, Self-Existing God. God does not speak today what He meant not yesterday; neither will He tomorrow blot out what He records today. When I read a Promise spoken 3,000 years ago, it is as fresh as though it fell from the eternal lips today! There are indeed no dates to the Divine Promises; they are not of private interpretation, nor to be monopolized by any generation. I say again, as fresh today the Eternal Word drops from the Almighty’s lips as when He uttered it to Moses, or to Elijah, or spoke it by the tongue of Elisha or Jeremiah! The Word is always sure, steadfast, and full of Divine Power; it is never out of date! Scripture bubbles up evermore with good matters; it is an eternal geyser; a spiritual Niagara of Grace, forever falling, flashing, and flowing on; it is never stagnant, never brackish or defiled, but always clear, crystal, fresh, and refreshing, and so, therefore, ever living!

The Word lives, again, because it enshrines the living heart of Christ. The heart of Christ is the most living of all existences! It was once pierced with a spear, but it lives on, and yearns towards sinners, and is as tender and compassionate as in the days of the Redeemer’s flesh. Jesus, the Sinner’s Friend, walks in the avenues of Scripture as once He traversed the plains and hills of Palestine—you can still see Him if you have opened eyes, in the ancient prophecies! You can behold Him more clearly in the devout Evangelists; He opens and lays bare His inmost soul to you in the Epistles, and makes you hear the footsteps of His approaching Advent in the symbols of the Apocalypse. The Living Christ is in the Book; you behold His face in almost every page, and, consequently, it is a Book that can talk.

II. The Word Is Personal

If the Text says, “When you awake, it shall talk with you,” then it is clear THE WORD IS PERSONAL. “It shall talk with you.” It is not written, “It shall speak to the air, and you shall hear its voice,” but, “It shall talk with you.” You know exactly what the expression means. I am not exactly talking with any one of you this morning; there are too many of you, and I am but one. But, when you are on the road home, each one will talk with his fellow—then it is truly talk when man speaks to man. Now, the Word of God has the condescending habit of talking to men, speaking personally to them, and here I desire to commend the Word of God to your love. Oh, that you might esteem it very precious for this reason! “It shall talk with you”; that is to say, God’s Word talks about men, and about modern men. It speaks of us, and of these latter days, as precisely as if it had only appeared this last week!

Some go to the Word of God with the idea that they shall find historical information about the ancient ages—and so they will, but that is not the objective of the Word. Others look for facts upon geology, and great attempts have been made either to bring geology round to Scripture, or Scripture to geology; we may always rest assured that the Truth of God never contradicts itself; but, as nobody knows anything yet about geology, for its theory is a dream, and an imagination altogether, we will wait till the philosophers settle their own private matters, being confident that when they find out the Truth, it will be quite consistent with what God has revealed!

At any rate, we may leave that; the main teachings of Holy Scripture are about men, about the Paradise of unfallen manhood, the Fall, the degeneracy of the race, and the means of its Redemption. The Book speaks of victims and sacrifices, priests and washings, and so points us to the Divine Plan by which man can be elevated from the Fall, and be reconciled to God. Read Scripture through, and you shall find that its great subject is that which concerns the race as to their most important interests, and concerns the race, not as Jews or as Gentiles, but as men; not as Barbarians, or Scythians, or Greek, or bond, or free, but as men!

III. The Word Is Familiar

From the Text we learn that HOLY SCRIPTURE IS VERY FAMILIAR. “When you awake, it shall talk with you.” To talk signifies fellowship, communion, familiarity; it does not say, “It shall preach to you.” Many persons have a high esteem for the Book, but they look upon it as though it were some very elevated teacher speaking to them from a lofty tribunal, while they stand far below. I will not altogether condemn that reverence, but it were far better if they would understand the familiarity of God’s Word. It does not so much preach to us as talk to us; it is not, “When you awake, it shall lecture you,” or, “It shall scold you.” No, no, “It shall talk with you.” We sit at its feet, or rather at the feet of Jesus in the Word, and it comes down to us; it is familiar with us, as a man talks to his friend.

And here let me remind you of the delightful familiarity of Scripture in this respect that it speaks the language of men. If God had written us a Book in His own language, we could not have comprehended it, or what little we understood could have so alarmed us that we would have begged that those Words should not be spoken to us anymore. But the Lord, in His Word, often uses language which, though it is Infallibly true in its meanings, is not after the knowledge of God, but according to the manner of man! I mean this, that the Word uses similes and analogies of which we may say that they speak humanly and not according to the absolute Truth as God Himself sees it.

As men conversing with babies use their broken speech, so does the condescending Word of God; it is not written in the celestial tongue, but in the patois of this lowland country, condescending to men of low estate. It feeds us on bread broken down to our capacity, “Food convenient for us.” It speaks of God’s arm, His hands, His fingers, His wings, and even of His feathers. Now, all this is familiar picturing, to meet our childish capacities, for the Infinite One is not to be conceived of as though such similitudes were literal facts. It is an amazing instance of Divine Love that He puts those things so that we may be helped to grasp sublime Truths. Let us thank the Lord of the Word for this!

How tenderly Scripture comes down to simplicity. Suppose the Sacred Volume had all been like the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel? Small would have been its service to the generality of mankind! Imagine that the entire Volume had been as mysterious as the Book of Revelation—it might have been our duty to study it, but if its benefit depended upon our understanding it, we would have failed to attain it. But how simple are the four Gospels; how plain these Words, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” How deliciously clear those parables about the lost piece of money, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son. Wherever the Word touches upon vital points, it is as bright as a sunbeam. Mysteries there are, and profound Doctrines; deeps where Leviathan can swim; but where it has to do immediately with what concerns us for Eternity, it is so plain that the babe in Grace may safely wade in its refreshing streams! In the Gospel narrative, the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err; it is familiar talk; it is God’s great mind brought down to our littleness, that it may lift us up.

Conclusion

The Word of God is to me my own Book—I have no doubt, Brothers and Sisters, it is the same to you; there could not be a Bible that suited me better—it seems written on purpose for me. Dear Sister, have not you often felt as you have put your finger on a Promise, “Ah, that is my Promise; if there is no other soul whose tearful eyes can bedew that page and say, ‘It is mine,’ yet I, a poor afflicted one, can do so!” Oh, yes, the Book is very personal; for it goes into all the details of our case, let our state be what it may. And how very Faithful it always is. You never find the Word of God keeping back that which is profitable to you; like Nathan it cries, “You are the man!” It never allows our sins to go unrebuked, or our backslidings to escape notice till they grow into overt sin; it gives us timely notice; it cries to us as soon as we begin to go aside, “Awake you that sleep!” “Watch and pray!” “Keep your heart with all diligence”; and a thousand other words of warning does it address personally to each one of us.

Now I would suggest, before I leave this point, a little self-examination as healthful for each of us. Does the Word of God speak to my soul after this fashion? Then it is a gross folly to lose by generalizations that precious thing which can only be realized by a personal grasp. What do you say, dear Hearer? Do you read the Book for yourself? And does the Book speak to you? Has it ever condemned you, and have you trembled before the Word of God? Has it ever pointed you to Christ, and have you run to Jesus, the Incarnate Savior? Does the Book now seal, as with the Witness of the Spirit, the witness of your own spirit that you are born of God? Are you in the habit of going to the Book to know your own condition; to see your own face as in a glass? Is it your family medicine? Is it your test and tell-tale to let you know your spiritual condition? Oh, do not treat the Book in any other way than this! And take it to be your personal friend, and then happy are you, since God will dwell with the man who trembles at His Word! But, if you treat it as anybody’s book rather than your own, then beware, lest you be numbered with the wicked who despise God’s Statutes.

And how often the Book has answered inquiries! I have been amazed in times of difficulties to see how plain the Oracle is. You have asked friends, and they could not advise you; but you have gone to your knees, and God has told you. You have questioned, and you have been puzzled, and you have tried to clear up the problem, and, lo, in the chapter read at Morning Prayer, or in a passage of Scripture that lay open before you, the direction has been given! Have we not seen a Text, as it were, plume its wings and fly from the Word like a seraph, and touch our lips with a live altar coal? It lay like a slumbering angel in the beds of spices of the Sacred Word, but it received a Divine Mission, and brought consolation and instruction to our hearts!

The Word of God, then, talks with us in the sense of being familiar with us. Do we understand this? I will close this point by another word of application. Who, then, that finds God’s Word so dear and kind a Friend would spurn or neglect it? If any of you have despised it, what shall I say to you? If it were a dreary book, written within and without with curses and lamentations, whose every letter flashed with declarations of vengeance, I might see some reason why we should not read it; but, O precious, priceless Companion! Dear Friend of all my sorrows, making my bed in my sickness, the light of my darkness, and the joy of my soul, how can I forget you—how can I forsake you? I have heard of one who said that the dust on some men’s Bibles lay there so thick and long that you might write, “Damnation,” on it! I am afraid that such is the case with some of you. Mr. Rogers of Dedham, on one occasion, after preaching about the preciousness of the Bible, took it away from the front of the pulpit, and, putting it down behind him, pictured God as saying, “You do not read the Book; you do not care about it; I will take it back; you shall not be wearied with it any more.” And then he portrayed the grief of wise men’s hearts when they found the blessed Revelation withdrawn from men; and how they would besiege the Throne of Grace, day and night, to ask for it back. I am sure he spoke the truth! Though we, too, much neglect it, yet ought we to prize it beyond all price, for if it were taken from us, we would have lost our kindest comforter in the hour of need. God grant us to love the Scriptures more!

IV. The Word Is Responsive

Fourthly, and with brevity, our Text evidently shows that THE WORD IS RESPONSIVE. “When you awake, it shall talk with you,” not to you. Now, talk with a man is not all on one side; to talk with a man needs answering talk from him; you have both of you something to say when you talk together; it is a conversation to which each one contributes his part. Now, Scripture is a marvelously conversational Book. It talks, and makes men talk. It is ever ready to respond to us. Suppose you go to the Scriptures in a certain state of spiritual life; you must have noticed, I think, that the Word answers to that state. If you are dark and gloomy, it will appear as though it had put itself in mourning, so that it might lament with you. When you are on the dunghill, there sits Scripture, with dust and ashes on its head, weeping side by side with you, and not upbraiding like Job’s miserable comforters! But suppose you come to the Book with gleaming eyes of joy—you will hear it laugh! It will sing and play to you as with psaltery and harp; it will bring forth the high-sounding cymbals! Enter its goodly land in a happy state, and you shall go forth with joy, and be led forth with peace! Its mountains and its hills shall break before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

As in water the face is reflected, so in the Living Stream of revealed Truth a man sees his own image. If you come to Holy Scripture with growth in Grace, and with aspirations for yet higher attainments, the Book grows with you, grows upon you! It is ever beyond you, and cheerily cries, “Higher yet!” Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. I read them years ago with considerable pleasure; I have read them since with disappointment. I shall never read them again, for they are of no service to me; they were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I have outgrown them. I know more than these books know, and know wherein they are faulty. But nobody ever outgrows Scripture! The Book widens and deepens with our years! It is true, it cannot really grow, for it is perfect, but it does so to our apprehension. The deeper you dig into Scripture, the more you find that it is a great abyss of Truth. The beginner learns four or five points of orthodoxy, and says, “I understand the Gospel, I have grasped all the Bible.” Wait a bit, and when his soul grows and knows more of Christ, he will confess, “Your Commandment is exceedingly broad, I have only begun to understand it.”

There is one thing about God’s Word which shows its responsiveness to us, and that is when you reveal your heart to it, it reveals its heart to you. If, as you read the Word, you say, “O blessed Truth, you are, indeed, realized in my experience; come still further into my heart; I give up my prejudices; I assign myself, like the wax, to be stamped with your seal.” When you do that, and open your heart to Scripture, Scripture will open its heart to you, for it has secrets which it does not tell to the casual reader; it has precious things of the everlasting hills which can only be discovered by miners who know how to dig and open the secret places, and penetrate great veins of everlasting riches. Give yourself up to the Bible, and the Bible will give itself up to you! Be candid with it, and honest with your soul, and the Scripture will take down its golden key, and open one door after another, and show to your astonished gaze ingots of silver which you could not weigh, and heaps of gold which you could not measure! Happy is that man who, in talking with the Bible, tells it all his heart, and learns the secret of the Lord which is with them who fear Him.

And how, too, if you love the Bible and talk out your love to it, the Bible will love you! Its wisdom says, “I love them who love Me.” Embrace the Word of God, and the Word of God embraces you at once. When you prize its every letter, then it smiles upon you graciously, greets you with many welcomes, and treats you as an honored guest. I am always sorry to be on bad terms with the Bible, for then I must be on bad terms with God. Whenever my creed does not square with God’s Word, I think it is time to mold my creed into another form. As for God’s Words, they must not be touched with hammer or axe. Oh, the chiseling, and cutting, and hammering in certain commentaries to make God’s Bible orthodox and systematic! How much better to leave it alone! The Word is right, and we are wrong if we do not agree with it! The teachings of God’s Word are Infallible, and must be reverenced as such.

Now, when you love it so much that you would not change a single line of it, and prize it so much that you would even die for the defense of one of its Truths, then, as it is dear to you, you will be dear to it, and it will grasp you and unfold itself to you as it does not to the world. Dear Brothers and Sisters, I must leave this point, but it shall be with this remark: Do you talk to God? Does God talk to you? Does your heart go up to Heaven, and does His Word come fresh from Heaven to your soul? If not, you do not know the experience of the living child of God, and I can earnestly pray you may. May you this day be brought to see Christ Jesus in the Word; to see a Crucified Savior there, and to put your trust in Him, and then, from this day forward, the Word will echo to your heart—it will respond to your emotions!

V. Scripture Is Influential

Lastly, SCRIPTURE IS INFLUENTIAL. That I gather from the fact that Solomon says, “When you wake, it shall talk with you”; and follows it up with the remark that it keeps man from the strange woman, and from other sins which he goes on to mention. When the Word of God talks with us, it influences us; all talk influences more or less; I believe there is more done in this world for good or bad by talk than there is by preaching. Indeed, the preacher preaches best when he talks! There is no oratory in the world that is equal to simple talk—it is the model of eloquence, and all your rhetorician’s action and verbiage are so much rubbish. The most efficient way of preaching is simply talking—a man permitting his heart to run over at his lips into other men’s hearts.

Now, this Book, as it talks with us, influences us, and it does so in many ways; it soothes our sorrows and encourages us. Many a warrior has been ready to steal away from God’s battle, but the Word has laid its hand on him and said, “Stand on your feet; be not discouraged; be of good cheer, I will strengthen you, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My Righteousness.” Brave saints we have read of, but we little know how often they would have been complete cowards, only the Good Word came and strengthened them, and they went back to be stronger than lions and swifter than eagles!

While the Book thus soothes and cheers, it has a wonderfully elevating power. Have you ever felt it put fresh life-blood into you? You have thought, “How can I continue to live at such a dying rate as I have lived; I must gain something nobler?” Read that part of the Word which tells of the agonies of your Master, and you will feel—

“Now for the love I bear His name
What was my gain I count my loss.
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to His Cross.”

Read of the glories of Heaven which this Book reveals, and you will feel that you can run the race with quickened speed because a crown so bright is glittering in your view! Nothing can so lift a man above the gross considerations of carnal gain or human applause as to have his soul saturated with the spirit of the Truth of God! It elevates as well as cheers!

Then, too, how often it warns and restrains. I had gone to the right or to the left if the Law of the Lord had not said, “Let your eyes look right on, and let your eyelids look straight before you.” This Book’s consecrated talk sanctifies and molds the mind into the Image of Christ.

You cannot expect to grow in Grace if you do not read the Scriptures. If you are not familiar with the Word, you cannot expect to become like He that spoke it. Our experience is, as it were, the potter’s wheel on which we revolve; and the hand of God is in the Scriptures to mold us after the fashion and image which He intends to bring us. Oh, be much with the Holy Word of God, and you will be Holy. Be much with the silly novels of the day, and the foolish trifles of the hour, and you will degenerate into wasters of your time; but be much with the solid teaching of God’s Word, and you will become solid and substantial men and women—drink them in, and feed upon them, and they shall produce in you a Christ-likeness at which the world shall stand astonished!

Lastly, let the Scripture talk with you, and it will confirm and settle you. We hear every now and then of apostates from the Gospel; they must have been little taught in the Truth as it is in Jesus. A great outcry is made, every now and then, about our all being converted to Rome; I was assured the other day by a good man with a great deal of alarm, that all England was going over to Popery! I told him I did not know what kind of God he worshiped, but my God was a good deal bigger than Satan, and my God did not intend to let the devil have his way after all, and that I was not half as much afraid of the Pope at Rome as of the Ritualists at home. But mark it, there is some truth in these fears! There will be a going over to one form of error or another, unless there is in the Christian Church a more honest, industrious, and general reading of Holy Scripture.

What if I were to say most of you Church members do not read your Bibles? Would I be slandering you? You hear on Sunday a Chapter read, and you perhaps read a passage at family prayer; but a very large number never read the Bible privately for themselves. They take their religion out of the monthly magazine, or accept it from the minister’s lips. Oh, for the Berean spirit back again—to search the Scriptures whether these things are so! I would like to see a huge pile of all the books, good and bad, that were ever written—prayer books, and sermons, and hymnbooks, and all—smoking like Sodom of old, if the reading of those books keeps you away from the reading of the Bible! A ton weight of human literature is not worth an ounce of Scripture—one single drop of the essential tincture of the Word of God is better than a sea full of our comments and sermons, and the like! The Word, the simple, pure, Infallible Word of God—we must live upon it if we are to become strong against error, and tenacious of Truth! Brothers and Sisters, may you be established in the Faith—rooted, grounded, built up; but I know you cannot be except you search the Scriptures continually.

The time is coming when we shall all fall asleep in death. Oh, how blessed it will be to find when we awake that the Word of God will talk with us then, and remember its ancient friendship! Then the Promise which we loved before shall be fulfilled; the charming intimations of a blessed future shall be all realized, and the face of Christ, whom we saw as through a glass darkly, shall be all uncovered, and He shall shine upon us as the sun in its strength! God grant us to love the Word of God, and feed thereon, and the Lord shall have the Glory forever and ever. Amen and amen!

Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon—Psalm 119:161-179; Proverbs 6:1-23.

Charles Spurgeon