“The Book for You”

Are you thinking of getting a new book, or of asking your father or mother to get one for you?

Wait a moment until I whisper something in your ear: The best book in this world for you is the one that Timothy had when he was a boy.

“And what was that?” you say.

In 2 Tim. 3:15 we are told that the name of it was “The Holy Scriptures.”

“What! do you mean the Bible?”

Yes.

“Oh,” I imagine I hear you say, “that is too dull and uninteresting.”

Ah, you would never say that if you knew what was in it.

You have doubtless thought some friend dull and uninteresting until you got acquainted with him, and now perhaps you find him the best and most interesting friend that you have.

That is the way it is with the Bible. You are unacquainted with it, and it therefore seems dull and uninteresting. But have patience, and spend time to get thoroughly acquainted with it, and you will find it not only the most interesting book in the whole world, but also the most helpful.

In the first place, it is written to you. And it always pays to read a letter very carefully that is written to you. If it came from the Queen to you, you would read every word of it again and again, no matter how uninteresting it might seem at first.

It is from the King of kings, therefore it should receive special and immediate attention, and the utmost reverence. It must be something very important to you, or He would never have taken the trouble to send it to you.

He says that it is able to make you “wise unto salvation;” to thoroughly furnish you “unto all good works;” to make you “understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path”; “to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.”

A book that can tell you just how to be saved, and can make you understand every good path, and furnish you with every good work, and give you a home on the new earth,—is not that a book worth having, and worth studying? Where is there another book that can do that much for you?

No wonder that Timothy listened to it so reverently and studied it so carefully. And no wonder that he became a great and good man filled with “unfeigned faith,” and was “faithful in the Lord,” and worked “the work of the Lord” all his life.

If you would learn how to walk with God and be saved, get the Book that Timothy had, and study it and obey it as He did.

 

 

“Walking with God”

No matter how cold or stormy the day, or how rough or slippery the road, it is all forgotten if father says, “Come and take a walk with me.”

What joy it is to trip along by his side and feel his great hand over yours and look up into his kind face and listen to his loving voice! If danger threatens, you feel sure that he will protect you; and if you grow weary you know that his strong arms will carry you.

But there is a greater treat than this in store for you, if you will accept it. Your Heavenly Father sends you an invitation to walk with Him!

He has done more for you than your earthly father ever could do, for He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and Creator of heaven and earth. He is much stronger and wiser than your father, and loves you with a deeper, truer love. If you will stop to count up some of the things that He has done for you, you will see that this is true. Therefore you need not be afraid to walk with Him although He is so powerful.

“Well,” you say, “when does God want me to walk with Him?”

To-day.

“Where does He want me to walk with Him?”

Wherever He goes; just as your father does when you walk with him. You cannot walk with your father, you know, unless you are agreed with him and go in the same path and in the same direction that he goes. You need not fear that God will ever lead you into evil paths, for the Bible tells us that all “the ways of the Lord are right.”

“But,” you say, “I cannot see Him as I can my father.”

No, that is true, for He says that we must “walk by faith, not by sight.”

But have you ever walked with your father when you could not see him? And yet you walked with him as truly as when you could see him plainly.

Thus you may walk with God, although you cannot now see Him with your eyes. You walk with Him when you willingly give up your way and walk in His way, and do as He does. And He promises that He will lead you with His right hand, and guide you with His eye, and get you with His arm, and carry you in His bosom, and talk with you in His word.

That you might not make any mistakes, but might know just how and just where God walks, He sent His only Son to this earth to show you the whole way from childhood up to manhood. So no matter how young you are or how old you may become, you may always walk with God if you follow the steps of Jesus and “walk, even as He walked.”

He was sent to guide our feet back into the way of peace, which is God’s way, and to walk with us and help us along. Without Him we could never walk with God, for we have all been out of the way ever since Adam chose to walk with Satan.

When man was first created, it was perfectly natural and easy for him to walk with God in His way of holiness, for he was then pure and holy like God. But now we have all yielded to Satan’s evil mind so long that we have no power at all to do right and walk in God’s way. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts.

Without Jesus to strengthen us and guide us we cannot do good works any more than your knife can do good work without someone to guide it; for Satan is stronger than we.

But Jesus is stronger than Satan, and God says that if we believe on Him and yield our minds, and eyes, and ears, and tongues, and hands, and feet, and our whole bodies to Jesus, as completely as we have been yielding them to Satan, then we may be able to walk with God by faith and do as He does. Where? Even here while surrounded by temptation and sin of every kind! And more than that He says that if we now thus walk with Him by faith, we shall one day see Him with our eyes, and walk with Him in white.

Is not that good news? Is not God’s loving kindness very great to give His only Son that we might be able to walk with Him in His way of life? Would you not think that everyone would gladly believe on Jesus and follow Him?

But you remember how Cain disbelieved, and therefore lost all the blessing of walking with God both here and hereafter. Well, ever since that time people have been following the example of Cain.

As people increased upon the earth, many of them went away from Adam and the few who believed, and they built themselves great cities and placed their affections on the perishing things of this sin-cursed earth. They did not believe the promise of a Saviour and of Eden restored, and therefore they were not willing to count themselves strangers and pilgrims here.

Satan tried to get all to disbelieve God’s promise, and try to make them believe that no matter how earnestly they believed on Christ and followed Him, they would never receive the promised reward and see God face to face. So to encourage His faithful ones and show to all that He had not forgotten His promises, God did a wonderful thing one day—

He translated Enoch, the seventh from Adam, that is, He changed him and took him to heaven that he should not see death!

We are told in Hebrews that Enoch was chosen because he had faith. Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. And we read in Genesis that he had this faith not for one day, or two, or even for one year, but for over three hundred years! He had shown that he could be trusted.

Now that is the kind of companionship that God wants to find in you. He wants you to be like Enoch, and trust Him and walk with Him day after day and day after day all your life, for He says—

“What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

If you are ever tempted to think that God will forget to give you the promised reward, remember Enoch, and remember that God is no respecter of persons; He will reward you as surely as He did Enoch.

1. What was the name of the first child that ever lived on this earth? Gen. 4:1.
2. What was the name of his brother? Gen. 4:2.
3. Tell all that you know about Cain.
4. Tell all that you know about Abel.
5. After Abel was slain, whom did God give to Adam and Eve in his stead? Gen. 4:25.
6. Did Adam ever have any other children, or grandchildren? Gen. 5.
7. How long did Methuselah live? Gen. 5:27.
8. What did Enoch, the seventh from Adam, do, that pleased God very much? Heb. 11:5, last part, and verse 6, first part.
9. What did this faith in Jesus enable him to do, even while surrounded by wicked people and all kinds of temptations? Gen. 5:24.
10. How long did he walk with God? Gen. 5:21, 22.
11. What is meant by “walking with God”? Ps. 119:1-3.
12. In what kind of paths does God always walk? Hosea 14:9; Ps. 145:17.
13. Then if Enoch walked with God, in what paths must he have walked? Amos 3:3; Lev. 26:3, 12, 21, 24; Mal. 2:6.
14. Was it natural for him to do right and walk in God’s way of holiness?—No, no more natural for him than for us.
15. Why not? Rom. 3:12.
16. How far have we all gone out of God’s way? Isa. 55:8, 9.
17. But what has God done that shows wonderful love for us?—He has given His Son to guide us back into His way of peace and life. John 3:16; 14:6; Luke 1:79.
18. If we yield ourselves up to Jesus every day, and “walk even as He walked” when He was on earth, what shall we be sure to do?—To walk with God. 1 Peter 2:21, 22; 1 John 2:6.
19. How completely must we yield ourselves to Him?—As completely as we have been yielding to Satan. Rom. 6:19.
20. But if we do not yield to Jesus and let Him use us, how much good work can we do?—No more than your knife does by itself. John 15:5, last part.
21. Can Jesus show us how to walk with God when we are only little children?—Yes, for He has walked with God from childhood up to manhood, and knows all the way that we must take.
22. Then no matter how young you may be, what does God want you to do? Micah 6:8.
23. And how can you do this?—By letting Jesus lead you along the same path that He walked when He was a boy.
24. Need you fear that God will forget to reward you?—No; the God that rewarded Enoch will never forget you, for He is no respecter of persons.
25. When will He reward us all? 1 Thess. 4:15-18; Rev. 22:12.

The Present Truth – May 17, 1894
E. J. Waggoner

Story in pdf  The Book for You & Walking with God