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Spurgeon teaches a strongly high view of Scripture: although written through many human authors, the Bible is ultimately the Word of the living God. Because it is divine revelation, it possesses binding authority and communicates truths that human reason alone cannot provide. The Bible’s central subjects include salvation, judgment, heaven, hell, and the eternal character of God. Hearers are warned against neglecting Scripture and urged to search it, believe its message, and find hope in Christ.
Theological center: The Bible is God-authored revelation, inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore fully authoritative, truthful, sufficient, and decisive for salvation and eternity.
Applications: Read and search Scripture · Come to Scripture for salvation · Consider Scripture’s divine authorship · Consider eternal consequences
Primary texts: Hosea 8:12 · Mark 16:16 · 2 Peter 3:3
“I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.” Hosea 8:12 THIS is God’s complaint against Ephraim. It is no mean proof of His goodness, that He stoops to rebuke His erring creatures. It is a great argument of His gracious disposition that He bows His head to notice terrestrial affairs. He might, if He pleased, wrap Himself with night as with a garment. He might put the stars around His wrist for bracelets and bind the suns around His brow for a coronet. He might dwell alone, far, far above this world, up in the seventh heaven, and look down with calm and silent indifference upon all the doings of His creatures. He might do as the heathens supposed their Jove did, sit in perpetual silence, sometimes nodding his awful head to make the Fates move as he pleased, but never taking thought of the little things of earth, disposing of them as beneath his notice, engrossed within his own being, swallowed up within Himself. He lived alone and retired. And I, as one of His creatures, might stand by night upon a mountaintop and look upon the silent stars and say, “You are the eyes of God, but you look not down on me. Your light is the gift of His omnipotence, but your rays are not smiles of love to me. God, the mighty Creator, has forgotten me, I am a despicable drop in the ocean of creation, a sere leaf in the forest of beings, an atom in the mountain of existence. He knows me not. I am alone, alone, alone.” But it is not so, beloved. Our God is of another order. He notices every one of us. There is not a sparrow or a worm, but is found in His decrees. There is not a person upon whom His eye is not fixed. Our most secret acts are known to Him. Whatsoever we do, or bear, or suffer, the eye of God still rests upon us, and we are beneath His smile—for we are His people. Or beneath His frown—for we have erred from Him. Oh! how ten-thousand-fold merciful is God, that, looking down upon the race of man, He does not smile it out of existence. We see from our text that God looks upon man, for He says of Ephraim, “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.” But see how when He observes the sin of man, He does not dash him away and spurn him with His foot. He does not shake him by the neck over the gulf of hell, until his brain does reel, and then drop him forever. But rather, He comes down from heaven to plead with His creatures. He argues with them. He puts Himself, as it were, upon a level with the sinner, states His grievances, and pleads His claim. “O Ephraim, I have written…