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Not Trusting in Impressions, April 23
I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will
delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.
Psalm 119:15,
16
.
In His Word, God has committed to men the knowledge necessary for
salvation. The Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible
revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the revealer of
doctrines, and the test of experience. “Every scripture inspired of God is also
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in
righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely
unto every good work” (
2 Timothy 3:16, 17
, RV).
Yet the fact that God has revealed His will to men through His Word has
not rendered needless the continued presence and guiding of the Holy Spirit.
On the contrary, the Spirit was promised by our Saviour, to open the Word to
His servants, to illuminate and apply its teachings. And since it was the Spirit
of God that inspired the Bible, it is impossible that the teaching of the Spirit
should ever be contrary to that of the Word.
The Spirit was not given—nor can it ever be bestowed—to supersede the
Bible; for the Scriptures explicitly state that the Word of God is the standard
by which all teaching and experience must be tested. Says the apostle John,
“Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world” (
1 John 4:1
). And Isaiah
declares, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this
word, it is because there is no light in them” (
Isaiah 8:20
).
Great reproach has been cast upon the work of the Holy Spirit by the
errors of a class that, claiming its enlightenment, profess to have no further
need of guidance from the Word of God. They are governed by impressions
which they regard as the voice of God in the soul. But the spirit that controls
them is not the Spirit of God. This following of impressions, to the neglect of
the Scriptures, can lead only to confusion, to deception and ruin. It serves
only to further the designs of the evil one.
Since the ministry of the Holy Spirit is of vital importance to the church
of Christ, it is one of the devices of Satan, through the errors of extremists
and fanatics, to cast contempt upon the work of the Spirit and cause the
people of God to neglect this source of strength which our Lord Himself has
provided.—
The Great Controversy, vii
.
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