David says, ”By God I will praise His word.”  Psa. 56:4.  He doesn´t say, “By His word I will praise God.”  That would also be true, but here´s the point.  I go to His word, I open my Bible, because He is there!  If not, what´s the use of opening my Bible?

But what if the Bible be taken away from me?  He is still there!  Richard Wurmbrand in His classic “Tortured for Christ” (transl. into many languages) testifies of persecuted Christians, including himself, who as tortured prisoners had the Bible taken away from them, sometimes for many years, and yet Wurmbrand testifies in strong language of the presence of Christ in those trials.  He was still there.

(Similar testimonies have come to us from the persecuted orthodox Christians in Russia during the many years of communistic rule).

So the Bible only makes sense if God is there. “By God I praise his word.”    My American fellow Christians seem to handle the Bible in many good translations, but does that mean that they have a more vivid awareness of God than the persecuted Christians?  No.

However, I also met believers yearning for spiritual reality – for “the real thing” - which they didn´t necessarily find in the engine rooms of the streamlined church establishment.   They are often the ones that would ask, “Do you think persecutions will come also this way?”

They  will.  Why?  Because God wants to be mean?  Far from it.  He wants us to become aware of Himself, that´s why.  Good, intelligent handling of the Bible is not enough.  It takes a life of suffering for His name´s sake, for “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution”  (2 Tim. 3:12) – so in some real way the sufferings are already there.

We´re not called to be Bible machines or robots, but God´s intimates in Christ Jesus with His mind and discernment.  An intimate awareness of Him will be a guard against false voices.  And you will not throng together with thousands to false prophets coming to us like wolves in sheep´s clothing.

Out in the open I may pass  some sheep on the field.  I try to change my voice and “talk” to them.  They would quietly look at me without responding.  “They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of the strangers.” Joh. 10:5.

The awareness of the Shepherd´s voice is so needed – with or without the Bible.

May 18, 2012 – jn