The Comfort of the Scriptures 
 
A sermon delivered by T. T. Shields 
 
July 10, 1921 
 
"For whatsoever things were written aforetime were
written 
for our learning, that we through patience and comfort
of 
the Scriptures might have hope." - Romans 15:4 
 
I sHALL SPEAK TO YOU for a little while this morning
about the use of the Bible. It is represented in the
above verse as a Book that has been Divinely produced,
with a view to effecting certain Divine purposes. It
is not the product of evolution, of the evolution of
man's religious consciousness, nor is it the result of
man's blind search after God; but It is written for a
special purpose: "Whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning." 
 
1. 
 
Thus, human need has been fully anticipated and
provided for in the Scriptures of truth. It is a
remarkable fact that the Bible does not wear out. You
have bought many books, and you have read more than
you have bought. Very few of them have you read the
second time, and some, perhaps, you have not been able
to complete because of their want of interest. But
the Bible is as a well that is never dry, a light that
is never extinguished, a banqueting-table that is
never exhausted of its dainties; It is always
ministering and never wearing out. 
 
And the reason is this: It has been especially
prepared for our use; the things that are written here
were "written aforetime for our learning." How
reasonable it is that this should be so! How
inspiring it is to read the record of Divine grace! 
How beautifully, how fully, how elaborately our
gracious God furnished this earth for human
habitation, so that when man was at last created and
put in the garden, every possible provision had
already been made for his every need. And even now,
if I may dare to say so, we have not finished
unpacking the trunk. It was long before man learned
that God had stored away a supply of coal in the
cellars of the world; and little by little, all
through the centuries, men have been discovering how
fully God has provided for human need. 
 
After all, that is the function of true science-not
"science falsely so-called" to go through this great
house we call the world and discover its treasures
which God has laid up for those who love Him. Once we
thought we were very clever when we wired our houses
and were able to talk to our neighbors without going
out-of-doors. We considered it an extraordinarily
clever thing to send the voice along a copper wire-but
now we have learned that all that was provided for
long before we knew anything about it, and we are
almost ashamed of our wires now; for we have
discovered that God has provided a medium through
which we may talk thousands of miles without any wires
at all. And by and by, when we have learned to
articulate more clearly, we may be our own
broadcasting machine and may be able to talk from
continent to continent, and who knows but from planet
to planet? Thus richly has this world been furnished,
so that nothing we need is lacking. 
 
Would it not be strange if He had made every provision
for our need in the material world and yet had made no
provision for our spiritual requirements? The mariner
has something by which to guide his course: He has the
pole star. There is also that mysterious something
which no one understands and which we call the
magnetic pole, by which the compass is directed,
making it possible for men to make their way across
the trackless deep. In fact, in every realm of life
God has set up standards by which man may be guided
and his life directed. I say, how strange it would
have been had He not provided for the requirements of
the soul! But just as our gracious God has furnished
the world and provided for all our material need, so
in the Scripture He has stored away everything we
require for our learning in order that we may be the
men and women we should be. It was written
"aforetime" by Divine order, and by Divine prescience
every possible requirement of the soul has been
anticipated and provided for in this wonderful Book. 
 
The Scriptures, then, were written for "our
learning." The Book is to be our Teacher; the Book is
to judge us-we are not to judge the Book. There is a
world of difference between these two attitudes of
approach. Nowadays it has become common for men to
attempt to teach the Book. They turn to Genesis and
go through every page of it and say, "I do not believe
that ... and I do not believe that ... and I do not
believe that." Poor blind souls they are, how little
do they know that the Bible was written for our
learning! It was intended to be our Teacher, and no
man will ever get the wealth of wisdom and of grace
here laid up for the believing soul who approaches it
in that critical attitude. "He that cometh to God
must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him." And it is equally true
of the Word of God, that if you would get out of It
that which God has put into It for you, you must come
to It as to the Word of God: you must surrender your
will to It; you must yield your intellect to It; you
must let It search your heart; you must sit at Its
feet as at the feet of a teacher. 
 
That is perfectly reasonable, it is not? It is
useless for me to go to a doctor and tell him how to
heal me. If I were a doctor he would say, "Physician,
heal thyself." If you will be your own adviser, do it
yourself. If you are a master in any particular realm
of knowledge, you do not go to anyone else for
instruction; you go rather to a man who has
specialized in some particular branch about which you
yourself know little or nothing; and though you were a
college professor or the author of an encyclopedia, in
the particular branch of knowledge of which you are
ignorant, you must go to a master and bow at his feet
and say, "What shall I do?" The Bible is the Master. 
It is the word of Divine Wisdom; It tells of Him in
Whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge reside.
 It is, indeed, the record of Him in Whom "dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." And all that
is written herein is written for our instruction, that
you may come to the Book as a humble pupil that you
may learn therefrom that which He would have you know.
 It was written "aforetime for our learning"; but we
shall learn from It only as we come to It in this
teachable attitude. 
 
If' there are any here this morning who have never
learned anything from the Scriptures. it is because
you have never gone to school to the Scriptures. The
Book is designed to teach us. 
 
It teaches us, first of all, about ourselves. You
will never learn what you are until you come to the
Book. Here your portrait is properly drawn. The
Bible will pay you no compliment; It will humble you
in the dust. I remember somewhere reading of a young
man who went to college. He was taken into the
president's office, and the president said to him,
"What do you know?" The young man replied, "I do not
know anything, sir. I came here to learn." "Well,"
said the president, "that is very good in general
terms; I suppose you mean that, but what schools have
you attended'? What credits have you?" "Nothing of
which I am proud, sir," he said. "I have done such
poor work that it is not worth mentioning. I have
come here to learn." "But what have you read?" he was
asked. "Oh, nothing worth speaking about." "Well,
but have you read nothing at all?" "Of course, I have
read a little, but nothing to what I ought to have
read or should like to have read," was his reply. 
"And you know nothing?" "No, sir, nothing worth
speaking of. I supposed the college existed to teach,
so I have come to learn." The president took him by
the hand and said, "Let me congratulate you, sir. You
are three years in advance of the average student. It
takes the average student three years to learn that he
knows nothing." 
 
Many people come to the Bible with the idea that they
know everything-, but if you let It talk to you, you
will discover what a great sinner you are. No one
else will ever tell you that you are a sinner. They
may tell you that you are not perfect, that there is
something wrong; but the Bible will go right to the
heart of the matter and leave you stripped, standing
before God as a poor, helpless, bankrupt sinner. It
was "written for our learning." 
 
That is the one thing you and I need to learn first of
all: how sinful, how utterly helpless we are. It is
only because people do not know the nature of the
disease called sin that they try to heal themselves. 
They think it is just a little human imperfection,
something that can be sloughed off. But the Bible
tells you there is something wrong with the heart:
"Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually"-, "The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked", that the will is
corrupt: "We have turned every one to his own way";
that the intellect is against God: "The carnal mind is
enmity against God: for it is not subject to the will
of God, neither indeed can be"; that the memory is
evil and retains that which is evil and not good; that
the "whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is
no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and
putrefying sores." That is what the Bible tells us,
and that is what we need to learn. 
 
Further. the Bible will teach us about others. It is
more important that we should know about ourselves. 
There are some people who know a great deal about
other people. I knew a man who said he was always
rather suspicious of people who were supremely
concerned about other people's sins. There are people
who are expert in judging other people's sins; but the
Bible will tell you what you are, and then It will
tell you that you are just one of a class, and that
all have sinned. It will cure you of a hundred evils
to which men give themselves who do not believe the
Bible to be true. 
 
Then we shall learn from the Bible of God Himself, who
He is. The Scriptures "were written for our
learning." We shall learn that He hears the cry of the
human soul, that He gave His Son to die for our sins,
that He comes to the help of the helpless, that He has
compassion on the poor, that He gives energy to the
one who is being defeated. We shall know something of
His holiness, something of His mercy, His grace, His
power. It was written "for our learning." 
 
Certain people say, in effect, "It is no longer
possible for us to unite on the Bible, but we may
unite on the person of Christ"! But what does anybody
know of "the Person of Christ" apart from the Bible'? 
This, my friends, is the record, from Genesis to
Revelation, that God has given us of His Son; and
"whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning" that we might learn of God. And you
cannot learn about God anywhere else. The only God we
know is the God who is revealed in the Person of Jesus
Christ, and the only record we have of Christ is in
this inspired Book, so that we are shut up for our
knowledge of ourselves and of our fellows-yes, and I
think, had I time to develop it, I could show you that
you are shut up to a knowledge of the world about you
as well as to a knowledge of God, to the Scriptures of
truth. I do not believe that any man can be a true
scientist-I do not believe any man can discern the
ultimate truth in any realm-unless he approaches the
study of that subject through the light of the
Scriptures. The message of God in nature is really
known only to those whose minds are illuminated by the
Holy Spirit, just as truly as the message of God in
the Book can only be known by the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. Indeed, we know nothing-we have no
knowledge of truth in the absolute in respect to any
realm-apart from the written Word. We are dependent
upon God to tell us the truth for time and for
eternity, written in this Book for our learning. 
 
 Let us now observe why the Scriptures were written:
"That we through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures might have hope." The Bible is given to us
that thereby, or therefrom, we may learn patience and
receive comfort. Is there anyone here who does not
need to learn patience'? The fact that the days of
our years are three score and ten and that we are
subject to the limitations of time and space
inevitably makes us impatient. It is not possible for
a man to be patient who sees only temporal things.
Patience, in the true sense, is possible only to one
who gets the perspective of eternity. You can never
be patient until you learn to look at things through
God's eyes. The little boy to whom his father says,
"Not today, my son, perhaps tomorrow," says, "Will
tomorrow ever come?" "Not this Christmas, my lad,
perhaps next Christmas." "Next Christmas! Why, that
is an eternity!" I remember when I was a little boy I
used to feel that the day after Christmas was the
nearest thing to nothing that anything could possibly
be because the next Christmas was so far away! For a
child to be told to wait is to inflict upon him a hard
discipline because he looks at things from a child's
point of view. 
 
We can get a glimpse of this truth through the things
that come to us through the years. There are men and
women here this morning saying, "When I was young I
wanted things done now-Now-NOW; but as the years
multiplied, I learned how to wait." But it is the
hardest thing in the world to wait-wait-wait, and be
patient. 
 
Why were the Scriptures written? Why were they given
to us'? That we might learn to be patient, that we
might come to look at things from the standpoint of
One who, in respect of time, is a Multimillionaire. 
God always has plenty of time; He never is before His
time, and He never is too late. Let me tell you what
I think is wrapped up in this simple text. Take the
case of Abraham. He was a man subject to like
passions as we are, subject to all our limitations. 
He is told to leave his country and go out to a land
that he has never seen. He obeys, and when he is
brought to that land, God tells him that He will give
him the land but that He will give it to him in his
seed, saying, "I will bless thee, and in multiplying I
will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and
as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed
shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because
thou hast obeyed My voice." God makes him a great
promise, and already the promise involves a miracle,
for Abraham has reached the evening-time of his life
and has no son; and then after He has made the
promise, for perhaps over twenty years, he is kept
waiting. Do you not suppose Abraham became impatient?
 But he had to learn how God fulfills His own plans
and purposes, and in due time Isaac was born. And God
told Abraham a strange thing in that period of
darkness-you remember the thick darkness that came
upon him'?-the Lord told Abraham that his seed should
go down into Egypt, that they would be there four
hundred years, and after that He would judge that
nation and bring them out into liberty. Only when we
get the Divine standpoint can we count in terms of
centuries and millenniums. Men say, "I have only a
few years to live. It must be now or never; let me
have any good things I am to have now." The Lord said
to Abraham, "Be patient, and I will fulfill My plan to
you by and by; by and by, My word will be fulfilled." 
 
We come into Exodus, and there we see Moses eager to
get at his work, just like some young men who cannot
wait for preparation. He wants to get into it at
once, "for he supposed his brethren would have
understood how that God by his hand would deliver
them." But the Lord said to Moses, "You need a college
course that will occupy you forty years. Go back to
the wilderness to school"; and He sends Moses back
forty years to get that impulsiveness corrected and to
learn to have patience to await God's time. 
 
So I could take you all through the Book, but I must
be content with but one other case. It is written of
David: "And it came to pass, when the king sat in his
house, and the Lord had given him rest round about
from all his enemies; that the king said unto Nathan
the prophet, 'See now, I dwell in an house of cedar,
but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains-I will
build God a house, and I will do it at once.’ ”  And
Nathan replied, "Go, do all that is in thine heart."
But when the preacher got home, the Lord talked with
him and said, "Go and tell my servant David, 'Thus
saith the Lord, Shalt thou build Me an house for Me to
dwell in'? ... I will appoint a place for My people
Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in a
place of their own, and move no more; neither shall
the children of wickedness afflict them any more as
beforetime.’ ” Go and tell David that I do not want
him to build Me a house: tell him that I am going to
build him a house. And then the Lord drew the
curtains, and David looked down through the centuries
and said, "Who am 1, 0 Lord God? and what is my house
that Thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet
a small thing in Thy sight, 0 Lord God; but Thou hast
spoken also of Thy servant's house for a great while
to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?"
And instead of praying for this house of cedar that he
had wanted to build, he began to pray that the
purposes of God might be fulfilled in that great while
to come." 
 
David, like Abraham, learned something of God in those
experiences. "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My
day: and he saw it and was glad." It was as though God
said, "Patience, Abraham, patience. It is not Isaac
of whom I speak; certainly it is not Ishmael; but look
down through the years, let the centuries unroll and
can you not see it?" At last Abraham got a glimpse of
Christ, and he knew that when God said, "In thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," He was
really selecting Abraham as the progenitor, after the
flesh, of the Messiah. "For whatsoever things were
written aforetime were written for our learning, that
we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures
might have hope." 
 
Can you be patient a little while? "And comfort"-for
you cannot have patience without comfort. The word
comfort is an old word. It did not mean, as used
here, what we mean by that word today. We think of a
comforter as one who comes to allay one's grief,
exercising a tender, compassionate ministry; but the
word here really comes from the same root as the word
Comforter, the Paraclete, one who comes to stand by or
alongside, "that we through patience and comfort of
the Scriptures might have hope." We can have comfort
only as God is alongside, to comfort. Go back through
the Book, begin with Eve when the promise of the
Conquering Seed is given, and come on down through the
Book, and you will see that to every soul to whom God
spake, bidding them to be patient, He gave the promise
that He would stand by to gird them with His strength.
 
 
You must think this through for yourselves. Had I
time I should like to inquire of every one of you: In
what sphere of life do you need patience and comfort'?
 In your family life? You will find it in the Book. 
In your business? You will find it here. In any
other realm of life? You will find it here. In the
national sphere? In the international realm? You
will always find the example in the Book of how God
wrought patience and comfort in the hearts of His
people; and it is written there for our learning, that
what God has done for others, He can do for us, "that
we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures
might have hope." 
 
Some of you have what you call a "promise-box." I
confess that I do not share your enthusiasm for them,
this taking out a promise in a hop-skip-and-jump
fashion. God's Word is always true. Someone says,
"My verse today was so-and-so." Well, what did the
verse do for you? "It inspired me; it was a kind of
motto. I put it up before me, I turned it over in my
mind, and it helped me." And so the Scripture was to
you something objective, a sort of idea, or ideal, and
had a certain psychological reaction upon yourself. 
Then you say, "If the Lord said, 'I will never leave
thee,' well, I say that over to myself, and then I
believe it." Is that all'? The Bible says, "Through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures"-how do the
Scriptures work patience and comfort in the believing
heart? There is something vastly more than a
psychological effect; there is a direct spiritual
action on the soul of man if we properly use our Book.
 As for example, when Jesus Christ said to the leper,
"I will, be thou clean," did He give him a motto so
that the leper said all day, "The Lord said, 'I will,
be thou clean,' and I will believe it"? No! The Lord
Jesus Christ said, b will, be thou clean," and that
word conveyed power, and instantly he was clean. It
was the same word that commanded the worlds from
nought; it was the same voice that said. "Let there
be light," and there was light; it was the same word
that said, "Let the earth bring forth," and it did as
it was told. When we receive the Scripture, are we
merely to hang Scripture text mottos on the wall? Or,
are we to believe them for what they really are, the
very Word of God, and to receive instantly all that
God wants us to have and all that He promises to give
us? 
 
Think of that great promise, "My grace is sufficient
for thee." I read of one years ago being in his study
in great distress, in the face of some difficult
situation. He cried, "O Lord, let Thy grace be
sufficient for me." He lifted his eyes, and the very
text he had been pleading was hanging on his wall; and
he said, by the touch of God, that one little phrase
seemed to blaze like an electric sign; and God said,
"My grace is sufficient for thee." And that preacher
was able to rise from his knees with an accession of
power, for God had given him His Word. What do we
need? Forgiveness of sin? Then take it; claim it. It
is conveyed; it is conferred to us through His Spirit.
 Do you need sanctifying power to break the chains
that bind? Expect that God will exercise that power
to break the chains and set the prisoner free. The
"exceeding great and precious promises" are given us
that by these we might be able to follow after the
Divine ideal, that with these great promises before us
we might aspire to endeavor to approximate God's
purposes for us-is that what it says? No! -"that by
these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world
through lust." Hence, patience becomes, not something
that is superimposed, but something that is wrought in
the soul, as an inherent quality of the soul; not a
crutch or a prop, but a new power in the heart. Even
as Moses endured "as seeing Him who is invisible," man
begins all over again. The Scripture says, "Ye must
be born again," and he is born again; patience and
comfort become a part of him; and in the measure in
which he appropriates the promises, in that measure
will he grow up into Christ in all things. 
 
That we "might have hope. " When hope departs, the
man is dead. "We are saved by hope." There are men
and women here this morning facing certain things
tomorrow, or finding themselves in a particular
condition today, and if you believed that condition
would continue indefinitely, you could not live; but
you are living in hope that the cloud will be lifted,
that the winter will pass and that the springtime will
come again into your life. "We are saved by hope." I
do not know where to find hope apart from the Bible;
1, at least, apart from that Book, am utterly
hopeless, for I have tried myself so often. And I
know there is no human hand that can help me, but
"through patience and comfort of the Scriptures" I
have hope that some day I shall be without fault
before the throne of God. I do not know how it can
be, that is the miracle of all miracles; but I know
that it will be because it is in the Book. And I have
hope of being like Him some day. 
 
There are a great many people round about me for whom
I have no hope. Please do not ask me to nurse them; I
do not know how to do it. There are some people who
are very difficult to help. I have no hope for them
apart from God; but I know "through patience and
comfort of the Scriptures" they can be changed. 
 
We live in dark days for the Church. I read an
article some years ago in The Forum, written by a
Chinese on the Chinese situation, in which he said
that Christianity had reached an end in
China-absolutely the end. It had done good in the
past, but, like other religions, it had to give place
to other systems. Among other things, he said that
this was due to the wave of rationalism that had
spread from the Chinese universities. In other words,
while there are Christian missionaries that have stood
for the faith, there are other religions that have
built schools in China and have sent out men who have
taught China to reject the Word of God and, in the
name of the Christian religion, almost the very
foundations of the work in China have been destroyed
by this accursed Modernism for which Christian people
are foolish enough to pay. 
 
Everywhere you find it. Somebody comes to me and
says, "I am going to a certain city; can you tell me
where I can go so that I may hear the Gospel of
salvation?" Someone asked me that of a certain
American city the other day, and I had to answer this:
"I do not know; I have no doubt the Lord has His
witnesses, that there are groups of people, smaller
churches perhaps, where faithful witness is home to
the truth; but so far as the outstanding Baptist
churches in that city are concerned, you had better
stay away from them." Frankly, in that city I do not
know of one that is not a disseminator of poison. Any
man who says it is not dark is a blind man and has
never seen the light of God's Word. It is easy to put
your head in the sand like the ostrich and say things
are progressing. Something called religion is
progressing, but the pure unadulterated Gospel of
God's grace is not very generally preached. What
shall we do? "Through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures" we may have hope. I remember that a
nation of slaves was born into freedom in a day; I
remember that while they sat down by the rivers of
Babylon and wept when they remembered Zion, and hung
their harps in the willows, yet in the midst of it all
there came a time when the ransomed of the Lord
returned; there came a great revival, and Israel was
restored. All down through the centuries there have
been dark days, but God has shone through. Someone
says, "But what if this be the darkest and the last?"
Well, the darkness will be dispelled, and "the Sun of
righteousness will arise with healing in His wings."
So we can live in that glorious hope. "We are saved
by hope"-hope for ourselves, hope for the Church of
Christ, hope for everybody, because the whole creation
is some day to be "delivered into the glorious liberty
of the children of God." It is all in the Scriptures. 
May God help us to use them more.