Guided Through the Written Testimony, April 19

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. The Holy Spirit always leads to the written Word, and calls the attention to the great moral standard of righteousness. To be honored of God in thus being privileged to testify of the truth is a wonderful thing. Said Christ to His disciples just before He ascended up and the clouds of angels received Him out of their sight, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). They were qualified by the heavenly endowment of the Holy Spirit to testify of Christ. I wish to impress upon you the fact that those who have Jesus abiding in the heart by faith have actually received the Holy Spirit. Every individual who receives Jesus as his personal Saviour just as surely receives the Holy Spirit to be his Counselor, Sanctifier, Guide, and Witness. The more closely the believer walks with God, the clearer his witness, and, as a sure result, the more powerful will be the influence of his testimony upon others of a Saviour's love; the more he will give evidence that he prizes the Word of God. It is his meat, it is his drink, to satisfy the thirsty soul. He prizes the privilege of learning the will of God from His Word. Some souls who claim to be believers have slighted, and turned from, the Word of God. They have neglected the Bible, the wonderful Guidebook, the true tester of all ideas, and claim that they have the Spirit to teach them, that this renders searching the Scriptures unnecessary. All such are heeding the sophistry of Satan, for the Spirit and the Word agree. Say the Scriptures, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” He only is a free man whom the truth makes free.—Manuscript Releases 14:70, 71.