I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

–C.S. Lewis [Mere Christianity (1952)]

The Word of the Almighty God cannot fail; you can depend upon it. When I first learned that, I realized that through the years the Bible had never been a living, vital thing to me, but rather a sort of combination of creeds, doctrines, wise sayings, and printer’s ink. I hadn’t known the power in the Word of God, that it could bring miracles to pass. I don’t know why someone hadn’t told me the truth of these things before, but suddenly a deep conviction dawned on my soul that God could not fail to keep His promises!

I had considered myself a Christian all my life, but I had never really believed God’s Word, nor had I met Christ personally. It was through a little gospel tract that I had that glorious experience. Christ came into my life to fully satisfy. Gone was my unbelief and the accompanying sense of futility and disappointment in life, and there arose in my heart an unfamiliar hunger.

I was an invalid at the time, and had been for the past five years—utterly helpless and a hopeless case, according to a number of physicians. But after I received Christ and my faith came to life, I began to look to Him to restore my health. I prayed to be healed and waited for God to let me see some evidence that He had heard my prayer and was going to answer. Like many other people, my faith was the “seeing is believing” kind. But the Bible teaches just the opposite: Believe and you will see.

God brought certain verses from the Bible to my mind to show me that I must believe a certain thing simply because He said it was so, not because of anything I saw or felt. I suddenly believed that God had heard my prayers and had already answered, that He had reached down and had healed me, even though my physical condition appeared to be unchanged. It was so simply because God said so. That was enough! My heart leaped for joy at that realization, and in that moment there was born in my soul something that has never changed from that day to this: an abiding, unshakable faith in God’s Word.

Again and again, lying there helpless in bed, I whispered over and over, “It is the Word of God—it cannot fail! It’s God’s Word, and He cannot lie!” It was as though I could see the marvelous Word of God marching down the centuries, invincible, infallible, inexhaustible, and unchangeable. What joy came into my heart as I realized I had such a strong anchor to hold on to.

I believed the work was done, for I had met His conditions. There was His promise, very plain and sure, that He could not and would not fail to keep His Word, and I was not going to doubt that promise.

Then it happened, exactly as He had promised it would. I was completely healed! How wonderful it was when I found out that Jesus Christ was “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). That was many years ago, and I’m still going strong. [Editor’s note: Virginia Brandt Berg was 29 years old at the time of her healing and lived another 54 years, to the age of 83.]

Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). When we come into the realization that there is life-giving power in what God says in His Word, then we have hold of the truth that makes all things possible.

“God is not a man, that He should lie. … Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19). And 1 Kings 8:56 says, “Not one word has failed of all [God’s] good promises.” Take that to heart! Put your finger on a verse, some promise, and say, “It’s so because God says so!” Whatever the need is in your life right now, He will meet it! He will guide your life daily, faith will spring invincible, and you too will shout triumphantly, “It’s so because God said so! What He has promised He is able also to perform!”

An Excerpt From Martin Luther’s LARGE CATECHISM
Translation by Rev. Robert E. Smith
From the German text in: TRIGLOT CONCORDIA.
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921). p. 580.

The First Commandment

You must not have other gods.

That is, I must be your only God.

Question: What does this saying mean? How should we understand it? What does it mean to have a god? What is God?

Answer: To have a god means this: You expect to receive all good things from it and turn to it in every time of trouble. Yes, to have a god means to trust and to believe in Him with your whole heart. I have often said that only the trust and faith of the heart can make God or an idol. If your faith and trust are true, you have the true God, too. On the other hand, where trust is false, is evil, there you will not have the true God either. Faith and God live together. I tell you, whatever you set your heart on and rely on is really your god.

This text was translated for Project Wittenberg by Rev. Robert E. Smith and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to:

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Walther Library
Concordia Theological Seminary
E-mail: smithre@mail.ctsfw.edu

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