George Muller on the Scriptures

I just finished reading George Muller's diary today, having only picked it up yesterday. Needless to say it is an amazing read that will greatly encourage your heart to trust in the Lord. I may post more quotes from the diary, but for today I will relay this account of Muller's belief in the sufficiency of the Scriptures as an example to us to be of a like-mind in this matter.

"As to the other means of grace I would say: I fell into the snare, into which so many young believers fall, the reading of religious books in preference to the Scriptures. I could no longer read French and German novels, as I had formerly done, to feed my carnal mind; but still I did not put into the room of those books the best of all books. I read tracts, missionary papers, sermons, and biographies of godly persons. The last kind of books I found more profitable than others, and had they been well selected, or had I not read too much of such writings, or had any of them tended particularly to endear the Scriptures to me, they might have done me much good. I never had been at any time in my life in the habit of reading the Holy Scriptures. When under fifteen years of age I occasionally read a little of them at school; afterwards God's precious book was entirely laid aside, so that I never read one single chapter of it, as far as I remember, till it pleased God to begin a work of grace in my heart. Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been: God Himself has condescended to become an author, and I am ignorant about that precious book, which His Holy Spirit has caused to be written through the instrumentality of His servants, and it contains that which I ought to know, and the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness; therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book, this book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation; and in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life. For I was aware though I read it but little, that I knew scarcely anything of it. But instead of acting thus, and being led by my ignorance of the Word of God to study it more, my difficulty in understanding it, and the little enjoyment I had in it, made me careless of reading it (for much prayerful reading of the Word, gives not merely more knowledge, but increases the delight we have in reading it); and thus, like many believers, I practically preferred for the first four years of my divine life, the works of uninspired men to the Oracles of the living God. The consequence was that I remained a babe, both in knowledge and grace. In knowledge I say, for all true knowledge must be derived, by the Spirit, from the Word. And as I neglected the Word, I was for nearly four years so ignorant, that I did not clearly know even the fundamental points of our holy faith. And this lack of knowledge most sadly kept me back from walking steadily in the ways of God. For it is the truth that makes us free (John 8. 31, 32), by delivering us from the slavery of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The Word proves it; the experience of the saints proves it; and also my own experience most decidedly proves it. For when it pleased the Lord in August, 1829, to bring me really to the Scriptures, my life and walk became very different. And though even since then I have fallen very short of what I might, and ought to have been, yet, by the grace of God, I have been enabled to live much nearer to Him than before."