No one told William Bible stories when he was young, nor did he go to Sunday school. The only Bibles were written in a language that only a few men could understand and even those Bibles were kept hidden away. But if William did not get any light from God’s Word when he was a boy, he did get good training for his body. He lived in a little village in France that was surrounded by mountains. William and his brothers climbed in the hills and swam in the rivers. They could get to places in those mountains where you and I would most likely be dashed to pieces if we dared to go. William needed this training for his body in order to do the work that the Lord was going to give him.
/When I tell you that William did not have the light from God’s Word, I do not mean for you to think that he had no religion at all. No, he had been taught to pray to idols and to angels and he had been told many religious stories of so-called “miracles.” At first William believed everything. But the idols, angels and religious stories did not put peace in his heart. He had not yet heard that “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)).
Since no one had a Bible when William Farel was a boy, it was not hard for Satan to teach many foolish things to the people. But now when we all have Bibles, Satan works in a different way and mixes the good and the evil together in books and hymns so that we will not suspect that it is not true. May you and I read the Bibles that we have so that we will know what is dark and what is light.