When we say that God has spoken to us, we mean that long ago He told those holy men whom He allowed to write His Book exactly how He would have them write. When you read in your Bible, you do not read what Moses and David wrote out of their own minds. God gave them His words to write for Him, so that we might know for certain, not what they thought God meant them to say, but what He really did say.
Do you understand this?
Perhaps not quite; so I will tell you a story to make it plainer.
I know a boy who is very fond of running errands, and a very useful boy he is. If I give him a message he is off like a shot, and back again with the answer almost before I know that he has gone. So willing and quick a messenger is Willie, that it is a pleasure to send him anywhere.
But there is just one thing that has sometimes hindered him from being a really good messenger. Can you guess what it is? You will soon find out if you remember that, besides being willing and quick, a messenger must deliver the exact message entrusted to him. He must give it just as it was given to him if he would deliver it faithfully.
Now Willie prefers to give his messages in his own way, and so, although he is willing and quick, he cannot always be relied on as a faithful messenger.
One day, when his mother said "Willie, run to the nursery and give Nurse a message for me," the little boy hardly waited to hear what the message was, but ran upstairs as fast as his feet could carry him. Very quickly back he came and went on with his play—I think he was just then building a fine house with wooden bricks. Now, as the message was an important one, his mother wished to be quite sure that it had been correctly delivered; so presently she said, "What did Willie say to Nurse?"
"The right thing," said he, going on with his building, quite unconscious that this was not enough for his mother, who must know exactly what Willie had told Nurse, or go upstairs to see whether she was doing what she had desired her to do.
You understand now, I am sure, that we could not be quite certain that we had God's message—and the Bible is a message or letter from God to us—we could not be sure that we had it right, if we did not know that He had given it to us in His own way and in His own words.
So, then, our question is answered. The Bible is different from any other book because it is God's Book, in which He speaks to us. Now I am going to ask you one more question.