God Has Spoken For All To Hear

Transcript

GRM 1054
09/11/2011
God Has Spoken for All to Hear
Sel.Vs.
Gil Rugh


We're going to talk about the Word of God today. It's foundational to everything else we do. Appreciating the Lord's grace, I like to remind us of some basic things, and we're going to talk about the Word of God again. That's what we're about—the church is the pillar and support of the truth. We are a truth center in this community, a place where the eternal God who has made Himself known, verbally He has spoken and had that record recorded for us so that we have as the truth, the Bible, the Word of God.

I read an article from USA Today, and I clipped the article out because it fit what I had been thinking about what we were going to be talking about. And it's a rather long article for a magazine, “Why Certainty about God Is Overrated.” And it's basically an interview with a physicist who is well known, 80-year-old physicist named John Polkinghorn, I think I'm saying that right. It starts out, John Polkinghorn doesn't know anything. Sure, he is a world class physicist and one of the world's leading voices regarding the relationship between science and faith. Then it talks about what he has done and discovered in physics and made him world renowned. He was knighted by the Queen of England for his work, he has a PhD in physics from Cambridge, he's written thirty books, more than thirty books, on the relationship between science and faith. But he really doesn't know anything. He's not sure there is a God and yet when he was at the top of his game in physics at Cambridge in 1979, he left the laboratory and went to seminary and was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church. He believes in a God who is driven by love to continuously create a world that is beautiful. For him the theories that have God in them, work, but he doesn't know for sure and he is okay with that.

At 80 years of age Polkinghorn doesn't let his own doubts keep him from believing. He still prays, still celebrates the Eucharist, still believes in some kind of eternal life. It's strong enough to bet my life on it, he said. I give my life to it, but I'm not certain. Sometimes I'm wrong. And that's the position, the best position that an unbeliever can find himself in. I believe it. As a scientist he thinks there is evidence that might point that way, but you never know.

What a terrible thing, you stake your hope for eternity on something you are just as sure you might be wrong about. What I think is the greatest blessing God has given us is His Word. You say, wait a minute, I think it is Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Yes, but what do you know about Jesus Christ and His death on the cross apart from what is recorded in the Word of God? Without the Word of God which is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, which pierces even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart, Hebrews 4 tells us, what would we know for sure? What would we know about God? The only way we can know anything about God is if He makes Himself known to us. And the amazing thing is He has. He has spoken, He has spoken verbally, in words, arranged in sentences. And when God speaks, He speaks with the intention that we understand what is said. This is one of the most remarkable things. The eternal God, infinite in His being speaks and He speaks in such a way that mere mortal human beings not only can understand, but are held accountable by God for understanding. And that is a wonderful, wonderful reality, that God has spoken. But He has not spoken in such a way that only people of certain intelligence or intellectual levels can understand and comprehend it.

One of the tragedies is when you talk to people about the Bible and you tell them, the Bible says, they say, well everyone has their own interpretation. That is a terrible things to say about the eternal God, that He has spoken in such a mumbling and confusing way that everybody thinks He said something different than the other person thinks He said. I can tell you one thing. If the eternal God speaks, He speaks in such a way that He can be understood. And as I search the Scriptures and ran into others who search the Scriptures, there is a agreement that no where in the Scripture does God make allowance for those who misunderstand what He said. Any time anyone refuses to obey what God says, refuses to submit to what is said in the Word of God, they are held accountable. They should have understood. And that is a great blessing as well as a great warning. What a wonder that God has spoken and He intends us to understand, to know about Him, to know about His will, to know about His purposes and plans. They are not confusing, they are not mysterious, a puzzle to be solved. It is God clearly speaking.

That's what I want to talk about—the Bible, the Word of God. We are going to overview and just remind ourselves of certain basics. The Bible repeatedly tells us it is God speaking. Over 2,000 times we have expressions like thus says the Lord, the Lord spoke. That's just in the Old Testament. It is God speaking.

Come to Isaiah 1. Isaiah, one of the greatest of Old Testament prophets. And note what verse 2 says as Isaiah speaks. Listen oh heavens, and hear oh earth. Why? For the Lord speaks. And what is he saying here in Isaiah 1? It is a rebuke because people have not listened, they have not paid attention, they have not obeyed. For the Lord speak, sons I have reared and brought up but they have revolted against Me. Tragedy. They didn't pay attention, they didn't do what He said, they were supposed to. God doesn't speak to hear Himself talk, if I can say that. I mean, that would be blasphemy. When He speaks, He speaks with the intention that people listen, pay attention, and obey. He is God. Listen oh heavens, hear oh earth. For the Lord speaks.

Come down to verse 10. Hear the Word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the instruction of God, you people of Gomorrah. He's addressing the Jews here and it's a strong rebuke. God is saying you function just like Sodom and Gomorrah did, and you know what I had to do with them. I wiped them off the face of the earth, I destroyed them in judgment. And now I'm addressing you and you are in the same condition before Me in your rebellion, in your unbelief. Hear the Word of the Lord, give ear to the instruction of our God. Twenty times in his letter Isaiah is going to say that his writings are the Word of the Lord. You'll note God just doesn't communicate His ideas, He communicates in words. That's how we communicate, right? In words. And our words put together in a context to make up a sentence, a unit of thought there, propositional truth. God has spoken, He has said something, He has made a statement. There are only two options—you believe it or you don't believe it; you submit to it or you don't. There is no latitude given anywhere at any time for not obeying.

Turn over to Jeremiah 1. It starts out with verse 1, the words of Jeremiah. Note, verse 2, to whom the Word of the Lord came. You read some writings today, they talk about there is dual authorship of Scripture, sometimes from people who claim to be believers, even claim to be defending the Scriptures. They say there is a dual authorship of Scripture—there is God who is the author and there are the human authors. That is not true, there is only one Author and that is God. These are the words of Jeremiah, verse 2, to whom the Word of the Lord came. Jeremiah is speaking the words that God gave him. He is not a co-author with God.

Now the remarkable thing about the Bible is it's not a mechanical dictation. If that were the case, it would be uniform from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation. God would just be dictating and it would all be the same. Just like if someone dictates a letter and they dictate it to this person, they dictate another letter to another person. It's the same person so it has the same form, order, everything. What God has done is prepared human instruments to be the spokesmen through whom He will speak and He so speaks to use their personality, their grammatical characteristics that He has prepared them with so that you can study various writings in the Scripture, the different human writers and see different characteristics of their writings compared to another writing. This is the only book like this. It is incomparable in that sense. It has a divine Author using human beings as His spokesmen, as His writers. And He is using their personalities, but it is always His Words. And it gets to be to the point that we cannot fully understand and grasp it. We know what is said about it, we'll see more of that in a little bit. But the fact is, God is the Author.

The words of Jeremiah to whom the Word of the Lord came. Verse 4, now the Word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb I knew you. This is God's Word, it's God speaking. It's going to be characteristic of Jeremiah. Down at the end of verse 9, behold I have put My words in your mouth. Then in verse 12, I am watching over My word to perform it. That's God's Word. He speaks, He speaks in clear, understandable ways. That doesn't mean everything is easily understood, but everything is clear and we are responsible to understand it. Parts of it will take more study to understand it clearly. But there is never the slightest leeway given for failing to understand and obey it.

We could go on through the Old Testament. But come over to the New Testament, Hebrews 1. And here you will connect both what we have in the Old Testament we have in the New Testament together as the Word of God. Hebrews 1:1, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets. Who was speaking to these Jews' ancestors through the Old Testament times? It was God who spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets. When Moses spoke, it was God speaking through Moses. The unfolding through the prophets, it was God speaking.
In these last days has spoken to us in His Son. So revelation has reached a peak. Now it is not just God speaking through an appointed spokesman, He is speaking through One who is His Son. There is a fullness and a clarity and a completeness of the revelation. It's not a change, nothing changes in the prior revelation. But there is a clarity now, a fullness, an additional revelation given. The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. There was grace and truth in the Old Testament, but the fullness of that and the clarity of that comes with the coming of Jesus Christ.

Then some of the followers of Christ, some appointed by God to complete the Scriptures are selected. And God will guide them in the writing of what they write. We'll see that in a moment. Jesus promised His disciples, some of them would be used to write the Scriptures like the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of John and so on, other writings. __________ said well, you know what happens with the passing of time. _________________ he said but we know. You know, you're going to write something twenty years afterwards, you sometimes forget some things, you remember some things a little differently than they were. Jesus tells them in John 14, the Spirit of God will brings things to your remembrance. The very words that I spoke, He'll bring them to remembrance. And He repeats that in John 16.

So there is the sovereignty of God in all of Scripture and the speaking of Scripture. There are other passages—Galatians 3, Galatians 1. Paul claims that what he had and what he was teaching and speaking was a revelation from God. He said, God revealed it to me. I didn't learn it from another man, I didn't learn it by studying. God revealed it to me, Galatians 1. It is God speaking. That is why this is truth. God speaking can only speak truth. Titus tells us, God cannot lie. His very nature and being is as the One who is truth. You can jot down Deuteronomy 32:4, His righteousness, His faithfulness, His character is established.

Come to Psalm 119. Some of you have studied Psalm 119 in other settings, some day maybe we will. One of the old writers did a study of Psalm 119 and he has three sizable volumes just on Psalm 119. If you haven't read it lately I encourage you to just sit down and read through it. Have your soul blessed with what God says about His Word. Psalm 119:142, your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. And your Law is truth. Go back to that Deuteronomy 32:4 passage later and maybe you'll see about the righteousness of God. Here it is connected, His righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, your Law is truth. He is tied up with who God is, His very being as a righteous God. He could not lie, He could not falsify, He could not be unfaithful. Your Law is truth. That's the Word of God that the psalmist had, the Law of God, what God had revealed to this point. It is truth.

Verse 151, you are near, oh Lord, and all your commandments are truth. And connected with that while we're here. Of old I have known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever. God has spoken, what He has said is truth, what He has said is eternal truth. That article I read you about the scientist, one of the points he makes in there which is correct, and he holds with other scientists mentioned there, that all scientific fact is basically faith. But he used the example of light and how light is transmitted. And at one time we thought light was transmitted in waves, then we ______ particles, and it's a mixture of waves and particles. What he is really basically saying is that what was scientific fact at one time is shown now, that wasn't true, objective scientific fact. This is. But he said that's why he as a scientist says, I don't know anything for sure. That's true, but there is something that does not change—the unchanging God. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. So His Word is eternally true.

Your testimonies, that's what God has spoken and said, you have founded them forever. Down in verse 160, the sum of your Word is truth. You want to summarize this book in one word? Truth. We say, turn in your Bible. We could say, turn in the truth, to Psalm 119. You could summarize this in one word—truth. From the first word in Genesis to the last verse of the book of Revelation, everything in between. Not that there is truth in there, it is truth from the first word to the last word. It is eternal truth, it does not come and go, it does not change because God does not change. Now parts of it are fulfilled because God gave it to be fulfilled at a certain point in time. That's accomplished. We read it as historical fact. Nothing after that changes that that was truth. It was fulfilled as God said it would be, for example.

In John 17:17 in His high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed to the Father, sanctify them in the truth. Your Word is truth. The eternal God has spoken in words. We believe in verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture. We're going to talk about inspiration in a moment, briefly. The very words of Scripture are what He gave and the original, we call them the autographs, the original manuscripts, as Isaiah penned it originally, every word was exactly the Word of God. And we also believe there is evidence and support for that, that God down through the centuries of time has preserved His Word.

Interesting, one man I was reading who was the foremost Greek scholar of the New Testament in his day was an unbeliever. Did not believe in the inspiration. But his observation was that anyone who does not believe we have an accurate, reliable text that is in agreement with the original writings, has never studied the subject. So the evidence of God has preserved His Word because He gave it to be preserved. But as He originally gave it, when we talk about it, to Isaiah, Jeremiah, was every single word as God would have it.

Go to Psalm 119:89, just reinforces what we said, but makes it very clear. Forever, oh Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. Men on earth debate it. Some think with their great intellect and new ideas they have found reasons to reject some of it. It doesn't matter. Do you know what matters? What takes place in heaven. What is determined in heaven where the judge of all resides. Forever, oh Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. It is unchanging. This is it. What will it be in a hundred years if Christ doesn't return? In a thousand? I tell you, this Word of God will be true and settled in a hundred billion trillion years. It's settled forever. That's it. More of it will have been fulfilled. Some day I will be in the glory of God's presence with you as fellow believers who experienced the realization of what was promised—the glorification of the body. The Word will have been demonstrated to be true. And every promise we'll be in the midst of enjoying. Eternity in the presence of God and His glory. How do I know? Forever, oh Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. You promised, you said it, it's done. You understand the eternal hell is just as real and just as sure because God said it. You say, I don't want to believe that. I don't, either, but it's true. It was settled in heaven, it wasn't settled in consultation with me. That's the way it is. In a hundred million billion trillion years there will be people suffering the torment of hell. You say, I can't grasp that. I can't grasp what it will be like to live eternally in the presence of God. But eternal suffering, how else would I know? Am I going to be like this poor scientist who says, well, he prays, he celebrates the Eucharist, he believes in some kind of eternal life. And my belief is strong enough to bet my life on it, I give my life to it, but I'm not certain. You can't afford to be wrong. I mean, there is no recovery from that, there is no adjustment to that. There is an eternity. God has spoken. How gracious He is to tell us there is a heaven, there is a hell; to tell us there is salvation for sinners like us. That which is all contained in His Word, to tell us about His Son, the Savior who left heaven and came to earth to be the Savior of sinful human beings.

Come over to Isaiah 40. I'm not attempting to prove anything this morning, I'm just reminding each of us the place of God's truth, the finality of God's truth, the blessing of God's truth to us. Isaiah 40, we've come to this section of Isaiah often because of its richness. Look at verse 6. A voice says, call out. Again you see it is God ultimately speaking. Then he answers, what shall I call out. Here is what you call out. All flesh is grass, all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. The people with all their glory, all their majesty, all their power, all they do, they come and go.

In one of the magazines here, when I come home I have a stack of magazines and I dip in and out, on some of the wealthiest people and how old they are. And you know you're reminded, here they are in their 70s, 80s, 90s. Billionaires. What provision they are making for when they are gone. Tragedy. None of them speak about making provision for eternity. They do something by passing on their wealth. It will come and go. What great buildings built in 1000 A.D. are worthy of attention? We have some of the archaeological ruins, some of the restoration, but the glory comes and goes. They are gone. I was reading about mansions being auctioned off. You may let your places go into foreclosure or you decide I can't sell it today. They were glorious, they were built. We had one built in Omaha. We used to take people who come to visit us, look at this house, it's a great . . . They tore it down because they decided they could use the land to build other houses. They were great, it comes and goes, the glory of man. Do you know what endures? The Word of God. Where is the king of the Assyrians and his glory? Where are the kings of Babylon and their glory? The kings of Greece and their glory? The Caesars of Rome and their glory? They've come and gone. Do you know what has not gone? Here we are, we can read Isaiah. Man's glory comes and goes, the Word of our God stands forever.

Come down to verse 13. Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or as His counselor has informed Him? You know the Lord doesn't take advice on anyone. What I am concerned here is that we as believers have to be careful. We talk about this, we “amen” it, this is the belief of our church, this is our doctrinal statement. But you know we have to be careful. Things come into our lives that impact us personally, emotionally, individually and as a church. All of a sudden we think that we are justified in letting go of the Word of God. Jesus said that He must come before my love for family. Can't love my parents, my children and so on more than Him. And if you love Me you will keep My word. Yes, but these are my parents, these are my kids, these are my . . . Well, we don't want to have a negative image in the community, we don't want our church to be viewed as narrow. We don't want people to think we think we're the only ones right. We don't think we're the only ones right, but let me tell you, God is the only one right. And everyone who disagrees with God is wrong. And everyone who disagrees with the truth of God is wrong. That is narrow. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me. That is narrow. Of course we are narrow. How else would you be seen? We believe this is the only revelation from God. That's narrow. Other people have different opinions. They can have their opinions, they cannot be right if they disagree with this Book. But it's your interpretation. Read it.

I've shared with you, I was speaking at a theology class at a university and I was visiting with the professor. And he said, the problem is interpretation. I said, let me read it. The Bible says, all have sinned. That seems pretty simple to me. Oh, I could interpret that 35 different ways. Maybe you could, but God doesn't. All means all, that's all all means. And when He says all have sinned, that means all—you and me and every single person. Now you can make it say what you would have said, or maybe you think you can twist it to say, but God said what He said, and we will be held accountable in light of what He has said. There will be no excuses, no leeway. When you said, all have sinned, I didn't think you meant that I was a sinner and that the wages of sin is death. And that includes the second death that casts people into an eternal lake of fire, as Revelation 20 says. I was going 85 down 84th Street, I thought the speed limit was 84. It's 84th Street, isn't it? So I'm only one mile an hour over the speed limit. No, no, no. Well that's the way I interpret it. Try that argument. Doesn't matter. Yet people think that gets them by with God. But God condemned the people of the Old Testament. He says, you thought I was like you. Don't make that mistake. God is a God of grace but here is the provision of His grace and here is what He says.

His Word, an eternal Word and everything else is nothing. Isaiah 40:15, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, they are regarded as a speck of dust on His scales. So don't be concerned, the sovereign God rules over all. That nation that seems so powerful and awesome, it's like a speck of dust on the scale. God looks at it, it doesn't move it. Nothing. The nations are regarded as nothing before Him, as less than nothing, they are meaningless, verse 17. On it goes. He is the everlasting God, the incomparable God.

Come back to Isaiah 8:19, when they say to you, consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people consult their God. They are always looking for answers somewhere else, going someplace else. You should go to your God. The psalmist said, it is the Word of God, they are my counselors. Should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the Law and to the testimony. That's the Word of God. To the Law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because they have no dawn, no light. They are in darkness, they are in ignorance, they know nothing. If it's not according to the Word of God and what He has spoken, they have no dawn, they have no light. This tragedy that the church today searches around and we have all kinds of things—management seminars, and seminars on this, and seminars on that, as though the Word of God is not enough. The church, the family of God, the pillar and support of the truth, as Paul wrote to Timothy. And we're fluttering around from this to that, from this to that, then this to that.

I was reading an article in a church magazine this week, and that the churches started drama, popularized it in churches. No longer using drama because that sort of passed by. The church just jumps on whatever fad. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. God's power for salvation. All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. The Word of God which is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. That's what we have, you have individually in your possession. We have as a church the responsibility to be ministering the truth of God.

Come over to II Peter 3. I'll say something here that reinforces what I said early on. And in II Peter 3, Peter is warning about those false teachers who would imply the Lord is not coming. Because you've been saying, the Lord is coming, the Lord is coming for a long time. And the Lord hasn't intervened and brought His judgment. Things are just going to go on. You hear supposedly wise people saying, I'm comfortable. I'm sure our country will be doing well for another 150, 200, 300 years. They know nothing. So Peter is encouraging his readers to be patient and to appreciate the patience of the Lord. Verse 15, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved Paul according to the wisdom given him wrote to you. This is not Paul's wisdom, this is the wisdom from God, this is the revelation from God given to him as the next verse makes clear. As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things. Paul wrote about this and the coming of the Lord, and the purpose and the plans of God and so on. In which are some things hard to understand. That doesn't mean every 10-year-old can pick up the Bible and start reading it and understand everything. But be careful, that does not mean there is any excuse for twisting or distorting the Scripture. Which the untaught and unstable distort. Peter says, I find some of these things hard to understand that Paul has written, but Peter doesn't distort them. He makes it his purpose to understand them. Those who distort them, do this also to the rest of Scripture to their own destruction. You see what happens? There is no excuse. Even with the difficult parts of Scripture we are accountable to understand it and put it into practice. And those who twist the Scripture, do so to their own destruction. Doesn't mean I have perfect understanding of every passage, it does mean I better be very careful with the Scriptures. And I want to understand it as clearly and accurately in every area as I can. People with the idea, as long as we agree on the basics of Scripture, we're in agreement on what the facts of the gospel are, that's what really matters. Are you telling me that the eternal God has spoken and 80% of what He has said really doesn't matter? What kind of arrogance could that be, that I, a mortal, created being tell the living God, I've decided to be your editor. And the vast majority of what you said isn't that important. How do you even respond to that? And yet believers say, as long as we agree on the core things. That's what I say, we have to agree on the core things. What are the core things? Well they start at the first verse of Genesis and they come to the last verse of Revelation. And where we disagree, then we have to sit down and work it out, work it out and sort through it. And it's not my position to be God's editor. God is His own editor. He could have included much more, He could have had 1000 volumes like this and still not told us everything. He is the infinite God. In a hundred trillion years I will not have exhausted the knowledge of God—He is infinite and I am finite. He has already done His own editing. Here is everything I must know, here is everything for which I will be held accountable. That's why Paul told Timothy, be zealous, King James says study. Be zealous, apply yourself with all your energy to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the Word of truth. That's what we are about, why you have to immerse yourself in the Word of God.

Come over to Revelation. You know Revelation is a hard book, everybody has a different interpretation of Revelation. I don't know how many commentaries I have on Revelation, a hundred, I don't know. How many of them disagree with one another. There are some wonderful, marvelous, amazing things written that have nothing to do with what Revelation is talking about. How can you ever make any sense out of Revelation? The you read Revelation 1:3, the resurrected Christ is speaking to His churches. And He says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed, keep, put into practice the things which are written in it. For the time is near. You know those people didn't even have the privilege of having their own copy, they came to church and had somebody read it. And they were to hear, listen, pay attention and live in light of it. Think how accountable we will be, who fold up a copy of the Truth of God, take it home, lay it on the shelf and don't pick up until the next Sunday when we wipe it off and bring it out again. You understand, God holds us accountable. You know I'm blessed that He holds us accountable because that reminds me, He intends us to understand it. Not a scholarly book. You know what the Jews were in the Old Testament? They were a nomadic, shepherd people until God settled them in their land and then they are still shepherds. They weren't the scholarly intellectuals. God gave them His Word and He holds them accountable. And He judges them so severely for not putting into practice what He told them. He didn't say, well, I understand, you are just shepherds. What did Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa say? I'm a shepherd, I'm not a prophet by vocation. God took me from keeping the sheep to give me a message. He takes average, ordinary people, entrusts them with His message and then passes it on to average, ordinary people.

But I fear for us as believers and as the church today, we hold lightly the Word of God. We have our doctrinal statements, yes, I believe it's the Word of God, I believe it from cover to cover. People talk about, I love Jesus. You know Jesus said, if you love Me, you'll keep My commandments, you'll do what I say. That's love. Do we believe it? I love it more than my family. My family departs from the Word of God, we've gone separate ways. My family is not more important than the Word of God. I cannot be a follower of Jesus Christ, I cannot love my family more than Him. If you love father or mother, brother or sister, your children, your grandchildren more than Me, you cannot be My disciple. We're talking about a full, complete, 110% commitment to Him. That doesn't mean I don't have feelings for my family, doesn't mean I don't love them, don't have any desire for them. I will not sacrifice the Word of God for them. This is truth, this is where we stand. Our church, would I like to be popular? Would I like everybody to think that I'm cute? Of course. That he is reasonable, that he is easy to get along with, they are open to other ideas. Can't. Why? You can't. You are compelled by truth. What a blessing.

God has given us His truth. We didn't have a chance to talk about inspiration. The Spirit of God guided into writing, that assures it's accuracy. And He has preserved it for us. How blessed we are to have this book after thousands of years, an accurate record. He has given us His Spirit. We are told in 2 Corinthians 2 that the unregenerate man can't understand the Word of God. I am grieved to read how many professors in our evangelical schools go to the well of the unbeliever and think they are finding things, when the Scripture tells us they cannot understand the things of God. They are spiritually discerned. But you have the Spirit of God. I'm not your priest, I'm not the one with the knowledge of God and you're just best able to get what you can from me. God has given teachers to the church to teach and explain the Word of God. But you have the Word of God, you have the Spirit of God, you have the privilege of opening and reading the Word of God, of meditating on it day and night, day and night, as God told Joshua in Joshua 1. As the psalmist said, blessings of the one who meditates on the Word of God day and night. This is what fills my heart and mind, this is what guides my life. It's a lamp to my feet, a light to my path, my counselor. This is where I turn in my darkest and hardest time, this is where I go during the times of greatest blessing. This is God's Word, it's alive, it's powerful, it's real, it's rich. It brings salvation to the one who hears and believes the message of the Savior. And it brings growth and maturity and blessing to us who have trusted Him.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the treasure given to us. We have this treasure, the treasure of your Word in earthen vessels. What a blessing, what a testimony of your grace. We give you all the glory and the praise and honor because, Lord, it is all a testimony of your grace. You brought the light of the gospel into our darkened soul that we might see and understand and believe and come to know you, the God who is light. And now we walk in the light as you are in the light. We have this treasure to share with others when we are cast down, when we are perplexed, when we are under pressure, in the darkest times and in the brightest times. Lord, we find you our sufficiency. We find your Word to be our strength. And we thank you for the presence of your Spirit who indwells every believer. Thank you, Lord, that your intention is that we common, average, ordinary people saved by your grace enjoy the riches of your Word and grow to maturity in those riches. May we be like newborn babes, longing for the pure unadulterated milk of your Word so that we might continue to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior. May that be our testimony as a church, may that be the testimony of our lives individually. Bless us in our fellowship and service this day. We pray in Christ's name, amen.