The Revelation & Inspiration of God’s Word

Transcript

GRM 1112
9/15/2013
The Revelation and Inspiration of God's Word
Psalms. 19; Romans 1; Acts 17
Gil Rugh

One of the areas I did some reading on while I was gone that reminded me of concerns that had to do with the whole issue of the Word of God, the place of the Word of God in our lives and ministry as God's people. And I was going to read you a quote from a book but I left it lying on my desk, so I won't. But a concern expressed that as the people of God lose their focus on God's Word, the church becomes enveloped with confusion and chaos and darkness. And that is definitely the case.

So I just want to talk about the whole matter of God's revelation. I do this periodically with you because the focus of everything we are and we do as God's people is based in His Word. If you take the Word of God away, we are in darkness. We say, we have Christ. But how do we have Christ? What do we know about Christ apart from what is written in God's Word? So everything we claim, everything we believe, everything we preach is based upon God's Word and comes out of God's Word. As I see the danger that faces God's people, it's like a cloud coming over from the world that blurs our thinking first on the centrality of the Scriptures to everything we do. The focus on the Scripture for our lives and ministry, the commitment to the Scripture is something more important to us than wealth, possessions, the very food that we need to sustain life. The Word of God.

I want to talk about with you the Word of God as a revelation of God and as the inspired Word of God. So we're going to talk about revelation and inspiration as the foundation. Revelation basically has to do with what the word would mean. God has chosen to reveal Himself, to make Himself known. We'll talk about how He has done that. Then we'll talk about inspiration; as how the record was preserved for us of what God has revealed.

Let's start in Psalm 19. We're going to look at three passages of Scripture to start—Psalm 19, Romans 1 and Acts 17. We'll start in Psalm 19. Psalm 19 begins, verse 1 thru 4, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line has gone throughout all the earth, their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun”, and so on. You see the point—creation is a revelation of God. Creation itself tells something of the glory of God, it is the work of His hands. That is a revelation that goes out every place to all people. It doesn't matter what your language is because there is no language barrier. All people wherever they are in the world can see the splendor of the heavens, the stars at night, the sun during the day and the clouds and all of that. And that goes out day and night. Night reveals something of the splendor of the creation as you see the stars and so on and the expanse of the universe. Daytime reveals creation in a little different way. But it's just going 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to every person wherever they are on the earth.

Come over to Romans 1. We pick up in verse 18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness”. And what is the truth they are suppressing? It's the truth that God has revealed in His creation. Note Romans 1:19-23, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, rather they became empty in their speculations, their foolish heart was darkened, they professed to be wise but they became fools. And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, crawling creatures”.

God has revealed Himself. Since the creation, day 1, in the early portion of Genesis where we go through the six days of creation, culminating with man as male and female. Romans 1: 20, “That reveals His invisible attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature”. They are clearly seen yet man rejects that clear revelation, suppresses that truth, denies it. There is no God who created it, it just happened. Yet somehow, sometime things came into existence that were necessary for a great explosion and an explosion occurred, or however. They suppress what is obvious regarding God, His attributes, His eternal power, His divine nature.

We're going just before Romans to the book of Acts. The Apostle Paul comes to the Greek city of Athens, an intellectual city for the Greeks. And he stands where the wise and intellectuals come and debate matters and so on. “ Acts 17:22, so Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I observe you are very religious in all respects.” The Greeks were very religious people, Athens was a religious city. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship I also found an altar with this inscription—To an Unknown God. And that's going to be where Paul picks up to bring them to where he wants them to be. The Greeks were very superstitious in their religion. And they had a pantheon of gods, many gods. They had altars to these gods. But they always had the fear, maybe we left a god out. We don't have a temple or an altar dedicated to the worship of him, he might get very angry with us. So I have this altar that would cover any gods they left out. It's to an unknown god. Paul says, I've come to tell you about the God that you don't know about, He's the true and living God.

So at the end of verse 23 he says, “therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.” Now note what he says. The God who made the world and all things in it. You see where he picks up with, creation, because the heavens declare the glory of God and His invisible attributes in nature are clearly seen in the things He has made. So the God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. The God who made all things now doesn't have to have a little temple that you made with an altar and maybe a statue. That's not God. I mean, the God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord over everything He made, He doesn't dwell in a temple you make with hands. Nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything since He Himself gives to all people life, breath and all things. I mean, He is the God who is the source of everything—He created everything, He sustains everything. He doesn't need anything from you. He's not a God kept going by what you do.

And note Romans 17:26, “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed time, and the bounds of their habitation.” He created all people, starting with one man. From that one man He determined how humanity would develop and civilizations would be established. Also He determined that they would seek God if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. I mean, if we are those that He has created and He has created all things and He is Lord over all things, He can't be very far away. For in Him we live and move and exist. Then, he quotes one of their poets. For we are also His children. Now he's not talking about His children in the salvation sense, but His children in the sense He has made us, He has created us. So he picks up on that, even your own poets recognize.

So you see the reality of creation has made an impact to a certain degree. I recognize there must be a God or gods, but even one of your Greek poets has said, we are His children. They recognize that we had to be created by this God. Being then children of God. Again, he's not talking about that we are children of God by faith in Christ. We are being then children of God, He created us, He is the maker of all things, including man. Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. If we are the creation of God, why would you think that God is like that stone that you have carved into an image of what your mind has made up that God would look like? And even if you take something precious like gold, because if it's God you don't want to just make it out of an average stone, so we make it out of gold. But what would make you think He is like an image that you conceived of in your mind? And then you made? And now you fall down and worship.

You see creation itself reveals something, the divine nature is revealed. He's not like gold or silver or stone, some inanimate piece of material. We have been made by Him. That tells you something of what the divine nature is like. God is a personal being, He acts, He moves, He decides, He controls. Creation reveals God. The problem is man suppresses what is clearly revealed. They refuse to honor Him, give Him glory. It's His glory that is revealed in creation.

When we were in Colorado, I saw the most spectacular rainbow I've ever seen. Couldn't believe it. Marilyn comes in and gets me; wants me to come out on the porch of the condo where we were. Here is this spectacular rainbow with colors I never saw, so brilliant. You know often you see a rainbow and it has sort of fuzzy colors. It was just like somebody took a paintbrush and it was a perfect arc from one end to the other and the colors were just brilliant. And greater than that, it was a double rainbow because there is this arc and then there is this dark spot in between it, then there is another one over it. I couldn't believe it. Marilyn took a picture but you know a picture is just not the same. Then the next day in the paper they had a picture of it. But you know what? They didn't talk about how awesome the God who brought this into existence is and it's a reminder that that God who in judgment destroyed the earth with a flood in mercy and grace has said He will not destroy the earth with a flood again. They missed it altogether. They just thought it was a marvelous work of nature.

We suppress the truth about God. Doesn't matter, how can all these colors come together. I realize they explain the light coming through the drops. I don't really understand it, that's as far as my science goes. But the reality of it. They don't acknowledge God. The wonder of the creation, that's the point.

Come back to Psalm 19. So the first six verses talk about God has revealed Himself in creation. Then note what verse 7 picks up, “the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul”. He's talking about what we call special revelation. General revelation is the revelation available generally, to all people everywhere, the revelation of creation. Special revelation is more specific, it is the revelation of God in His Word. He speaks. That is even more clear, gives more understanding. There are certain things you can't know through creation. You can't know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, born of a virgin to suffer and die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, was raised from the dead and is coming again and will judge all men. Creation doesn't tell me that. So for more specifics and clarity on God, what He is like, what He is doing, what He requires; I need Him to speak. And that's not unusual, because remember we are the creation of God. How did God create us to communicate? Verbally. We now have different languages in the world, but it still comes down to verbally. And even if there is an inability to communicate audibly verbally, we can communicate verbally with sign language.

So isn't it marvelous that the God who created everything has now spoken to us. So that's what you have in verses 7 ff, what we call special revelation, the revelation of God's Word. “The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.” In the law of the Lord, God spoke through Moses and gave His word through Moses. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. You see, general revelation, the revelation of creation, reveals something about God's character—the way God has chosen to work and what He is like. And something of His glory as well as His personableness. But you need Him to speak so that I can know enough about Him to have my soul restored, to be made wise, too have my heart rejoice.

“Psalm 19:8-11, The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true, they are righteous altogether. Now note this because it will come up later when we refer to the psalmist. They are more desirable than gold, yes than much fine gold, sweeter than the honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant is warned, in keeping them there is great reward.” You see the preciousness of what God has said. The psalmist here in Psalm 19, and he'll come back to it in later psalms, He's more precious to me than earthly treasure.

“The Word of God is more precious than gold, than much fine gold.” The greatest wealth, the most precious of earthly items doesn't compare to the Word of God. “It is sweeter than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.” That which you enjoy most of your food, for them, like we like sugar in everything, they had the honey to provide the sweetness. And now more precious to me than the best of food, the most desirable of food. You see the importance of God's Word; that He has spoken. We can never lose sight of what a treasure it is to have the Word of God. And the worst thing that happens to the people of God is they allow their vision to get clouded and distorted and they get distracted. And other things begin to creep in and become more important, more important until they become most important. And in all of that the Word of God is somehow set aside.

Come over to Romans 1. We talked about what God said through Paul—the wrath of God is revealed against men who suppress the truth concerning Him as clearly revealed in creation. But note what Paul says as he starts this letter in “Romans 1:1. Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God.” The Gospel, God's good news is what God has said, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son. You see God has spoken in the prophets, they were His mouthpiece. But it's God's Word that they were communicating, and specifically the truth concerning God's Son.

Then you come down to verse 15. Paul said he was set apart to tell people what God has said about His Son. It's a continuing message that He said centuries earlier in the Old Testament prophets. Romans 1:15, “Thus, for my part, I am eager to preach the Gospel to you who are at Rome. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The truth concerning Jesus Christ, God's Son, as having come to this earth to suffer and die on the cross to pay the penalty for my sin, for your sin is the good news. God is speaking. How serious is this. He is telling us about His Son, why His Son is being sent to this earth, why He will die on the cross, why He is raised from the dead. And you'll note, it is that message, the Word of God which is infused with the power of God to save a person from his sin; when he believes that message. That's why we've studied on other occasions; the Word of God is alive and powerful. This is a book like no other book; this book is the power of God. It is His word, every word from Genesis 1 through the close of the book of Revelation. It's the word of God. That means, when God speaks, every word is alive, it is powerful. That's why God said through Isaiah the prophet, My word will not return to Me void, empty. It will accomplish the purpose for which I send it out. God's word never fails. Everything He says will happen as He says it, the good and the bad, heaven and hell. Men think they can sit in authority over God and what He says. They fool themselves.

So Paul says I want to come to proclaim what God has said concerning His Son because when you believe that, God's power accomplishes in the life of the one who believes what nothing else and no one else can do—His salvation.

Back up to Acts 17. Paul has picked up these Athenian intellectuals at a very basic level. What is wrong with you? You have temples to this god, altar to this god, statue of this god. Look around, how did you become so dumb? You've been made by a living God. What makes you think He is a piece of stone? I mean, how can you think God is like a piece of gold, a piece of silver, a piece of stone that you thought up in your own mind and by your abilities have carved a god? Ridiculous.

Then he goes right on. Verse 30. He doesn't give any more elaboration, I give you proofs; here are ten proofs that God created everything. I'm just telling you, He did it. And our scientists today and the people on our earth today ought to have enough good sense to look at the person standing next to them and realize that it didn't just happen out of an explosion of atoms and molecules some 6 billion, 10 billion, 100 billion or 10 days ago. It may be disheveled, may need a bath, but he is a person. What makes you think you came from some inanimate action that developed into life and pretty soon crawled up on land and you turned up? How foolish. But it's worse than foolishness, it is sinfulness. Going to suppress and hold that down. So we've come to a place now in our universities, you are not allowed to say God did it. We've outsmarted Him. And we just magnify how foolish and how sinful we are.

What does Paul do? Picks up the next verse. After saying in verse 29 that we oughtn't to think that the divine nature is like silver or gold and so on, therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance God is now declaring, the creation is obvious, the divine nature should be obvious. And now let me tell you what He says. God is declaring to men that all everywhere should repent. Why would you want to repent? Because God says He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead. Now I tell you that's moving right into the heart of the matter. Now I'm going to try to prove to you what is obvious. You've already indicated your sinfulness and the darkness of your sinful mind as you've suppressed the truth concerning the living God and His divine nature. And you are worshiping pieces of stone when it is clear God is not a piece of stone. He is a personal being. He created you. You know something then of what a personal being is like. And let me tell you He is God; so He is sovereign over all because He created all. And He has fixed a day in which you are going to be judged. And He has also told us who is going to do the judging—a man, His Son. And if you doubt that; He furnished proof by raising Him from the dead.

So you see, he has immediately moved to tell them, here is what God has said. Because you have to have special revelation, you have to have a word from God if you are to know God's plan of salvation. Faith comes by hearing, but you must hear the right thing so you can believe the right thing. And hearing by the word about Christ. No one will ever be saved on the face of the earth today unless they hear the Word of God. By hearing the Word of God, I'd include in that, perhaps someone sends them a written account of the Gospel, they read a portion of the Scripture. But without the word concerning Christ, no one can ever be saved. That's why the relentless attack is on the Bible, God's Word, and the doubt concerning it. You know you cannot know about God unless God reveals Himself. He has revealed Himself in creation, but you cannot know about your sin, about coming judgment, about the way you can be forgiven unless you come to what God has said.

Come to 1 Corinthians 2. Here is that section in 1 Corinthians 2:4, Paul talks about it didn't have to do with his own personal action. “Verse 3-5, I was with you, in weakness and fear and much trembling. My message, my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit in power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.” I have to tell you about the Gospel, for the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. We have men calling themselves preachers today who are spinning tales and people are believing them. But their faith rests on the wisdom of man. That's not the power of God for salvation. So Paul says, I presented to you the Word of God so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.

He comes down to verse 8, the wisdom of God regarding what he has said about his salvation was not understood by the rulers of this age. If they had understood that Jesus Christ, if Pilate had really understood this is the eternal Son of God standing before me, this is the One someday I will stand before His throne to be judged regarding my eternal destiny, he would have acted differently, regardless of what the earthly physical consequences for him might have been. But the rulers of this age, verse 8, didn't understand. Herod didn't understand. He and his men thought they could make a mockery of Christ. If they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But just as it is written, now he goes back to what God had said and had been recorded, the words of God from Isaiah. “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, which have not entered the heart of man all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” You see you cannot come to know and understand the truth about God from your own reasoning. For all that your eyes can see and your ears can hear about the thinking and intellectual reasoning of man, you have to come to the revelation of God. No other way. That's why the smartest, cleverest people in the world would be people on their way to an eternal hell.

I get a magazine for old people, I don't know why. It comes to Marilyn. But he is a very wise and intelligent man and he is clever. And I have to say I enjoy reading some of what he says. He has witty sayings. But on retiring, this man recognized as a billionaire, on retiring, I will keep working until about five years after I die. I've given my board of directors an Ouija board so they can keep in touch. I also have a letter that will go out and tell them what the plans of the company are. It starts out, “yesterday I died.” I just hope the stock doesn't go up too much that day. And it's cute. The sad thing is there is no indication in this or anything else that he gives any thought to eternity. He'll tell you how he has planned for his wealth to be distributed and he thinks it would be wrong not to give it away. That's nice, but no plan for eternity? You spent your whole life showing how wise and smart and intelligent you are to acquire a vast fortune and now how wise and clever and smart you are to dispense of that fortune. And you've given no thought other than a little joke to eternity?

You realize unless you come and bow before the Word of God and hear what He has said, what a young child can hear—“for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son in order that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And it goes right on by. They miss it totally.

Several years ago I was talking with a pastor in town, liberal church, and sharing the Gospel with him. And I shared what Paul had written about the Gospel. He said, I don't believe that, that's just Paul. He's just a man, it's just his ideas. I'm sorry to hear that. Do you believe anything in the Bible? I believe what Jesus said. So I went back and took him to the gospels and read what Jesus said. He said, I don't believe everything that they say Jesus said. What it really comes down to, you are god in your little world, and you sit in judgment and you've decided what God is like, what God will do and now you worship what you've created. That man went out into eternity as far as I know, never believing the Gospel. How sad.

Having the Word of God doesn't save a person. Talking about the Bible doesn't save. It amazes me, people will go to churches, religious places, and they'll sit there and listen to a man who declares himself to be Rev. Knowitall, and he stands up there and he pontificates; this is what God is like and this is what God would do. And he tells people what they would like to think God is like and everybody goes away happy. How does this Rev. Soandso know anything about God if God hasn't revealed Himself? You understand that's just a work of his mind and his imagination. They've created God in their own image, failing to see themselves created in God's image. We have to have the revelation from God, the revelation is what we have in Scripture.

How do we know it is true? Come over to 2 Peter 1. Because it becomes a discussion. People say, if God spoke but we have men involved and we all know men are fallible, men make mistakes. We all do, I make them here. I tell you, turn in your Bible to Revelation, I meant the book of Romans but I made a mistake. How do I know men didn't make a mistake? Well here “2 Peter 1:21, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” That's why we read Paul's letter to Timothy, all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable. It comes out from God, then the Spirit of God moved in the hearts and minds of the men selected by God to be His spokesmen, guided them in their speech and in their writing so that they would record exactly the words that God intended. Now I don't find that so amazing. I communicate with you verbally, that's the way we communicate in this world—verbally. Sometimes audibly, sometimes writing, e-mails, texting. There is some kind of verbal communication going on. Is it amazing that the God who created us in His image with the intention that we would have fellowship with Him, a relationship with Him would create us so we could communicate and He could communicate to us. What did God do when He created Adam and put him in the Garden? He talked to him, He told him things. Well, I'll give you that, but the only portions and manuscripts that we have that are absolutely 100 percent accurate, were the original ones. So people say, there can be a lot of things that have come in. Nobody who knows anything believes that is true.

I was reading a man, and he is not even a believer, but he is an expert in biblical studies. Strange as it seems. But his observation was that those who say we are not sure we have an accurate text are only those who don't know anything about the subject. We have thousands, tens of thousands of copies of texts and pieces, more than we have of any other ancient literature that are pieced together. Those who have dealt with this say we have 99% accuracy in being assured of what we have is what was originally given. And the 1% that is left are minor things that would change things that make no difference. And we can understand why there were changes there, language changes and that.

So the issue is, do we know this is the same thing that Peter wrote, do we know that this is the same thing that Isaiah wrote. Yes, we do. Men just look for an excuse not to believe it. I appreciated this pastor that I talked to, his honesty. He just flat out said, I don't believe it. No argue over whether this is what Paul wrote, I just think Paul was wrong. He was a man of his time, he made mistakes. There are people teaching in our evangelical colleges who say, you think God created the world in six days. You don't have to understand the Bible like that, you understand it is a literary work and we can compare other literary works of the time to talk about creation. And we realize they weren't intended to speak literally. That's all right, those were other works, pagan works talking about creation. We're talking about what the living God said. And I take it, and the evidence of Scripture is He spoke, He expected it to be understood.

If I can't understand it, Lord, you spoke but you're God and I am man. And you spoke in such high falutin terms I could never understand it. God gave His word to be understood by simple, average, ordinary people. Scholars take it and often twist it and turn it, and I appreciate we can learn from scholars and their study. But we want to be careful. Peter was a fisherman, he wasn't a PhD professor in one of the universities and God used him so he could communicate intelligently. He took a fisherman. Amos was a herdsman. He said, I wasn't a prophet, I kept sheep. But God says, you go tell them what I tell you. So I've come to tell you what He told you. I want you to know I'm not an official prophet. I'm just a herdsman here, telling you what God said. God gave His Word. He has guaranteed the record of it. Otherwise we have a God out here and He's not much of a God, if I say that respectfully, but a god of that kind of making. Here He is and He created everything and everyone, and He'd like to tell them something; but He can't get through to them, because it keeps getting messed up. That kind of God can't control very much, can He. It's not so amazing that that God would have His Spirit come and move and direct to use the personality of that writer and to guide him that every word. Because if the words are not directed by God, just the thoughts, we're in confusion. Because how do you put thoughts together? You use words. It's the idea, the words aren't inspired, but the thoughts are. Go ahead, tell me one of your thoughts without words. Well, you get the gist of it. So in other words God is happy just to get the gist of what He is saying out there. We reduce this to foolishness.

All of this means, this is truth. It must be heeded, obeyed. Now the world ignores it, the world suppresses it in unrighteousness, whatever the revelation. In creation, Jesus said in John 8 addressing the religious people of His day that you won't listen to Me and believe Me because I tell you the truth. And your father, your spiritual father is the devil. And he is a liar and the father of lies. So I tell you the truth and since your father is the devil, you won't believe the truth. We have that, my concern is do we see this? We talk about it, yes, the Bible is the Word of God, we put it up there so we know where it is for next Sunday.

We don't have time to go through the Psalms, just read Psalm 119 sometime this week and see what David says about the Word of God. That psalm, ten times, just in Psalm 119, it's a long psalm all about the Word of God, he says the Word of God is his delight. Eleven times he says he loves the Word of God. You know my concern is, sometimes we think if we've been believers a while that somehow our passion and enthusiasm and involvement in the Word can get less. Really it ought to get more. If this is more precious to us than our food, more precious to us than any earthly possession that I would let go of everything before I would let go of the Word of God. _____________ less is better. If I would preach a half hour I realize we would probably have more people come. An hour is a long time. And if we canceled Sunday night most people would be very happy because it's just a bother to get back out. And you know, weeks are busy. My concern is we not lose the passion, that zeal. This is God's truth. We say that but we're happy, we put it up there.

My parents are both with the Lord so I can talk about them. You know what I got from my dad about the Bible is not what he taught me. He was a steelworker, he started working at the steel mill when he graduated from high school and he worked there until he retired, except for the few years he was in the Second World War. I don't remember he taught me this about the Word of God. I taught my dad more about the Scripture than he taught me because he listened to my tapes and I was a teacher. But there was an impact. I have to think, my dad would have been late 20s when he got saved. I shared something about salvation in our family in a previous study. What made an impression on me, still does, is his commitment to the Bible as the Word of God, manifested. Do you know what we did as a family? We went to church. Do you know what? I didn't even get a vote, those were the Dark Ages. My dad knew nothing of children's rights, nothing. Knew nothing about how he could warp my poor fragile mind by not letting me direct the family. This family, we go to church. Why, dad, do we have to go to church all the time? Because there we learn the Word of God, we study the Word of God. That's the most important thing we can do. My dad worked in the steel mill, he worked long hours, he worked shift work. He would go right to the church meeting if he was late getting off work. Of course being the good son that I was, I would tell my mother, you know, mom, we could skip church tonight. Dad doesn't know. Your dad said he'll meet us at church. Well there was nothing else to discuss about it. Do you think I'm not going to be there when dad said he was going to meet us there? It would be all right, I could do what I wanted. He told me early on I could do whatever I want but when I decide I'm going to do whatever I want, I have to leave. I kept finding out I didn't have any place to go. That's all right. When I finally did leave, I've told you, he took the key to the house because he said, now you don't have to come back. What a dad.

I remember my dad had a Bible about this size, but it was King James because everybody used the King James. I would pick it up and thumb through it and almost every page. . . My dad had some artistic interest, he loved to mark his Bible with colors. And about every word and every line of every page was highlighted or marked or underlined with a color. Do you know what that told me? He's into this, I mean, this matters. Now my dad wasn't a perfect man. But what I'm saying here, we are the older people; what do we model for the next generation? We sing the song, may those who come behind us find us faithful. We tell our kids the Bible is important. They are looking at us, what do we show them? This is a priority of our lives; I don't outgrow this. Say something, take it right, the Bible doesn't say you have to come to church on Sunday at 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock or Sunday evening at 6 o'clock. But I do look around. Sunday evening we have a wonderful group of young people, we have a great program for kids. We have a great group of young people in the auditorium here—junior high, senior high, college young people. Some of you have remarked, what an encouragement to see the young people. I've told people I would have Sunday night if nobody came but those young people. This is thrilling. But I do wonder, what do they think about adults? They look around and say, adults don't come back. I wonder why. Isn't it important? We model what we do.

Through the week, do you think our kids don't know what we do, how we function. That's not a rebuke. We have a great congregation. I appreciate your faithfulness and involvement. I just want to remind us, we can't grow lax. You know I've been a believer since 1953, that's a long time. I haven't outgrown the Word of God, the need to take in the Word of God, the need to be in the Word of God.

We have to go to one more passage and we will be done. “1Peter 1:22, since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls.” You see how you were cleansed; that verse in Isaiah, though your sins be as scarlet they'll be as white as snow, though red like crimson, pure. You have in obedience to the truth the Word of God concerning salvation in His Son. You have purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren. Fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, the living and enduring Word of God. That's how precious it is. It is eternal, this is God's Word. Heaven and earth will pass away, My words will not pass away, Jesus said. “All flesh is like grass, all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you. Isn't that amazing. I have in my possession that which is eternal, the Word of God. In a hundred billion years this will be truth. You say, yes, we believe it, we're cleansed but it's not over.

They didn't have chapter divisions, remember, when Peter wrote this. You flow right into what we have as 1 Peter 2:1, having been purified in our souls by believing the Word, we are done with sin. We have set it aside, all sinful activity and practice. And we are, verse 2, like newborn babies longing, we are to long for, we must have that intense desire for the pure milk of the Word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you've tasted the kindness of the Lord. We don't expect the unbeliever to have this kind of appetite for the Word. Some of you come, you have a husband or wife who brings you or kids who bring you or parents who bring you, but no particular interest one way or the other. But true believers are to be characterized by that intense longing. ____________ like a newborn baby, he wants the pure milk, he wants the milk that sustains him. That's the passion that is to characterize us as believers. That' what I want to be modeled by us who have been believers many years. We tell the young people, this is the Word of God, it's the most precious thing you could have. You must not only have it, you must not only hear it, you must not only read it you must believe it. It must grow more precious to you. You want the testimony of your life to be; this Word is more precious to me than it was 25 years ago when I was saved. It is richer, it is deeper. Now I sense the need and long for it even in greater ways. We don't outgrow the Word, we grow into the Word. The Word grows into us and as we are beholding the glory of the Lord in the mirror of the Word, we are being transformed into His image from glory to glory by the ministry of the Spirit.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the rich treasure that you have given to us. You have spoken and you have preserved the record of your Word. How awesome it is that we can read and know what you the living God have to say to us, what you expect of us, what you have provided for us, the provision you have made for our cleansing from sin, what you have prepared for us in the glory of your presence, how we are to live and walk day by day and moment by moment. Lord, you know our hearts and minds, even as your people, how easily we are distracted. Lord, I pray that we will be reminded again by the ministry of your Spirit through your truth that we have a great treasure, that which is most treasured, most precious. It's the truth that has brought about our salvation. We praise you in Christ's name, amen.