The Word of God

[0:00] Psalm 19 verse 7.

[0:30] And righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold. Yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey. And the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned.

[0:42] And in keeping of them there is great reward. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word today. And for everybody that's here, Lord, we thank you that we can take these wonderful pages in our hands and we can hear from you through these pages, Lord.

[0:58] We thank you for the privilege of this book that we can read and take into our heart. Help us, Lord, to take in some more of this word tonight and to be encouraged to be more diligent in your word, Lord, we pray.

[1:12] In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I've heard about Bible study tonight. The word of God is something we can be enthused about. We can be excited about it. The psalmist says here, the psalmist's truth about the word of God, he calls it the law of the Lord.

[1:27] It's perfect. It's converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord, it's sure. Making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

[1:40] There's a joy in the word of God. And the commandment of the Lord is pure. Enlighten the eyes. It opens our eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean. Helps us to know how to live right and true.

[1:51] Enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true. They're righteous altogether. And there's more to be desired than gold. Yea, there's much fine gold. And honey and the honeycomb.

[2:02] So there's much we can learn from the word of God. I just wanted to talk about the word of God tonight and how precious it is, how important it is, and how we can be encouraged by it. And there's some 5,000 manuscripts of the New Testament that are being discovered in various places around the world.

[2:20] And some of the copies available are just a really, a short amount of time really, since the original manuscripts were penned.

[2:32] And we can take heart that there's this overwhelming evidence of the manuscripts about the integrity of the biblical text, the authenticity of it. A man Sir Frederick Kenyon said this about the word of God.

[2:45] He says, The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true word of God, handed down without a sense of loss from generation to generation throughout the ages.

[3:01] And that's despite, over history, we know that God's people, the Christians, were persecuted, like in the Roman times through Diocletian about 302 AD. They were persecuted for holding the word of God in their hands.

[3:14] And since then too, there's been different attacks through history, from philosophy or academic attacks, so-called sceptical attacks and criticism.

[3:27] But the Bible still remains as it is, the most widely published book in the world today, the Word of God, the Bible. And millions of people, their lives have been transformed as they've taken this book, their lives have been changed by God, by the influence of this book through the centuries.

[3:45] And even today, God touches people through the pages of his scriptures, through the message of the Bible, the soul-saving message, the life-changing message of the Word of God.

[3:57] And even some of the writers of the New Testament, for example, they died martyrs' deaths. Reportedly, they died as martyrs for their faith in God.

[4:07] So, they believed what they penned under God's leaning as the Holy Spirit moved them to write. And we can believe and understand the message of the Bible as a step of faith.

[4:20] And God himself, the divine author of this book, we can come to know him personally, as our saviour, as our master. The one who gave us this book, as his love letter to the human race, we can take this book and grasp the message of it as a personal one for us.

[4:37] Some of the things we should do about the Word of God, firstly, we should obey the Word of God. We should obey it. In the world today, there's an authority crisis. We know it's been called lawless.

[4:48] And that's the reason why they're disobeying the law of the Lord. It's no wonder the world today has an authority crisis, because at the heart of it all is disobedience to the Word of God.

[5:00] That's the real crisis, a disobedience to the Word of God, because God has given us His Word as the authority for our lives to govern over us, as the foundation that we can build our lives on, squarely and surely.

[5:14] And that governing document that God has given for us to live our lives by is the Bible, the Word of God. And in our world today, it's often the saying that we need to be politically correct.

[5:27] You've got to watch your P's and Q's, and there's certain phrases and certain things that people, oh, you can't say that anymore. That's kind of something that is against the authorities.

[5:40] It's against what people would count as the political truth today. But the question is, are we biblically correct? Not politically correct.

[5:51] Are we correct according to God's standard? According to God's directions? That's what really matters. Are we biblically... Say it again. Are we biblically correct? Are we biblically correct, people?

[6:04] That's what matters. And there is a final authority, a final authority that God has given to us, His Word, His manual for life, the owner's instructions, the one who's made you, your maker's instructions on how to put your life together and make it work.

[6:20] It's in your hands here, the Word of God, God's inspired Word. It's our absolute standard. And it has the soul-saving message. In 1 Peter 1.23, it says to us that being born again, not a corruptible seed or seed that disintegrates and dies, not a seed that's going to be corrupting and dying and passing away, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.

[6:47] The Lord Jesus says that not one tiny portion, not one little part, little speck of truth of His Word, not one jot or tittle, not one little comma or full stop, you can kind of picture it in the English language, is going to pass away.

[7:04] But it's going to endure. It's going to last forever. And the Word of God is going to live and abide forever. And by the Word of God, we can be born again. It's alive. The Word of God is alive.

[7:15] It's living. It's the truth of life. And by it, we can have a new life. We can have everlasting life if we take its message. And we think of how the Bible has stood the test of time.

[7:28] Think of the Bible tonight. Millions have been tortured and killed for it. It causes havoc wherever it is preached. It is loved because of its poetic beauty.

[7:40] It is hated because of its judgment. Governments have banned it. The school system has forbidden it. People have tried to compromise with it.

[7:52] Publishers have tried to rewrite it. Religion has tried to overshadow it. Evil men have tried to suppress its truth. Scholars have questioned the accuracy of it.

[8:02] The Roman Catholic Church has censored it. The Evangelical Church has watered it down. The Charismatic Church has added to it. The evolutionists have rejected it.

[8:14] The atheists despise it. And false religions have tried to imitate it. It is the Word of God. It's God's Word. And no matter how much desecration it has undergone through history, and in contemporary times, it still stands today as God's authority.

[8:32] For life. And it's the only bastion of truth for today. So we should obey the Word of God. Obey it. And also we should honour the Word of God.

[8:43] We should honour the Word of God. The Word of God is the book of ages. It's as old as time, but as new as tomorrow. It's like people have said. It's more current than tomorrow's newspapers. It's the Word of God because we know it's still telling us things to come.

[8:57] What the Bible calls prophecy. God shows us in His Word some truth about how the planet is going to end up and who's going to end up running the planet. We're talking the bus on the way up.

[9:09] The end times of planet Earth that we know they're coming soon. Maybe even upon us sooner than we think. The Bible says that what is going to happen entails us what's going to happen.

[9:25] So we can read and learn about that as well. And so it's the Word of God. In Isaiah 8 it says, To the law and to the testimony. In other words, to go to the Bible it says, If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

[9:43] So God says, Go to this. Check it out. And we know in the New Testament it says too that we are to search the Scriptures and see if these things are so.

[9:55] The Bible talks about people who lived in Berea. The Bereans, it says they were more noble because they searched the Scriptures. There's something noble about them. It was the Word of God. It's because they checked things out.

[10:07] They tested out what was being said and they had a look and maybe just, Is that right? Yep. It adds up. It's what's in here. Well, no. It doesn't.

[10:17] And that's what the problem is at times in the world today with cults and different religions that are astray from God's Word. This is how we know whether they're right or not. It's whether they adhere to the Word of God.

[10:29] It's whether they stick to the Scriptures and to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them. Psalm 12 says about the Word of God, it says, The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

[10:52] Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. So God promises He's going to preserve His Word. It's going to be something that's preserved, something that is not going to be contaminated or adulterated.

[11:06] It's going to be pure. And God has imparted to the Scriptures many qualities that you could see in God Himself. For example, what does it say on there?

[11:17] Holy Bible. The Bible is holy. The Holy Scriptures. The Bible is holy like God. The Bible is perfect. Psalm 19, verse 7.

[11:32] I'll just flip there. It says, The law of the Lord is perfect.

[11:43] It's perfect. Who's perfect? Only one is perfect, doesn't he? Our Saviour, our Lord. The Word of God is eternal. As we read before, how it says, the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever.

[12:01] 1 Peter 1, 23. And the Word of God is true. All of these qualities, when you think about it, holy, eternal, pure, perfect, true, it's God Himself.

[12:13] God is evident through His Word. And we know the Lord Jesus is the Word. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. So God's Word, God's Bible is very precious.

[12:26] It's very beautiful because it's God speaking to us. You know, sometimes you hear people say rather glibly often, oh, God told me this and God told me that.

[12:36] But this is how God speaks to us. It's not through our kind of having fuzzy-wuzzy feelings or imagined voices. It's about His Word speaking to us. This is how the authority of God is in this book, in these pages.

[12:50] Now, of course, we may have impressions and we might have a sense where we feel God's putting something on our heart, but we shouldn't say carelessly, God's told me this or that because it may not be so.

[13:01] But if we read something in here, yes, God's told you if it's in here because that's what His Word is. It's true. We can put our heart and faith in it. We can have faith in the Bible.

[13:12] We can believe in it. It's inspired. It's infallible. It's inerrant. It's indestructible. Shouldn't we love it? Shouldn't we love this Word? Amen? It's perfect.

[13:22] It's pure. It's preserved. The Word of God. And, you know, young people, Christians here today, maybe some of you don't realise the great treasure that you can delve into, that you can mine.

[13:35] This treasure, it's like you can really dig deep into it. There's so much truth, as we were saying before about the Bible study time. There's so much richness and depth to the Word of God that sometimes we only really scratch the surface.

[13:50] And lastly, in short messages like this, there's only so much you can cover. But in your personal Bible reading time, take the time to get a good study Bible.

[14:02] Invest in a Bible. Put your money into a Bible. Put your money into a good study Bible. Put your money into buying a concordance. A concordance is, for those who are not aware of it, it's like a big kind of dictionary of references for each word.

[14:20] Well, depending how comprehensive the concordance is, for at least the main references to certain words or certain phrases. And so you can have a look and see, for example, you can look up the Word of God in a Bible concordance and you can find all the different references and you can turn to them and go through them.

[14:40] You might be able to get a chain reference Bible where you can go and it helps you too to go from one similar verse to another similar verse and to go through by yourself. Because as a Christian, if you're a Christian here tonight, don't you want to know what the Maker's instructions are for life?

[14:58] Don't you want to study God's Word for yourself? Don't just come to church and think, oh, I've had my feed for the week and leave it for another seven days. Get the Bible at home and read it.

[15:11] And take it. I'll give it every one. That's right. There's another way of studying is getting a computer Bible program. Bible software called eSword is really very useful and very helpful.

[15:25] And so you can get a lot of information and you can search through it yourself. If you've got a computer at home, you can work through eSword or a similar Bible study software. And other than that, get yourself a good Bible and a concordance.

[15:40] If you don't understand things, buy yourself a Bible dictionary. Get yourself a Bible dictionary. Don't count on coming to church to be enough to grow as a Christian.

[15:51] You're just going to go slow as a Christian if that's the only Christian food that you're having, the only Bible study or Bible learning that you're getting. It's not enough. You need to get the Bible for yourself and read it diligently.

[16:04] Read it daily as best you're able. Have a regular time with God's Word. And if you find things you don't understand, write it down and come and talk to other Christians who can help you and try, they can guide you how you can find the answers for yourself and grow from it.

[16:23] The Bible, it's jam-packed with everything that we need. There's a story told about a young Christian who was packing his bag for a journey. He only had a tiny little bag. And his friend was saying, how are you going?

[16:35] Getting ready for your trip. And the Christian said, I'm nearly finished. I'm nearly finished packing. All I have to do is put in a guidebook, a lamp, a mirror, a microscope, a telescope, a volume of fine poetry, a few biographies, a package of old letters, a book of songs, a sword, a hammer, and a set of tools.

[16:57] And the man said, but you can't put all that into your bag. And the Christian said, oh, yes, I can. Here it is. It's the Bible. It's all those things. It's like a great big tool kit.

[17:09] It's a hammer. The Bible calls it a hammer. It smashes the rock in pieces. It calls it like a mirror. We can see ourselves in the Word of God.

[17:19] It's like we can see our sinfulness. We can see our need of God. It's like when you look in the mirror and you see all your faults. The Bible is like a mirror that shows us our faults.

[17:30] It's like a lamp. It says that it's a lamp, a light unto our feet, a lamp unto our palm. And it's a way that we can see the way to go, the way ahead, the journey that we are to take as God leads us.

[17:43] And so the Bible is so jam-packed with everything that we need for life. And it should be studied, memorised, and put into our hearts and most of all, obeyed.

[17:55] The Word of God, we can't rate it highly enough. The psalmist says in Psalm 119, verse 89, Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. Now there's another verse that says that His Word is set above His name.

[18:11] That's how highly God regards His precious Word, that He is set it above His very name. And of course, to us that believe, He is precious. The name of Jesus is so precious, and yet the Bible is so precious too.

[18:24] It's so valuable. And it's able to make you wise unto salvation, Paul told Timothy. Another thing about the Bible is it's sufficient. It's sufficient. Now in our world today, there's many religions and religious movements where you've got prophets or Latter-day prophets or people claiming to be giving divine revelations of whatever kind and of all manner of variety of such things.

[18:51] And those kind of people, they're saying in effect that this isn't sufficient. They're wrong. This is sufficient for the Christian. We don't need some prophet to come along and give us some additional bit.

[19:04] In fact, God tells us not to add to it or take away from it. And the word sufficient, it means that what we hold here in our hands, the Bible, is all that we need to be saved.

[19:16] We don't need a summer thing and some nice looking chaps who come in pairs and knock on your door and say there's another testament of Jesus Christ. He's come again to the USA of all places.

[19:28] No, I won't go to that place. And he's come and given some new revelation and given these folks some new information. People don't believe them.

[19:39] The Lord Jesus has given us everything that we need in the pages of his word, the Bible. And it's the message that we need to follow in order to be saved.

[19:50] Now, of course, there's questions that we might have through life and not every particular subject, especially modern day subjects, are necessarily covered in fine detail in here.

[20:03] But certainly the principles that guide our life are in here. And there may be, you know, it doesn't say about modern technology per se in here, but the principles of God's word are relevant to our everyday and can guide us for life.

[20:21] And so when we're thinking and praying about doing something, we can shape our lives by the Bible because the principles of how to live are clear in there and a guiding force for us.

[20:34] Another thing about the Bible is it's powerful. It's powerful. It says that it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's alive. It's quick. It's active. It's powerful. And it's got the power or ability to accomplish things.

[20:46] In God's word he says that his word is not going to go out and return unto him void. It's not going to return unto him not acting, not activating.

[20:57] It's going to do something that's going to make a difference. It's strong. It's powerful. It's got authority. And it's creative. And it's got the power where the Holy Spirit can use the word of God to change lives and to help us live.

[21:13] It's forceful. It's got impact. It's got impact. It's got impact. It could think, for example, of through history the difference that a Bible makes. I know it's been talked about, for example, about the bounty where the Bible came to shore with these mutineers when they ended up on Pekhen Island.

[21:38] And it transformed their lives. Here's another story about there was a small pamela in Poland. And this Bible distributor came to this little town in Poland and he gave a Bible to one of the villagers who was converted by reading it.

[21:54] And this new believer had passed on the Bible to other people. And before long, there were some 200 people who came to salvation through reading the Bible.

[22:07] They were converted and became believers. And when the man returned to this little village, there was these Christians all meeting together for worship and they gave their testimony of how it was this one Bible that transformed their lives as they had trusted Christ.

[22:32] And the preacher came, he normally asked for testimonies in the meeting and several in the audience responded when he suggested that they could recite verses of Scripture.

[22:46] And one man stood and said, perhaps we have misunderstood. He said, does anyone like to recite some verses of Scripture? And he said, did you mean verses or chapters? These villagers have not just memorized a few little verses here and there, they have memorized whole chapters and books of the Bible.

[23:04] 13 people knew Matthew, Luke and half of Genesis. It's amazing, isn't it? They would put the Word of God into their hearts and memorize it so, and the Word of God can transform a life and a community.

[23:20] Think about Scripture memory. I know, I was blessed when I was a young person in a youth group and the person leading the youth group gave us some 200 Scriptures to memorize.

[23:32] You know, gave them sort of one by one and, you know, I memorized the number of them and that was a big grounding for me in my early years as a Christian to try to memorize the Word of God.

[23:45] And what this man suggested, he gave us a little technique where you get a little card about so big, just a little card and you write the Scripture onto it and you get numbers of these cards and keep them in your pocket, little rubber band, keep them in your pocket.

[24:01] When you've got a spare minute, pick one out and put it back in your pocket again. Before long, you'll know it. It's an easy thing to do.

[24:13] It's so simple, really. To get a little card, write the Bible verse on it and just refer to it before long, it's going to be in your mind, in your heart.

[24:24] What did David say? Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. What will the word of God do? If you memorize it, it'll help you to have that word to quote just as the Lord Jesus did.

[24:40] So the enemy, didn't he? It is written. He knew the word, it was in his heart. He didn't have a Bible on him at the time, but he knew the word because it was in his heart. And what will the word of God do when you memorize it?

[24:52] It will give you victory over sin. It'll help you overcome your concerns and fears. You can memorize scriptures about fear, about worry, about concerns.

[25:03] It will give you confidence in sharing your faith, how helpful it can be to know the words, be able to quote it to a stranger when you're witnessing to them. It can help you to discover God's will for your life.

[25:16] It'll help you with your Bible study and for serving God in different ways. The word of God. Take it into your heart, put it into your mind, put it into your actions, into your life.

[25:35] There was a preacher left the shores of England to go on the mission field with his young bride. They left England and sailed bound for India.

[25:51] The voyage was hit by misfortune. And before they got to India, there was a huge gale storm. storm swept the seas. And it was ten o'clock at nine.

[26:03] Disaster struck. Most of the passengers were settling into their beds. And this man, his name was Duff. He was half dressed when he felt this terrible shock run through the ship.

[26:16] They had struck a reef. They could hear water. The hull of the ship then torn to bits. Rushing to the deck, he heard the captain wail, Oh, she's gone!

[26:27] She's gone! It was a fearful night as the passengers huddled together expecting any moment to be swept to their beds. They cried to the Lord in their distress and he heard them.

[26:39] It was discovered that they were near land and somehow all of the passengers made it to shore, although the ship and her contents sunk beneath the waters.

[26:50] And here was this man, Mr. Duff's personal library of 800 books went down with the ship. And he was looking out in the sea. When he saw bobbing in the waters, there was this package.

[27:02] He waited out and retrieved it. It was his Bible! He was overjoyed! And he gathered the people when they got to the shore. He gathered the people in thanksfulness and thanksgiving.

[27:13] They joined together as he opened the word of God to Psalm 107. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his wonderful works.

[27:25] Praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Let them exalt him in the congregation of the people. And praise him in the assembly of the elders.

[27:38] How we should praise the Lord. How we should give him thanks. And here he was just with this bunch of people from the ship. And before long he had this class of some five boys.

[27:50] They started with five boys sitting under a tree having the Bible class together. And before long he had 300 of them.

[28:01] And there was a school established that this man doth evangelise and educate the high classes of India. Producing a qualified generation of leaders for the nation's young church.

[28:13] It was the Bible that made a difference. That Bible that came floating ashore. One of the few things saved from the wreckage. The Bible is powerful.

[28:25] It's powerful. Just to wrap up some verses to dwell on about the word of God. To take into your heart. Think of these verses as we just quote them now.

[28:36] It's powerful. The Bible has got supernatural life and power. The word of God says, For the word of God is quick and powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword.

[28:49] The word of God. Hebrews 4 verse 12. Isaiah 55 11. Jeremiah 23 29.

[29:09] Is not my word like fire? Says the Lord. Is it not like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Sometimes the word of God is going to rock you. It's going to shock you.

[29:21] It's going to hurt you. Why? Because it's just like that surgeon with the scalpel cutting out the cancer.

[29:32] The word of God is going to cut. It's going to pierce. It's going to provoke. It's going to get a reaction. It's going to hit a tender spot.

[29:45] It's going to hit a nerve sometimes. Because it talks about sin. It talks about getting right. It talks about sorting your heart in his sight.

[29:58] And friends that hurt sometimes. And we need to be provoked. There's going to be a time when his spirit will not always strive with men. Now is the day when you can let that word do its work.

[30:11] Don't reject it. Don't turn away from it. Let it do its work. Let it be that fire. Let it be that hammer pounding!

[30:24] breaking the rock so that you can be made afresh. Sometimes he's got to break us before he can make us.

[30:39] It's got to be like that clay that's got to be crushed and then molded afresh and made malleable again and made shapeable again to be made into that image that he wants us to be.

[30:53] And it's his word that does that. And it says in John 6 63 the Lord Jesus he says the spirit is going to quicken it's going to give life.

[31:04] The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you they are spirit and they are life. In Psalm 119 the psalmist said verse 50 that thy word has quickened me has given me life.

[31:19] Jeremiah said thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was made to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

[31:32] Psalm 119 103 writes words he says how sweet are thy words to my taste yeah sweeter than honey to my mouth it's sweet if you need comfort this is the place to go to if you need refreshing if you need comfort and restoration if you need relief if you need shelter if you need hope if you need encouragement if you need answers to your concerns the word of God is going to help it's going to be the assurance that we need as the Lord Jesus says man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceed about of the mouth of God and just lastly as newborn babes desire the sincere milk the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious this is how we grow if you want to grow as a

[32:33] Christian you need to dig deep invest in a study Bible a concordance a Bible dictionary Bible helps that can help you to understand and seek out Bible study seek out counsel and ask questions to help understand what you don't follow and the more you dig the more you understand the more he'll help you and lead you of course we know that of course the Bible does say that these things are spiritually discerned another key is obviously to be saved and to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and to instruct you because we know the Bible says that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher he'll help you understand and to grow those that are wanting to follow Christ and older Christians too we can all get stale and stagnant we can all get slack certainly easy to get slack

[33:33] I can identify with that we can get slack where we don't take the time that we need to take with God's word be encouraged today to do so and God will reward you for it just to wrap up I'll just quote again in Psalm 19 verse 11 just to take us to heart now there's a promise here that God tells us Psalm 19 verse 11 moreover by them is thy servant warned and in keeping of them there is great reward