Sermon #103   Series: Isaiah

 

 

Title:   “The Word of Our God.”

 

Text:  Isaiah 40:8

 

Scripture Reading:  Psalm 119:1-16, 97-104)

 

Subject:  The Inspiration, Authority, and Value of Holy Scripture

 

Date:   Sunday Evening – February 2, 1992 (AM)

 

Introduction:

 

I want to talk to you tonight about “The Word of Our God.” The Lord God has graciously given us a Book which is able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (II Tim. 3:15).  By reading this Book, the Bible, “The Word of Our God,” we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live comfortably before God, and how to die in peace.

 

Yet I fear that many a great many who profess faith in Christ, use the Bible very little.  Few read it with regularity.  Fewer still study it with care.  Fewer still seek to govern their lives by it.  One of my great concerns as your pastor is that I inspire you to read, study, and live by “The Word of Our God.”

 

With that object in mind, shortly after the New Year began, I started working on a Bible reading program that would be helpful to us all in the daily reading of the Holy Scriptures.  You will have the program given to you each week in the bulletin this year.  Hopeful, I can have it printed and ready for public distribution by the beginning of next year.

 

Tonight, I want, by the help of God the Holy Spirit, to inspire in our hearts both a reverence for and an intense desire to know and live by “The Word of Our God.”

 

Proposition:  Everyone who cares for his own soul, the souls of others, and the glory of God, ought to value the Word of God highly, study it regularly, and make himself thoroughly acquainted with its contents.

 

Let me see if I can inspire in your heart a true reverence for and an earnest desire to know “The Word of Our God.”

 

            7 Plain Statements About “The Word of Our God.”

 

I.  There has never been a book, in the history of the world, written the way “The Word of Our God” was written-  (II Tim. 3:16; II Pet. 1:2.

 

God himself taught the writers of Holy Scripture what to say.  God himself put into their minds the thoughts, words, and ideas recorded upon these pages.  God himself directed their pens, as they wrote the words of this Holy Book.  So, when you read the Bible, you are not reading the thoughts and words of poor, sinful men, but the very word of our God!  When you hear the Scriptures read, you are not hearing the opinions of mortals.  You are hearing “The Word of Our God!”

 

II.  There is no book in existence which reveals and teaches those things which are revealed and taught in “The Word of Our God,” things that are absolutely necessary.

 

Many books are written, with many purposes, to teach many things.  But the only Book that is absolutely true, that was written for absolutely pure purposes, and reveals that which is absolutely essential to our souls is the Bible.

 

Time and space will not allow me to show you all the many things which are found only in the Bible.  Let me just sketch out an outline, a very broad outline, of its treasures.

 

A.  Only in the Bible is the Lord our God revealed to men.

 

 

B.  Only the Word of Our God reveals God’s great purpose of grace and plan of salvation by the sacrifice of his own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

·         The Covenant of Grace.

 

C.  Only the Word of Our God unravels the mystery of God’s Providence   (Rom. 8:28).

 

            The only satisfactory answer to the questions which all men and women make about why this thing or that has happened is God’s providence, as it is revealed in this Book.

 

D.  Only the Bible shows us the origin of man, the origin of sin, and the source of all evil in the world.

 

The Word of God alone shows us that man is a fallen creature, out of whose heart all wickedness proceeds.  The Bible alone reveals the remedy for man’s sin- The Cross of Christ! 

 

E.  The only place where the realities of eternity are revealed is Word of Our God.

 

·         What happens at death?

 

 

Other books speak of these things.  But the Bible alone reveals them.  And all that is written about them in other places is either borrowed from or attempts to discredit “The Word of Our God.”

 

III. No book in the world has produced such astounding effects upon humanity as the Bible, “The Word of Our God.”

 

A.  This is the Book whose doctrines turned the world upside down in the days of the Apostles.

 

With the Bible in their hands and the Holy Spirit in their hearts, in a few generations the people of God changed the face of society and the world.

 

·         Pagan temples were turned into ruins.

·         Moral principles were lifted between men.

·         Womanhood was lifted from servitude to honor.

 

B.  This is the Book that turned Europe upside down during the Reformation.

 

When darkness covered the earth 500 years ago, when papacy had spread heathen idolatry and moral corruption everywhere, it was the translation of the Bible into the language of the people that broke the arms of Rome and threw off the yoke of bondage.

 

·         The Bible Alone!

·         Christ Alone!

·         Faith Alone!

 

 

Luther in Germany, Calvin in Geneva, Wycliff in England, and Knotts in Scotland.

 

C.  This is the Book which set the course of our nation in its beginning.

 

I do not pretend that all our founding fathers were believers.  Many of them were, in fact, Deists.  But it was, in God’s providence, the regard of the early American settlers for the Word of God that set the course of this country.

 

This is the Book to which America and all the civilized world is indebted for its best, most praiseworthy, and useful institutions.  The fact is, light or darkness, morality or immorality, godliness or superstition, liberty or despotism, good laws or bad, abound in proportion as the Bible is honored or despised.

 

1.       Our earliest and best colleges were schools train men in the knowledge of Holy Scripture- Harvard –Princeton –Yale.

2.       The laws of this land were established, originally, in conformity to this Book.

·         Honesty

·         Morality

·         Human Relationship’s

·         Crime and its Punishment

 

3.       Every humane, charitable institution, established to care for the poor, the sick, and the homeless, arose only after the influence of Holy Scripture upon mankind.

 

You will search the histories of the world in vain to find one mention of these institutions in the Gentile world prior to the spread of the gospel of Christ.  Neither Rome nor Athens provided for the outcasts of their people until Christ was preached among them.

 

Illus:  The Atheists at Harvard.  The Blasphemer in the Hospital.  The Infidel in a past Home.

 

IV.  There is no book in the world that can do so much for all who read it rightly as “The Word of Our God.”

 

A.     Is the Instrument by which Sinners are Born of God (James 1:18; I Pet. 1:23).

B.     Is Able to Make you Wise unto Salvation, through faith in Christ (II Tim. 3:15).

C.     Is the Means by which Believers are Established in the Faith.

 

This Book is….

 

·         A Cleansing Book (Ps. 119:9).

·         A Sanctifying Book (John 17:17).

·         An Instructing Book for Righteousness (II Tim. 3:16).

·         A Soul Furnishing Book (II Tim. 3:17).

 

The man who has the Word of God and the Spirit of God in his heart has everything needful to make him truly wise.

 

V.  The Word of God is the only rule of faith and practice for the church of God-  (Isa. 8:20).

 

A.     Our Doctrine Must Be The Doctrine of The Bible.

B.     Our Ordinances of Divine Worship must be the Ordinances of the Bible.

C.     Our Rules of Life and Conduct must be the Rules of the Bible.

 

VI.  This Book, the Word of Our God, is The Book which all true believers have always believed, loved, and lived upon.

 

This is our milk, our bread, and our mea.  All who are born of God delight in the revealed will of God (Ps. 1:2).

 

·         Job-  “I have esteemed the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).

·         David-  “Oh, how I love thy law!” (Ps. 119:97).  “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

 

God’s people love his Word!

 

            Illus: The African Chieftain- Reading all day long.

                        The Converted Tribesman- “It is never old and never cold.”

                       

The Old Slave Learning to Read- “I will never give it up till I die.  It is worth all the labor just to read that one verse: ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’”

 

VII.  This Book, the Bible, The Word of Our God, is the only book in all the world that can comfort a man in the last hours of his life.

 

        Illus:  Voltaire’s Son- “There’s nothing to hang on to!”

                 Voltaire and Paine, The infamous infidels died in misery, bitterness, rage, and despair.

                   Harold Mountain-  “Preacher, it’s good to know now that it’s all under the blood!”

 

  1. The Jew’s Bible is incomplete.
  2. The Koren is a book of Self-Righteous morals with no Savior.
  3. The Book of Mormon is Life from Start to Finish/ a gross perversion of Holy Scripture.

 

There is no book in the world like the word of our God.

 

Application:

 

1.       Some of you never read the Bible at all- You have no regard for God, his Word, or your immortal souls.  But one day, you shall be judged by this Book.

2.       Some of you who are believers read the Word of God very little.

 

1.       You get little comfort from it in time of need.

2.       You will never be established in the truth.

3.       Your life is a long, sad history of mistakes made because of your ignorance of the Word of God.

 

3.       Are you willing to read the Bible?  Do you want to profit from it?  Then let me give you Some suggestions that will help you to profit by reading “The Word of our God.”

 

a.       Begin reading the Word of God this very day.

b.       Read the Bible with an earnest desire to understand it.

c.       Read the Scriptures with a simple, childlike faith and humility.

d.       Read the Word with a spirit of obedience and self-application.

e.       Read God’s Word every day.

f.        Read the Whole Bible and read it in an orderly way- “All Scripture is profitable!”

g.       Read the Word of God fairly and honestly- As a general rule, a verse means what it appears to mean.

h.       Read the Bible with Christ constantly in view.

 

A poor, believing woman, once responded to the assaults of an infidel upon her faith this way- “I am no scholar.  I cannot argue like you.  But I know that honey is honey, because it leaves a sweet taste in my mouth.   And I know that the Bible is God’s Book, because of the taste it leaves in my heart.”

 

I send you home with this word of exhortation.

 

1.       Read this Book!

2.       Believe this Book!

3.       Obey this Book!

4.       Live by this Book!