Maturity No.6 Handling the Word

Well, I'll put those back on the table and you can check afterwards and if you want to purchase then I'm sure the folks from the Bible Shop will be very glad to meet your requirements. I had a letter the other day from a good friend of mine whose name is Vinay. He's an Indian and I don't think I'm being sentimental to say that I have a dear love for this brother.

He can't be much more than 21 or 22 years of age and I recall him coming to some seminars similar to the Bible study that I'm giving this evening and God in a very remarkable way met with Vinay during those days of seminar study and fellowship and he gave a new commitment, made a new commitment to the Lord and determined that he would go into full-time Christian service. When I returned to India some two years after meeting him, I came across him again and I was delighted in a conference area in North India called Broach to see him and I saw him clutching his Bible and I said that looks as though it's a well-used Bible Vinay and he said yes, I haven't really stopped using it since the day when I committed myself again to the Lord. It was the most remarkable Bible that I've ever seen in my life and the reason for it, the reason I say that is when you flick the pages like that it looked like a rainbow.

What he'd done was this, he got no end of colored crayons and he'd worked out some sort of Bible topic index and every time he came across a verse of scripture that emphasized the Messiahship of Jesus, then he'd put it in red. Every time he came across a verse which indicated something of the deity of the Holy Spirit, he'd mark it in green and all the topics that one could conceivably think of in the Bible, he'd got a different color for and I don't think there was a page in his book, in his Bible that wasn't covered with greens, reds, purples and so on and so forth. He'd obviously immersed himself in scripture during those couple of years or so in between my second meeting and the first time when he made this recommitment to the Lord.

It's Dr. Packer who says in one of his books that Christian people should be beavers for the Bible. You know what a beaver is? How that little animal can tunnel away down by the riverbed. So we should be beavers for the Word of God, tunneling through it, believing that this is a book, ignorance of which would harm us not only in time but also in eternity.

Has that ever struck you? That people who are ignorant of the contents of the Bible have alas, are alas doing harm to their eternal well-being. Our eternal destiny may depend on our attending to the Bible. Now the Apostle Paul is very concerned as we have already gathered, as we've looked into Ephesians and particularly the fourth chapter, he's very concerned that Christian people ought to have maturity ever developing in their lives.

Indeed, he tells us that our goal is to reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and to become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. We are to be as tall in one sense as our Lord Jesus was. That says Paul is our goal as he sets it down in the twelfth and thirteenth verses of Ephesians four and we have been looking into various aspects of what makes Christian people mature.

And one of the things that you need to build into your discipleship if you are going to be mature, if there's any possibility that you might rise as high spiritually so to speak as our Lord Jesus did, then you've got to have a good knowledge, more than just a working knowledge of the Word of God. The idea of being mature in the understanding of Scripture is almost the heartbeat of the Apostle Paul as he writes to the various churches that he has founded around the Roman world. In the second chapter for instance, or rather the third chapter of 1 Corinthians, he has to say in the second verse, I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.

Indeed, you are still not ready, you are still worldly. What was he talking about when he refers to them having milk and not solid food? Well he's referring to the study of Scripture, the Old Testament Scriptures in particular, and also those gospel truths that he wants to share with them. They were infantile.

They were just like boys and girls in a nursery. There's nothing wrong in being in a nursery if you're three years of age. But if you're 30 or you're 60, then you should feel a bit of an odd man out or an odd woman out if you're in the kindergarten, unless of course you're superintending it.

Now that is what Paul was lamenting about the Corinthians. Spiritually they were still in the kindergarten. They weren't mature in their grasp of the things of the Lord.

And later on, in the 14th chapter of the same epistle, he says in the 20th verse, Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. I prefer the translation in the Authorized Version of Scripture for that verse, and it says in understanding, be men.

God wants us to have a good grasp of His Word. And that's the reason why the Apostle Paul, such a marvelous pastor, writes to the Corinthians and to the Ephesians and writes to Timothy, as you'll discover, maybe we'll look at one or two verses, and has as his burden to challenge those who read what he has to say to become well informed with the Bible and be able to pass on to communicate their faith to others. Every man a Bible student.

Every woman should spend time before the Word of the Lord. You remember how when Paul writes to Timothy, who he led to the Lord Jesus Christ, he thanks God for the various blessings that Timothy has had. And amongst the blessings to which the Apostle makes reference in the second letter he pens to the young men is a godly mother and a godly grandmother.

They were able to plant the seeds of spiritual truth in the mind of young Timothy, and when Paul comes across Timothy in Asia Minor, he's able to build on that foundation until ultimately, still as a young man, Timothy can be set in charge of a number of churches and he can be entrusted with faithfully ministering God's Word to other people. Now Timothy receives the congratulations of the Apostle Paul because of his maturity, because of his grasp of the truth of Scripture, and I want us also to make Timothy's objective our own. In the 14th verse of 2 Timothy, we find that the, that's the second chapter of 2 Timothy and verse 14 and 15, we find the Apostle encouraging him to be a good Bible student and not to waste his time with things that are not really important.

Look at the 15th verse, will you? Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, and who correctly handles the word of truth. That's the important thing for a Christian who's going to be mature. He has to handle God's Word in such a fashion that he can not only help himself spiritually, but also inform others.

Why is it so important? Well, because it's God's Word, and it's got a special authority. Look at the 16th verse of the third chapter, still in 2 Timothy, and there the Apostle says, all Scripture is God breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. If you're a builder, then it presupposes that you've done a little bit of work, a little bit of study about building techniques.

You don't go and put up a block of flats if you've got no grasp of the basic principles of surveying, of how to order bricks, how to put one brick upon another, and so on and so forth. Now the Apostle is saying here, similarly as Christian people, if you're going to be mature, and therefore able to pass on God's Word to others, then you've got to study yourself. And for this reason, he can congratulate Timothy, because that's exactly what he's engaged in.

He's a beaver for the Bible. He's a man who has gone to the book, and Paul says he's got to continue to do this, and then he's got to labor in doctrine and communicate what he has learned to others. Why is it so important that you should study the Word of God? Well, the question hardly needs to be answered.

It almost contains its own answer in that very statement, the Word of God. Where do you meet God? Well, you meet Him in His Word, basically. Ah, you say, but I meet Him in worship.

That may be true. You can meet Him together as Christian people. We pray, and we offer our praise to the Lord.

But the place where God reveals Himself fully is in Scripture, and we test any spiritual experience that we may claim to have by the Word of God. There's no other way in which we can check whether we have had an emotional experience, whether or not it is genuine or counterfeit, whether it's demonic or psychological, apart from coming back to the Word of God. So the Bible is God's place of meeting.

As one great preacher who lived many years ago said, not to know the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ. It's here where God makes Himself known. It's here where His Word is found, and it becomes personal and lives in our own experience.

Look at that quotation I give you on the second page of your notes, taken from the Church of England homilies. The first paragraph there, you'll find this quotation. Let us ruminate, and as it were, chew the cud, that we may have the sweet juice, spiritual effect, marrow, honey, kernel, taste, comfort, and consolation of the Scriptures.

I think that's a very choice invitation for us to study the Word of God. Those are words that are used to describe Scripture, which suggest that it is indeed, as the Scripture Union notes, indicates, bread. Here is food for you and for me.

Here is where God meets with us and satisfies the longing of our souls. So the man, the woman, who says, I've got no time for Bible study, who puts other things first, does so at their spiritual loss. But when you're going to handle God's Word, it's necessary that you handle it properly.

Why do I say that? Well, you know that the sects abound today. There are many groups which claim to find authority for what they do and for what they believe from the Bible. The Bible, you see, can be stripped of its context, or some of the verses can be stripped of their context, and people can completely and utterly misunderstand the message, and as a result, you get a deviation from the Christian Gospel.

That's what the Jehovah's Witness movement is. They claim to be Scriptural, but they've taken Scripture out of context. Now, we should know that the devil is fully aware of the contents of Scripture.

He can quote Scripture himself, only he always does it to his own advantage, and he's very good at twisting Scripture. The first occasion when that happened was when he slid alongside Eve in the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden, and he said, Hath God said? He twisted the Word of the Lord, and ultimately, he denied it. And in a similar fashion, the situation was different, but the principle was the same.

The devil accosts the Lord Jesus Christ, and at the end of his period of fasting in the wilderness, Satan comes along, and what does he do? He quotes Scripture. So, you see, it's not just knowing the Word of God that is important, it is handling the Word of God properly. I have spent hours with Moonies, with Mormons, and with people who come from a group called the Children of God, and if ever a group was more misnamed, it's that one.

I've spent hours with them, trying to show where they've gone wrong in their misunderstanding of Scripture. How you handle God's Word is very, very important, and so we thank God, many of us here, for the opportunity of having been able to sit under Bible ministries where God's Word has been systematically expounded. We thank God for authors like Dr. Packer and many another, who have written their understanding of God's Word down in books that helps us, as commentaries, to shed light upon the page.

So we have to be careful in the way that we handle this book. It's not an ordinary book, its message is very, very vital, but if we misunderstand it, if we allow it to be quoted out of context, and we follow an interpretation that is wrong, then it can be to our spiritual harm. I trust that you have an eagerness to read God's Word, and that you're doing it daily.

There have been many occasions during these last few years when I've been away from my wife Rowena for reasons of ministry abroad. And when I'm abroad, and she writes to me, and I get a letter from her, I receive it, then I don't think, oh, she's written again, push the thing in my pocket, and wait a couple of days before I engage in the laborious task of slitting the envelope and taking out the letter and reading the contents, not a bit. I read it immediately.

I read it carefully. If I can be autobiographical a little longer, I remember when we were courting, and she had to go back to South Africa, and for six months or nine months we were away from one another, when a letter came, oh, it was such a wonderful experience. I read it, and re-read it, and re-re-read it, and I could have quoted it off by heart.

Why? Well, you see, it was a specific letter addressed to me, and the contents, well, they may not have interested you unless you've got a particular curious nature, the contents were of real interest to me. Now what is Scripture? It's God's letter. I go further.

It's God's love letter, addressed to Christian people, like ourselves. And when you fail to read this book, and you fail to understand it in its context, then you do so to your disadvantage. I make reference in your notes, about two-thirds of the way down the second page, to a man who says about the twentieth century, in a fit of despair, nature has let us down, God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

You know, I feel sorry for that man. He's a great scholar, actually, a great philosopher. God has not taken the receiver off the hook.

Time magazine, some years ago, no, not some years ago, within the last two years, made some comment to this effect. Why is it that in the past two thousand years, God has not spoken, and the only people who claim to have a message from God are on the lunatic fringe? Time magazine might make some very good economic evaluations and political statements from time to time, but in that particular comment, they were showing their utter ignorance of Scripture. You see, God does speak today, but you've got to go through the right exchange.

There is only one way where God speaks authoritatively, and finally, and that way is in and through the Scriptures. And I must warn ourselves as evangelical people today, to recognize that whatever anyone may be saying, infringed movements of the Holy Spirit, there are no additional revelations about God or about His gospel. Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 1 seals forever the finality of Scripture.

God has in these last days spoken to us through His Son. There is no greater revelation. There is nothing else to say.

And God's Word, and this is the marvelous thing about the Bible, remains contemporary. What do I mean by that? Well, the Bible is a history book, yes, in some respects. You can learn a great deal if you dip into Genesis about the life and the customs of the patriarchs, or one patriarch in Mesopotamia.

When you move into the rest of the Pentateuch, that's the other four books of the first five of the Bible, then you learn a great deal about Hebrew religious customs and so on and so forth. But if you think of the Bible just in terms of a history book, oh my friend, you've got it so wrong. The Bible is like a telephone exchange where God's message keeps coming through, and it's up to date as a newspaper that you bought earlier on this morning, but far, far more relevant.

It's very interesting that when you read in Hebrews, we'll not go to the text, and they're not on your notes, if you've got a pencil you can jot them down, Hebrews 3 verse 7, Hebrews 10 verse 15, there you find scriptures that quote the Old Testament, and when the Old Testament is quoted, it's in the form of this, the Holy Spirit says, now do you understand what I'm trying to make out by that? Here is the Old Testament scriptures written hundreds of years before the New Testament, and when a New Testament writer quotes from the Old Testament, he does so in present tense. He does so indicating that God is still speaking to that writer at that particular moment through the Old Testament. And when I read the Bible today, I don't just think of it as a history book, I think of it as a book in which God is going to speak to me right now.

I recall someone saying in a piece of pastoral work I was trying to do some while ago, talking about guidance, look, I'm not bothered really what you say, nor what the Bible says, if God tells me to do something, I will do it. Now that's a nonsense statement. Not because they were questioning my advice, I'm only a mortal and make many, many mistakes.

But you see, God will never say anything different to what He said in Scripture, and He will never go beyond Scripture, because His final revelation of Himself and His purposes are contained within the Old Testament and the New Testament. There's nothing else to be said as far as revealing more of the purposes of God are concerned. We have enough revelation and knowledge of what God has to communicate through the Bible, and it's sufficient for you and for me in the twentieth century.

I believe that with all my heart. I believe that every time I read the Bible, God speaks to me. Pardon me if I've used this illustration recently, I can't remember.

I set myself a goal to read the Bible through in just one month, and I virtually did it. And I thought, as I'm reading it, I'll start to underline verses of Scripture that I'll preach on at the tabernacle during the next few months or so. And, you know, I've got so many verses of Scripture marked up in Genesis that I'm going to have to live for another five years just to get through that lot.

And I'm not exaggerating. I fail rationally to understand why it is, apart from the fact that the Bible is inspired, that it attracts me so much. It's very rare that I read a book twice.

In fact, quite a lot of books I don't even complete. I get sort of weary, particularly if it's a novel, before I ever get to the end. And the last time I read Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare when I was fifteen at school.

The last time I read Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare when I was thirteen. I was put off because I had to play the part of Oberon, the king of the fairies. And never since my school days have I been tempted back to Shakespeare.

But this book, honestly, I can't put it down. I find it so, so fascinating. And God does speak to me through it.

It's amazing, however, how many obstacles sometimes the devil puts in my way and tries to deflect me from having time with the Bible. You know, read the Times editorial column today, or dip into some other newspaper, or some other book. So many obstacles that the devil puts in your way, but when you brush them aside and you get into the Bible, it's so very, very wonderful.

Why is it so attractive? Well, because it's inspired. Because through it, God has a message for you and for me. He speaks, and listening to His voice, new life the dead receive, the mournful broken hearts rejoice, the humble poor believe.

Augustine says, speaking for the Lord, indeed, O man, what my Scripture says, I say. What my Scripture says, I say. God does speak today.

He speaks through His Word, and you and I are to handle God's Word properly. I repeat that warning, and indeed there's a section, though I'm not going to work my way through it, you can read it, or perhaps already have read it on your own sometime. A warning about handling God's Word deceitfully.

You see, there are those who have been stumbled, as we've already mentioned, in the sects, who have done just that. They've been led astray. And the Apostle Paul, when he writes to the Corinthians, he assures them that that's one of the things that he has never done.

He's never peddled Scripture for his own profit. To Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 17, unlike so many, we do not peddle the Word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ, we speak before men with sincerity, like men sent from God.

As the Lord speaks to us, and as we study the Bible carefully and systematically, it helps us not to go off on a tangent. The people who fall by the wayside in their Christian life very often are those who never read God's Word in a systematic and in a tidy fashion. You know, this is the sort of person, and I want to speak kindly, who maybe goes to a meeting, and they hear a novel address which seems to be based on the Word of God.

And from that particular verse that the man or the woman may be expounding, there is good biblical warrant, or so it would appear for the conclusions that are drawn. But you can take Scripture, you can take a text, out of its context, and as someone has punned, you make a pretext. And you can lead people astray.

And there are some preachers who are adept, who are skillful in doing just that, linking together various statements, making conclusions, and it all seems so right, it all seems so proper, and the uninitiated person, the ignorant person, who's never been studying Scripture properly for himself, isn't testing the whole of what is being said. And as a result, he is led astray. Now the Apostle Paul warns against that, and the only way in which you and I, younger people and older people too, can ensure that we're never led off at a tangent, is by being students of the Word of God ourselves.

I give you some advice. Watch those who trade on novelties. Watch those who can dip into Ezekiel chapter 39 and tell you where the Soviet Union is going, and what's going to happen in Syria, and what's going to happen in Turkey.

Those who can take you through the visions of Daniel and point out this, that, and the other, and argue with such strong conviction. There are things in Scripture which are not always very clear to grasp, not always easy to understand, and particularly in the prophetic line, there have been folk who've been led astray, statements that have been made, speculative ministry that's been engaged in, those who remember Mussolini, and Hitler, and the whole of the political scenario at the Second World War might also recall the Bible teachers and scholars that went around and they got it all worked out where the Antichrist was coming, who it was going to be, and so on and so forth. And history's gone by, the past, the present has become the past, and some of the statements have been absurd.

Watch speculative teaching. Anyway, there's good, simple, Bible truths to be grasped, to be repeated, to be re-emphasized for you and for me, sufficient for us to go on, to build us up in the most holy faith without us being taken down a bypass into an area of speculation which might not be of great benefit for us. So, the Word of God is open for you and for me to read today, to read as though God is going to speak to us through it, and that's what we do believe.

Let me, in conclusion, in these last four or five minutes, take you into an area that I don't touch on in my notes. Why do you study the Bible? Why are we to study the Bible? Can I give you one, two, three, four, five reasons? We are to study the Bible, first of all, because it is God's Word. That's what 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16 says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.

It's God's Word, therefore I'll study it because of that. The second reason why I need to study the Bible is because it's got lasting qualities. We're told, Matthew 13, 3, that heaven and earth might pass away, but my Word shall never pass away.

There's something that's enduring in God's Word, and there's nothing else quite like it, and therefore for that reason I'm to study Scripture. And then we're to study Scripture because it's vital to the soul. That's why Scripture Union calls its notes daily bread.

If you don't read the Bible, if you don't study the Bible, you harm yourself. Jesus fed His Word to the multitudes, as well as sometimes feeding them physically, materially. Why should I read the Bible? The fourth reason, because it gives ammunition against the devil.

Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees, and Satan also trembles when a man goes to the book. Keep your thoughts pure, that's a problem for men, a problem to a lesser degree for women. How on earth do you manage to cope when temptations crowd into your mind? How shall a young man cleanse his thoughts? By taking heed according to your Word, saturating your mind in Scripture.

The devil can't stand Scripture being quoted properly. He can only stand Scripture when it's being perverted and used for a wrong end. Why study the Bible? The fifth reason is because it's vital for discipleship.

God does not like people who are ignorant of His Word. In what way should I study the Bible? My second question to squeeze into these last few moments. I should study the Bible as though God will speak to me through it.

As though God will speak to me through it, as indeed He does day by day. I should read the Bible, study the Bible in complete dependence on the Holy Spirit. It's a good thing when you start to study the Word of God to have a little prayer beforehand and to ask that the Lord will ensure that by the tuition of the Spirit, the conclusions you make about it are accurate.

1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14 says the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgment about all things but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. In what way should I study the Bible? As though God would speak through it and in utter dependence on the Holy Spirit and not wishing to twist its meaning.

You don't come to the Bible with a conclusion and then try and find a verse that seems to support it. You come to the Bible with an open mind and let the Bible make its own conclusions. How do you get started in Bible study? My final question.

Well many of you are or else you wouldn't be here this evening. There's two ways in which you can study the Bible. There's what I would call the panoramic method and that is rapid reading, going through a book at a time.

Sometimes it's good to do that, flicking right through the pages of one book, reading a gospel in an evening. The panoramic method. If you like you could almost call it the telescopic method as you bring the whole vista of Scripture in front of you, starting at Genesis, making your way right through to Revelation.

I'm not suggesting you do it in a month but I am suggesting that you work to a program and you see Scripture pass in front of you and you look through its pages and you're built up in the faith. But there's not only just the telescopic method, there's also the microscopic one. What's the difference? Well, what does a microscope do? If you put a drop of Worthing's seawater under a microscope you would be amazed what you would see.

In fact, when I'm swimming in Worthing's seawater I try to forget what scientists tell me and what Andy Proctor used to delight to inform me was turned out into Worthing C. You will find, of course, life there. In the smallest particle, smallest droplet of water, there's life. And also in Scripture, sometimes has it not surprised you when on a Sunday morning in particular, I directed you just to two or three words and maybe you thought when you've read through the notes and news, how on earth can you preach and address for thirty, thirty-five minutes on three or four words? Quite easily.

Because, you see, as there is a whole sweep of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation which reveals God's purposes, so when you study Scripture microscopically and you have a look at one particular phrase, there's life, there's depth, there's meaning in it. And that's why this book is so fantastic. I'd never read Agatha Christie like that, in fact I've never got through an Agatha Christie, my wife's the Agatha Christie fan in our family.

I would never read any other book like that because there's no other book that would allow you to treat it in such a fashion. But Scripture will. So you can take it in a panoramic fashion and you can read the whole Bible through or you can read a book through, say, have a goal for a particular week, I'm going to work my way through Isaiah's prophecy and do it in that week.

Or else it may be that you'll slow down and you'll go to Philippians chapter two and you'll find in the first twelve verses of Philippians chapter two such marvellous teaching about the deity of Christ, that it will cause your soul to be enraptured and your mind to be filled with a great deal of knowledge that will take some days to really absorb. So then we thank God for this book. And those who will be mature have to handle His word correctly.

In this book God meets me. In this book God will chastise me. In this book God will discipline me.

In this book God will encourage me. This book is replete with promises and not one of them has been rescinded. And until the day when we get to heaven, we all need to be constantly students of the word of God, handling it properly.

Amen.