The Bible

There's a Christian brother back home. He's now at home with the Lord. But years ago, Ulrich, he had a very good job with the Crown Corporation of the Government of Canada.

It was a union position. And he was a well-paid electrician with the Crown Corporation of the Federal Government. And Ulrich had a young family.

And his family was really important to him. And the things of God were really important to him. And in this high-paying job that he had, one day he went to work and he had a meeting with his boss.

And he told the boss that he was leaving his job. He no longer wanted to do shift work that required him to miss multiple meetings of the assembly. It was very important for him to get his children out under the sound of the gospel.

And so he left a good-paying job and he took the job of janitor at the local school. How does a person make such a choice? How does a person make that kind of a choice? You say, well, it doesn't even seem to make sense. In this kind of environment that we're in, it doesn't really make sense.

It's sort of highfalutin holiness, if you ask me. How do you think Ulrich made a choice like that? To leave a good-paying job with a pension that would be the envy of anybody in Canada and step into a front-line position as a janitor in a school. How does a person ever make a choice like that? Well, I had the privilege of taking his funeral and I think I got an insight into how he made a choice like that.

I was handed his Bible to read from. And his Bible, you know that black electrical tape? Electricians use it, but people with hockey sticks use it as well to wrap around the joints to make the hockey stick stronger. They wrap it around and around and around and around and around.

They're hockey sticks. But I held that Bible in my hand and it was that black electrical tape round and round and round and round the cover of his Bible. And then I opened his Bible and there were the tiniest notes ever filling the margins of his Bible.

He was an elder. He became an elder in the local assembly. He was a man of very few words.

I never heard him speak publicly on the pulpit. I did hear him open Bible studies. And then he was very quiet in the Bible study until they got to a difficult point and he thought maybe they were going off track and he could take you right to the very verse in the Bible.

Put his finger on it and bring the Bible study back on track. How does a person make choices that are of eternal significance? I think I held the secret in my hand. I think the Bible was the foundation.

The Word of God was the foundation and the underpinnings of that brother's life. And I'm sure that choice to leave his job was not made lightly but in the fear of God for the well-being of his family and for his commitment to the things of God and to the assembly. I want to read in Psalm 119.

Psalm 119 and verse 9. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments.

Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. There's something that really... I'm just pausing here for a moment. There's something that's really encouraging me the last few years.

I remember as a young person sitting in conferences like this and it would be a holier-than-thou thing for a young person of my generation to take notes. That was sort of it. You're getting holy, are you? I never took notes at a conference.

But thank God for a generation of young people that are coming up and whether they're taking notes on their phones or their devices, whatever it is, or in their notebooks, thank God that there are young people who have sufficient interest in the things of God to take notes and record them. That's wonderful. There's one more step though.

Make sure that those notes are not only on your devices, but they actually get transferred into your heart. Because we can diligently take notes and never look at them again. And the psalmist writes these words, Thy word have I hid in my heart.

And so it's not good enough to have them on our devices or in our notebooks. Ask the Lord to give you strength to transfer those truths from Scripture that you've recorded so diligently, tediously, transfer them into the very essence of your being, into your heart. And the psalmist said, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.

Now over to the New Testament. 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2. And verse 15.

Study or be diligent to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So be diligent about that. And then over to chapter 3. Well-known verses.

You might have some idea now what I'm going to talk about. You say, Peter, I didn't drive all the way to Garneville to hear something so basic. It's an offense to me.

I think I know where you're going with this message. Well, just bear with me and hopefully the Lord will speak to our hearts. Verse 15.

And that from a child thou hast known the sacred writings or the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good works. If I want to grow, if I want to be complete as a Christian, I cannot do it without the Word of God saturating my soul and my heart.

Saturating my soul and heart. And so just for a few minutes this afternoon, I want you to think, where does the Word of God rank in my life? Where? Now, I'm thrilled when I think of the Bible, the proliferation of Bibles in many, many languages around the world. The Bible is not gathering dust around the world.

It is not becoming a relic. And you've heard the names of some famous God deniers and atheists already this afternoon. Add to the list Richard Dawkins.

And the list goes on. And they would like you to think and professors and teachers would like people to think that the Bible is some relic that eventually will only be found in some old, dusty museums. But the facts are absolutely, they fly in the face of that kind of reasoning.

I suppose if I was asked you to open your phones today, you will have at least one Bible app on your phone. Some of us have three or four Bible apps. And you know, they can track every download of the Bible on your phones.

They know how many Bible apps have been downloaded. They can track the number of hours that people who have downloaded that app are spending. I just read some statistics.

I've shared them before. But in 2014, there's one Bible app and it includes many translations, KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB, and the list goes on. But it's called the YouVersion app.

Do you know that there were 162 million downloads of that one Bible app? Now you may have all three. I don't know what app you have. But this is just one brand name Bible app.

162 million downloads. Users of that one app spent, get this, it's staggering, 23.6 billion hours reading that one Bible app. 23.6 billion hours reading the Bible app.

It's available in over 700 languages to complete Bible for that app. Isn't it thrilling that the Bible in part or in whole has been translated into 2,508 languages in the world? That's thrilling. And I've often used it in a gospel about the Bible.

I was reading the New Yorker magazine just a few years ago and there's a man by the name of Daniel Radosh and he's an agnostic, a secular Jew. And he wrote this. I was reading along in the New Yorker that's not known to be any kind of a fan of the Word of God.

I read these words. The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all times obscures a more startling fact. The Bible is the best-selling book of the year every year.

That's from Daniel Radosh. So I emailed Daniel Radosh. I didn't think I would ever hear from him.

I said, if it's the best-selling book every year, why does it never show up in our the 10 best books, the 10 top books to read in the summer of 2015? It never ranks. And Daniel Radosh wrote me back. He said, I will tell you why you never see the Bible on the list.

Because, he said, it is deliberately removed from every competition because it would win hands down as a number one best-seller every year. Praise God! That's the Word of God. We get accustomed to having it in our hands and on our phones and in our computers.

But this is the Word of God. And the devil may try his best to minimize its impact. But it is the living Word of God.

And so, dear young person, don't be swayed by people mocking the Word of God. May it whet your appetite. Wow! This book that I have, I want to delve into it more after the Garneville Conference.

I want to read it every day. The Word of God. Our daughter was strolling her child one day and these two fine ladies, young girls stopped her and looked in the stroller and started to comment so positively about her little boy, Eli.

And said, oh, what a sweetheart he is. And they were making conversation with her and then they said, do you have a Bible? And she said, oh, yes, I have a Bible. Oh, they said, isn't it a wonderful book? And she said, it surely is a wonderful book.

I have been reading it for years. And they said, oh, we love the Bible. They said to her, have you read the update on the Bible? Like, we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, but there was a prophet by the name of Joseph Smith who got an update of the Bible back several centuries ago.

And maybe you've heard about it. It is the Book of Mormon. And would you like a copy of the Book of Mormon? And our daughter Stephanie said, no thanks.

I think I will wait for the next update. There's no update. This is the complete, total, finished, authoritative Word, living Word of the living God.

So, I just want to go over some things about this Bible. There are a couple of people here from Stark Road Assembly. And I went over some of this back in January.

And I know they remember every detail. And this isn't my forte to go over such detailed lists. Some of the other brethren here have much more expertise in that area.

But I just want to give you, first of all, ten facts about the Bible that distinguishes it from all other books in the universe. Ten facts about the Bible. And then I want to give you six reasons why you should read the Bible.

And then six hows. How to read the Bible. Oh, you say you're going to take us well beyond the break.

Yeah, we'll skip the break. And Matthew Cain won't get to have the closing message at the conference. This is a long, long, long message.

But hunker down for this. Now, we'll go over it quickly. First of all, the ten facts about the Bible that distinguishes it from all other books.

And some of you have read these things in books. I'm just going to go over the list quickly. Number one, there is stronger manuscript support for the Word of God than any other work of classical literature including the ones that some of you have studied in university.

Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, Tacitus. There is stronger manuscript support than any other work of literature. In contrast to some of those ancient pieces of classical works that are studied and taken so much for truth and studied academically at universities.

In contrast to those ancient pieces of work that are fully accepted by academics. Much of that was copied at least 500 to 1300 years after the original. You see, they didn't have Pitney Bowes photocopiers or Hewlett-Packard photocopiers.

Say, well, here's the original. Let's put it down and we'll run and spit them out. And here's a fresh copy of the Bible.

They had to do it tediously, word for word, letter for letter. And many of those ancient pieces of literature, the original was written and then 500 to 1300 years later, someone copies them out. You know, the total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000.

More than all the other major ancient works combined. And almost 6,000 of those copies of the New Testament that exists today, 5,600 at least, Greek manuscripts were copied less than 100 years from the original. Not 500 or 1300 years from the original, less than 100 years.

And so scholars who study it say there's 99.5% textual consistency and accuracy. It's a tedious thing. And they were professional copiers.

They wrote these things out and they made sure every I was dotted and Ts were crossed because to make a glaring error was to destroy their careers. And so they took the work very seriously. So stronger manuscript support, eyewitness writers, both the Old Testament and New Testament, human writers who were actual eyewitnesses often to the events that they were writing about.

Three, historical accuracy. You know, people who are not Christians, secular people, historians like Josephus, I mentioned Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, they confirm in their ancient writings many of the events and many of the places and many of the people and many of the customs that are mentioned in our Bible. They're not Christians.

They weren't Christians. But they confirm the historical accuracy of the Bible. Four, archaeological finds.

I was just thrilled. Just this week in the news, I don't know whether you saw it or not, but I was just flipping through my Twitter account and reading some of the news items and I saw a headline that appealed to me. Do you know that there are literally thousands of clay tablets the size of your palm that have been found in and around the area of Babylon from the Jewish people who were taken captive way back in the Old Testament.

And they have thousands of these clay tablets that have been preserved with their writings and their crops that they planted and the details of their life. And they're on display. I think they're in London, England just now.

But archaeological finds. My wife and I had the privilege of being in Israel a couple of months ago. First time there and probably the last time there.

But anyway, one thing really thrilled my heart. I love telling this story to boys and girls. Mary Magdalene.

Mary from Magdala. I read about Magdala in the Bible, the coast of Magdala. But you know, there's no records of Magdala anywhere as far as Magdala being found.

But about two years ago, the Roman Catholic Church was building a spirituality center in the Sea of Galilee, around the Sea of Galilee. And they started to lay the foundation. They were digging down.

Whoops! There's something below us. Do you know what they found below them? It was the town of Magdala. And Father Tom, the priest, took us around and showed us the old synagogue in Magdala.

It's all there. And then he took us over and he showed us the market. The street is there.

He showed us the urns where they took the fish from the sea and put them there in the marketplace. Magdala! Mentioned in the Bible, but only two years ago, discovered by human beings. Archaeological finds confirm and affirm the reliability of the Bible.

The predictions fulfilled. Skeptics are awed by these fulfilled prophecies. 300 at least fulfilled prophecies.

Too many, far too many to be coincidental. And we've often talked about the statistical probability of the development of such a book. 40 different writers, over 1,600 years, three different languages, three different continents, writing on different subjects.

And some of you have been reading the Bible for a lot longer than I have been. I think, I hope she doesn't mind, and I hope nobody else minds, but Faye Wall, dear Sister Faye, yesterday, I was over at her house playing her white Samick grand piano, and she said, would you sing Happy Birthday to me? I said, yes. I wasn't sure that she had reached 75 yet.

But she said, 75 years ago today, I trusted Christ as my Savior. So she's been reading the Bible longer than I have. And the more we read the Bible to think the Bible is so beautifully dovetailed together, and the redemptive theme of the Bible runs from Genesis through to Revelation.

No human being could do that. Our son just graduated from university and he didn't really like group projects where a group of five or six people would have to study a subject and then someone would write the intro and someone would write the end and someone had to do the middle and someone would take it from this angle. And he thought it was such a disjointed process and they had to make it all dovetailed together.

They could meet in rooms together. But think of how the Bible came about. Many of the writers never ever knew each other, never met together.

Three different continents, three different languages, and yet we're awed by the consistency and the beautiful integrity and the dovetailing of the Scriptures. Seven, if I was writing a book about something I was wanting to promote, I certainly wouldn't tell you the downside of things. But the Bible discloses failures of some of God's brightest characters, like King David.

Eight, the redemptive story of grace. Grace would never have been conceived by humans. Maybe mercy, but not grace.

That's definitely of God. And just the fact that the Bible is surviving, surviving. The books of Moses, 500 years before the earliest Hindu writings.

Moses wrote Genesis 2,000 years before Muhammad penned the Koran. And here, I just gave you the stats. It's still thriving and it's growing.

There are more people with access to the Word of God today than any other point in the history of the human race. It's thrilling. And ten, it's remarkable brevity.

And I've said this before, but Winston Churchill, he wrote a book about the Second World War. He covered 1919 to 1945. Just 26 years.

4,736 pages and 6 volumes. 26 years. That's how we would do it.

Details, details. Things that you're interested in, things that you're not interested. That's the way humans write.

But to think, you say, well, it's a massive book. Oh, but think how big it could have been. John wrote that if everything was written that could be written, the world itself... I'm just hearing, some of you might be looking for work.

The Library of Congress is looking for a new librarian. I think there's only been 13 in the history of your country, or 16 maybe. The guy that's just retiring has been there for 30 years and they're looking for a new librarian.

But you know what? John said, if every book that should be written and could be written, the world itself could not contain the books. But God gave us, oh, it's remarkable brevity. Everything He wanted us to know about creation.

Everything He wanted us to know at this point in time about Himself. And everything He wanted us to know about salvation and redemption and the future. It's in this book.

What a book. The Word of God. Those are the 10 facts about the Bible.

But now I want to give you 10 reasons why you should read your Bible. I know your life is busy. And I know it's hard to find time to relax.

I know it's hard to sit down and block everything out and enjoy the Scriptures and to get comfortable with the Word of God. You say, Peter, but you're not in the real world. Like, sort of I think I am.

But no, no, no, you don't know what it's like to make a real living. Like we have to make a real living and we're going from dawn to dusk and in between that. Yeah.

You get time to do a few things, don't you? Beyond your work. People say, I'm so busy. I do well to read my Bible for 10 minutes a day.

A lady on the plane sat beside me and she was almost shaking because there was no internet, no Wi-Fi on the plane and she needed to be on Facebook. And she asked the flight attendant, she said, you mean there's no... She was sitting right beside me. You mean there's no Wi-Fi? And she was scrambling before she had to shut her phone off.

And soon as we touched down, put it out of the flight mode and back on again and she was just, oh, I'm sure she was a very busy lady. But sometimes we say we're so busy we don't have time for the Word of God. But we do find time to do other things.

When fishing season opens, if we love fishing, we do find the time to set our alarm clock at 4 o'clock in the morning. You're crazy, man, getting up to go fishing at 4 o'clock in the morning. How do you do it? Well, I love fishing.

It's in my blood, they say. Yeah. Wouldn't it be nice if the Word of God and our love for the Word of God was in our blood? And six reasons why we should read our Bibles.

First of all, I've already given you the obvious reason. It's not one of the six because it is the Word of God. But the first of the six is to develop your relationship with God.

The Bible is the very Word of God. It's God's letter to humanity. We have no reservation recommending the Bible to unbelievers and we tell them it's a living Word.

And if you want to know God, if you want to come to God, get into your Bible. There's no better book for you to read than the Gospel of John and we counsel the unsaved. As a believer, to develop my relationship with God, I must be reading my Bible.

The opening session of the conference on Friday night was the must of prayer. The must of prayer. How we communicate with Him.

What a privilege. How does He communicate with us? He's given us a letter. It's called the Bible.

All God wants you to know about Himself and His kingdom and His purposes, He has given it to us in writing. And I can only get to know God through the diligent reading of the Word of God. Every hour of the day, we are bombarded by what the world thinks.

What the world values. Our minds are conditioned and colored by the influence of unsaved friends and buddies and the values and the practices of a godless world. If we do not actively and deliberately look out for what God thinks and what God values, we will become more and more like the world and less and less Christ in our behavior.

And so I need to read my Bible to develop my relationship with God. If I'm ever going to think more like God thinks, I need to know what God thinks. And I can only appreciate what God thinks by reading God's Word.

What a tragedy for us to be saved but to live our Christian lives. Never having fully experienced the rich dimensions of our amazing relationship with God. Lost opportunities.

The second reason why we should read our Bibles is to deepen our devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. We're only going to grow spiritually and manifest the fruit of the Spirit to the extent that we become more intimate with Christ. We get to know Christ through the Scriptures.

He is found from cover to cover in pictures and types and prophecies and in person. Christ is revealed through the Scriptures. The beauties of His person.

The loveliness of His character. The love of His heart. We've been hearing much about His person this weekend.

How do we get to know that? How are we enabled to appreciate it? Through the Word of God. The gentleness of His touch. The holiness of His being.

His submission to His Father. The faithfulness of His walk. The impact of His words.

How do we deepen our devotion to Christ? Through the Word of God. Those who are mightily used of God. Whether it's in the community or in the workplace or in a local assembly or in a mission field.

Read history. Read their biographies. They are marked by a devotion to Christ without fail.

I cannot deepen my relationship with Christ with dust collecting on my Bible. If I'm leaving my Bible in the car between meetings and not opening it in my bedroom or in my kitchen or in my study, each day, or you say like a couple times a week, how would that... I don't know. That doesn't really sound like you love the book.

It doesn't really sound like that you have it in your blood. Because this is the Word of God. I was saved reading the Word of God and the truths of Scripture.

Why wouldn't I want to get as much of it every day? To know Christ. Paul said that I may know Him. Well, didn't you get to know Him on the Damascus Road? Oh, yes! I got to know Him, but I want to know Him at a more intimate level.

Read your Bible to deepen your devotion to Christ and read your Bible to determine God's will and life's issues. The Bible contains the revealed will of God. Well, some say the Bible doesn't say you can't do this or you can't do that.

Just a second. How familiar are you with your Bible? Do you ever get a letter or an email after you read it and you say, hmm, I think there was a message between the lines there for me. I think she was trying to tell me something.

Sometimes when we're reading the Word of God, there are messages between the lines. It may not say something that is jargon in 2015. It may not use those specific words, but as you read and immerse yourself in the Word of God, there are principles from the Word of God that come to bear upon your soul that help to reveal God's will and God's desire on life's biggest issues.

How I respond to circumstances, the choices I make in life. I need to read the Word of God to determine God's will in my life. I need to read the Word of God to defend myself from attacks.

You know there are attacks out there. You know there's a battle. You don't need me to tell you that.

Satan is going to keep up the pressure until we're taken home to heaven. He cannot ruin your soul, but he is determined to launch every conceivable missile to wreck my testimony, your testimony, my usefulness, and your usefulness for the Lord. Any missile, anything in his arsenal of weapons he can use to stifle us, to bring us down, he will use us.

We need to read the Word of God to defend ourselves from the attacks. And attacks come from different angles. The world, the devil, and our internal foe, the traitor, our flesh, living right in our own tent.

We need to be living in our Bible to defend ourselves in this vicious battle. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 15, there is comfort in the Scriptures when we are overcome with trials and difficulties. So we need the Bible for comfort.

We need the Bible for nourishment and strength. Peter told us that. We need the Bible, Hebrews 4 says, to determine the intent and the thoughts of our hearts.

The Bible will do that. To defend yourself from the attacks of the enemy. And to devote your life to serving and strengthening others.

The fifth reason why we need to read our Bibles. Being a friend is beautiful to another person. But I will be an ineffective elder, ineffective shepherd, ineffective teacher, ineffective Sunday school teacher, ineffective evangelist, ineffective friend, if I can only befriend and not actually also strengthen them from the Word of God.

There's something shallow when the Word of God is missing. So if I'm going to devote my life to serving and strengthening others, I need to have the Word of God and read it. Six, to declare with power the Word of God.

To be a witness, whether it's one-on-one witness in the Gospel or whether it's a witness from the proclamation of the Gospel, I need to have the Word of God in my heart and on my mind to be able to communicate it outwardly and publicly to those with whom I come in contact with. And so, those are just a few reasons why I need to read my Bible. How should I read it? Well, I'll go over the list very quickly before I finish.

I need to read the Word of God prayerfully. We heard a little bit about that on Friday night. Read a line and then personalize it.

Oh God, help me to do that. Help me to understand that better. I'm opening Your Word.

Speak to my heart before I go out to school this morning. Speak to me. And I've just read this phrase, Lord.

And so, read it prayerfully. Read it systematically or methodically. It's not like spinning the wheel of the fortune or anything like that.

Flipping a coin. No, the Bible was written methodically by a methodical God. His Word.

And He wants us to read it systematically and methodically. Some of us use Bible reading plans. Whatever works for you as long as you're reading it systematically.

All the Word of God. Read it dynamically. Look at the text.

Learn from the text. Live out the text. I don't know who came up with those three L's.

Look at the text. Learn from the text. And live out the text.

Read it dynamically. And read it diligently. We can be so diligent.

We're going to buy a car. We're online. And we know how to manipulate the Internet to get every last detail, the last reviews in the cars.

Am I as diligent about reading my Bible? Read it diligently. And I'm to read it reflectively. Let the verse soak in.

Let it sink in. Father, touch my heart with this verse. And consider each word.

Walk the noise out of your life. Read it reflectively. Read it studiously.

Some of us aren't natural students. But you can train yourself to become a better student. Study a book.

Study a passage. Study a topic. Study a character.

So prayerfully, methodically, dynamically, diligently, reflectively, studiously, read the Word of God. And where should you read it? I don't know where you should read it. What works for you? What your home is like? I haven't been in some of your homes.

But I'll tell you, have a special little place where you meet God. And when should you read it? And with this I close. When should you read it? Read it when you're on a high.

Read it when you're on a down. Read it when you're hurting. Read it when you're feeling reckless.

Read it when you're feeling sorry for yourself, pity party. Read it when you're feeling guilty. Read it when you're dating.

Read it when you're tense and anxious. Read it when you're filled with doubts. Read it when you're angry.

Read it when you don't feel like reading it. Read it because it is the living Word of the living God, the Bible. And may we treasure it and spend time in it each day, get to know our God greater, better, and deepen our devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ to be preserved in this godless, wicked world.

Now shall we pray?