As an illustration of “learned” scholars tampering with the Scriptures, I quote from a newspaper article: “An electronic computer figures that St. Paul is the author of only four of the 14 epistles attributed to him in the New Testament. Two researchers fed the computer a quarter of a million words of the Greek prose to reach this conclusion. They said the method could be used to determine the authorship of any part of the Bible.”

Truly amazing – a mindless machine questioning the Word of God! If its finding were correct, they would make Paul a liar, for he claims the authorship of at least 13 of the epistles. Just think, a lifeless mechanism “proving” that the Bible is not true! The computer is now a disputer. Strangely enough, it was proven by the same computer analysis that the man who wrote the book about these conclusions couldn’t have been its author.

-Sermons Illustrated July/August 1990

 


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Paul explicitly states that the sword of the Spirit is Scripture, the word of God. The Scottish pastor and writer Thomas Cuthrie said, “The Bible is an armory of heavenly weapons, a laboratory of infallible medicines, a mine of exhaustless wealth. It is a guidebook for every road, a chart for every sea, a medicine for every malady, and a balm for every wound. Rob us of our Bible and our sky has lost its sun.”

-Sermons Illustrated November/December 1988

 


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Henry Ford is credited with saying, “Cut your own wood and you warm yourself twice.” What he meant was that the man who chops his own firewood not only enjoys the heat form the logs burning in his fireplace, but he also gets physically warmed from the exercise involved in his labor.

If you really want to enjoy your Bible, you should “cut your own wood” by studying things for yourself. Check the cross references, look up the meaning of key words, and ask God to show you how the passage on which you are meditating applies to your life. The truth you discover for yourself in the Word will have a fresh, new flavor.

Have you tried to “cut your own wood?”

-Sermons Illustrated July/August 1990

 


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George Muller,
after having read the Bible through one hundred times with increasing delight,
made this statement: “I look upon it as a lost day when I have not had
a good time over the Word of God. Friends often say, ‘I have so much to do,
so many people to see, I cannot find time for Scripture study.’ Perhaps there
are not many who have more to do than I. For more than half a century I have
never known one day when I had not more business than I could get through. For
4 years I have had annually about 30,000 letters, and most of these have passed
through my own hands.”

“Then, as
pastor of a church with 1,200 believers, great has been my care. Besides, I
have had charge of five immense orphanages; also, at my publishing depot, the
printing and circulating of millions of tracts, books and Bibles; but I have
always made it a rule never to begin work until I have had a good season with
God and His Word. The blessing I have received has been wonderful.”


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Serious Study

John Huffman tells the classic story of the man who was in a difficult situation, and in desperation turns to the Bible. He didn’t know where to look, so he let the book flop open and he laid his finger on a verse, which said that Judas “went and hanged himself.” After a moment’s thought, he decided to turn to a different verse for help; he repeated the process and read, “Go thou and do likewise.” Worried, he tried it once more and opened to, “What thou doest, do quickly.”

Too many of us are “hunt and poke” Bible students, and it’s no wonder we have so little understanding of God’s Word for us. The Bible requires and deserves our serious attention and study.


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If you’ve ever been to Yellowstone National park, you were probably given a piece of paper by a ranger at the park entrance. On it in big letters was the warning “Do Not Feed the Bears.” You no sooner drive into the heart of the park, however, than you see people feeding the bears. When I first saw this I asked a ranger about it. “Sir,” he answered, “you have only a small part of the picture.” He described how the park service personnel in the fall and winter have to carry away the bodies of dead bears – bears who have lost their ability to fend for food.

That’s what’s happening to us.

-Howard Hendricks


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When Joel Achenbach wrote his fascinating book Why Things Are he whimsically
added a subtitle: “Answers to Every Essential Question in Life.” The
sub-title was, of course, written in jest. The book answers such essential
questions as “Why Are Yawns Contagious?” “Why Doesn’t Air Fall
to the Ground?” and “Why Do Foreign Languages Sound So Fast?”

The book is great fun for bedtime reading, but misses the really essential
questions. They are: “If A Man Dies Shall He Live Again?” “Does
God pervert justice?” “How Can Man Be Righteous Before God?”
Those are all questions from the book of Job. Some say it is the oldest book in
the Bible. Some say the book of Job asks the questions that the rest of the
Bible answers. In any case we’d all agree that only the Bible answers every
essential question in life.


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