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Bible pictures

Read Hebrews 11

God who promises an eternal city,

The ancients walked in faith.
They saw beyond the visible.
They hoped for a better country.

Abraham, Moses, Joseph,
And countless others never saw
What they’d been promised.

And we, today, O God,
Go by what we see,
Rather than what we might hear.

Even Bibles now have pictures.
Verses on the internet
Have to show an image.

We’re deaf and, truly, blind.
Open my ears, O Lord,
That I might hear your Word.

Turn my sight away
From colors that excite,
To simple black and white.

Focus my heart to delight
In words of power from Heaven,
Where you in glory rule.

In Christ, I pray, Amen.

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Our God, He Is Alive

Because it acts like He is dead or never existed, the world tells us that everything we see exists by accident or macro-evolution.  But, no matter how smart or advanced man thinks he has become, he cannot explain how something came from nothing, complexity evolved from chaos, how life arose from non-life, or how morality developed from instinct.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:19-22).

Rather, because “Our God, He Is Alive,” God is able to help us in many ways here and in eternity.

I.  John 1:1-3.  In the first and second stanzas of the song, God is able to help us as our Creator (Isaiah 40:28-31) and Communicator (2 Timothy 3:16-17):

There is, beyond the azure blue, A God, concealed from human sight, He tinted skies with heav’nly hue And framed the worlds with His great might.

There was, a long, long time ago, A God the prophets heard, He is the God that we should know, Who speaks from His inspired Word.

II. Colossians 1:15-20.  The third stanza shows God as Omnipotent (1 Corinthians 1:21-25) and Omniscient (Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 7:7-8):

Secure, is life from mortal mind, God holds the germ within His hand, Tho’ men may search, they cannot find, For God alone does understand.

III.  John 8:34-36.  The fourth stanza explains that because Jesus was our Sacrifice, He can also be our Savior (Romans 3:21-26):

Our God, whose Son upon a tree, A life was willing there to give, That He from sin might set man free, And evermore with Him could live.

Because we know that we serve a risen Savior, we see how He continues to help us in our daily walk with Him and prepares us for eternity, so we can declare to an unbelieving world that …

There is a God, He is alive, in Him we live, and we survive; From dust our God created man, He is our God, the great I AM.

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The Lord Will Prosper Me

Little Jack Horner

Sat in a corner

Eating a Christmas pie;

He stuck in his thumb

And pulled out a plumb, 

And said, “What a good boy am I.”

Why did Jack isolate himself to the corner?  Was it to eat a pie he had stolen?  Or so he didn’t need to share it with anyone?  The lack of utensils would point to this.  And, is just declaring himself ‘good’ mean that he is now indeed good despite his behavior?

That’s how sinners and others who stray from God’s Word would like to have it, especially in this politically correct culture in which each person develops his own standard of conduct and declares it ‘good.’  But, God has a standard recorded in the pages of Scripture that He tells us to follow.

I.  Judges 17:1-13.  Five wrongs don’t make a right.  Micah steals from his mother, but to his credit returns the silver.  His mother then has it made into an idol, which Micah puts into his home, makes a shine, other gods, and articles of worship for it, and installs his sons as priests to it.  The writer interjects an explanation here that everyone at this time did what was right in his own eyes (Matthew 7:6-13).  Then, Micah gets a Levite to be a priest to the idol and declares that God will now prosper him because he has made a sad attempt at restoring his actions to God’s Word.

II.  2 Chronicles 34:15-21.  But, is ‘good enough’ good enough for God?  We can fool ourselves, but God knows our true motives (Proverbs 16:1-3).  James 1:5-8 tells us that He’ll help us with wisdom, and James 4:3-4 reminds us that we can’t compromise with the world.  While the world tells us that truth is whatever we make it, God says that’s not so (Proverbs 30:20).  Instead, we need to repent and return to God’s Word like Josiah or like the church at Ephesus was encouraged to do (Revelation 2:4-6).

III.  2 Corinthians 5:6-10.  Cain was told that if he did what was right, he would be accepted (Genesis 4:6-7).  The prodigal son needed to come to his senses and get up and return to his father (Luke 15:17-20) to be pleasing.  So, we must repent and submit to God’s will (James 4:7-10) if we are to please God.  We can’t just declare ourselves pleasing to God with the plumb from the stolen pie on our thumb and expect Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Perhaps we should rewrite the nursery tale:

Little Jack Horner

Got up from the corner

Returning his Christmas pie;

He repented of sin

Was restored from within, 

And said, “What a good boy am I.”

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Bible.12: Rightly Handling the Word of Truth

I was in sixth grade when Atari came out with the first game system.  I never owned one until my kids got a Wii.  Even now if someone hands me a controller I spaz out-of-control because I have no idea what I’m doing.  Some are like that in their relationship with God.  Something goes wrong in life and they are like me playing Mario Karts.

It’s not enough to know the Word of Truth; you have to know how to use it!

I. 2 Timothy 2:14-15.  Several times in Scripture, God’s Word is described as a sword.  But, having a sword is not the same thing as knowing how to use it.  All the lessons on the Bible (see the sermonlines archive) leading up to this one gave great information about the uniqueness, inspiration, authority, and development of the Bible.  It is truth (John 17:17), yes, but it must be applied to be of any use (Psalm 119:11).

II. 2 Corinthians 3:12-16.  Knowledge is only the means to the relationship with God that we all strive to have.  A thorough and continual study of His Word, combined with an abiding prayer-life, will lift the veil on truly knowing the word of truth so that a person can truly know God.  As in any relationship, love is the key to intimacy.  God loves us.  It is our love in return that will draw us into intimacy with Him.

III. John 4:23-24.  Being a true worshiper should be our goal.  To be that, we must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  In other words, we must know God in a deep and abiding relationship with Him.  Therefore, we must be honest with the word of truth.  We must approach the study of His Word, not seeking justification for who we’d like God to be, but how He reveals Himself to us out the living and active pages of His Word.  Knowing the context and occasion of the passage helps as well.

Does your study of God found in the pages of His Word draw you into a deeper relationship with Him?  Do you know Him?

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Bible.11: You Search the Scriptures

Can you imagine a husband checking off a marriage list at the end of the day that included items like told her I loved her, kissed her, bought flowers, warmed her car ….  The very nature of a relationship defies a checklist.  It is intimate, deep, and abiding.  And, while you can gain knowledge about your spouse, it is the application of that knowledge in your marriage that makes it a good relationship.

So it is with God.  Knowledge of His Word is not the end but only the means to an end.  It is what we are doing with that knowledge that makes all the difference.

I. John 5:36-40.  Knowing the Bible isn’t the same as knowing God.  This is what Jesus tried to get the Jews who were seeking to kill Him to understand.  He does not refute that their Bible study was diligent.  Nor does He dispute that in the Scriptures can they find the way to eternal life.  Their struggle was in application.  They refused to obey to know God (1 John 2:3-6), live them out, and recognize that they testified about Him.

II. Matthew 7:21-23.  Bible study is the means to an abiding relationship with God.  Since Adam and Eve ate the fruit and became like God, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:6-22), we have had to perceive the world through knowledge.  Animals have instincts; we must be taught.  This has many downfalls, but the biggest one is believing that if we are doing for God, then He knows us.  In our attitudes towards worship, attendance, serving, prayer, and His Word, are we “doing His will”?

III. Hebrews 4:12-13.  One of the reasons they, and we, refuse to come to Jesus to have eternal life is because we don’t like the double-edge on the Sword of the Spirit that cuts back on us as we try to wield this knowledge on others.  Neither do we like our deeds exposed by the light (John 3:19-21), so we keep from applying knowledge of God’s Word from becoming obedience.  We do not commit to an abiding relationship with God and so live in a state of quasi-light and quasi-darkness.

Many books have been written about how to have a better marriage, and these are people’s best guesses at situations that vary from spouse to spouse.  But, only one Book has been written by God Himself that helps us have an abiding relationship with Him.  Do you study it to love Him more?

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Bible.10: May Be Thoroughly Equipped

With so many translations of the Bible to choose from, how can a Christian know that what he is reading will make him or her thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17)?

I. Acts 12:4.  Recognize that the problem with every translation is that it’s a translation.  Therefore, the perfect translation does not exist.  Unless you can read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, you are reading a translation of copies of the originals that no longer exist.  An example is “Easter” in this verse of the often touted KJV of 1611 (language revised in 1769) but is rendered closer to the Greek Pascha as “Passover” in the NIV.  The NIV was translated in an era with more access to research but may have other struggles.

II. Genesis 6:13-17.  Three schools of translation put every Bible on a sliding scale.  Translations in the word-for-word school like the KJV, in addition to often challenging readability, will give us measurements like cubits while one from the idea-for-idea or dynamic equivalent school in the middle, like the NIV, will give them to us in terms we can better understand, like feet.  A thought-for-thought or paraphrase translation like The Message will be very readable but will melt Scripture down and present it in the translator’s own words.  That can be very interesting when looking at figurative language in the ESV, a very popular word-for-word translation known for its readability, in verses such as Amos 4:6.  Compare how the NIV and The Message translate this.

III.  2 Timothy 3:16-17.  The struggle today versus 1611 is too much access to information.  How does a Christian cut through the confusion to become thoroughly equipped?  Reputable study helps help, but so do some common sense considerations for choosing a translation.  The preface of any Bible will tell you how it was translated.  Those done by committee are preferred over an individual to help eliminate bias.  Those done by various groups are preferred over one group for the same reason.  How did the translators deal with various languages, thought patterns, syntax, figures of speech, etc.?  What was their use of early and ancient copies that are so available today?  And finally, how did they deal with thorny translation issues?

God preserved His Word throughout the centuries.  We have it available to us today.  Our job is to become thoroughly equipped by the most accurate portrayal as is possible.

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Bible.09: Carefully Investigated Everything

When I had to do research as a kid, I just hoped that the school library had something on my topic or could get it for me on loan in several weeks.  Today with the internet, the problem is access to too much information … yet we tend to be lazy and take the top three searches on Google!  A person may be confused today by all the Bible translations out there, but we have greater access to better research than ever before in history!

I.  Luke 1:1-4.  Starting with Luke, we can see that careful investigation has always been a part of good Bible study.  Before the printing press in 1455 a.d., the problem was not enough access to God’s Word.  But, once Erasmus translated the Latin Vulgate that had reigned supreme for over ten centuries into Greek in 1516 that was mass produced and read by the common man, the Reformation was sparked, and a host of early English translations came about leading to the King James Version (KJV).

II.  1 John 5:6-8 and notes.  Contrary to popular belief, the KJV did not “fall from heaven in 1611.”  It’s called the Authorized Version because King James, not God, commissioned its translation.  Borrowing its phrases and words heavily from Tyndale’s earlier work, the language of the KJV was updated in 1769 to how we know it today.  The KJV does have the distinction of reigning supreme for over 300 years and settled the New World and fueled the Restoration, but there are struggles with it as with any translation (see “Easter” for pascha in Acts 12:4).  With access to thousands of ancient manuscripts, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the rise of research in the 1900s and now the advent of the internet, many translations and study tools are available that are often based on better study.

III.  Acts 17:11.  So, are you noble-minded like the Bereans who examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was preaching was true?  Do you, like Luke, carefully investigate everything to have an accurate account of what is truth for eternity?

Or, is your salvation based on your top three Google searches?

 

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With Fear and Trembling

With the invention of the printing press in 1455 a.d. there must have been a bunch of unemployed monks who no longer needed to painstakingly copy every jot and tittle of Scripture by candlelight in a dark monastery.  Suddenly, the common man had access to God’s Word.  Okay, it took a while for copies to no longer be smuggled into England in barrels of flour, but there was no quenching the thirst to know God’s will for mankind after fifteen centuries of spiritual starvation.

I.  Once Erasmus translated the Latin Vulgate that had reigned supreme for 1100 years in 1516 back into Greek, Martin Luther the very next year read God’s Word and nailed his 95 challenges to the establishment to a church door in Germany.  The Reformation had begun, and Tyndale published his English translation eight years later in 1525.  This and Erasmus’ work became the backbone of the King James Version in 1611 that reigned supreme for 300 years.

II.  John 4:24.  With greater access to God’s Word came a way to satisfy the spiritual hunger to know and live by the truth.  Contrast that to today with so much availability of God’s Word in stores, our homes, even our phones, and our excused for spiritual laziness fall so short.  Instead of squandering the leisure time that western culture has given us, we must once again recapture a hunger and thirst for God’s Word.

III.  Philippians 2:12-16.  Before this time when only some of the clergy had access to God’s Word, the people had no choice but to accept fallible human mediators for their salvation.  Greater availability to God’s Word meant that people could work out their own eternity with Jesus alone as their go-between.  Spiritual laziness again makes people today desire a return to such a system as they think the preacher is in charge of their salvation.

What a gift to have access to the Creator’s Word to us that tells us what we must do to find salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus!  How we squander that gift by not studying His Word to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

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Trees without wind

As trees are still without wind, we, O Father, cannot move without your Spirit. Enliven us today to live and move and speak because you are present in us, around us, and through us.

We seek you and desire you. We know that you are the reason for our existence. Live among us and within us, in truth and love. Forgive us, O Lord, that we might be your holy people.

Many distant sounds, such as the hum of an airplane high above us, barely register in our hearing. But your Word is near to us. We want to hear it clearly. We worship you and your revelation of yourself and of your plan for us. Praise for your Son in whom is seen your glory and grace!

Amen.

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Your Touch of Love

The world is busy working, ignoring
Your call to be saved, in Christ, your grace,
Your tender mercy, your touch of love.

O God, and in me, too, I hear
The stirring of resurgent flesh —
Come douse its flame, let die desire!

Rouse in me the resurrection,
O Father, alight eternal life!
To me, O Spirit, softly speak!