We Must Base Our Lives on the Word of God

Well, as we've already mentioned, we are thankful for not only our writers, but the magazine. But as this article in the E-News pointed out, doing the job involves all of us. It's a whole church effort. It's not simply the people who are directly involved, but in those who support and who encourage. And so, in many ways, all of us could do that in one way or another. And I think we do. So we can be very thankful for the blessing of being able to do so. Well, I'm not exactly sure that I like afternoon church up here. Because I'm a procrastinator. And when I didn't have anything to do this morning, like drive over here, I had to protect procrastinate finishing my sermon until about nine o'clock when I needed to get ready to leave. And I'm trying to remember to drink my water, so every now and then you can point up here at it, I guess. Because I tend not to think of it. And I don't like to drink it. Anyway, I'm again thankful to be here with you all. I look forward to being with you here throughout the remainder of the afternoon and evening. I wanted to cover something today that I think in many ways is probably preaching to the choir. But it's still important. I was looking at or I saw a mention of somewhere a magazine article. This was an article that Newsweek Magazine presented a couple of weeks ago. Mr. Barnett mentioned Newsweek. I think Newsweek is somewhat of a struggling magazine anyway. But they had a cover article. I've got the... I guess that's just a photocopy of the front of it.

Newsweek, this was of I guess it's January 2nd, January 9th, so a couple of weeks ago, or whenever that comes out, I guess would be somewhat current. But they have on the front of this cover article, the title of it says, The Bible. So misunderstood, it's a sin.

Now, that would be a title that we might write about. We could write about that, I think, in that way because that would have some meaning. I have to tell you, after reading and looking for this article extensively, they don't know anything about the Bible. But it's written by a man named Kurt Eichenwald. So anything I quote, and this is what he says. And actually he admits he's not read the Bible. Although he claims that many other people haven't read the Bible either, which may also be a little more accurate. And in essence, this is quite a long article, quite a few pages here, about 15 or 18 pages as I printed it out. And he expresses a lot of conflicting opinions. I have to say that I would characterize this article as an anti-Bible or an anti-Evangelical Christian article. And to point that out, I want to read a little bit about it. I'm not recommending you read this article. I think it would not be beneficial, really.

But I find it kind of interesting. You can see kind of the bias that he has, which would appear to be not really a believer. He says the Bible is not the book many American fundamentalists and political opportunists think it is or that they want it to be. Their lack of knowledge about the Bible is well established. So he actually occasionally throws in some facts that look like they could be accurate. The Pew Research Poll in 2010 found that Evangelicals ranked only a smidgen higher than atheists in familiarity with the New Testament and Jesus' teachings.

Americans reveal the Bible, but by and large they don't read it. See, that's again kind of an unfortunate...if that's accurate at all. And again, I'm not going to be able to verify what they're saying here. He goes on to say the Barnard Group, a Christian polling firm found in 2012 that Evangelicals accepted the attitudes and the beliefs of the Pharisees, where the religious leaders depicted throughout the New Testament as opposing Jesus and his message more than they accepted the teachings of Jesus. Again, I think that's probably his perception, although that could have been reported by the Barnard Group. Newsweek's extrapolation here of the Bible's history and meaning is not intended to advance a particular theology or debate the existence of God.

Rather, it is designed to shine a light on a book that has been abused by people who claim to revere it, but who don't even read it. And in the process, they create misery for others. Of course, you can kind of tell his approach toward what he's going to be promoting here. This examination, based in large part on the works of scores of theologians and scholars, some of which date back centuries, is a review of the Bible's history and a recounting of its words. It is only through accepting where the Bible comes from and who puts it together, or who put it together, that anyone can comprehend what history's most important book says and just as important what it does not say. Again, you can kind of see where he's headed with a 20-page article here about the Bible. He's going to provide lots of facts, verifiable or not, or lots of opinions.

And actually, toward the last, here on page 18, kind of concludes by saying, so why study the Bible at all?

Since it's loaded with contradictions and translation errors and wasn't written by witnesses and includes words added by unknown scribes to inject Christian orthodoxy, should it just be abandoned? I mean, again, he's kind of all over the map here as far as what he's saying. No, this examination is not an attack on the Bible or Christianity. Instead, Christians seeking greater understanding of their religion should view it as an attempt to save the Bible from the ignorance, the hatred, and the bias that has been heaped upon it. If Christians truly want to treat the New Testament as the foundation of the religion, they have to know it. Okay, well, I know all of you are far more familiar with the Bible than anybody who possibly would read this article, and they're not going to gain a lot of insight or a lot of... and actually, it's amazing to me that he can point out the hypocrisy that he sees in religion. You know, I'm not going to read all of this because it's kind of ridiculous to read the argument and say that has no basis at all. I mean, that's just scrambled information. And really, the only way I could describe it would be conflicting statements that have, you know, they really come from faulty reasoning. And yet, he can point out that, well, the Trinity isn't anywhere listed in the Bible. He can also point out that the Sabbath is what God appointed, not, and then he goes ahead and describes how it was that Sunday has come into, you know, a popular... you know, he can point that out. He can point out how, well, Jesus said the law was not done away, but a major controversy is whether or not the law is done away. Of course, to him, all of that just is, you know, that creates a disillusionment about the Bible being the book you carry to church, the book, I think, for the most part we read, not just occasionally, but often every day, the Bible that we, in essence, base our eternal life on, because that's what all of us are doing. Again, it was kind of interesting to me because as I read this article, and I would, you know, jot down, you know, well, this makes no sense, you know, this is not, you know, this is, you're pulling information from many different directions and making a conclusion that is not even, doesn't make sense. I kind of broke it down into four things that he was promoting. One of them is a very common tactic that Satan uses to cause confusion. He wants, Satan doesn't want people to believe the Bible. He doesn't want people to have the stability that comes from knowing that the rule of God is inevitable. The kingdom of God will be established here on earth, and there's a very good reason why that's the case. And there's a very good description as you read through the Bible of how it is that man has come into existence and saying what the purpose of man really is. Satan doesn't want people to know any of that. And so if he can undermine belief, that's really, that was the first of the four things that I thought, he's simply undermining belief by what he was writing. Because, you know, he brings up numerous different things about great confusion over creation.

See, now, in my mind that is not a confusing factor. The Bible explains that reasonably clearly, and yet he can create all kinds of distress. And of course there are many people who don't believe in the account of creation or even the re-creation that we read about in Genesis 1 and 2 about man being set here on the earth by God. But see, if you can undermine creation, if you can undermine the Genesis flood, a lot of people think that could, that's the biggest phony thing you have ever heard of. And of course he writes about that. That couldn't possibly have happened. And, you know, what's the next thing? The major thing in the Bible? Well, the Exodus. Come on. That couldn't be real. That could, you know, there's no real way to prove that the Exodus ever happened. And of course, you know, that's not what you or I believe, but that is, you know, what this article is in a sense kind of designed to do, to undermine belief in God and in the Bible and in the authority of the Creator to tell mankind as the created how to live.

So whenever you see things that are undermining belief in the Bible or in God, then no right off the top. You know, this is heading in the wrong direction, and I'm pretty sure all of you would easily pick that out. Another thing that I see in this article is that he discredits the way the Bible is put together. You know, there's a lot of textual criticism that is done about how the Bible came into existence, how the Old Testament came into existence, how the New Testament was put together, who authored it, whether verses are, you know, they can look into some contradiction about certain few verses and have some discussion about that. But, you know, he writes quite a bit about numerous translations, and of course all we really have is a translation or a copy of a copy of a copy of a translation of a translation, and of course we've got bookoos of translations right now, and of course he's claiming that, well, people just write in there whatever they happen to want.

Instead of, as we understand, you know, God has been involved in creating this book for our good. He actually, the third thing, is suggesting that just because there are some things that to him appear to be contradictions, that those are inexplicable, and, you know, again they demean the validity of the Bible. And of course he points out that, well, people just kind of pick and choose. What do they want? What do they want to believe? What do they want to pick out of this? And what do they want to ignore? And again, that's not what we want to do. We want to read the Bible and learn, as we do so often, regarding a topic. You know, what are all the scriptures? You know, if you only read one verse about a given topic, you may not have all the information.

But again, you know, you can write about it in a very demeaning way. And finally, you know, the last thing that's real obvious in this article is that he truly promotes the acceptance of homosexuality. That is clearly a prominent thing that is written. So again, I don't recommend this article.

I'm just telling you, you know, that people can think virtually anything about the Bible, about religion, about the type of direction that God has left us. But I hope all of us see beyond the confusing double talk that is really written even in the description that he gives of leading into and then throughout the biggest part of it and the conclusion of it. And of course, all of us base our lives on what we believe to be the infallible Word of God. See, that's what all of us use as our God. Thankfully, you know, God has made that available to us. And that's a, you know, that is in essence the, you know, the topic that I want to cover here today. I want to give three different things, but these are all, again, things that I think you are familiar with.

But whenever you see kind of a feature article on what is somewhat of a known magazine here in America that is so completely misleading in every imaginable area, you know, we might want, you know, to be thinking about just how it is, you know, that we base our life on the Word of God. You probably grew up thinking the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I mean, most of us did. Now, you may not have directly, may not have been exposed to as a religious family, even. Most of the time it was somewhat haphazard for many of us, but we all grow up assuming that that the Bible is the Word of God. But I want us to, you know, we have an article, or I guess it's not an article, it's a booklet. Is the Bible true? And if you haven't read that, you can certainly get that and read it. It's really a good article. It's one or a booklet that points out just how it is that there are many things in astronomy or in archaeology or in just science that verify over and over the statements that we read in the Bible. And, of course, prophecy is another, you know, one of those things where we see even some very detailed prophetic chapters that point to what I said earlier about, you know, the truly biggest prophecy is about the kingdom of God, the kingdom that will be established when Jesus returns. But I want to mention three things that I hope could be of at least some benefit to us because it's a remarkable thing to just to see the work that the devil does to try to keep people in complete confusion, to argue about everything about the Bible. If you do that, then you're not going to benefit much from really knowing, you know, this word tells me how to live. You know, the first thing I want to point out is simply that, you know, the Bible is really, you know, one of the most widely, at least spread, if not read books, in the world. You know, we point this out in our article. You know, it's really one of the, in looking at this article or this booklet about is the Bible true. It mentions in the first chapter about the American Bible Society has in more than 180 years of its existence, and so this is just going back in the last couple of centuries. It's distributed more Bibles than there are people in the world. See, you all probably have several. I have several. I read one or two usually, but I have several. Most of us have several Bibles. And yet, as this points out, even just the Bible Society, American Bible Society, has distributed more than 8.5 billion Bibles, and the British and foreign Bible Society has distributed several billion more in language, dozens of languages, more than 100 million new Bibles, reflecting numerous translations, are sold or given away freely every year. Translations exist in more than 2,000 languages and dialects. See, the Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world.

However, as we point out in this article here about, is the Bible true, for all the attention that's given to the Bible, the value or its value is really very underestimated. Most people have Bibles. They just really don't read them, and we go through a description here of how biblically illiterate many people are. Even though they have a Bible, they're not familiar with what it says. They don't know, and some of these things seem unbelievable. You can't name the four Gospels, or you couldn't name the first book. Now, I bet most of our kids could do that because we teach them out of the Bible. But, you know, this is actually showing some of the findings.

Most people think the Bible says Jesus was born in Jerusalem.

I doubt that most people would have any idea where Jesus was born. I mean, it is something we would know the answer to. One in ten believed Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

Of course, this is talking about...

So, too many people neglect to take the Bible seriously. They fail to recognize the Bible for what it is, a handbook for mankind provided by God for our journey through life.

Of course, this makes a little more sense, doesn't it? That, you know, you can see, you know, that the Bible has been written for our good and for our benefit. I want to look at 2 Timothy. Actually, this is just the first of the three points that I want to make. We all don't want to simply believe in the Bible. Believe it's the Word of God, even.

But we want to value what the Bible has to say. Here in 2 Timothy...

And, you know, I only got to thinking about this later because I didn't realize, whenever I read the Newsweek article, that for some reason, you know, they would be willing to say that they don't think that Paul even wrote anything to Timothy. And I'm thinking, why? What difference would that make? That wouldn't make any... Well, here in 2 Timothy 3, Paul is explaining to Timothy the value of having been brought up, having been taught the Holy Scriptures, meaning the Old Testament, meaning the oracles of God, that God committed to the Jews, as we see in Romans 3. But here in 2 Timothy 3, starting in verse 10, he tells Timothy, you've observed my teaching and my conduct and my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love. You've also seen my persecutions and my suffering, what I went through, what I've endured, yet the Lord has rescued me from all of them. In verse 12 and D, all who want to live a godly life in Jesus Christ are going to go through some persecution. So this is admonition, you know, for those of us who will believe the Bible, for those of us who value, value the Bible. But as for you, he says in verse 14, continue in what you have learned and what you have firmly believed, knowing from whom you've learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred scriptures, the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And then, of course, he makes a statement that I'm sure, you know, many would like to say is not in the Bible, but it says all scripture is inspired by God. It is God-breathed. And it is useful for teaching or doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient and equipped for every good work. See, now, you know, all of us certainly have read that. We believe that. We have confidence in that. And yet, in a sense, this is, you know, a statement that we find that Paul was accentuating to Timothy so that he would be able to have a close communion with the Creator and says, you've been taught the right information. You've been given instruction from the Hebrew, the Old Testament. You've been given that, and you've been, you've grown up with that. Base your life on that. Highly value the fact that God inspired, you know, this book to be written. The second thing I want us to realize, and again, you see this in numerous verses. If we go on over to Peter, second Peter.

Second Peter starting in chapter one. Now, this instruction book that we have that we call the Bible is from God. Now, did God send it down to Moses, or did he send it down to David, or did he send it down to others of the prophets? We read about that. We read about Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, or Isaiah receiving information directly from God.

You see Moses relating directly to God when you read the pages of the Bible.

But see, what we find here is that there was a way whereby this came about. If we back up to verse 12, again, you know, the article I'm referring to here in Newsweek, it asserts, you know, that none of the people who wrote the Bible were witness to any of it. And it also points out that clearly none of them knew they were writing anything about to be a part of the Bible. Now, that's not what Peter says when we read here in chapter 1, verse 12. 2 Peter 1, verse 12, therefore I intend, and so he was telling the Christians that he would write to, I intend to keep them reminding you of these things, and though you know them already and you're established in the truth that has come to you, I think it's right as long as I'm in this body to refresh your memory. Since I know that my death will soon come, as indeed our Lord has made clear to me, and I will make every effort so that after my departure you will be able at any time to recall these things. Did he have any idea that he was writing something down that would be a part of the Bible? Well, I think that clearly shows that he did. Now, I think there are other passages, and I'm not going to try to go through now, that would also point out that there was an awareness, you know, Paul was wanting to collect things that should be, you know, put together in order to be a part of the Bible. But see, if discrediting can be done, you know, then that takes away from the validity that people should have that they can rely on the Word of God. So let's go forward here from verse, let's see, verse 16.

Well, let's drop on down to verse 17 here. It says, he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the majestic glory, saying, this is my son, my beloved, with whom I'm well pleased. And so he was saying, I was an eyewitness to that. John was there, James was there, I was there. You know, we're an eyewitness to what God actually did.

And we ourselves, in verse 18, heard this voice from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic message. We have the prophetic message more fully confirmed, but you do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts first. You must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but by men and women who were moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. You know, your translation says that a little bit differently if you're reading the New King James. But nonetheless, it points out that God used inspiration from the Creator and through the power of the Holy Spirit to move men and women to write or collect things that would compile the Word of God. And the more we study the Bible, the more we understand it, the more we grasp the significance of what's being presented, and maybe even why God's presented what He has, the way He has, the closer a relationship we have with the One who created us. So not only should we value the Bible, you know, we clearly understand it to be God's instruction book, that He has given that instruction to us through the Holy Spirit. He's used that Spirit to inspire writing, to inspire what it is that's put down. See, again, you can look at the Gospels, and again, if people want to be critical, if they want to try to dismiss the Bible, you can look at the Gospels and say, look, you know, four different accounts, they're in conflict, you can't make any sense out of them.

And clearly you can read John 8, and surely that's not a part of the Bible. You know, those are, again, criticisms that are given. And yet, you know, as we understand, you know, you read the Bible, and you recognize that, you know, the Bible is put together in such a way to where you have to build on things. You know, we've used the verse in Isaiah about here a little and there a little, and I believe that has something to do with the fact we have to put different sections of the Bible together in order to be able to get a clear picture of what it is. And even, you know, you could say that the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John are, they've got to be understood together. They have to be harmonized. That's why we've got harmonies of the Gospel. To be able to put them in sequence and, you know, they don't all cover the same information. They all do cover, you know, Jesus feeding the five thousand. You know, those are, that's one parable that's in each one of them. But you see different information there because there's someone behind the writing that's bigger than the physician Luke, or bigger than the tax collector Matthew, or bigger than Mark trying to figure out what it is that Peter said or what he remembers and I'm trying to write it down, and certainly bigger than the Apostle John who, in many ways, wrote unbelievably profound things that are completely inexplicable to the natural mind of man. See, these are done through the power of the Holy Spirit. As this points out, you know, the Word of God has been put together by the Holy Spirit inspiring those who would write and later who would compile the Bible to be able to have it together for us so that we can use it. The last thing, you know, that I'll point out is simply, and again, this is so clear in this article, you know, that they do not want to believe, they do not want to have faith in God, they do not want to be told what to do. That's primarily what they do not want. And yet, you know, we believe the Bible is a book of faith, and we believe what it says here in John chapter 10.

See, actually, these are the words of Jesus, and I know I have in the past memorized different verses, and many times as I've memorized those, I had a little idea of what the context of that particular verse was, but I think it's interesting to see what John 10.35, what it actually, you know, what the context around it is, because that verse states, as Jesus says, that the Scriptures do not contradict each other. The Scriptures cannot be broken. And of course, even the, I think, probably the Pharisees that he was talking to here, they probably believed that. You know, they looked at the Old Testament as a, you know, as a guidebook. Of course, as Tom was reading, I think, you know, they had a lot of other stuff, you know, they got a lot of other ideas that didn't stick. You know, they are in error with that.

But here in John 10, John chapter 10, starting in verse 31, the Jews took up stones again to stone him. And Jesus replied and said, I've shown you many good works from the Father. Which of these good works are you stoning me for? Incredible how far ahead he was of everybody ever talked to, how much he understood of the relationship that he and the Father had. But of course, he asked a very good question. Well, which of the good works are you stoning me for? And of course, they said, well, it's not because of any good work that we're going to stone you, but we're going to stone you because of your blasphemy, because you, though only a human, you're making yourself God. And Jesus answered, and this is the section that we wanted to get to here in verse 35. See, is it not written in your law that I said you are gods? And if those whom the Word of God came were called gods, then the Scripture cannot be broken. This is a statement from Jesus. It cannot be, there's not a contradiction. There are verses that need to be understood, explained, reconciled. You know, you can look in Proverbs 26 and it says, answer a fool in one of them, and the next one says answer not a fool. I mean, people can look at that and think that's a contradiction. That makes no sense. Well, talking about two entirely different situations. But here in John 10, you know, Jesus says the Scripture cannot be broken.

See, and he was involved in communicating that to all of the different men who were involved in writing and who were involved then in compiling what was to be a part of the inspired Word of God. And in verse 36, he says, can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming? When I say I'm the Son of God, he was clearly pointing out something to them that, you know, they couldn't resist. They couldn't contradict. They could say, that's not true. They could say we don't believe you, but he was pointing out the fact that I am the Son of God. He was pointing out who he was. And he goes on to say, if I'm not doing the works of the Father, then you don't believe me. But if I do the works of the Father, even though you don't believe me, believe the works so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I'm in the Father, and when I say I'm the Son of God, then, you know, that is a fact that you can believe. But the statement in verse 35, which is what I was pointing out, whenever we realize that the Bible is a book of faith, it involves a certain level of faith for every one of us. And yet we have studied, we are familiar with, we're familiar with what the Bible says, and we are basing our eternal life on the Word of God. We're basing our eternal life on that.

And yet, of course, you know, we, you know, not only believe, but we are grateful. We're grateful that God has provided an instruction book. We're grateful that He has given us the history of man and the history of Israel and the life of Jesus and the record of the church so that we can know what to look at, what's the church supposed to look like, how is it that you read through Acts and most of the epistles of Paul about what the church of God looks like. And, of course, we believe that the book of Revelation is indeed what it says it is.

That it is the revealing from Jesus Christ, the revelation from Jesus that God gave to John. So our belief in and our valuing of the Bible, you know, surely should give us a desire to be uplifted. It should give us an understanding that this is a book that God has put together for our good, for our benefit, and we clearly have faith in that. You know, that is, in essence, why many can write about it in a confused way, in a conflicted way, because they don't want to believe it.

They don't want to have faith in it, and so they want to discredit it. They want to undermine it. They want to demean what God says, and certainly they want to get away from things that they don't want to do, or that they don't want to even consider that God would have an opinion about. They would, you know, clearly want to discredit that.

So I hope that in just going through these few verses that, you know, that our appreciation of the Bible, and we carry it, we carry it in our car, we carry it, you know, around, and we have several in our houses, but I hope that our appreciation for the Bible can grow, and that we can have a higher respect for it, and maybe even a greater desire to read it. Now, I'm not saying none of any of you have. Don't long want to read the Bible, but we often need to be encouraged to read the Bible. We need to be encouraged to see the validity of what God has placed before us, what He puts in our hands, and we live at a time when it's readily available.

It hasn't always been the case. It's always been, or has been at times, you know, pretty difficult to get, and yet we have it readily available, and yet does that immediately change our desire to read it? Well, sometimes. Sometimes we're a little more lax. So I want to conclude just in reading Luke chapter 4, because it's fabulous to me, you know, to see, you know, the accounts of Jesus.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John give the accounts from several different directions of the life of Jesus, the life of the Son of God, the life of the one who was willing to take on a human form, who was willing to be like us, who was tempted like as we are yet sinless, without sin.

He was able to overcome Satan. He was more powerful. He was able to achieve that because he would rely on the Father. I guess it wouldn't be, maybe it's a better understanding to realize that he was relying on the Father a lot more than we do. He was clearly always relying on the Father, but having been willing to give up the form of God and take on a human form, you know, he knew, and he and the Father had worked that out long ago, even before the foundation of the world, that, well, we're going to have to redeem our children.

Our kids are going to need to have the help from the parents to be able to guide them into eternal life. And so we, you know, we are the recipients of that. But here in Luke, chapter 4, you see an account that, you know, we read part of this a couple of weeks ago, how Jesus on the Sabbath, as his custom was, went in and read out of the book of Isaiah.

He was in the synagogue. And it says in verse 20, he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down in the eyes of all of the people in the synagogue were fixed on him. They were, they were, I guess you could say they were stunned. They were stunned because of what he had just read. And he said in verse 21, he began to say, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. This scripture has been fulfilled what he read out of Isaiah about him coming to release the captives. Those who have been enslaved to sin, those who have been blinded, they're going to be given hope.

They're going to be given encouragement. And that, of course, is a fascinating section. But what I want to focus on is in verse 22, because I think this should be maybe a an impetus for all of us to read and study and appreciate and be grateful for the fabulous Word of God that God has placed in our hands and that we can understand because it says in verse 22, all of the people who were listening to Jesus, certainly some of them were Jews and Pharisees, others probably were not, but it says, all spoke well of him and they were amazed at his gracious words, the gracious words that came out of his mouth.

See, now you see numerous different statements of that similar to that about how people marveled at what Jesus had to say. And even when he was a little kid, even when he was 12, you know, he was dumbfounding the doctors of the law because he had the words of life. He had the message that needed to be proclaimed. And yet the section that I want to focus on is just that what Jesus had to say, people were just amazed at the words that he had to give.

And whenever, you know, we struggle with anything, actually whenever we feel good and whenever things are going well, we ought to be revived by the words of God. But whenever we struggle, which is often the case, we need to realize that we've got the inspired Word of God we've got the Bible that's been written for our benefit, not only to guide us to eternal life, but to uplift us and to encourage us. We can say we often, you know, want to rely on the Holy Spirit, and that's correct. We want to be led by and guided by the Holy Spirit.

But the Word of God, if we focus on it, if we accentuate it, if we value it, if we appreciate where it came from, and if we look to it in faith, that Word can change our lives. It can change our outlook. It can change, I know, you know, you can read different novels, and most of the time I don't remember much about, you know, whatever it was about. If my wife and I read the same book, you know, she'll remember a lot of what was in there, and I'd, you know, kind of remember what the end is, maybe. And that's, and usually I can wait a few months and read it again, and it's all new to me.

But see, the Bible is quite different than that. You read, you know, and all of you have read the Bible, probably read it through or read sections of it, you know, you've probably read all of it, I'm going to say. And yet you can read it again, and you can read it again, and you can read it again, and you can, there is more there than what we initially may have understood.

And so thankfully, you know, we have, you know, the wonderful blessing of realizing that the Bible can be understood.

And it can be uplifting and inspiring. It can be encouraging. And I hope that even in reading some of these verses that we have today, that we can be inspired by the benefits available to us from simply, as this article was even encouraged, people need to read the book. You know, we, you know, if nothing else, you know, we can say yes, we can agree with that part. You know, they need to read the book. They need to be familiar with it. But then they need to even benefit more by what God is able to give us in giving us and increasing our understanding. So I think it's fascinating to see how it is that God has chosen, you know, to give us the Bible. And I hope that in going over it this way that we can benefit from our study on a consistent basis. And again, you know, we can be very thankful, you know, that Jesus gives us the words of what?