I’ve heard Christians say
something like, “If only God would speak to us like He did to
those in the
Bible.” The truth is we have more word from God today than any Old Testament
believer, including the great men of old such as Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel,
et al. Even with those who had the completed version of both Old and New
Testaments in the earlier Church age, we today have a better understanding for
example of latter day prophesies, simply because we are at the threshold of
Christ’s return.
Also concerning latter day
events, we now understand how everyone in the world can see something take
place at one time. We have seen Israel reborn as a nation in our lifetime. We
understand how the Antichrist can have total control of the entire world with a
mark on the body. We understand how the world can be destroyed by nuclear
power. We know that China can man an army of 200 million. We enjoy conveniences
that were not even dreamed of a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, and even
twenty-five years ago.
Whether we speak of prophecy,
salvation, Christian living, among many other things, the Bible is the very
Word of God. Everything He wants us to know is contained in the Bible.
Therefore, God does speak to us today. Here’s the problem that many Christians
have. Most of our Bibles are seldom used. If we don’t use them, we are not
going to know what God is saying to us.
Most Christians are lazy.
They want someone else, a pastor for example, to tell them what it says. How do
you know you’re being told the truth? How do you know if the person you’re
listening to is giving you correct or incorrect information? They may be
mistaken in what they say, or they may be lying. How do you know?
Even though the lost cannot
understand many things in the Bible, because they do not have the Holy Spirit
living within them, they can understand how to be saved. God makes that clear
even to those who are not His, so that they may believe in His Son and be
saved.
The greatest problem in the
Church today is our laziness in not studying God’s Word. Someone may say,
“That’s not true. Our greatest problems in the Church today are perverted
sexual sins, greed, lack of love toward one another, blasphemous worship
services, compromising with the world, etc.” I beg to disagree. These are
actually symptoms resulting from our laziness in not studying
God’s Word.
Therefore, do we really know
what God says, if we don’t read the document (Bible) He left for us? Do we ever
go beyond just reading it occasionally and actually put some serious time into
studying the Word He left for us?
The Bible has been removed
from our schools and we gripe about it, but think about this. The Bible has
just about been removed from our churches. How many people do you see bring their
still new looking Bible to the church service with them? How many Sunday school
and Bible study classes teach and study from a book or quarterly someone wrote
instead of directly from the Bible? How many churches use large screens to show
the Scriptures, thereby encouraging those who come to not “pack” that big Bible
around with them?
When things happen in our
lives, good or bad, we don’t know how to handle them because we do not have a
good solid foundation in God’s Word, the Bible. Now I’ll grant you that many
Christians love God’s Word and spend much time in it, but they are definitely
in the minority. Most Christians live like the world, because they don’t know
what God says about how to live for Him. They’re Biblically illiterate.
Let’s say I’m just dying to
have an apple pie, and I don’t want one from the store. I want a homemade apple
pie. So I go out in the backyard and pick some apples from the tree. (We used
to have three or four apple trees in our yard when I was a youngster.) I bring
them inside and set them on the kitchen counter, then step back and just look
at them. Hour after hour, day after day, I keep staring at them, but no apple
pie. Eventually, all I’m going to have are rotten apples instead of that
mouthwatering homemade apple pie. What I need to do is get out the cook book,
turn to the page that tells me how to make a homemade apple pie, and then do as
instructed. Before you know it, I have my homemade apple pie.
This is the problem with many
Christians. They got saved and just stopped there. They need to pull out the
recipe book and follow the instructions. God wants to speak to us through His
recipe book (Bible), but if we don’t pull it off the shelf and use it, it does
us no good.
God does not work through
osmosis. Some Christians must think that they can hold their Bible in their
hand for a minute or two and all that is in it will seep into their very being.
No. We must open it and read it.
It’s so easy to tell a
maturing believer from an immature believer. When the “rubber meets the road”
in life, the immature believer will fall apart. The maturing believer may
waver, but they are stronger, because they have fed their spirit on good food (Bible)
instead of junk food (everything else). Most Christians live on spiritual junk
food, and in this country, there is no excuse for it.
With immature believers the
tail wags the dog. With maturing believers the dog wags the tail. In other
words, are we controlled by our emotions or our mind? The Scripture says, “Let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:” (Philippians 2:5) and “For
who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the
mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16)
The only way we’re going to
“let this mind be in you,” or “have the mind of Christ” is to take what He says
into our mind, and that can only come from the Bible. The Bible is where God
speaks to us. When we lay our Bible aside and ignore it, we are shutting off
communication with God. From that point forward, we walk by our emotions
instead of what God is saying to us; i.e. our opinions as opposed to His Truth.
Is the Word of God (Bible)
sufficient for all our needs? It most certainly is. As we breathe His Word into
our soul by reading, studying and praying, our Lord breathes out His Truth to
us, which strengthens and matures us. We can’t live a spiritually productive
life without it. Unfortunately, many Christians continue to “fly by the seat of
their pants” instead of allowing themselves a true foundation in His Word.
King David said, “Thy word
have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. (Psalms 119:11)
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” (Psalms 119:105)
Now that makes sense. His Word is sufficient for all we need.
Grant Phillips
Email: grantphillips@windstream.net
Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com
