Sermon Tone Analysis

How God Uses the Bible

I wonder how many of us struggle with daily reading the bible and daily quiet time with the Lord?

If you think about the reason God created us it was for his pleasure and the chief end of man is to glorify the Lord and enjoy his presence forever

And you are not supposed to wait to get to heaven to enjoy his presence you are supposed to enjoy it now.

; 23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

You see part of this daily quiet time is what God gets out of it.

Not whats in it for me Christianity is in such a sad shape now because everything we do is now about us.

We go to church to experience God.

We sing to experience this moment of worship.

We look at our Bible reading and devotions for how it can benefit us.

We can forget if we are not careful that this is about what God wants and not about what we want.

We forget about him being in the room when we are reading and we read with this attitude I did not get anything out of my bible reading and prayer it was dry

Did god enjoy it ?

There are many times around the table I enjoy my children much more than they enjoy me they just want to go play but i sit them there because I enjoy them.

What if God is looking for someone to worship him ? to spend time with Him to talk with him?

What if it became about God ?

And not about you?

What if when you missed it you were late and missed your meeting with Jesus and you left him sitting there and never showed up and he prepared something with Love to give you and you were not there to receive it?

The most important thing on earth is your relationship with Jesus and how you develop that relationship is by spending time with him getting to know him.

Hearing his voice.

These are his words this tells you about him his character his ways of doing things his heart his thoughts his attitude about things how he things about everything how he relates to you.

So we are going to look at an old testament king Named Josiah and see a man that lived his life without reading the bible and what happened to him when he started reading it.

Many Christians live their christian lives out as josiah did without a relationship with the Lord without seeking out of the book of the Lord and reading in it all the days of their life.

But when he started reading it a change came over him and the country that was unmistakable

So what will bible reading do for you in your life

It Advances your relationship with God 2 chronicles 34:1-8

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.

Josiah 16 years old he began to do right

Without reading the book of the law he did not know what was in it.

Many christians are like that they do right they really want to do right when they are not in rebellion against God.

They do the best they can they do the obvious things.

He began to seek after the Lord but at this point it was not very deep it was what he assumed God wanted and we have a certain amount of that naturally in us put there by God

But he was doing right he was growing and advancing

He was seeking and purging

He was not getting off on the right or the left

He was staying in the middle of the road and not declining

You can decline on either side

Look what he was doing

And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.

And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.

And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.

And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God.

Wow look at all he did with no bible?

Just from seeking the Lord.

There is a lot you can do right now you know what to do you do not need a bible verse you already know the problem is you do not want to do it.

You would have thought man this is a great man look at this I have never seen someone so fired up for the Lord

And if you would have come say he is awesome but something is lacking you would have said you are crazy

But he knew it was not enough to take away the bad he must replace it with the Good

He saw the temple was in ill repair it had been about 350 years since it was built and not maintained and the gold was gone it was all wearing down and rotting and in disrepair

That great temple and all its glory was now a place where Manasseh had put idols and it housed things dedicated to baal they made God a god among other Gods man it was bad

So he sent shaphan the head of his cabinet the secretary of state to talk to Hilkiah and say look take the money and get this work done

And while they were repairing that temple hilkiah the priest found something that would change that nation send a great revival and change Josiah's life they found the book of the Lord it had been lost in the temple

Now that he had gotten the obvious stuff taken care of he had gotten the iniquity out of his heart God said I have something special for you

And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD.

And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.

And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it.

And they have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the LORD, and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the workmen.

Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book.

And Shaphan read it before the king.

And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.

When first find it it is a book of the law

But later he called it the word of the Lord

Go, enquire of the LORD for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do after all that is written in this book.

What a thing man they lost the bible at church a lot of churches today have lost that book and it has become a place for everything else except for worshipping God

They lost the bible in the very place that was meant to promote it and protect it and prompt each other to obey it they lost it in the very place that without it the place would be pointless

Churches have done that they have lost the Bible.

They do not know what God said.

They have not found the book they have something in their hands they consider inferior to the word of God and unreliable and pretty close but you can't know what God said.

I do not know if you remember when you found the book ?

Perfect i could trust it I did not need to know all this complicated greek and hebrew I had something God promised me that was preserved and could be trusted and never had to be doubted and when i believed i had found the Book it changed my life.

Shipman the scribe brought that book to king Josiah and began to read it to him and that book changed his life

If he would not have found that your bible would have started with Joshua they had lost the books of moses Gen Ex Lev Num Deut no creation no law no commandments so they lost touch with what they were supposed to be doing

It was if Moses had never even written it.

It advances your relationship with God

See the bible says before Josiah found this book he did that which was right

He looked around saw temple in disrepair needed fixing so set about to fix it

Hired masons workers put people in charge

Like you sometimes you will look at life see some things need to change some things in life need some repairs so you will start doing right and working on it start repairing temple like going to church but that will only get you so far

Some you have been at a standstill for years and I do mean years

southerners go to revival get right but most you already backslidden after revival

Your entire life has been get right get backslidden get fired up get backslidden be faithful for awhile than unfaithful for a while be under conviction for a while and not feel nothing for a while

Your whole christian life is up and down like this instead of like this up like song says everyday with Jesus sweeter than the day before

You know what you are missing ?

That book

no hope for a christian to be a success for God without reading that bible

If you ignore his word and your whole life all you will be is a nominal christian

It says Josiah did that which is right but when he read that book he still rent his clothes

You see reading that bible it takes you to the next level

You ready to go to the next level

Do you yearn for the deeper life

Do you want to know God in a personal way ?

Than get rid of the idols and iniquity in your heart do the obvious and get ahold of this book.

You can hear a lot of things in church to help you grow but the only way growth is sustained is through that book

You want to go to next level with Jesus put nose in the book

There was once a man named charles finney and he was considered to be a hardened case by the preachers at 29 he was an unconverted rising lawyer and he never owned a bible but he added one to his library for a reference and gradually that bible replaced his interest for blackstone and the statutes of new york and he got saved and bid farewell to his clients and said he had a retainer form jesus christ to plead his cause and plead it he did he preached to more people than any other man in his generation because the bible made its way from the shelf into the heart of charles finney

It took him to the next level it did for him what a preacher could not