Sermon Tone Analysis

Using Your Bible in Daily Life (5 of 5)

Series: How Do We Know For Sure That the Bible Is God's Word?

Stan Coffey

Isaiah 40:6-8

 

        This has been a great lesson on "How Do We Know For Sure That The Bible Is God's Word?"

The lesson today is called, "Using Your Bible In Daily Life."

We have learned how the Bible came to be, we have learned how the Scripture came to us and in our next lesson we will learn even more about that.

And it doesn't do us any good unless we use the Bible, no matter how much we read the Bible, no matter how much the Bible means to us, we have to use the Bible for the Bible to do us any good.

So today we talk about how to use our Bible.

Isaiah 40:6-8 "A voice says, "Cry out."

And I said, "What shall I cry?

All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them.

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."

We have an eternal word in the Bible and although the Bible has been under attack all through the centuries of time, the Bible has stood.

Last week we studied the words of Jesus who said, "heaven and earth shall pass away."

Someday the heaven and earth, as we know it, will be gone.

Peter said the heavens and earth will melt with a fervent heat.

That it will be destroyed with a loud noise.

So we know that God will someday make a new heaven and a new earth, but Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words, shall never pass away."

The Word of God is eternal and in spite of the efforts of men to destroy the Bible, the Bible has never been destroyed.

Did you know that there are more ancient copies of the Bible than of any of the ancient classics of literature?

There are far more ancient copies of God's Word than any of the Roman classics.

And it is amazing that we take, as written, Roman classics like the Roman Historian Tacitus and others and we take those for truth when only about two copies of his work is left and we have hundreds and hundreds of copies of the ancient text of the Word of God and we question some of those copies.

And just a few of the classics are left and we do not question them.

I.

THE WORD OF GOD IS A SEED THAT BRINGS LIFE

 

        Let's look and see how we use the Bible in daily life.

First of all, the Word of God is a seed to bring life.

And that is where you have to begin daily life.

You have to know that you are born again.

So notice what Peter said in I Peter 1:23, "being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever."

He is saying the same thing that Isaiah did, that is, that the Word of God lives and abides forever and it is incorruptible seed and it is through the Word of God that we are born again.

Now when we come to trust Christ as Savior and Lord, it is the Word of God that lodges in our heart.

The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, Romans 10.

And there is no way for anyone to be saved apart from the Word of God.

That seed has to be planted.

You remember the parable Jesus told about the soils and the sower of the seed?

He explained why not everyone will be saved.

He said to the disciples, behold a sower went forth to sow.

And he said some of the seed fell on hard ground, some fell on thorny ground, some fell on rocky ground, and some fell on good ground.

Then He explained to them, the seed is the Word of God.

And He talked about the seed that fell on the good ground, bore fruit.

It rooted and it bore fruit and it grew.

And that is talking about the four kinds of hearts in the world and how not every person who hears the Word of God will receive it.

Some allow the world to choke it out, some hearts are not receptive and they are hard like the hardened soil on the path that has been hardened by people walking upon it.

But in the heart that receives it, the Word of God is like a seed that falls into good soil and you know what happens.

It gets a little water and it springs to life.

There have been stories about seed that is perhaps thousands of years old, seed that is ancient, and yet it has been planted and it still brings forth life when it is planted in good soil.

And that is the way the Word of God is, it is an ancient message, but when it is received in a heart that is receptive, it brings forth new life.

And a person is born again by faith in Jesus Christ.

And there is so much potential in the seed of the Word of God.

And when we witness for Christ, or when we send out missionaries, or when we tell our story, there is so much potential in the seed that we plant.

Not everybody is a harvester, not everybody can draw the net, some people are particularly gifted to draw the net and bring a person in to the kingdom and win a person to Christ, but everybody can be a seed sower.

Everybody can give someone a tract, everybody can give so that someone can hear the gospel, everybody can sow a seed.

And you never know how far that seed will go.

If you sow a seed and that seed finds productiveness and that seed is fruitful then that person sows seed and that person sows seed and it is just like one seed.

How much does one grain of wheat produce?

Well, it is incalculable, so when you sow this seed of the gospel, you will not know until you get to heaven how great your reward will be.

In Psalm 126:6, the Bible says, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

He will doubtless come again with rejoicing, there is the law of the harvest.

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap."

There is no doubt about it, the Bible says.

If you sow a seed, you are going to reap.

You are going to reap what you sow, you are going to reap later than you sow, and you are going to reap more than you sow.

And these are the laws of the harvest that never change.

So the Word of God is a seed to bring life.

And it must be sown if it is to bring life.

Jesus said, "unless a seed of corn falls into the soil and dies, it abideth alone, but if it is planted in the soil and it dies, it brings forth much fruit."

And He was talking about Himself.

He was talking about dying on the cross and being buried in the tomb and rising from the dead.

Jesus Himself was a seed who had to die.

Without His death on the cross, without His burial, there could be no resurrection.

And unless you and I die to self, there can be no life; unless we die to sin, there can be no life.

There can be no resurrection life in us.

The Word of God is a seed that brings life.

II.

THE WORD OF GOD IS A LAMP THAT BRINGS LIGHT

 

        And then the Word of God is a lamp that brings light.

The Psalmist said, "thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, it is a light for my path."

Now in those days, they didn't have flashlights, they didn't have lamps with batteries, and they use to tie lamps to their feet, oil lamps to their feet so that when they walked down the pathway at night, those lamps tied to their feet, would give light to their paths.

That is exactly what the Psalmist is talking about.

He is talking about an oil lamp tied to their feet as they walked down the path, it would give them light as they walked and they could see in front of them where they were going.

In doing so, they would avoid a stone in the path, they would avoid a cliff, they would avoid danger, and they would see where to walk.

Now as you and I read the Word of God, and as we obey the Word of God, then you and I avoid the darkness of this world.

We are living in a dark, dark, world.

We are living where Satan has set traps for all of us.

We are living in a world where we need the guidance of the Word; we need the guidance of God everyday that we live.

We need to be shown where to go.

And the Bible says the Word of God is a lamp into our feet.

It shows us where to walk, it shows us where the dangers are, and it shows us the devices of the devil.

So we need to hear the Word, be in the Word, listen to the Word, obey the Word.

Then it is a lamp into our feet, a light unto our path.

In II Peter 1:19, Peter talks about how the Word of God is a more sure word of prophecy.

He said, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:" Now Peter had seen many things.

He had seen the dead raised to life; he had seen people healed in the name of Jesus.

He had seen Christ walk on the water.

He himself had walked on the water to go to Jesus, but Peter said, in spite of all the miracles I have seen, there is something better than visions, there is something better than miracles, and there is something better than seeing people raised from the dead.

He said I would rather have the Word of God than to have all those miraculous things.