In 1856, my great great-grandfather came from England to live in Melbourne and he received a letter from his brother back home. The letter told him that he could no longer live a selfish life, just doing what he wanted or he was headed to hell! The letter also told him he needed Jesus as the Lord of his life, but sadly, I don’t think my ancestor, or his son, or his granddaughter took any notice of this message! Finally my father came along and in 1978 I was born! After I became a Christian, my father did the same, but it was too late for our forbears! Each of us has a letter from God Himself, and it’s called the Bible. Three generations of my family ignored the warnings of one letter, but you and I can’t ignore God’s message that Jesus died that we can be forgiven for our selfishness and we can start afresh! We remember His sacrifice for us this morning as we take communion together!
Back in the 1950’s an engineering professor told his class to buy the most expensive slide rule they could afford because it would serve them “all their professional lives”! Within ten years, engineers were using calculators instead of slide rules! Since that time, technology has been changing much faster than we can keep up! By contrast, Isaiah 40:8 tells us that “The Word of the Lord endures forever!” God never changes and His Word is always relevant! The Bible is more up to date than tomorrow’s newspaper – and much more reliable! The more the world changes, the more security we have in reading God’s unchanging truth!” Three significant questions are:
1. Can we still trust the Bible?
A mate of mine some years ago told me that the Bible is a “load of rubbish”! I replied that as an English teacher, I insist that the students read the book first – before giving a book review! Years later he became a Christian and lined me up to run a Bible study at his home, which I did for seven years until I moved to Cronulla. Seven years later, the group is still running in the Gong– even though he and I have both moved away. He is now more active in his church than ever!
The famous evangelist Dwight Moody said, “The Bible was not just given to increase our knowledge – but to change our lives! I once met a young man who was working in the cane fields in Queensland, when he saw a tiny scrap of paper on the ground with writing on it. He found that it was a verse of Scripture, and even though I can’t remember what it was, it made him think about his life and he became a follower of Jesus!
Proverbs 3:5 tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart!” I once needed an assistant for a job I was doing in the city and none of my friends wanted to help! I prayed in church one night for a helper and when I turned around, here was this young man I mentioned above! I’d never met him before and I asked him if he was looking for work. When he said he was, I simply said, “You start tomorrow!” And he did – and stayed working with me until the job was finished three weeks later!
A young boy once gave his grandmother a Bible for Christmas and wrote in it what he’d seen in another book, “With compliments from the Author!” This reminds us that the Author of the Bible is also the God of the Universe – who controls our lives and calls us to account on Judgment Day!
2. Can we still live by the Bible?
A more important question is, “Can we still live without it?” I’ve never heard of someone reading the Bible and then committing suicide! And I’ve never heard of people who support euthanasia quoting the Bible to back up their choices. Instead, Jesus said, “Man cannot live by bread alone!” And he added, “but by every word which comes from the mouth of God!” We may feel that we can get through life in our own strength, but without God’s guidance, our lives are likely to be random efforts to fill in time and to make as much money as we can so that we can keep filling in time! It makes so much more sense to allow our personal God to help us make wise choices which keep us on the path to eternal life!
A Chinese scholar who was not a Christian was employed to translate the Scriptures into his language. One day he stood up and said, One who made that Book made me, for it tells me things about myself that no-one else knows and even things that I didn’t know!” One of my former flatmates was from Communist China, but he read the Bible aloud in his room every day, and he knew without any doubt, that only the Bible can show us how to live! 2 Timothy Chapter 3 tells us that Scripture is useful to teach us, correct us and train us in righteousness. In other words, the Bible helps us see things through God’s eyes instead of just our own!
3 Can the Bible still point us to heaven?
I met a young man who was serving a part-time prison sentence on weekends and he told me that because he was about to become a father, he needed to know about the Bible so that he could teach the truth to his child! I gave him a copy of the Daily Bread notes which are sent out free to anyone interested! The next time I saw him, he was really excited, and he said, “Now I know that God is willing to forgive all my sins!” This is confirmed in Psalm 32: 1,2, which says, “Blessed is he who has forgiveness of his sin – whose sin does not count against him!” Without forgiveness of our sins, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
A caretaker in a university, a very simple man, was once seen reading the Book of Revelation (the most difficult book in the Bible to understand!) Someone asked if he understood what it means, and he answered, “Of course I do! It means Jesus is going to win!”
The Bible tells us in graphic detail how Jesus died for each of us so that we might live forever! How can we possibly ignore it unless we want to spend eternity alone and in outer darkness! If you would like to read the Bible for yourself, please take a copy of Luke’s Gospel, or apply for Our Daily Bread notes to help you read it, or start with the free book, Ultimate Questions, which I can offer you this morning!
The Bible has a message for you every day of your life! If you don’t read it, you won’t know what God wants to say to you today!
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