Calvary Road Baptist Church

“READ GOD’S WORD EVERY DAY”

There are times when startling omissions come to light that are absolutely surprising, when matters that are so basic are overlooked that one is simply astonished. Such is the case that I bring to your attention this evening, the absolute importance of reading God’s Word every single day, and by every single day I mean every single day. Please be mindful that we are time bound creatures insofar as our senses and experiences are concerned, yet our destiny is eternity. Each and every one of us lives in the here and now, but we all will eventually pass through the portal known as death to enter the realm of the timeless and the endless, for some an eternity of bliss and for others an eternity of torment and damnation. However, for everyone it will be an eternity of consciousness and awareness. That which has been given to us to explain the connection between our present and our future, based upon our collective past, is the Word of God, the Bible, also known as the scriptures, a collection of sixty-six books written by more than 40 human authors over a span of 1500 years, yet possessing a unity and cohesiveness resulting from the real author who used human instruments to write the Book, the Holy Spirit of God.[1]

The Word of God is also the only objective source of information about the spiritual realm that exists, but which we cannot directly relate to by means of our five senses. What about God? What about good and evil? What about angels and demons? What about transgression and forgiveness? What about guilt and conscience? What about heaven? What about Hell? What about the lake of fire? These are all important topics of concern to all but the most negligent, yet of all documents available to mankind, the Bible is the only objective source of truth about such matters, with a history of infallibility and inerrancy, having never been proven wrong by historians, scientists, archaeologists, or anyone else for that matter.

These things said, it is not my purpose to establish the credibility of the Bible in your thinking. There are too many great books that have been written that do a better job of that than can be done tonight. My goal this evening is simple, to persuade you to read the Bible every single day, to convince you that your soul’s welfare demands it, and your mind’s clarity requires it.

Twelve reasons why you must read your Bible every single day:

First, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE GOD WROTE IT

Most of us are familiar with Second Timothy 3.16: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” showing scripture to be God-breathed (revealing its source) and profitable in a variety of ways (showing its benefit). There is also Second Peter 1.21: “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Thus, we are informed what particular Person of the Godhead was responsible for delivering God’s Word to mankind.

Based upon the authorship of the Bible, the fact that God wrote it, is reason enough to read it every single day. Consider, God wrote a book! How can a rational and reasonable creature justify not reading a communiqué from the Creator and Sustainer of all things? As well, implicit in the existence of the Bible is the importance of reading the Bible, for if God had not wanted His creatures to read the Book, He never would have given the Book. Is it rational to read God’s Word once and then be done with it? I think not, considering that it is the deepest and richest of mines, with treasures for the mind, heart, and soul to be retrieved each and every day.

Next, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE IT IS HIS REVELATION OF HIMSELF

To be sure, there are a number of truths about God and His nature that can be gleaned from a careful study of nature, Psalm 19.1: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Indeed, many early scientists engaged in scientific research for the very purpose of learning about their Creator. However, there is an astonishing difference between what is revealed by God naturally and what is revealed by God supernaturally. In nature, it can be deduced that God is intelligent, immense, and powerful. Perhaps it can also be deduced that God is moral.

In His Word, He reveals Himself to be personal, eternal, immortal, wise, holy, righteous, and merciful, compassionate, gracious, sovereign, and loving. In fact, God is more than loving; He is love.[2] How frequently do you think such a concerned and personal Being wants to be the subject of His creatures’ thoughts and concerns? Once in a lifetime? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Or each and every day? Look up the word “daily” and see how many times it is used in the Psalms in connection with reading God’s Word.

Third, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE IT IS HIS REVELATION TO YOU OF YOU

The heathen flatter themselves when they think they know themselves, when they imagine that they understand themselves, when they dream of self-perception and self-awareness. While I do not deny that a person can come to a recognition of his physical, intellectual, and emotional faculties, I challenge the notion that anyone can really understand himself spiritually apart from God’s Word. Consider a well-known description of a man’s heart, Jeremiah 17.9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Careful consideration of this verse reveals that the one who is deceived by his heart is primarily himself, as well as everyone else.

Why should you read your Bible every single day? So you can be reminded of the reality of your own deceitful heart by God’s Word. After all, only God truly knows you, and He speaks of you to you in His Word, Jeremiah 17.10: “I the LORD search the heart.” Those who do not read God’s Word every day run the great risk of living in a pretend world, never coming to grips with the reality of the God who is real and their own selves.

Fourth, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE IT IS HIS REVELATION TO YOU OF HIS SON

Why is it important for human beings that the revelation of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is made available to us? Do you think it is important to know who created the universe and all that herein is, John 1.3? Do you think it is important to learn of a man who is the image of the invisible God, Colossians 1.15? Do you think it is important to learn of the One who will someday sit in judgment of you, John 5.22? Do you think it is important to learn of the One who alone is the sufficient Savior of sinful men’s sins, Matthew 1.21?

Read God’s Word every single day because the totality of God’s Word has for its grand Subject and Theme none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, John 5.39? He is the One sinners must look to in faith to be saved from their sins, and He is the one saints must look to when we are wearied and faint, the Author and Finisher of our faith, Hebrews 12.1-3.

Fifth, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE GOD USES HIS WORD TO SAVE SINNERS FROM THEIR SINS

Very close to the beginning of the very first of the New Testament books to be written, the epistle of James, we find the words of verse 18: “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.” Simple. Straightforward. Powerful. God makes use of the word of truth, the Bible, scripture, to bring about the new birth.

How important is the new birth? The Lord Jesus Christ declared that unless one experiences the new birth, he cannot see the kingdom of God, John 3.3. He then taught that unless one experiences the new birth, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, John 3.5. That was shortly before He declared, “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again,” John 3.7. Yet this cannot happen apart from the Word of God. Think for just a moment, friend. How likely do you think it is that a sinner will be saved from his sins that refuses to read the Word of God, and by read the Word of God I mean read the Word of God every single day? It is in God’s Word that sins are shown to be exceedingly sinful, a necessary emphasis to persuade sinners of their need of a savior.

Sixth, READ THE WORD OF GOD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE GOD USES IT TO SAVE SAINTS FROM THEIR SINS

Of course, salvation is a threefold work of God. There is first, salvation from the penalty of sins, which occurs when a sinner turns from his sins and trusts Christ to the saving of his soul. From that moment, God then begins to process of saving the saint from the power of sins in his life, culminating, finally, in his deliverance from the presence of sins when he finally arrives in glory.[3]

Consider, if you will, the situation of a Christian who has been saved through faith in Christ from the penalty of sins and is awaiting his salvation from the presence of sins when he finally goes to heaven. He is living his Christian life and being delivered from the power of sins in his life. How do you suppose that happens? Do you think once a sinner is converted to Christ he sets his Bible on the table and is never expected to read or study it again?

Consider only a few verses from Psalm 119 to discover the place of God’s Word in the daily life of the child of God: According to verse 1, we walk in the law of the LORD, which is scripture. According to verse 2, we keep His testimonies, and seek Him with the whole heart, testimonies being a reference to the Bible. According to verse 3, we walk in His ways, of course, His ways being found in His Word. According to verse 4, God has commanded us to keep His precepts diligently. But His precepts are found in His Word. Verse 5 reads, “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!” Those statutes are found in the Bible. Verse 6 indicates that the result of being directed to keep God’s statutes is to not be ashamed, the result of having respect unto all God’s commandments. The point of Psalm 119, written a thousand years before the birth of Christ, is that the life of God’s child is a life that is lived by reading God’s Word, meditating on God’s Word, memorizing God’s Word, hiding God’s Word in your heart, and so forth.

Then, when the Lord Jesus Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane to the Father, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” John 17.17, He was urging His Father to save saints from the power of sin in their lives by means of the Word of God. Do you think that happens when someone reads the Bible only once? Once a month? Once a week? Psalm 119.9 is persuasive to show that daily reading of God’s Word is crucial to living the Christian life: “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.”

Seventh, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE HUMILITY DEMANDS IT

While humility is not false modesty, such as the pretense one is slow when he is actually fast, the pretense one is not smart when he is actually brilliant, or the pretense that one is physically weak when he is actually quite powerful, humility is one’s voluntary self-abasement and the absence of pride. A great illustration of humility is the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul writes in Philippians 2.5-8:

5      Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6      Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7      But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8      And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

It is also important to realize that “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble,” James 4.6 and First Peter 5.5. The implication? God has provided His Word for His creatures because we need it, have to have it, and cannot succeed in any spiritually meaningful way without it. Yet, a day that passes without reading God’s Word is an open declaration by someone that he has no such need, thereby demonstrating a lack of humility to seek from God through His Word what only God through His Word can provide . . . grace to take on the day.

Eighth, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE PRIDE FORBIDS IT

What is pride but self-exaltation and the declaration that you do not need what God declares you do need? Pride results in demonstrations of autonomy and assertions of independence from God’s provision for life. Pride is also so very much like the Devil in his desire for exaltation. Yet, is that not the case with the person who gets up in the morning and fancies that he has his day handled without resorting to reading God’s Word? He needs no guidance. He needs no wisdom from on high. He needs no reminders of important spiritual truths. He can handle things all by himself.

Every day that passes without reading God’s Word is a declaration to the angels and demons, is an assertion to your own subconscious mind, and is a defiant insistence to God, Himself, that you do not need His Word to live your life and you can manage all by yourself, thank you.

Ninth, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY SINGLE DAY BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXPECT HIM TO LISTEN TO YOU IF YOU WILL NOT FIRST LISTEN TO HIM

Who speaks first, God or you? Who speaks with wisdom, God or you? Who speaks with authority, God or you? Who speaks with power, God or you? Pretend, for just a moment, that you are engaged in conversation with another person. Should not the first to speak be heard first? Is it not appropriate for the one who is older speak first? Therefore, if God were but a man, it would be right and proper for you to hear Him first before you have any expectation of Him hearing you.

However, God is not a man. He is God. He is the Creator and the Sustainer of all things. He is the One who is terrible in majesty. He is the Almighty God. Our God is a consuming fire. Therefore, He has the absolute right to speak as our Sovereign, while you and I have no right to speak. Consider Job. Suffering affliction, he became somewhat embittered during his friends’ harsh accusations of him, and he began to question God. Finally, in Job 38.1-3, the LORD confronts Job for daring to question Him in so disrespectful a manner:

1      Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

2      Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

3      Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

Listen to God first. Listen to Him every day, as He speaks to you through His wonderful Word, the Bible. Only then should you expect Him to be willing to listen to you.

Tenth, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY DAY BECAUSE IT IS LIGHT FOR YOU IN DARKNESS

Psalm 119.105 declares, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The imagery is of a person walking along a treacherous trail in the pitch darkness, with no moon light or star light to show him where he is or where his next foot fall will be. With each step he runs the risk of twisting an ankle, stepping on a jagged rock, or even falling because of a sharp turn in the trail he cannot see. In the terrain David alludes to a fall could easily result in serious injury or death.

This is what life is like for you and me, my friend. Though we have the use of our five senses, there is spiritual terrain we must negotiate, and we have no way of knowing where we are or how to journey safely without the light provided by God’s Word. Can you predict when something important will take place? Can you anticipate when a crucial decision is needed? No matter how you plan, life is unpredictable and there are times when steps need to be taken and decisions need to be made with relatively short notice.

To ignore God’s Word for a day is to ignore the reality that each day you live your life is a day lived in spiritual darkness, fraught with dangers that you have no way of anticipating and can only prepare for by reading God’s Word.

Eleventh, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY DAY BECAUSE IT PROVIDES CLARITY FOR THE CONFUSED

Who here is not tempted to compromise his convictions? Who here is not subject to questions about the propriety of certain things? Life is complex, and we stand in need of guidance in order to do right and be right before God. Where do you think that clarity comes from? Does it not come from God’s Word? When God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus, did He not give them ten commands written on tablets of stone, so they would know with clarity what they ought to do? We call them the Ten Commandments.

What did God provide to men who were raising sons, so they would grow up to be wise and godly, so they would marry well, and do right by their wives? He provided the Proverbs. What did God provide to congregations and individuals who were confused about ethical matters and issues of personal sins? Those are the epistles of the New Testament.

I could provide additional examples if we had more time. Apart from God’s Word, men cannot see spiritual things at all. With God’s Word, “we see through a glass, darkly,” First Corinthians 13.12. Therefore, you see the importance of God’s Word when guidance is needed and when guidance is sought.

Finally For This Evening, READ GOD’S WORD EVERY DAY BECAUSE IT GIVES ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE DISCOURAGED AND DESPONDENT

Of course, there is no reason why anyone dead in trespasses and sins should be encouraged about anything, in light of his precarious predicament and the uncertainties of life. James 4.14 reminds us, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” To encourage the unsaved person is to deny the truth about what awaits him unless he comes to Christ. However, for the child of God it is a different situation altogether. No matter his affliction, the child of God is reminded in scripture “that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,” Romans 8.28, and that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 8.39.

Open to any page of scripture and see what you will find. You will find a record or a declaration of God’s power and purpose, of God’s care and concern for His people, of God’s provision and watch care, and of God’s wisdom and deliverance. If God’s Word does not encourage you directly, He in His Word will direct to you to the place where encouragement is provided by means of other believers and through the ministry of the Word, Hebrews 10.25 and Hebrews 13.7 and 17.

Lost people have no hope. However, God’s people have hope in Jesus Christ, the confident expectation of future blessings based on the promises of God, and that hope is rehearsed, explained, expanded, and illustrated again and again and again throughout the Bible.[4] Is it a blessing? Yes. Does it help? Certainly.

Consider our gracious God, Who gives and gives and gives all the more. By way of conclusion, allow me to remind you of three things our great God Almighty has given. He has given to us His Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord. He has given to us His Word, which reveals to us His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. He gives to us faith, through the preaching and the reading of the Word, by which means we embrace Jesus Christ, our Lord. But for the Word of God, what you have heard of the Lord Jesus Christ would be hearsay, unreliable, uncertain, and subject to distortion and error because men’s memories are not perfect. However, with the Bible, we have a perfect record of God’s dealings with men and a perfect record of His Son, the solution for every sinner’s sins. Additionally, since God gives faith to sinner through the instrumentality of His Word, it is possible for men to lay hold of a Savior by means of the faith fostered by God’s Word, the Bible.[5] By faith, a sinner is saved by Jesus Christ. By faith, a saint lives the Christian life for and by and through Jesus Christ. Yet that faith is anchored in the true testimony of God’s Word, the Bible. Therefore, you see, it is all tied together.

Will a sinner become a Christian without reading God’s Word, the Bible? It is unlikely. Will a Christian live for Christ with any consistency or fruitfulness without reading God’s Word, the Bible. It is unlikely. My friends, the Bible is too central to sinners being saved and Christians living the Christian life for it to be ignored, even for a day.

Therefore, let me quickly repeat twelve reasons why you should read your Bible every single day:

 

#1     God wrote it.

#2     The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself.

#3     The Bible is God’s revelation to you of you.

#4     The Bible is God’s revelation of His Son, Jesus Christ.

#5     God uses the Bible to save sinners from their sins.

#6     God uses the Bible to sanctify saints.

#7     Humility demands that you read the Bible every single day.

#8     Pride forbids reading the Bible every single day.

#9     If you refuse to listen to God through His Word, He will not listen to you.

#10   The Bible is light in spiritual darkness.

#11   The Bible is direction to the spiritually confused.

#12   The Bible is encouraging to the discouraged and the despondent.

Therefore, read the Bible every single day!



[1] 2 Timothy 3.16; 2 Peter 1.21

[2] 1 John 4.8

[3] Philippians 1.6

[4] 1 Timothy 1.1

[5] Romans 10.17



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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church