"Better Than Gold And Honey"

Cornerstone Church September 18/19, 2010

“BETTER THAN GOLD AND HONEY”

Psalm 19:7-11

Chuck Swindoll recounts in his newest book: “The Church Awakening” about spending summers at his Grandparent’s cottage in Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s pick up the story:

“I remember one day when I was about ten years old. My Grandfather took me outside and said, ‘Every year this cliff drops off a little and wears away; I want to show you.’ He used a big word I never heard of before: erosion. We walked some distance from the edge, and he measured the space from that point to where the cliff dropped off to the water. He drove a stake into the ground to mark the spot. “You’re going to be here next summer,’ he told me, ‘and we’ll measure this again then.’”

He goes on to say:

“Webster defines erode in simple terms: ‘to diminish or destroy by degrees….To eat into or away by slow destruction of substance…To cause to deteriorate or disappear.’ Over the years, I have discovered three simple truths about erosion, all of which parallel Webster’s description. Rather than occurring rapidly, erosion is always slow. Instead of drawing attention to itself, erosion is always silent. And in place of being obvious, erosion is always subtle.”

“Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings,

without milestones, without signposts.”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, quoted by Swindoll

Chuck Swindoll, “The Church Awakening” pgs 3-5

It reminds me of the story of the frog in a kettle.

Place a frog in a pan of cold water and place it on the stove. Then turn up the temperature gradually until the water boils. The frog will not jump out!

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD,

“when I will send a famine through the land — not a famine

of food or a thirst for water,

but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

Amos 8:11 NIV

“My people have committed two sins:

They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,

and have dug their own cisterns,

broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Jer. 2:13 NIV

People today are looking everywhere in all sorts of places for spiritual truth.

Even Christians have bought into the notion that God’s Word is not enough.

We have capitulated and elevated man and his ability to reason and solve problems above the God who created us.

Social scientists

Behavioral psychologists

Philosophers

Educators

Religious thinkers

Politicians

The media elite

Many claim they possess the truth and understand the meaning to life and how to solve the world’s problems. But do they?

The greatest problem is not their lack of intellectual data.

Many of these people are honest and quite sincere in their pursuit of the truth.

They may hold the highest degrees from the greatest institutions. The dilemma, however, may be in what they have left out in their thinking. The truths revealed by God Himself.

Man, studying man and his environment around him is destined to fail.

His knowledge is not comprehensive. At best, we have journeyed to the end of our solar system with satellites, ventured into the inner space of the mind and body, probed the depths of the oceans and traveled around the world.

Man calibrates all the instruments to himself! They can’t deal with the metaphysical world.

ILLUSTRATION:

United States Senator, Dan Coats, from Indiana gave this testimony in an area church. He was on a committee to solve problems with delinquent youth. The government had poured unlimited money into this prototype program. They built a home for these youth, hired the finest counselors and educators to help them. When he and the other Senators on the committee viewed the best that the government could do he was discouraged. As he was leaving one of the youth stopped Senator Coats. “Senator, you seemed discouraged by what you have seen. Let me tell you what happened to me. This home could not solve my problems. But, during one of the visitation times, someone came to visit me and shared Jesus Christ with me and I was converted.” Jesus is our only hope. Senator Coats, left renewed in his commitment to Christ as being the answer to the world’s problems.

Archimedes: “Give me a place to stand on and I will move the Earth.”

In order for man to do this he needs a place beyond himself to place his lever.

His “place to stand” is found in God’s Word.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TELL US ABOUT ITSELF?

IS THE WORD OF GOD, ALONE SUFFICIENT?

IS THE BIBLE MERELY MAN’S WORDS ABOUT GOD

OR ARE THEY GOD’S WORDS ABOUT MAN?

Psalm 19:1-4 (Speak about General / Natural Revelation)

Natural Revelation is enough of a testimony to declare everyone guilty before a Holy God.