God's Word On The Word

A man in Kansas City was severely injured in an explosion. Evangelist Robert L. Sumner tells about him in his book The Wonders of the Word of God. The victim's face was badly disfigured, and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands. He was just a new Christian, and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer read the Bible. Then he heard about a lady in England who read braille with her lips. Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in braille. Much to his dismay, however, he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been destroyed by the explosion. One day, as he brought one of the braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them. Like a flash he thought, I can read the Bible using my tongue. At the time Robert Sumner wrote his book, the man had "read" through the entire Bible four times.

It was the saintly Whitehead who said once that, "The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the happiness of believers, the way of salvation and the doom of sinners. Every doctrine in the Bible is holy, every precept is binding, and every decision is immutable. You must read it to believe it, believe it to be saved and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler's guide, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword and the Christian's charter. Here paradise is restored, heaven opened and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, daily, prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment and will be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor and condemn all who trifle with its contents."

And whether you unconventionally use your tongue like the Kansas man in Robert Summer’s book or your own God-given eyes to read it – it’s the book of all books!

It is a book beyond age; for it is the most ancient of all books. It is a book beyond mere interest; for it is the only read by all classes in the world. It is a book beyond sales; for it the best-seller of any book. It is a book beyond language and linguistics; although it is largely written by uneducated men, though it is superior in literary style and genius. It is a book beyond conventional unity; for it is a library and collection of sixty-six books, yet one Book. It is a book beyond preservation; for it is the most hated book of all time, yet it’s still in circulation and it still lives. And it is a book beyond human limitation; for it is the only book in the world whose Author is still alive. Yes, the Bible itself is the book of all books.

And you don’t have to season it. Just pour it out and pass it on. In fact, I would rather be in the Word of God than to be in Heaven – for in Matthew 24:35 it says that, ‘Heaven and earth might pass away; but His Word is going to stand forever.’ And in the text Christ deals with, and presents to His disciples and us the trinity of time and the trilogy of time: the reality of retrospection and introspection and prospection. Here you have the past and the present and the future; and we catch a glimpse of eternity in the words that are couched and tucked away in these four verses.

I. CHRIST’S BELIEF ABOUT THE LAW

Let me rush to say that, in the opening words of Christ’s great sermonic discourse of the Sermon on the Mount, after discussing the character traits of the Kingdom Citizen through the Beatitudes, and the influence the Citizen of the Kingdom has through being Salt and Light – Jesus reveals clearly and succinctly that He believes the Bible. Of course, most are aware that the Bible, at the time of the text, consists of the Old Testament books of Genesis to Malachi.

There are two main truths Jesus we note regarding His belief about God’s Word:

First, that the Word of God is Inspired. Again and again, as we examine the words of our Lord in Word, He refers to Himself as the source and the subject of the Scriptures. Interestingly, in John 5:39, Jesus instructs them to, ‘….search the Scriptures…they testify of me.’ Tragically, the scribes were missing the key to the Scriptures: Christ! In fact, Jesus says to them in the 46th verse: ‘Now if you believed Moses, you would have believe me: for he wrote about me.’ In a nutshell, Jesus is the subject of the Bible. And Jesus Himself believed that the Old Testament Scriptures were inspired—they were the words of God!