Miners In The Word

Bunbury

Sun am

24/07/11

“Miners of the Word”

Intro: *** Ps Farrell was telling me last week that now in the middle of winter he comes into the building for morning prayer & some of the folks who have been in prayer go through & turn lights on everywhere. When he arrives he comes along & turns them all off!

The other morning he came into the sanctuary, the lights were already off & he notices that behind one of the pull up banners there is a glow. He goes to investigate & on the other side of the banner is Dave H***ey sitting there on a chair in the dark w/ a cap on & lights across the top of his cap shining down on his Bible so he can read it.

I couldn’t help thinking about the miners who go down into the underground shafts w/ miner’s helmet w/ a light on top.

Here was Dave like a miner in the dark of the underground but only he’s mining nuggets out of the Bible instead of the ground!

God’s word is not just a historical book which entombs the history of His people but the instrument through which He purposes to enrich / empower our lives.

Therefore – what we do w/ God’s Word determines what God’s Word does in us!

** Someone has rightly said many years ago now that “The Word of God is shallow enough for babes to drink from & deep enough for theologians to drown in.”

God’s purpose is not to drown you in His Word but like a miner we can dig into the depths of it & bring out nuggets & gems that will enrich our lives.

Like a pearl diver we can plumb its depths & bring up pearls of great price.

The exhortation of our text is that we would dig deep into God’s Word to extract its great riches.

God wants you to be like a miner in His Word!

T/m I want to preach on ‘Miners of the Word’.

Text: 2 Timothy 2:15 ( NKJV ) 15Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Let me also read it to you from the KJV ……

2 Timothy 2:15 ( KJV ) 15Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

# 1. Mining methods.

A. Serious mining operations require a serious commitment.

a. W/ gold mining operations there is a certain amount of profit that is made in alluvial deposits.

i. Alluvial deposits are deposits that basically sit on the surface & profit can be made w/o a lot of work being done – hence prospectors.

ii. In many cases gold nuggets can be found by just examining rocks that are lying on the ground.

*** Wayne B***n came up w/ an impact team one time to Kalgoorlie to help impact the city. During the spare time in the afternoon he decided to go & do a bit of prospecting. Strangely enough he decided to go to a pile of dirt that had been dumped at the top end of Hannan St, the main street of town. Personally I thought it was a waste of time & energy! But about an hour or so later he came back to my house w/ a gold nugget he had found while he was walking around fossicking in the dirt.

*** A man I did some work for there in Kalgoorlie many years ago found some gold nuggets on a small mining lease he had there & sold it to a company for $700,000!

*** Small mining operations can often make a quick buck by coming in w/ a loader, scraping up the top soil of a mining lease & processing it. They often find thousands of dollars of alluvial gold in the crushing on top soil.

iii. Now the Word of God is like this! There are gems / nuggets that can be picked up simply by making your way through its pages!

iv. The problem w/ this is that its very hit / miss – sometimes there are big profits striking alluvial deposits ….. other times there’s nothing much to be found.

b. Serious mining operations involve some deep digging.

i. Profitable mining operations make a study of the area they are going to mine first.

ii. Geologists come in & check out the ground & then there is test drilling / geological surveys / metallurgists / mining engineers etc.

iii. What I’m saying is that if you are going to get some gain / profit / enrichment out of this book you are going to have to dig deep – that’s where the profits are!