September 7 & 8, 2002
2 Timothy 3:10-17
“Reading the Owner’s Manual”
The Ford Motor Company was incorporated and began production of the model A in 1903. As one would expect, they were pretty simple vehicles. There were really very few moving parts, they were open air cars and their top speed was in the single digits. There were so few instructions relating to their and subsequent models operation that an owners manual for Ford cars was not produced until 1934. In 1934 you had the choice of two models, the model Y and model C and there were three body colors that you could choose from, black, black and…black. Since 1934 there has been an owner’s manual produced for every Ford model car and truck. All other major car manufacturers copied this option by the end of 1937.
I am going to give you some statistics that are so large that it is almost impossible to get your hands around them. I sat in my office the other day and was just sort of awe struck by how big these numbers really are.
In 2000, there were 8,139,000 cars and trucks manufactured in the United States. That means, at minimum, that there were 8,139,000 owner’s manuals produced. I spoke to a young man recently in Dearborn Michigan that works in the Ford motor research department and he indicated that the price that Ford places upon creation, design, printing and distribution of each owner’s manual is $11.50. If that figure is pretty consistent across the industry, automobile manufacturers spent approximately $93,598,500 on a publication that rarely sees the light of day.
On the same day that I talked to Ramji in Dearborn Michigan, I also talked to Tom in New York City at the headquarters of the American Bible Society. After a couple hours of research on his part, he called and gave me the figure for the number of bibles published for world wide distribution in the United States in the year 2000. The figure that he felt most comfortable with was 150 million bibles. That is a one followed by a five followed by zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. That includes the figure supplied by the Gideon’s. They distributed 56,000,000 bibles in 108 countries that year. That is 107 copies per minute. See what I mean when I say that getting your hands around figures like that is awe inspiring? If the average price of those scriptures was $8.00, the total value of those scriptures would be 1.2 Billion dollars. That is B for Billion.
I was just wondering, How many of those bibles didn’t and still don’t see the light of day? Automobile Owner’s manuals and Bibles have a lot in common. There are a bunch of them published each year, everyone who needs one, can get one of them at a reasonable price. They are just chocked full of extremely useful information and many or rather, most of them never get read. Yet they both are the items we need to understand how things work, why they work the way they do and how all things can work better. Many people treat scripture like a deck of holy tarot cards. Need some inspiration or instruction? Flip open the bible, point a finger and do whatever it says. I once heard of a young Christian who decided one day that he wanted guidance on a matter so he opened his Bible and his finger fell upon Mt. 27:5
“And Judas went out and hanged himself”
Feeling that it wasn’t quite what he had in mind, he decided to open his Bible again and see if that Bible verse would help. As he opened the Bible his finger found Luke 10:37
“And Jesus said, “Go and do likewise”
Still not satisfied, he thought he’d give it another shot and he open the Bible up and his jabbed a finger onto John 13:27
“ What you are about to do, do quickly”
He joined 3,000 people who quit smoking that day and he was buried three days later. Not exactly the best way to get advice but it will work. To what end, I will not guarantee.
Last week we saw how Paul flashed a warning to his beloved Timothy. He shared with him what the last days would be like. Paul now turns his attention to helping us to understand how we can counteract the influences of the Godlessness of those last days. Lets read it together once again.2 Timothy 3:10-17;
10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings-what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. 11 Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 13 while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you have learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Here is our owners manual in full force.
The question being addressed by the Apostle Paul throughout his second letter to Timothy is, "How can a Christian survive during stressful and pressure-filled times? In a world gone insane with hate and passion, amidst a race that is destroying itself with moral filth and shameless self-indulgence, in a church which ’maintains the form of religion but denies the power thereof,’ how can a Christian maintain his integrity against the current of the day?" When these times of stress -- which the apostle describes so eloquently in the opening words of Chapter 3 of the letter -- come upon us with their pressuring, smothering, overwhelming push to sweep away our faith and destroy all that we believe in, what are we to do?
Paul’s answer is two-fold:
First, he says, "Do what I have done. All through my ministry I came up against those kinds of pressures." What the apostle did is quite evident: "Continue teaching the truth," he says; then, "Live righteously in action and attitude by the power of the God who indwells you"; and third, "Trust the Lord Jesus. The battle is the Lord’s, not ours."
St Francis of Assisi said: Preach the Gospel all the time – and if necessary use words!
The second part of Paul’s answer, "Saturate your mind with the Scriptures. Let your thinking be controlled by the Word of God"
The apostle outlines the process by which the Scriptures lay hold of our minds. He says to Timothy, "Continue in what you have learned." That is the first thing to do with the Bible -- learn what it says. Timothy had only the Old Testament, and, perhaps, just a few of the books which we call the Old Testament. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark might have been circulating then. He probably had most of the letters of Paul, because this is the last of them. Timothy was with him when he wrote some of those, so he likely preserved them for his own reading. But he had the written Word of God; and Paul commends him here that he has learned what it had to say.
That requires repeated reading. You cannot learn what the Bible has to say by reading it through once. There must be repeated, perhaps even daily, exposure to the written Word of God. The case for Bible reading is very simple put: There is no other way by which you can be exposed to the thinking of God except by reading the Word of God. The Bible is not in tune with secular philosophy. It is different than all the other books in the world because it is a compendium of the thoughts of God about human life. God is the ultimate realist. In the Bible he has condescended to give us his thoughts on everything about ourselves, about the world in which we live, the times that come upon us, about the morals and ethics of our behavior.
The Bible exposes us to what Paul calls in First Corinthians, "The secret and hidden wisdom of God, ... [which] none of the rulers of this age understand; for if they had they would not have crucified the Lord of glory," {cf, 1 Cor 2:7-8 RSV}. Think of that. If the leaders of thought of the Lord’s day had understood the thoughts of God they would not have made the terrible mistake of putting to death the One who is truth himself. Because the world does not know what is in this Book, it makes abominable mistakes. That is why it is so important that you expose yourselves to the Word of God. I want to point out two things that this will do for you:
First, it will drastically alter your own thinking. You cannot read this Book without being changed. You will think differently about yourself and others; you will regard your husband, or your wife, and your children in a totally different way. You will regard the frantic pursuit of wealth and pleasure, which the world goes in for, in a different light. You will make decisions on a totally different basis.
This Book will drastically alter the way you behave. I could tell you stories by the hour of how individuals started to read the Bible and had their whole outlook changed, sometimes within a short time.
There is, for instance, the true story of the mutiny on the Bounty. A group of British sailors on the ship H.M.S. Bounty mutinied in the early part of the nineteenth century, seized the ship and fled to the island of Pitcairn in the South Pacific. There they hid from British justice for many years. But they were such a community of cut-throats that their life there was desperate and dangerous. They were so debauched and degraded that they started killing each other off, until it looked as though their colony would only last a few years before it would be destroyed by their own debauchery.
Then one of the mutineers, Alexander Smith, found a Bible which his mother had placed in his trunk. He began to read it, and soon his own life was changed as he came to know the Lord through the Book. He taught it to the others and rather quickly life on the island took on a wholly different cast. When the mutineers were discovered, they were found to have an almost ideal community. There was no jail because there was no crime. They were godly people, every family among them transformed by the power of the Word of God.
That is the amazing quality of this Book. There is no other book in all of history that has that kind of a record. When you start reading your Bible you will find your thinking changed. You will be enabled to live realistically, to adjust to reality, to detect the confusions and the illusions of the world around and to correct the things that are destroying humanity. The truth of the Bible leads to life, not death. Anybody who believes that truth, and acts on it, will become enriched. Life becomes peaceful, calm, and joyful even in the midst of trouble.
Timothy acted upon what he had learned. You do not really believe something until you practice it. James says, "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves," (Jas 1:22 {RSV}). It does not do a bit of good to say you believe the Bible from cover to cover, like some people do. (I don’t do that -- I have some trouble with the maps in the back!) Do what it says. Practice the truth, act on it, take it to heart. The process begins with the mind being instructed, then the heart being fully convinced, then you practice what you believe.
That is how we deal with the stress of evil days, we rise above it by being convinced enough to put it into practice.
(Setting the clock from my owner’s manual.)
LL- Open the eyes of my Heart Lord.
8:45-#428- I Need Thee Every Hour.
11:00- Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord.
