How to Make Your Bible Come Alive | Part 1

From the Love We're Finding studios in Memphis, Tennessee, I'm Byron Tyler, here with Kerry Vong, the CEO of Love We're Finding. Kerry, we're in a series this month, The Bible, The Book of the Ages. I love this series. Dr. Rogers would say that we should obey the parts of the Bible that we know. And once we do that, God will open the door to the next part. Well, there's no magical way, Kerry, to understand the Bible. It takes work to understand God's Word.

Well, you have to work at it, like people work at their golf game, right? We have to be intentional. We have to be directional. And we have to chase after the Word of God. As Dr. Rogers would state, is there a promise to claim? Is there a lesson to learn?

Well, absolutely. But we have to aggressively go after the Word of God and digest it and reflect on it and ponder it. Well, Adrian Rogers will remind us today that our great need is to practice what we need, to be obedient. You know, Psalm 119 says, And there's a couple things I think we need to take note of when we go to God's Word, Kerry. Praying before reading God's Word is key, that our eyes will be opened, our hearts will be stirred, and our minds will be enlightened. And something that Adrian Rogers always talked about, it was a good practice, is to have a pen in hand and a notepad. That's right. He would say that the weakest ink is better than the best memory.

But you know, I thought about this the other day, Byron. For believers, is it truly another sermon or lesson or devotion that we need? Or should we just execute what we already know? Should we put to practice what God has already instilled in us?

Kerry, that is very sobering for me and I think many listening today. We don't need just a book of facts, right? We need a life change and we need to help others move into a life change. Yes, we do.

And sometimes we don't even need another setting. We need to apply it and live it out. Well, today we want to hear from one of our listeners. We always love this time when we can share from those who take time to send us an email, write us a letter to let us know how this program, Love We're Finding, is reaching them spiritually.

And Kerry, why don't you let people hear from a listener right now? This is from Facebook. It says, You know, again, just another affirmation that we're doing exactly what God has called us to do. We believe we've got the best message and we believe we've got the best messenger. Well, God's Word is the truth that we proclaim here at Love We're Finding. And this month of September, we have a special resource through the LWF online store that I encourage our friends to go check out, Nothing But the Truth DVD.

Kerry, tell us something about this. Oh, this is great. It's a new project. It's actually a documentary film showcasing the teaching and preaching of Adrian Rogers. And it has other people as well.

Eddie DeGarmo, Jennifer Rothschild, Ken Whitten, Johnny Hunt. I mean, people that we know and love are talking about what is absolute truth. Now, you and I know that truth is the Word of God, but to today's society, truth is whatever they want it to be.

Right. So what is truth in your marriage? What is truth in the workplace? What is truth in your finances to the unbeliever?

We we tackle all of that. So I would just encourage you go to the online store LWF.org. OK, obtain the Nothing But the Truth DVD and use it in the neighborhood, use it at church on a Sunday night, use it in small groups. It is a wonderful, wonderful discipleship tool. Well, today's message, how to make your Bible come alive. Part one.

Here's Adrian Rogers. Now, if you do not know, love, understand, practice and obey the Word of God, I can tell you without stutter, stammer or apology, you are not a victorious Christian. So we want to learn today how to study the Bible. How to make your Bible come alive.

How to make it burst a flame in your hand. And what we're going to say today is going to be taken from this wonderful psalm, Psalm 119. You know, knowledge is power in any realm, whether it be in the business realm, in athletics, in theology. Knowledge is power. If you have knowledge in good things, you'll do good.

If you have knowledge in bad things, you are a wicked person, but a powerfully wicked person if you have knowledge. So what we want to do today is to learn how to get the knowledge from the Word of God. You know, what people need today is truth. Let me read to you a prayer from someone in Kenya. And here's the prayer, Lord, from the cowardice that dares not face new truth, from the laziness that is contented with half truth, from the arrogance which thinks it has all truth, good Lord, deliver me.

Amen. Now, I hope that you will not have cowardice this morning and be afraid of truth, that you will not have laziness and accept half truth, or that you will not have arrogance and think that you need no truth. Friend, it is knowledge, it is truth that transforms. There was a sign in a business that said, we are not what we think we are. What we think we are. That is, you are what you think.

As a man thinketh, so is he. That's what the Bible says in Proverbs 23, verse 7. Now, if that is true, if knowledge is power, we need the knowledge of the Word of God to have spiritual power. We need to be molded, motivated, and managed by the Word of God. And yet, for many, the Bible remains a closed book, a mysterious book, and they really give lip service to the Bible, but they really do not understand it.

Now, there's no cheap way, there's no lazy way, there's no magical way to understand the Bible, but it is not impossible. As a matter of fact, it is joyful, it is thrilling, and I want to talk to you today about how to understand the Word of God. Now, this psalm, Psalm 119, is by far the longest psalm in the Bible, and it is what we call an acrostic. Now, an acrostic is something that starts with an arrangement of letters. This acrostic is an acrostic on the Hebrew alphabet, and it is divided up into sections. There are 22 stanzas, and each stanza, you wouldn't know that by reading it in English, but each stanza starts with a letter in the Hebrew alphabet and goes through the sections, 22 sections. And each verse in each of these 22 sections starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

I know that's a great blessing to you, but anyway, that's true. That is true, and you would understand that there is a sort of a logical arrangement here, and the writer of this 119th psalm is writing to give us some statements about the Word of God. The entire psalm, many verses, well over 100 verses, each of these verses is dealing with the Word of God to help us to know and understand the Word of God. Now, I want to tell you three things, and there'll be some subsets under these three things, but I want to tell you three things that if you will do these things, I can promise you, and I've prayed over this.

I've thought over this. If you will do these three things, I can promise you that the Bible will burst a flame in your heart, in your mind, and in your life. Number one, you must appreciate the virtues of the Word of God. Now, if you don't appreciate the virtues of the Word of God, you're not going to have any desire to learn it or know it. Many people do not understand the great value, the great virtue in the Word of God. You must have an appreciation for the Word of God. Why should you appreciate the Word of God? Number one, because it is a timeless book. Put that in your notes, a timeless book. Look, if you will, now in verse 89, for example, in this psalm.

He says here in verse 89, forever, O Lord, listen to that, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. That is, the Bible is not the book of the month. It is not the book of the year. It is the book of ages.

It is an unchanging book. Look, if you will, in verse 152 in this same psalm, concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou has founded them what? Forever. God says it is done. It's settled in heaven.

I have founded it forever. Look, if you will, in verse 160, thy word is true from the beginning. You see, folks, other books come and go. The Bible is here to stay.

It is founded in heaven. Thousands of years have passed since the Bible was written. Empires have risen and fallen and gone from the scene.

Civilizations have changed and re-changed. Science is pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, and yet the Bible stands. There have been emperors who have decreed the extermination of the Bible. There are plenty of atheists who laugh at the Bible and have railed at it. There are agnostics who cynically sneer at the Bible. There are liberals who have moved heaven and earth to remove the miracles from the Bible. There are many materialists who just simply ignore the Bible. But the Bible stands. There are radicals and cultists who rave over it. In other ways, I know the Bible is the Word of God. It stood up under so much shoddy preaching.

Dr. Robert G. Lee, a great man, said this, and I quote him now. Speaking of the Bible, he says, All of its enemies have not torn one hole in its holy vesture, nor stolen one flower from its wonderful garden, nor diluted one drop of honey from its abundant hive, nor broken one string on its thousand-stringed heart, nor found one sweet word in infidelity. He's just simply saying what God says about himself. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. And just as an ancillary verse from the New Testament, put 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 25, But the word of the Lord endureth forever. The Bible is timeless. The Bible is ultimate. The Bible is indestructible. So, we're talking of the virtues of the Word of God that you must appreciate. It's a timeless book. Number two, it is a truthful book.

Do you have that? It is a truthful book. Look, if you will, in verse 142. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.

Look, if you will, in 151. Thou art near, O Lord, and all thy commandments are truth. Look, if you will, in verse 160. Thy word is true from the beginning. Pilate asked Jesus, what is truth? Jesus said in John chapter 17, speaking to the Father, thy word is truth. And in a world that has lost its appreciation for truth, you can say without stutter or stammer that the Bible is true. Now, we have some theological experts today who think they ought to reexamine the Bible. As far as I'm concerned, we ought to reexamine them.

I'm serious. Now, there are all kinds of attacks on the Bible today. There's just a sheer frontal attack of liberalism and the liberals who deny it. Then there's an attack from the rear, which is perhaps more insidious, and they're talking about their experiences all of the time. And they're saying, well, I know what I feel or what I think. And sometimes they'll even argue with you, and they'll say, I don't care what the Bible says.

Let me tell you what I experienced. Paul had to deal with some of those in Corinth. And Paul said to them and put this verse down, 1 Corinthians 14, verses 37 and 38, if any man think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. There were some who had gotten off into charismatic hocus pocus in Corinth, and they'd gone wild about tongues and prophecies and visions and ecstasies, and Paul tried to set them in order. And they were saying, oh, well, let me tell you, Brother Paul, what a spiritual man I am. And let me tell you, Brother Paul, I have a gift of prophecy. Paul says, if you think you're a prophet, if you think you're spiritual, then you will acknowledge what I say is the Word of God. And then he says something almost humorous. He says, but if any man will be ignorant, let him be ignorant, just a shrug of his shoulders.

Evidently, he'd met some of these people that you and I meet around here today. Listen, folks. There are people who want to bring the Bible under their experience. I say there is the frontal attack of the Bible by those who rail against it and deny it. There's an attack from the rear by those who want to substitute their experience for the Word of God, and then there's an attack from the flank from the side. These are they who don't necessarily deny the Bible, but they kind of want to replace it, or they want to prop it up with psychology and with philosophy and these other things as if the Bible itself is not good enough. But, friend, the Bible is true, and if you're looking for truth, you can find it in the Bible.

And why is this? Put this first down, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, and it says this, all Scripture, listen, all Scripture, all holy writing is given by inspiration of God. That word inspiration is used only once in the Bible, but what a magnificent word it is, theonustus. Theonustus. It means literally it is God-breathed.

Theo meaning God, nustus meaning the breath of God. If we were to pronounce it as it is written, we'd say penustus, like a pneumatic pneumonia. We don't say pumonia. We say pneumonia, but it actually has to do with the breath. We say a pneumatic tire. We don't say a pneumatic tire.

But what he's saying, it is theopneustus, or theonustus. That is, it is the breath of God. What are you hearing right now? You're hearing the breath of Adrian. I am speaking, and so my lungs have air. My diaphragm, my rib cage, is forcing the lungs to expel the air. The air is coming up out of my throat over my larynx.

It is causing my vocal cords to vibrate, and my tongue and my teeth and my lips are making sounds, and what you are hearing right now is the breath of Adrian. Now, what the Bible says, all Scripture is the breath of God. It is God-breathed. Read what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 4, verse 4. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, now listen to this next phrase, by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. He was talking about the Bible. He was talking about the Bible, and he says that every word proceeds from the mouth of God. It is not simply that God breathed into the Scriptures. God breathed the Scriptures out.

Yes, he used human penment. Yes, there was Isaiah, Jeremiah. Yes, there was Matthew and Paul.

Yes, there was Mark, but these men were the penment of God. These men were the voice of God as God is speaking. Holy men of God spake as they were moved, the Bible says, by the Holy Ghost, and therefore the Bible is true because a God of truth cannot speak error.

Say amen. Listen, if you pick up just the Old Testament, you will find phrases like this, the word of the Lord or the word of God or God spake or the Lord said, you will find that phrase used 3,808 times. God said, the word of the Lord came unto me, thus saith the Lord, 3,808 times. If the Bible is not the very word of God, it's the biggest bundle of lies that have ever come to planet earth. No, it is true, absolutely.

Listen, what am I saying? The Bible is a timeless book. The Bible is a truthful book, and the Bible therefore should be a treasured book. Look, if you will, in verse 72 of this same thing. He says here, the law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. I wonder if that is true of you. I'm going to tell you the truth.

God is listening to me right now, and God knows that is absolutely true of me. If you were to heap this side of this platform, I mean heap it with gold, silver, rubies, diamonds, bonds, stocks, till the goat went from floor to ceiling and over here put the word of God and said, you can have one or the other. You cannot have both. I would not have to hesitate. I would choose this. I wouldn't even have to think about it.

It would be a given. Look, if you will, in verse 103. How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Look, if you will, in verse 127. Therefore, I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold.

It is to be a treasured book. The saints and the heroes have pillared their head upon the word of God as they walked through the chilly waters of the river of death, and the martyrs who died for the witness of Jesus Christ have held the Bible to their bosom as the creeping flames would come around their feet. Oh, the early church, they loved the word of God. They'd never questioned it.

They argued very little about it. They preached it. They proclaimed it.

They pronounced it. They poured it forth like white, hot lava. They loved it. They lived it. They practiced it. They trusted it. They obeyed it.

They claimed it constantly. Do you know why the Bible is treasured? You've known it for a long time. Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Jesus loves me.

This I know, for the Bible tells me so. You will never have a victorious Christian life if you do not love this book. Now, it is like treasure. Suppose there were buried treasure in your backyard.

You'd go down to the hardware store and get a spade if you don't have one. Folks, I'm telling you, this is God's treasure book. It is a timeless book. It is a truthful book.

It is a treasured book. So, the first point is you must, you must appreciate the virtues of the Word of God. You must appreciate the virtues of the Word of God because if you don't, you're not going to have any desire to understand it.

Now, here's the second thing. Not only must you appreciate the virtues of the Word of God, you must assimilate the vitality of the Word of God. I chose the word vitality on purpose because the word vitality means alive. Now, listen, the Bible is a living book.

Hebrews 4, 12, put it in your margin. The Word of God is quick and powerful. The word quick means alive.

It is the word we get our word zoo from, or zoology from. It is zoan and in our case, alive is the word we get our word energy from. It is living, it is energetic. Jesus, in John chapter 6, was speaking to some unbelievers and he said to them and to his disciples, listen to it, in John chapter 6, verse 63, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. See, the Bible is vital.

The Bible pulsates with life. Now, that's the reason why I'm saying that not only must you appreciate it, you must assimilate it. You don't just read the cookbook, you eat the meal. Now, if you don't assimilate it, no matter how much you appreciate it, what good is it going to do you? Now, how do you assimilate the Word of God? Get your pen, write these first things down. Number one, write down pray over it.

Pray over it. Look, if you will, in verse 12 of this chapter now. Blessed art thou, O Lord.

Here it is. Teach me thy statutes. Have you ever prayed that? Lord God, be my teacher. Pray over it.

Ask God to teach you. When you pray over it, what will happen? Number one, your eyes will be opened. Look, if you will, in verse 18. Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. God will open your eyes. There are scales over your eyes until God takes the scales off so you can read this book. You may have 20-20 vision, but God has to open your eyes to behold wondrous things in thy law. Do you remember there in the 24th chapter of Luke after his resurrection, Jesus is walking with those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the Bible says he began to talk to them about the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, and then here's a great verse. In Luke 24 and verse 45, it says, Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.

Wouldn't you like for God to do that for you? And we'll hear part two of this important message coming up tomorrow, but today, if you have questions regarding your faith in Jesus, we'd love to offer an insightful resource on our website. It's our Discover Jesus page. There you'll find answers you may need about your faith, how to place that faith fully in Jesus Christ, and we have a response section. Share how this message or others have made a difference in your life. Go there today, lwf.org slash radio, and click on the tab that says Discover Jesus. Again, lwf.org slash radio. Well, thank you for studying in God's Word with us today. Be sure to sign up for our daily heartbeat emails. You'll get daily devotions and message links sent straight to your inbox. To sign up, just go to lwf.org slash radio. And join us tomorrow for part two of How to Make Your Bible Come Alive, right here on Love Worth Finding.