The Bible is presented as a good and great book, not merely a collection of human writings but God-inspired Scripture. Its goodness is evident in its reputation, its transformative effect on readers, and the positive repercussions it has on their lives, making them glad and leading them to goodness. The sermon highlights its greatness through its status as a global bestseller, its translation into numerous languages, and its foundational role in the conduct of free nations, all stemming from its divine content and principles. Ultimately, the Bible's divine inspiration is the source of its power, offering fresh insights and profound truths to those who engage with it, urging listeners to read, digest, and be changed by it.
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I'm sure that when Timothy received this letter and read it for the first time, it must have been a challenge to him. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. I charge thee, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, the instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
They shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned to fables. I used to love to go to Edinburgh. Edinburgh is a beautiful city in Scotland. And when I went to Edinburgh, I always did at least three things. First of all, I couldn't leave the city without walking the royal mile. It ran from John Knox's house.
You've heard of John Knox. He was a reformer. And his house stands today. Old, old house, going back to the fifteen hundred. And that is where the Royal Mile begins, and it ends at Holyrood Palace. It's called the Royal Mile because it leads to the palace. The second thing that I always do, or have done in the past, is go to see the camera obscura. I don't know where there is another one, but I know that there are others.
How many of you have never heard of a camera obscura? Then I have to tell you what it does. You go into a room, it's just a very small room, the one that I used to visit, and it doesn't hold many people. And when you get in the room, you find there isn't very much room to stand. because the room is almost filled with a big white disc placed horizontally and suspended by chains to the ceiling. The camera is mounted somewhere out on one of the walls and to get to it you have to climb a steep hill because the camera looks down upon Edinburgh Castle.
and they put out the lights. And then the camera is illuminated. And there is shown on this big white screen, and it's very bright, a picture of everything that is happening at that minute, at that second, in and around the castle. You can see the people walking. You can see the taxis riding. you can see the guards on duty. And it's all being seen as if you were feet up in an airplane. It's all laid out before you on that white table.
It's really a hanging screen. I don't know what it's made of, but it's a solid screen and very white. If you ever get a chance to see a camera obscure, By all means, go and see it. Every time I've been to Edinburgh, I've been to see the camera obscura. There's one other thing that's on the Royal Mile, and that is the monument to Sir Walter Scott. He was a poet, a famous Scottish poet.
He also wrote historical novels, very true to history. He was a man who made his mark in Scotland and was knighted by the King of England in Scotland. And he became Sir Walter Scott. The third thing that I do is mount, is go up the many steps to the top of the Scott Monument, where you get to look up Prince's Street and down Prince's Street.
And you can actually view the whole of the Royal Mile. Those are the three things that I do when I go to Scotland, to Edinburgh. But so Walter Scott did a lot of things that were remarkable in his life. He produced a lot of things so that he is well known in British history. But when he was before he was two years of age, he had a strange illness that made him a cripple for the whole of his life. Eventually, he found himself for many, many, many months on a bed of sickness, and he didn't rise from it.
He died at the end of a long illness. But one day, while he was ill, one of his relatives, I think it was a nephew, came to see him and spent a little time with Sir Walter Scott. And then Scott drew him up short, and he said to him, Read to me. Read to me. Even in his bedroom there was a wall of books. His nephew said to him, if indeed he was a nephew, which books shall I read?
And he scanned the books with his eyes. And so Walter Scott said, Books, Books, there is only one book. And that's the scripture. That was his evaluation of the book that you have in your hand. Books, books, there is only one book. There are many things in our lives as believers that we should appreciate, and I'm sure we do. But sometimes, although we cherish our Bibles, we don't treat them very nicely.
I heard a story about a little girl who was very, very interested to know why the wall didn't go all the way up to the ceiling. Actually, it wasn't the wall she was looking at. It was a big wardrobe that filled the side, the room from side to side, but it didn't quite go up high enough to hit the ceiling. And she used to wonder whether there was anything on the top of the wardrobe. And one day she got a tall stool.
She dragged it up the stairs. and she put it in front of the wardrobe and then using the stage she climbed up until she could stand on the top and she found that the the wardrobe came up to here so she stood on tip-tow until she could see on the top and she got down and she wondered the next time she was sitting at the table she was sitting at the table with him and she said mommy What is that big book that's on the top of the wardrobe? Her mother said, a big book on the top of the wardrobe.
Yes, mommy, the big book on the top of... Oh, and then her mother thought about it. Oh, that's the family Bible, she said. That's God's book. The little girl said, well, don't you think we ought to send it back to him? We never use it. she discovered it. It was the first time that she saw it. Some people are like that with the Bible. Not at all acquainted with it. It's God's book, but they don't appreciate it for what it is. We don't use it.
Now, I know that's not true in your home. I know that you use your Bible. I use my Bible. In fact, I've got three new Bibles, and I can't bring myself to use them. And the back of my Bible is like that, from Revelation chapter seventeen to the end, and the rest I have to handle very gingerly, because it's falling apart. I have another Bible exactly like this one, except this is a loose leaf. The other one is bound. But the printing is the same. And that's the one that I shall eventually go to.
But I found out when I took it down from my shelf that the back had gotten hard and it's broken its back. So I still am using my old Bible. It's not quite as old as my Bible, but the case is also ancient. And the zipper I had to cut away because something happened to it and I couldn't use it. but I love this Bible. I have pages that are so dirty I'd be ashamed for you to see them. One page in particular. But I know that you know all about this because your Bible has pages that you turn to so very often and they become soiled.
The one I'm looking at here is Certainly not a clean page, but it's not the most soiled in my Bible. I have several of them, and I'm getting to the point now where the edges are getting fuzzy, and it's getting hard for me to find the place that I need. And so I am going to have to lay my old Bible aside before very long, I'm sure. But how I'll get on with a new one, I cannot imagine. It is not an amazing thing that your Bible does not say Bible on it.
It says Holy Bible. I never saw a Bible that didn't say Holy Bible on it. Because the Bible is a very wholesome book. and it's about good and holy things. It is a holy book. Think about it. In this world that is so vile and so spoiled and so vile and in its reading, among other things, You know, I picked up a magazine in the doctors this past week, and it was a teen age magazine.
I was trying to remember the name of it, but I'd forgotten it. And I turned over page and page and page. There were some small articles written by teenagers. and they were written in a request for things that made you embarrassed. One after the other, I could not believe it, that the minds of teenagers are being so polluted in print that they can go back to and read again and again.
I thought that publisher has a lot to answer for before God. This is enough to ruin the lives of teenagers. I know we live in a bad world. And I know that things are falling apart. But I don't think that there ever should be an opportunity for a publisher to put on the market what he put on the market for teenagers to read. Dirty books abound. in these days and they are not dirty in the sense that my Bible is dirty this is from use it's the content that is vile now the Bible is full of holy things it's a good book I suppose there are lots of good books but This is surely a good book because, well, think of its reputation.
Right across the face of the globe, it doesn't matter where you'll go, you'll find not only Bibles, but those who love those Bibles. And people have them. Even people who don't read the Bible have a Bible in these days. It's respectable to have a Bible. The Bible is a good book, and it ought to be in your library or sitting not on the top of your wardrobe, but somewhere much more easy to lay hold of. The Bible has a good reputation, so much so that people revere it. They know that this is no ordinary book.
and the publishers right at the beginning thought we can't just put Bible on this book we have to put holy Bible because it is such a holy book such a good book isn't it tragic that so many people have never opened a Bible possessed one may be or been in a house where there was one but Nobody in the home ever opens it and reads it. They have it because the Bible has a reputation. And somehow they think it's going to help them before God if at least they have a Bible in the house.
It doesn't really work that way. But the Bible has a reputation. And people buy and own Bibles because. it has a reputation many of these people as I remind you do not read the Bible but when people do read the Bible this is another thing that indicates how good a book it is people can't regularly read the Bible without it having an impact on their lives and most people who are not Christians know that somehow the Bible makes a difference to those Christians that they know who read it so often.
I heard a story about two men who had to cross a wide expanse of land several miles. It was very barren land. It was There were very few people who lived on it. And they were carrying a lot of money. And they were very much afraid. They avoided every place that they thought they would meet people because they were afraid. They knew that there were people not hard to find who would kill them for what they were carrying.
But the darkness fell. and they couldn't keep walking and so they said we've got to find a place to stay in the distance as they walked and walked there was a glimmer of light there must be something there when they got closer they found it was a very tiny cottage it had two stories but it didn't look as though it was very sturdy but they looked all the way around and there was nothing else Perhaps the people here would put us up. But they decided that they had to make their money, this money they were carrying, secure.
They mustn't give any idea to whoever was in that house that they were carrying this. And so they knocked at the door, and it was an old man came to the door. And they asked him, is there any possibility? that you could put us up for the night we're on a long journey and this is as far as we could get today and we don't see anywhere else the old man threw the door wide open and he said we haven't much to offer you but my wife or and I will be very happy to have you as our guests tonight they had a warm welcome they said we have a garret upstairs it's not luxurious but we think you'll be comfortable and we'll sleep well.
The two men didn't stay downstairs, they were uncomfortable because of what they knew they were carrying, and so they soon excused themselves, climbed the rickety stairs and went into the garret. There was a bed there, it was a double bed, so they were going to be comfortable. But what to do with the money? They were mulling it over, they were talking about it, they were looking around to see where they could hide it. But you know, the planks of the flooring were not a trunk and there were little cracks in which the light was shining. And so one of the men said, I wonder what they're doing downstairs.
Have you thought of any place where we can hide the money? I don't see anything. This man got down, put his eye to the crack, and he looked and he had a good view of what was happening downstairs. He got him onto his knees and stood up on his feet and said, You don't need to find a place to hide the money. They are reading the Bible down there. It's a good book. It must be, because it affects the lives of people that read it. People grow gooder and gooder when they read the good word of God.
Having tasted the good word of God. No need to hide the money, they're reading the Bible down there. So it's not only its reputation that makes us realize it's a good book, but its readers, because that good book changes them into good people, saved people. The message of the book is a transforming message. A good word. Now, you know, the Bible that has a reputation and whose readers are so blessed by reading it has repercussions in the life.
You cannot read the Bible and carefully read it and read it consistently without being changed. It can't be done. Listen to the word of the Scripture about itself. A good word maketh glad. Now that's in Proverbs. A good word maketh glad. Bible readers are happy people and in an unhappy world that's why they stand out. And the Bible, the word of God, has that kind of a repercussion. It's a good book because it leads to goodness into the lives or in the lives of those who read it.
It changes them. A good word maketh glad. Bible reading makes a man or woman happy because God speaks through it. How many times have you gone to your Bible with a burden on your heart, and you read it, and little by little the burden was lifted. Things were still the same when you finished reading as when you began, but God had done something, reminding you, I'm with you. My hand is for you.
You have nothing to fear. You know, my mother used to have a promise box. How many of you have had a promise box in the past? Yes. Whenever we had visitors, and when we didn't, at night, the last thing we would do was take a promise for the night. I'll tell you how we used to do it, because they were in little rolls. They were rolled up and you had to open them up and then we would read them in turn. She had what she called a curvy grip. You remember curvy grips? I don't know what you call them over here. I never wear them. But ladies wear them. She would take one out of her hair and she would make sure it's clean and then she would put it into one of the rolls and start the journey of the box around the table.
you push the thing down, pull it out, and there was a little roll. The next one took it and did that, and then when we all had one, we would open them. Now, I remember my oldest sister who has never, as far as I know, never did become a Christian, passed away in South Africa, and a young man was courting her. And he came to visit her one night, on a motorcycle. And at the end of the year of the day, when we were about to part, my mother said, Well, let us take our promise for the night.
So she took out the box, and it was passed around, and he, like the rest of us, my sister too, and she was not a Christian, but we all did it. And when he read his, we read them out in turn, when he read his, It was the verse that says, What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. He read it. It didn't seem to convey very much to him, but he said this, irreverently. I hope he isn't puncturing my tires. I'm not kidding you now. He went out to his motorbike, and both his tires were flat.
Don't ask me how it happened. I didn't do it. Nobody else left the house and did it. But that man went out to get on his bike. And he couldn't take it down to the gas station to get the tires pumped up. You don't do that in England. You'd have to pay for it if you did. He had to go with a hand pump and put enough air in to be able to carry his weight. I hope he isn't puncturing my tires. but his tires were both flat and they weren't punctured. I don't know how it happened. Nobody in the house knows how it happened. But you can't trifle with God and you can't trifle with the Word of God.
Here it is. The reputation makes it a good book. Its readers prove that it's a good book and its repercussions make differences. in the life. A good word maketh glad. So people are made happy through the Bible. Here's another one. Proverbs again, fifteen, twenty-three. A word spoken in season, how good it is. Now you can appreciate that, can't you? A word spoken in season. It's very easy for us human beings to say the wrong thing at the right time. You know, it's just not the time to say it, but we say it.
The Bible says, a word spoken in season, how good it is. Sometimes we're meant to speak. Sometimes we're meant to keep silent. A word in season. Now I was talking this morning about our need to keep on as missionaries carrying the word. I think of all the people that you come into contact with. I wonder how concerned you are about their concerns. I wonder if you ever meet a person and when you leave and you say, I'm so sorry for him or I'm so sorry for her.
What a burden they carry. You know, it would be a wonderful thing. Maybe God has a ministry there for you just to pray with them, go and visit them and see them and try to be a help to them. Give them the word of God, because a word spoken in season, how good it is. You know, I recall where I lived, one of the homes that I lived in in Birmingham, there was a lady, a woman, lived across the road. She had no time for spiritual things. She would sometimes exchange... nice it is on the street when my mother and she would meet, but she always had a snide word about her religion, about being a goody-goody and so on.
The war broke out, and one of our big aircraft carriers, the Ark Royal, sailed out into battle and was sunk. And her son was on the Ark Royal and died in its sinking. She wanted a shoulder to cry on. She wanted comfort. Where did she come? She came to my mother. Because she knew my mother had a secret that comforted her. She wept on her shoulder and they read the scriptures together. And I believe she went home a woman who learned a big thing about my mother's religion and about the book that my mother loved so much.
A word spoken in season. How good it is. In Proverbs chapter four, there's another one, verse two. I give you good doctrine. Keep it and live. And all of that good doctrine comes out of the book. This is the Bible. This is the Holy Bible. This is the good book that God has given to us. and it will meet our every need if we bathe ourselves in it. But you know, it's not only a good book. The Bible is a great book.
It's a great book. A lot of people would be taken aback if they heard me say that. What is it, they ask, and sometimes seriously, what is it about the Bible that makes it a Bible that is a famous book, an accepted book, apparently a necessary book. What is it? It is because the book is not only good, it's a great book. Do you know what book is the bestseller every day of every week, of every month, of every year? One book more than any other.
sells better than every other book. It's the Bible. It's the best seller. I'll tell you something I learned very recently. I put it down here because it struck me. The Bible has been translated, now note the next phrase, into several times more languages than any other book. It's not only been translated more than any other book, but several times more than any other book. Think how the Bible has crossed the globe, crisscrossed it in all directions. Think about how far it's gone to reach the savage.
There are men who used to kill one another. There are barbarians who used to live lives of violence. They got hold of a book, and God spoke to them through that book, and they became totally changed. It's a bestseller because it is not only a great book, it's the greatest of all books. And yet you know there are a lot of believers that neglect it. Oh yes, I own a Bible. How many times do you read it? How many times do you sit down for it with hours at your desk and pour over it?
How many times do you look at a verse and say, I don't quite understand this. And you get down before God and say, Lord, I want you to show me what you're saying to me in this verse. We ought to be well acquainted with the book. And we ought to spend time with the book. We ought to study the book. Because the more we have of the book... the more the book has of us and being a great book it'll make our lives greater lives and not only is it a bestseller and that makes it a great book it's been translated as I said into several times more languages than any other book and here's something else the Bible is the basis of conduct for all the free nations of the world, whatever their language.
Now that's rather startling. That certainly should shake us up to realize that. The basis of their conduct is the Word of God. It is the Bible. Maybe they don't know that. But the things that are the strength of their countries are things that the Bible propounds. The secrets are all in this book. And sometimes you can get benefits and not realize where they've come from. But they've come from here. This good book. And this great book. But it's not only great because it's a bestseller.
And great because it's been translated into so many, many languages. And not only because it's the basis of the conduct of all the free nations on the earth. but it's because of its content mostly the principles that the Bible expounds think about principle I can remember my mother would say of a person that she had had contact with my mother seemed to be a very wise woman she was able to weigh people up I'm sure she made some mistakes sometimes But you know, she would say she has no principle.
She has no principle. If a person in her thinking had no principle, if her life wasn't governed by the right principles, then that person was not a person that I should have anything to do with. The Bible is full of principles. It propounds them. I listed some of them here, but I'll not take time to read them. But the world says the means, the end justifies the means. The end justifies the means.
That's not a principle. that's found in the Bible. It's a bad principle. But a lot of people live by that principle and they become crooked because of it. The end does not justify the means. Here's another one. Oh, you can get anything you like with money and favors. Bible doesn't teach that. That's not a Bible principle. Buy your way with money or favors.
The Bible condemns that. I don't know how else to express it. but it's a wrong principle. Here's another one. A man talks one way and acts another. Do you ever meet people like that? They talk out of one side of their mouth when they're talking to you, out of the other side of their mouth when they're talking to somebody else, and the Bible has nothing to do with that kind of principle. That is unprincipled.
To talk one way and to act another. The Bible says, Be what you are. And make sure that what you are is what you ought to be. The principles it expounds. The standards it upholds. Search the book and see. how it teaches honesty and integrity, consideration one of another, unselfishness, kindness, and so on.
All of these things are principles that are standards that the Bible upholds and exhorts and would place upon us. Think about the warnings that it raises. The Bible is a great book because if you read the Bible, which tells it like it is, you'll be warned about a number of things. It says if you sin, you'll suffer the consequences of sin. No beating about the bush. You sin, you'll pay the price.
and that's true of the unsaid and it's as true of the believer. You sin, you pay the price. That's what the Word of God tells us. If you neglect and don't do what you should do, even if you're not doing what you shouldn't do, you still will have a price to pay. The Bible teaches that. If you refuse what the word of God has to say, you'll die in your sins. And the Bible, which upholds those standards and raises those warnings, unfolds a lot of prospects.
This is a book that speaks of heaven. And it speaks of heaven in a way that makes you want to go there. This is the book that speaks of hell, and it speaks of hell in such a way that you wouldn't want to go there. This is the book that speaks about a day that's coming unexpectedly. when Jesus will rend the heavens and he will appear. The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. The dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
You know, the world's going to wake up one day and say, what's happened? What's happened? And slowly through the day. It's going to dawn upon them. Everybody they knew around them that was a Christian is gone in an instant. And if they have gone, then they'll remember what they were told about the second coming of Jesus. And then their hearts will break because they'll realize they're left behind to perish. It's the Bible. that tells us about heaven and hell and tells us about the second coming of the Lord Jesus. There's also the prospect of judgment in the future.
For the believer, at the judgment seat of Christ, as we were hearing from Brother Dunn, for the unbeliever, the great white throne, but every individual is going to be judged. as a sinner or as a sinner saved by grace the Bible teaches that's a prospect the sinner will be judged at the great white throne and banished eternally from God's presence and he will be delivered into hell but the believer will go to be with Christ, which is far better.
You know, I should finish because, of course, the secret of all this is this, this good book, and this great book is a God-inspired book. All Scripture is given by inspiration from God. This is not man's word, though man wrote it. It's God's inspired word. And when we read it, we must always read it as words empowered by the Spirit of God, so that always there's something fresh for us. When God does things, He does them so wonderfully.
We can go to the Bible and we can see something. We may have had a Bible fifty years, but we can open up something and suddenly say, I never saw that there before. Did you ever have that kind of experience? Such a wonderful book. I better shut up. The time has gone. Let's pray together, shall we? And let's thank God for the book of God, for the Bible that we have in our hands. for the Spirit of God who interpreted it to us. May we be challenged to meet its demands. Our Father, we commend ourselves as a congregation to the, we thank you for all that you've told us about your word.
We thank you that in every one of our hearts there is a concern about your word. More likely than not, there's a love for your word. It always solemnizes our hearts. But the word is there to encourage us. It's there to challenge us. It is there to comfort us. So many wonderful things in this great book. Please grant, Lord, that our Bible will not remain on the shelf. but that we might read it, inwardly digest it, and be changed by it for your glory.