Lawrence, David: The Value Of God's Word ~ Atlantic Lyman Ministry

I have no intention of really getting up here. I came to listen, but the brethren very graciously have given me this opportunity, and I do indeed appreciate it. After hearing our brother this morning, I think one of the things that was pressed upon our minds was the value of the precious word of God. And I want to continue with that theme in the little talk that I will give to you this afternoon, the value of God's precious word. And I'm going to read a few verses from the epistles of Peter. Uh, first of all, in second Peter, chapter three, reading the first two verses of chapter three: uh This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of our Lord and Savior. Now there you have the completeness of the word of God. The completeness of the word of God. Now look at the first chapter of the same epistle, and verses twenty and twenty one. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not of old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And there you have the interpreter of the word. Now, in the fifth, the rather the third chapter of the First Epistle, we read these few verses. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may, without the word, be won by the behavior, might be a better word, of the wives. While they behold your chaste behavior, coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold or of putting on or apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters they are, as long as they do well and are not afraid with any amazement. Now there you have the subjection to God's word. Subjection to God's word. Now again, in the, uh, second epistle and the second chapter, we will read at verse twenty: For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome. The latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it has happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to the his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to a wallowing in the mire. There you have the cleansing effect of the Word of God, and though those verses may seem the very opposite, when I come to these verses, I will tell you what I mean by the cleansing effect of the Word of God. Now, in First Peter, no, the, uh, Second Peter and chapter one again, let us read verse seventeen. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. There you have the correcting power of the Word of God. And again, when we come to these verses, we'll explain why we see in it the correcting power of the Word of God. And now in First Peter chapter one, and we'll read verses fifteen and sixteen. But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation or behavior, because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. The separating influence of the word of God. And now the last one in the second chapter of the same epistle, and we'll read from verse five. Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Verse nine, But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him or the virtues of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And there in that portion, we have the highest purpose of the Word of God. Now, first of all, then, we have the completeness of the Word of God, as we found it in our first two verses in second Peter chapter three and verses one and two. And there we have mentioned the holy prophets and the apostles of our Lord and Savior. Now, friends, that takes in the Old Testament, and it takes in the New Testament. The holy prophets referred to are the prophets of the Old Testament. The apostles of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are the apostles of the New Testament, and they were the ones that brought it to us. So that we have in those two verses the completeness of the Word of God. Isn't it lovely to know that we have a full revelation from God in his Holy Word? I suppose that most of you, those of you who take the Register, Tribune, or I mean the other one, the one is in the morning one. Anyway, those of you who received that newspaper saw a cutting right on page one of a president of the Methodist Conference a few years ago, who wants to take the blue pencil and go through the Bible and cut whatever he deems to be unsuitable for young people. And so he wants to be the editor of the word of God and use the blue pencil. That's the days in which we are living in, dear friends. As dear brother Joe reminded us this morning, we've got them on every hand, dear friends, who are seeking to rob us of the precious word of God, but they never will because God's word is settled in heaven. And heaven and earth will pass away, but thank God this word will never, never pass. How thankful we ought to be to God for that. No higher critic is going to take this word from us, however much they try. And so we've got the complete word of God. There's a writer, a Christian woman named Laura Barton Snow. She said this about a certain modernist who was giving lectures to his congregation, going book by book through the Bible. And he began in the book of Genesis, and he said, you know, we in this enlightened age do not believe in the story of the creation. It may be allegory, but he says the world, the world was not created in six days. And a man from the congregation went home, and he took out of his Bible the book of Genesis. Of what use was the book of Genesis to him if he couldn't rely upon it? And he took it out. Well, when the man got to the book of Exodus, he said the same thing. We in this enlightened age do not believe in those terrible plagues that were brought on Egypt. They may be allegory, but they really didn't happen. And he went home and he took out the book of Exodus. And then when he came to the book of Leviticus, why? He said, we in this enlightened age do not believe in the slaughterhouse doctrine of Leviticus. And he went home and he took out the book of Leviticus. And book by book he lectured on the Bible, and so as he said that we couldn't rely on each of those books, the man took book by book out of the Bible until he had nothing left but the covers. Well, he got very sick, I mean this parishioner, and his minister came to see him. And when he came to see him, uh, after passing the time of the day and the weather and all that sort of thing that they usually do, why, uh, he said to the man, I suppose you'd like me to read the Bible to you. He says, yes, I would, sir. He didn't have enough love to carry the Bible himself, so he relied upon the man to hand him a Bible. He says, where is your Bible? He says, it's there on the table. And when he picked up the Bible, all he picked up was just covers. And he said to the man, why, what's this you've got? Why, sir? He said, that's all you left. My, that went home to him. And he went home, and he got down on his knees in his study, and he asked God, oh God, what have I done? Thank God that man was reached, and he was saved. And I tell you, we never tampered with the God any- with the word of God any longer. Our dear leader, Mr. Luff of the Pilgrim Preachers, used to carry a, a tremendous big Bible, and he always carried it like this. And a dear lady came to him one day and said, Mr. Luff, you must read- love that Bible, because I noticed you always carry it near your heart. Yes, said Mr. Luff, I love, love the Bible, covers and all, because the covers keep you together. The covers keep it together. And so we thank God, dear friends, for the complete word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, the precious word of God. And as our dear brother said this morning, not only containing the word of God, but is the word of God from beginning to end. Oh, that we might cherish the word of God more than ever. Now for the second scripture, the interpreter of the word. And who is the interpreter of the word? Why, the author of the word of God, who is the Holy Spirit of God. And so we may have our Bibles, but unless we have been regenerated by the power of the Spirit of God and have the Holy Spirit of God in our hearts, dear friends, we can't understand that book. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned. And so we need one to interpret the word of God to us. And that interpreter is the Holy Spirit of God. And every child of God has that interpreter within their hearts. They have him abiding in their hearts. And so there's no word that is beyond the understanding of every child of God, if the Spirit of God sees fit to reveal it to them. I don't mean by that, dear friends, that we know the Word of God absolutely through and through. No, no. It takes time. It takes patience to know the word of God. But dear Mr. O'Brien said, when he spoke of that word that we have in the epistle of John, he need not that any man teach you, but as ye have received the anointing, so abide in him. And he said this, that every child of God has the capability to know all the word of God because he's got one within him who knows it all. And so, dear friends, if you have any difficulty in this blessed book, get to God in secret and ask him to open it up to you. And if it's his will to open it up to you, he will. It's not always his will, you know, because the spirit of God teaches one as they are being made willing to be obedient to him. Some of us are not ready for some of God's word. You remember the Lord Jesus said to his disciples that he had many things to say to them, but he couldn't bear them yet. And I believe that there's a, there's a lot of the people of God who are not ready yet for some of God's word, and God only reveals it as you are needing it in your experiences. It's a little by little, it's a line upon line, it's precept upon precept. That's God's way. Have you been amazed, dear friends, that these people who have taken in these awful isms of the day, how quickly they get it? Take a person who is a Russellite, Seventh-day Adventist, or any of them. My word, in a few days they know it all from beginning to end. And they can argue with anybody because they know it all, because the devil gives it to them very easy. But you see, God's word is not like that. And so it is as you are growing in grace, that you are growing in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and he leads you on as you're willing to be subject to him. There we have then the interpreter of the word of God. And there's a little word there that we might consider, and that is that no prophecy is of any private interpretation. I don't know what your opinion is of that verse, but this is what I believe, that it means this, that you can't take a word of God out of its connection and put your own construction upon that word, unless it is in harmony with the whole of the word of God. You can't take an isolated scripture just to justify something you believe, unless that which you believe is in harmony with the whole of the Word of God, because no scripture contradicts another. You know, the Seventh-day Adventists have a very novel interpretation of the scapegoat. And you know about the scapegoat, no doubt, the two goats that were taken on the Day of Atonement, and then a lot was cast as to which of those goats was to be offered to the Lord. And then the sins and the transgressions of the children of Israel were confessed over the live goat, and it was let loose into the wilderness. And the Seventh-day Adventists say that that scapegoat that is left into the wilderness is the devil. And all the sins of believers are heaped upon the devil. And so the devil will have to bear your sins at last. And if that's true, friend, the anthem in heaven will be a song to the devil who has borne away our sins. No, friends, that's not the interpretation, certainly not. It's just two aspects of the death of Christ. The one, dear friend, satisfying the throne of God, satisfying him. And then when the children of Israel looked upon that goat that was left loose into the wilderness, they could say, as far as the east is from the west, so far has our transgression been removed from us. And so it's the aspect of the death of Christ that satisfies the believer. The goat that was slain, satisfying God. The goat that was left loose into the wilderness, satisfying the believer that he sins are gone. And so, dear friends, these Seventh-day Adventists, they have these novel ideas, but they are not according to the, the harmonious teaching of the Word of God. We've got to be careful about putting our own interpretation upon isolated scriptures. All right, there, there's the interpreter of the Word. My, I must hurry on. Chapter three of the first epistle. I won't waste my time this afternoon, dear friends, in giving you dear women a raking over. That's not what this scripture is for, though many, many preachers think it is. And I make no apologies. What this scripture really enforces is not the outward clothing at all. It has to do with the inward clothing, the clothing with humility, the meek and the quiet spirit. And dear friends, you wear that on the inside. Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that people should wear their gold and all the paraphernalia that some fashionable people wear. I'm not for that at all. On the other hand, I don't believe that a woman's skirts should just drag the streets either. It's nice to be modest, and I believe the word of God would teach us to be modest in our dress. The men as well as the women. I heard of a preacher who was raking the ladies over, and he had a five dollar tie on. He didn't rake himself. But dear friends, what is here is really subjection to the word of God. Just as Abraham had a wife that was subject to him, Sarah, calling him Lord. So we that belong to the church of God are to be in subjection with our husband, the Lord Jesus. And so if the word of God has been given to us in in its entirety, and we have the interpreter to interpret it to us, the very next thing is to be subject to it, to be subject to it. And if the Lord tells me that I ought by being baptized, the sooner I do that, the better off I'll be. We had a baptism, I'm glad to tell you, there were six baptized. People that have been saved throughout the years, some of them quite young, but thank God there were six baptized last Wednesday night in Centreville. And we had a lovely little meeting beforehand, and I was telling them that baptism does save us, not from our sins, but from a bad conscience. And so if you've got a bad conscience about things and you know that you ought to be obedient to the word of God in these matters, why, dear friends, you better get baptized and save yourself from a bad conscience. Doesn't save you from your sins, no, no. But it does save you from a bad conscience. Now, that's not original with me. That's Tom Baird. But dear friends, that's what Tom Baird used to say. Baptism does save us, it saves us from a bad conscience, not from our sin. Well, all right, subjection to the word of God. Now about that next one that we were considering, or rather that we read, Two Peter two and verse twenty. For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome. The latter end is worse with them than the beginning. Now here we have some people who have cleansed their outward ways by the knowledge of the Word of God. But that's all it's done for them. It's just reformed them outwardly. It has never reached their conscience. They have never been regenerated. And these in this second chapter are just apostates, friends, who have come to know the Word of God, and it has influenced their lives so far, but they were never regenerated. And when the environment suggested itself to them, dear friends, they went back to the environment that they really belonged to. That's what we have in this second chapter. But listen, the word of God had power to reform their outward lives. And anybody who comes into touch with the word of God, it has an influence upon them. Many of our Sunday school scholars come into contact with this blessed word, and it keeps them from the awful delinquency of the day. Because some judge said that about ninety eight percent of those that are delinquents have never attended a Sunday school. But who would say that all those Sunday school scholars who have come to the knowledge of the Word of God and may have cleansed their outward ways and keep them from much of the pitfalls in the world, who would say that they are all regenerated? Now, my point is this, dear friends, that if the Word of God can do that with unregenerate people, what could it do for you and for me? To cleanse us day by day. And this is the word by which we are cleansed day by day, that cleansing effect of the Word of God. No doubt you've heard about the cannibal who had been saved by God's grace in the Solomon Islands, and he was reading the Word of God on the beach, and a trader came along and said to him, what are you reading, my man? Oh, he says, I'm reading the Holy Bible. Oh, he says, in our country, why, that thing is out of date. Many, many don't read it anymore. And you know what that cannibal said that was saved? He says, why, he says, if it wasn't for this book, you'd be in the pot long ago. You'd be in the pot long ago. The influence of the Word of God, it's cleansing effect. And then we have the correcting power of the Word in the seventeenth verse and of chapter one of second Peter. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory to, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. In which way was it a correcting word on the Mount? We were reminded this morning, weren't we, by somebody that when Moses and Elias appeared there on that Holy Mount, why the disciples were sleeping. And while the wonderful conversation was going on between the Lord Jesus and those two visitors about the Exodus that he should accomplish at Jerusalem, why they didn't hear a word of it. They were asleep. And then all of a sudden they woke up. And Peter spoke for the rest and said, Lord, it's good for us to be here, and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias. And the word of God says, not knowing what he said. He must have blundered then. He must have blundered, and he did. He was bringing the Lord Jesus down to the level of Moses and Elias. And what happened? Why, dear friends, a cloud overshadowed them, and I don't doubt that that was the Holy Spirit of God. A cloud overshadowed them and obliterated Moses and Elias, and they saw no man save Jesus only, and the voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son. Hear him, hear ye him. And so, friends, when whenever we have anything derogatory about the person of the Lord Jesus, there's nothing like the word of God to correct us. You know, we are living in days when there are some things that are coming in, even even among Christians. I was amazed when I got to a a meeting right here in Iowa, where a man got up and thanked the Lord that the Lord Jesus never sinned. Lord, he says, he could have if he would, but he didn't. You think of that. No, dear friends, it was impossible for the Lord Jesus to sin, and all that the temptation did with him was just to prove that he had no sin there. No, friends, he was pure gold. No law in him at all. And the temptation simply proved that. Not testing him as to whether he would sin or not. Not a bit of it. And so, thank God for the word of God that would correct anything that we might have in our minds derogatory to the person of Christ. The correcting influence of the word of God. Just briefly, in First Peter chapter one, we read those two verses, fifteen and sixteen. but as he which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation or behavior, because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. And here we have the separating influence of the Word of God, the separating influence of the Word of God. God expects you and I to be holy. Don't be afraid of that word. Some people are terribly afraid of that word holy. And when you talk about holiness, they think you've got bad teaching. But dear friends, the Word of God says without holiness, holiness no man shall see the Lord. But it must be holiness according to scripture, not false holiness. If you want a good book on holiness, read Mr. Ironside's Holiness, False or Truth. You'll get something there. But dear friends, God expects us to be holy. We are that positionally. Years ago in Glasgow, there was a conference, and one of the three famous Henrys was at that conference. I'm not sure whether Henry Dyer or Henry Heath or the other one. Anyway, one of them had spoken on practical holiness at that meeting, and a man came on to him at the close of the meeting and said, my dear brother, don't you know we are all holy in Christ? And that dear man said, yes, brother, we are holy in Christ, but God expects us to be holy in Glasgow too. God expects us to be holy in Glasgow too. And so, dear friends, here it is. God's word, by its influence upon us day by day, is able to separate us from the evil of this world. God grant that it be. And the last thing which I would love to dwell upon but can't, and that is the highest purpose of the word of God. No, I'm not taking issue at you, Leonard. Not a bit of it. But I do want to say salvation of the lost is a very, very important thing. But the building up of the saints of God and the worship of the saints of God is very precious in the eyes of the Lord, and you'll agree with me, won't you? Yes, you will. You know, some of us have had our days. I'm speaking like an old man now. But I won't see sixty seven anymore, dear friends, believe it or not. And I tell you, when I was with those men, the pilgrim preachers in the old country, I believe we put in a whole generation of young men for ten years, preaching the gospel, preaching 5 and six times a day in the open air, giving out millions of tracts. And I tell you, the Lord used us, and we saw many, many souls. You know, you get to a stage when perhaps you are trying to, to do something for the people of God, and perhaps you're not quite as interested in the lost as you are in the saints of God, and you don't see so many. But I do trust that those who are brought to Christ are real. And I believe on the whole, dear friends, one can say that those who have been led to Christ are really genuine, are really genuine. Here Arthur and I have worked together for years, and though we did not see perhaps so many precious souls saved, we did see some very genuine ones, and those who are going on for God. But you know, after all, the highest purpose of the word of God is to lead those who are saved to be worshippers of the living God. We are a holy priest. Good. And what is the holy priest to do? Offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God by Jesus Christ. And you know that takes intelligence. I mean spiritual intelligence. You need to meditate upon the Word of God if you're going to have something for God at the worship meeting. You can't go there and just idle your time away on a Saturday night and then think that you can come on the Lord's Day morning and overflow in worship to God. There are some people that have got to be prepared in the morning meeting so that the meeting is almost ended before they really have anything to go out of their hearts to the Lord. Isn't that a pity? There ought to be preparation beforehand. There ought to be meditation beforehand. And then, friends, we can come with our baskets full and pour out our thanksgiving and our praises to God. And then there's another side to it, and that is we are not only holy priests, but we are a royal priesthood, and we are to show forth the virtues of him who has called us out of darkness into light. That's the- what the world has to see. In verse five, it's the portion for God, but in verse nine, it's the portion for the world around us. And may they see the Lord Jesus in you and in me. Shall we sing a verse of the hymn? Number 315. I'll read the first verse, but you'll sing the last one. King of my life, I crown thee now, thine shall the glory be, lest I forget thy sword now proud, leave to Calvary. Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thy.