The Key to Grasp the Mystery of the Word of God — Ian Paisley

The Ten Commandments and the Mystery of God's Word

I want tonight to bring a very important subject. It will only be the start of it, for this is a subject that we need to study. And I want to bring you a study of the Ten Commandments to finding the wealth of wisdom in the Bible, or the key to grasp the mystery of the Word of God.

There is one thing missing today in this 21st century, and that is men and women who know the Word of God. Men and women who obey the Word of God, and men and women who are able to pass on the Word of God.

Solomon's Three Books and the Development of Love

Now, there are three books in the Old Testament that you should read carefully. They were all attached to Solomon. There is the Song of Songs, then there is the Book of Ecclesiastes, and then there is the Book of Proverbs.

And those three books are all linked with the name of Solomon, the wisest king who ever sat on an earthly throne. The interesting thing about them is that their main subject is true Christian love. And in the Song of Solomon, we have the first love, the love that we have to Christ when we are saved.

And you will find that expounded carefully in the Song of Solomon. But then we have a second book, the Book of Proverbs, and in that book we have the field love. Because Solomon did not remain with his first love, but his love developed into failure.

And you have the story of field love in the Book of Proverbs. And then in the Book of Proverbs, you come to Ecclesiastes. And in Ecclesiastes, you have field love. The first love is in the Song, the second love is in the field love of Proverbs, and the last love is the fallen love which is found in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

When at the end of the day the king says all is vanity and vexation of spirit. And I would call your attention to that because that will open up those books to you. But when I was reading the Book of Proverbs recently, I discovered these first ten verses of chapter two.

Proverbs 2 and the Ten Commands for Studying Scripture

And they are ten commandments on how you can open the book and how you can find the blessing of God as you open it. And a path that will lead you to grasp the mysteries of the Word of God. I have read this Book of Proverbs very, very often.

Because I had an old theological professor and he used to carry a little book of Proverbs like that. He used to carry it in his pocket. And he used to say to me, Ian, you know there are thirty-one chapters in the Book of Proverbs.

That is one for every day of the month. Of course some months have only thirty days. So he said you read both chapters thirty and thirty-one when that happens in a thirty-day month. And I said what do you do that for?

Well he says the Book of Proverbs has some of the greatest wisdom in its pages. And you need to read a chapter every day forever if you are going to find out what it is. Now I smiled at that old professor.

But when I came to read myself the Book of Proverbs I found he was right. And there are some wonderful things in this book. But there are ten commandments here. And there is a little leaflet at the door you will get it which I outlined those ten commandments with one mistake.

Because printers make mistakes. The writers never make mistakes. But the word importation should be impartation. So get a copy of that there. Keep it in your Bible and it will help you to follow what I am saying.

These commandments give us a wonderful key. And if we use that key the whole book of Proverbs will be open to us. Now when you turn to read a book of the Bible you have to take a full look at the whole book.

For God's word is one. And some people take little snippets here, there and everywhere. In my early days all Christians had promise boxes in their house. And promise boxes were little boxes with rolled up texts of scripture.

And they had a little pair of tongs. And when you went into the house they always said to you will you take a promise. So you put in the tongs and you pulled out a verse of scripture. They thought that was wonderful, that was great Bible study.

Well I never learned in the scripture that you should get a pair of tongs. And I never learned in the scripture you should roll the scriptures up. I read about them rolling them out not rolling them up.

And I don't think that's the way to read the Bible. Because the Bible should be read as you would read any other book. What would you think if I handed you a book and said just have a lucky dip in this book.

Close your eyes and take a pair of tongs and pick out a page and say you're mad. And hard people think that they can get the real moral of the Bible by reading it in that way. I don't understand what they're thinking.

No we must see the whole book and take a look at the whole book. Now when you're looking at the book of Proverbs you will find that this book divides itself into six parts. The first part is chapter 1 to chapter 9 verse 18.

And that speaks of the word of the wise for Solomon for a prince and a king. And it is punctuated by these words my son, thy, thee, thy, and thine, and the mother. These are all second person words. And they're in this first section of the book of Proverbs.

The second section is chapter 10 verse 1 to chapter 19. Chapter 19 verse 19. And these are Proverbs by Solomon. And they're not in the second person. They're of the third person. The words he, his, him, they, and them.

And then the third section of the book is from chapter 19 verse 20 to chapter 24 verse 24. Verse 34 rather. Proverbs for Solomon. The first section is Proverbs by Solomon. These are Proverbs for Solomon.

For a prince and a king. And they're in the second person. My son, thy, and thine. Then we come to the fourth part. And that's from chapter 25 verse 1 to 26 verse 28. And those Proverbs are by Solomon for all.

They're copied by the name of Hezekiah. And they're all written in the third person. He, him, and his. And then the next one, the fifth one, is the 27th chapter of the book. 1 to 29 verse 27. Proverbs for Solomon.

For a prince and a king. They're all in the second person. My son, thee, and thine. And then the last section of the book, the sixth section, is from chapter 30 verse 1 to chapter 31 verse 31. The words of Eger.

The words of Lemuel. The words for Solomon. For a prince, a king. My son and thy. And again, the mother is in the first section. Now until you get those sections into your mind, you will not understand the book.

Because those are clear sections. Written in a different mode. Written on different subjects. And they're written that we might understand the wisdom of the whole book. Now let's turn to chapter 2. To the subject that we have before us.

Taking the Bible Seriously and Seeking Understanding

What are these commandments? You know, when God created man with a need, He also created the remedy to meet man's needs. And when God created man and man fell, man had a need. His need was for the precious Word of God.

And his need was for the understanding of that Word. And we have in the book of Proverbs how we can understand the Word of God. So many young people come to me and they say to me, the Bible is a hard book.

Of course it's a hard book if you're not reading it right. And you will never get anything out of the book if you don't read it right. You have to read it the way God teaches you, you should read it. And if you don't, you'll not love the Bible.

I used to read books about men who loved the Bible. Like Mr. Luther, who loved the Bible. He spent every day three hours reading and studying the Bible. And when things got rough during the Reformation, he added a fourth hour.

And he said, that's the way I get through. I read and pray three to four hours every day. Well, I know Christians, and ten minutes is all they give the Bible. And probably ten minutes to prayer. It's a very quick, hello God in the morning, I'll see you at night.

And it's a very quick night. And some people never read the Bible at night until they get to bed. And then they're half sleeping. And no wonder they don't understand what they're reading. And no wonder they are not taught of God.

This Bible has to be taken seriously. It's the Word of God. It demands our attention. I am amazed at preachers who read very little of the Bible. I am amazed at Sunday school teachers who read very little of the Bible.

I am amazed at men who pretend to know the Bible. They certainly know what other men have said about it. But they do not know the Bible. There is a famine for the Word of God today. So we have to find out how I can read the Bible.

And how I can learn to love reading the Bible. And how I can find that the Bible is the most endurable and the most enjoyable book in all the world. And why I want to read the Bible. And why I refuse to give up time for other things until I have read the Bible.

You say that's almost impossible. It's not. And that's what we should be aiming at as those that know and love the Lord. Now the first of the commandments. And these commandments have to be obeyed. If we are going to revel in the blessing and the unlocking of the treasury of the wisdom of the Word.

Inclining the Heart Toward Wisdom

And the first one is found in verse 2 of this second chapter. So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom. You have to incline your ear unto wisdom. Commandment number one is inclination. We have got to have a heart that is inclined.

That word inclined is the word dedicated. That it is dedicated to turn its ear unto wisdom. That word is not only meaning that we should turn our heart unto wisdom. But that there should be a drive within us.

That we should be inclined to the book. Just the way that a poor old smoker is inclined to light cigarettes and smoke them to destroy his health. And when you talk to him he says, I can't give them up.

What has he done? He has inclined himself to smoke. And smoke he will to the destruction of his body. Now you have to incline your heart to study the Bible. To be a Bible person. To live with the Word of God before you in your heart.

So that you incline thine ear unto wisdom. That word in that text emphasizes the ear. And the study of the ear in Scripture is a most important study. And you will remember that the ear of the servant who refuses to leave this master whom he is serving.

That his ear was pierced. Turn over to the 21st chapter of the book of Exodus. And you will find there that interesting story of the servant. And the 21st chapter of Exodus. Now these are the judgments which I shall set before them.

If I buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve. And in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.

If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters. The wife and her children shall be her masters. And he shall go out by himself. And if the master servant shall plainly say, I love my master.

I love my wife. And I love my children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges. He shall also bring him to the door. Or unto the door post. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl.

And he will serve him forever. Now the interesting thing that in that verse that I have shown you in Proverbs chapter 2. This word inclining means you have to have a prick in your ear. What did this hole in the ear mean?

It meant that the man had publicly in the place of judgment. You will notice what it says in that 21st chapter of Exodus. That you will bring this man unto the judges. And he will say unto the door. And he will say, I love my wife.

I will not go out. And you will pierce his ear with an awl. And he will be in the service of his master forever. Now that is the sort of dedication you have to have to the Bible. And until you get that dedication, you will never ever read the Bible aright.

We must have the inclination in our hearts. I am going to read the Bible. I am going to study the Bible. I am going to love the Bible. I am going to find out everything about this Bible. I am going to be a master.

And I want it to master me. And until we get that heaven born Holy Ghost desire in our hearts. We will never really know the Word of God. You will just be slipping in text of scripture upon your tongue.

But you will not really know the heart and the power of this wonderful thing of being inclined to the Word. We really want to discover the wealth and wisdom of the Bible. You need to turn to the Word of God.

You need to be inclined. You need to have a magnetism that draws you like a magnet to the Word of God. And until you have that, you will never really direct your study to profitability in the scriptures.

Putting Scripture Before Every Other Priority

This means a change of direction. When you turn to the Bible, you turn away from other things. I wish that the Christian people of this century spent half the time with the Bible that they spend at the television set.

I wish you could say that. But you cannot say that. Because people are caught up. And of course, when they have their television thing on, they do not want to see you. And so when you go into a home and you want to have a visit, instead of them putting it off, they put it down.

And then they are all looking at it to see what he is really saying. So I always say, well, I am going home. There is no room for me here. This is not the place for me. I cannot waste my time listening to that.

I have other things to do. So we must put the Bible first. It must take precedence over everything else. And if you cannot get time to read the Bible, then you have to get out of bed early. And I know you do not like getting out of bed early.

But it is the best thing you can do. All the saints of the Old Testament, everything they did, they did it early. They rose up early in the morning. Jesus Christ, when he was on this earth, the disciples went to bed, but he prayed all night.

So you have got to take time to read the Bible. And you will not do that except you ask God to incline your heart. God must put that inclination within your soul. God must put that desire within your heart.

You will be naturally inclined to the world, to the flesh and to the devil. But if you pray to God, God will give you a power that will surprise you. And that power will drive you to the book of God. You should pray for a baptism of undying inclination for the Bible.

You should direct your feet towards the Bible. The first thing in the morning and the last thing in the night should be a Bible in your hand, reading the Word of God. And thank God this wonderful Word abideth forever.

And you will abide forever if you read the Bible. We are told to buy the truth and sell it not. There is no price that is big enough for you to give up the Bible. But there are people who are giving up the Bible for no price at all.

When Bibles Are Scarce, Christians Treasure Them

Better for us to all be paupers and have the Bible than to be millionaires and not know and read the Scriptures. We need to get this right in our lives, that we are privileged to have this book. The amazing thing about this book is when man can't get it, they want it.

And when man gets it, they don't read it. And that has been the history of the Christian church. When Bibles were scarce, the church wanted the Bible. When Bibles were plentiful, they don't read the Word of God.

There was a time in Romania when you weren't allowed to read the Scriptures. I was in Romania after the old communist dictator fell. I was invited as a member of the European Parliament to go and see the churches and the Christians, which I did.

And they told me, well, we couldn't get Bibles. So what did we do? When we got a few Bibles given to us, the church met. And the pastor said, I tore one leaf out of the Bible and I handed it to that person.

I tore another leaf and I handed it to the next person. And I said, now you come next week and you have to have learned all that's in that page. And then I'm going to hand that page to another person and I'm going to give you another one.

And that's the way they read the Bible. Maybe you would read the Bible if you only got a page of it. And you knew that if you didn't read it and get it into your heart, that page would be taken from you.

And you would have lost it maybe forever. We need to, in this day when Bibles are plentiful. I often go into the studies of ministers and I take up their Bible. And I discover, to my shock, that when I get into some parts of the Bible, I have to do this.

What does that mean? Those pages have never been opened. Never been opened. Well, if they're not opened by the preacher, they're not opened by the people in the pew. A man who reads the Bible and a preacher who reads the Bible will be an encourager of his people to read the Bible.

And if they're going to get anything from his messages, they will have to read the Bible. And they'll have to know it. I'm surprised when you give out a book in the Bible. Some people look for the book of Amos in the New Testament and they'll not find it there.

Knowing the Bible and Knowing God

I had a very influential city father who came to our church one night. He was a prominent member, I thank God, not of the Democratic Unionist Party, but of the official Unionist Party. And he didn't know the Bible.

I gave out the Scripture and he looked in the New Testament for an Old Testament Bible. Very well educated man. One of the aristocracy of Unionism. A great and prominent orange man. But he didn't know the Bible.

He didn't even know the books of the Bible. He didn't know where to find the books of the Bible. But I preached a hot message that night. And he came under conviction. And at the end of the meeting I had the joy of pointing him to Christ as Savior.

You need to know the Bible. If you really love the author of the Bible, you'll want to read the Bible. You can measure your love for God and for Christ and for the Holy Ghost by how much you love the Bible.

And how much you read it. And how much you incline your heart towards it. There's no use reading the Bible and seeing a commandment and then disobeying it. Because once you do that, the door shuts. The Holy Spirit's grieved.

You have sinned. And until you've got rid of your sin, the Bible will remain a closed book. So what you need to do is to keep this first commandment. And if you do, and you incline your heart unto God.

And get the hole in your ear. Not for an earring, but for a sign that you are dedicated to the Lord and you're His servant. Until you do that, practically, you'll never, no matter what books you have or what degrees you take.

Or what theological seminary or cemetery you attend. You will not know the Word of God. So you need to keep that in your mind. An inclination in your heart to know the Word of God. I haven't got that inclination, Mr. Benjamin.

No, you haven't. Well, you've been honest. But you can have it. The Lord can open your heart. And the Lord can show you things in the book you never know. I had an elder in this church. Brother Compton.

He wasn't a very educated man. Because he had no opportunity. His father took ill. He became the main breadwinner in the house. And he worked very, very hard all day. But he could see it. And he became a lover of that Bible.

He showed me things in the Bible. I never knew were there. He was a student of the Bible. And he used to tell me, Preacher, did you see this? And I would say, What did you see? And he would open the Bible and he would tell me things that no theological professor knew anything about.

Why? He was a man that knew his God. Because he knew God's Word. You'll never know God until you know God's Word. And we need to ask God to incline our hearts to the Bible. There was an old bishop called Mant.

He was one of the old gospel bishops of the church in the Reformation times. And he wrote these words. The Book of God. And is there then a book which on its front that awful title bears? The Book of God.

Who hold it? What high duty must be theirs? And what high privileges therein to look, to read, mark, learn, digest. But in this nook of earth pent up and blinded by earth's cares, Its hopes and joys, if man the treasure dares to scorn, Such scorn shall the great author brook.

How long the holy men and prophets old, God's truth to see, How blessed whom he hath willed To see his truth in his own book enrolled. Pure is the Book of God, With sweetness filled, More pure than massive, Unadulterated gold, More sweet than honey from the rock distilled.

Is your Bible honey from the rock? Is it precious gold? Is it silver? Is it diamonds? Is it jewelry to your heart and mind? It will be if you incline your ear to the word of God. Now that's the first commandment.

And I've listed ten of them in that little sheet. Get it and start looking carefully into it. And it'll be a blessing to your heart and soul. And next month, Davey, we'll come back to this subject and look a little bit farther at these other commandments.

Prayer for a Love of Scripture

May we all become lovers of the book. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank thee for thy word. I ask thee, O Lord, to incline our ears to the hearing of thy word. May we go out to the door and to the judges and to the doorpost.

May we ask the Lord to pierce and prick our ear and incline us toward his word. And may this week, may we be inclined to read, to digest, and to practice the word of God. Hide the word in our heart that we might not sin against thee.

And may everyone in this meeting get a holy love for the holy book. And grant that we may be changed in all our ways because we have obeyed the commandments that will bring the treasure to us from God's minds and from his treasury.

That will bring the milk to us and the honey from the rock to us because God has worked in our hearts and inclined us to this book. O God, bless the word that has been preached this day in this house and taught this day in this house.

And bless the children's mission as the boys and girls, the men and women of tomorrow are being evangelized today. O God, undertake for them, for Jesus' sake. And everybody said, Amen.