The Word of God Pt. 1

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The Word of God Pt. 2

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So I had spoken at our meeting and to the guys in general about 2025, getting rooted in the word of God, right?

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And I said, I didn't want to spoon feed everybody with PowerPoint, but here's a PowerPoint, right?

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But this is designed to encourage you, okay?

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It is obviously gonna be a Bible study, but I want you to understand what this is about. This is to direct us and encourage our hearts and get us to fall in love with the word of God.

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So the word of God, why do we need it? Here we go, where does that go?

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Okay, why we need it. So what are the issues? The issues in today's society is biblical illiteracy.

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How many people do you know who go to church, read their Bible regularly?

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How many have read the whole Bible? Statistics say one in five have read the whole

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Bible. That's not a good statistic. We need to be reading the

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Bible cover to cover, and once you get to the end, you start at the beginning again and just keep going through as many times as you can.

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That doesn't mean to speed read, but it means to make reading your Bible a daily habit, something that you're taking in on a daily basis.

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Another issue is it's a divine text. So many people, progressives, are coming out and saying, no, the scriptures aren't infallible.

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They're not inerrant. You know, the writers of the Bible could've made a mistake. 41 % say it contains helpful accounts of ancient myths, but it's not literally true.

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Now that's a statistic out of Ligonier's theological survey, and that was a question asked of believers, supposed believers.

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41 % say it contains helpful accounts of ancient myths, but not literally true.

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What are the ramifications of believing that the Bible's not literally true? Who's gonna read it?

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It's no different than, you know, Goldilocks or any other fable or myth, right?

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This is not a good thing, okay? People say it's copied and corrupted, right?

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The Bible is factually inaccurate. There are so many errors in the Bible. You know, the

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New Testament has 400 ,000 variants and only 100 ,000 words.

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How do you overcome that as a Christian, right? 400 ,000 variants. I mean, it's very simple to say, to explain to them, you realize 200 ,000 of the variants are spelling errors, right, so the ancient, the early

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Greeks and Hebrews didn't have spell check, okay. Another 25 % is word order or missing a line.

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When you boil it down, it is like a 3 % variant in the entire Bible. In fact,

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Bart Ehrman, in his tome about the inerrancy of Scripture, at the end of his book, you know what he says?

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Here are the top 10 variants, and in listing the top 10 variants, you know what he does?

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He shoots his own argument in the foot because how could you know it's a variant if you didn't know the original?

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In order to say something's a variant, it has to vary from something else. He shot himself in the foot, and this is a scholar, right?

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But so many people believe this. Oh, the Bible is chock full of errors. We need to learn how to defend the

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Bible and explain to them, how to explain away these supposed errors, right? It's ancient and outdated.

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It's an archaic and not progressive book, right? So my question is, when does truth expire?

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Is there an expiration date on truth? From what I heard, marriage is one man, one woman will become one flesh for one lifetime.

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You see what happens in society when they go a different direction. I mean, this is truly a

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Romans 1 situation where God is handing them over to the lusts of their mind and their flesh, and they're devolving.

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So these are the issues that we have to contend with. We have to contend with unbelievers and believers who don't take the word of God seriously.

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So how do we know that the Bible is the word of God? You know where we're gonna go?

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The catechism. Here we go. The Bible evidence itself to be God's word by the heavenliness of its doctrine, the unity of its parts, its power to convert sinners and to edify saints, but the spirit of God only bearing witness by and with the scriptures in our hearts is able fully to persuade us that the

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Bible is the word of God. That's Keech's catechism, right? So what does that mean?

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That means when we as believers filled with the spirit of God go through the scriptures, it edifies us.

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We recognize that this is not of human origin. This is something that's transcendent.

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Every true Christian who reads the scriptures lives a transformed life. So everyone who's in the word regularly and has the spirit of God in them is a walking witness to the fact that this is

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God's word. Now we can go through other evidences, there's lots of that, but I just wanted to give you the catechism question.

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Now this scripture, I'm sure most of you know, right? Second Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All scripture is what?

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Breathe out by God, theopneustos, right? This is out of God's mouth, which means, does anything come out of God's mouth that's not divine?

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No, so everything that comes out of God's mouth is divine. The scripture is divine in nature, okay?

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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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This is our flagship verse when it comes to Sola Scriptura. This is just a verse that we need to embrace in general.

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We use it for counseling. We use it to point people to say, listen, you have to live your life based on the word.

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That's what it's there for. God breathed it out specifically for his people. 1

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Corinthians 2, 12 through 14. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that what?

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We might understand the things freely given to us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual, right?

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That's an encouragement for us who have the Holy Spirit living in us. When we read the word of God, the spirit quickens our minds and hearts, convicts us, comforts us, moves and directs our hearts, but not for the unbeliever, right?

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The natural person, in other words, the person not born of the spirit, the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God.

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Their foolishness, folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned, right?

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So this is not gonna make sense to an unbeliever. He's gonna read the Bible and say, oh, this is a bunch of bunk, right?

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But we who are inhabited by the spirit can understand God's words. So not only is it breathed out by God, he's giving you the

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Holy Spirit, the paraclete, the one who helps you understand what God's saying. If Jesus was in the kitchen, would you be listening to me right now?

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I wouldn't be listening to me. I wouldn't be talking. I'd be in there listening to him. It's right there.

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He's speaking directly to us. First Corinthians 2 .16, for who has understood the mind of the

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Lord as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. The spirit has changed our minds, changed our hearts, such that we can understand

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God's word and make application of it to our lives. So I want this to be an encouragement to you.

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Are we opening our Bibles tonight? Maybe, right? But I want you to see the value and the richness of what

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God's given us. But the question is, will we pass the test? Oh, did you know there was a test?

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Deuteronomy 2 and 3. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

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God tests us. We spoke about that a couple of weeks ago. To know what's in your heart.

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He humbled you and let you hunger. God allowing you to hunger.

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That's like painful. Did you ever go a couple of meals without eating, right? It's like, why would

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God withhold food from us to make us dependent on his words?

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He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live on bread alone, but lives by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.

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You live by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Paul Washer says it like this.

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Read the Bible or die. Read the Bible or die.

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I mean, makes sense. If we're not living, ingesting

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God's word on a daily basis, he's testing you to see what's in your heart. We need to be people of the word.

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2 Chronicles 33 10. The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people.

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Like, again, Jesus was in the other room. Jesus spoke to Ryan and to his people, but they paid no attention.

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Do you own a Bible? Do you open it regularly?

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Are you feeding on it? Or are you paying no attention to God's words?

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They're breathed out by him. Are you wanting for the word of God as a deer pants for water?

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So my soul pants for you, right? We need the scriptures.

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So I wanna go through a couple of more scriptures and talk to you about them. Psalm 119 40, behold,

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I long for your precepts and your righteousness give me life. The Psalmist longs for God's precepts, longs for his word.

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Psalm 119 81, my soul longs for your salvation. I hope in your word.

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So we have a longing for the word and we have a hope in the word. Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoppers, but his delight is in the law of the

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Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. Now, when you see that word law, don't automatically think 10 commandments.

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The word law in Hebrew means instruction. It's usually typically for the first five books of the

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Bible, the Pentateuch. He's longing, he delights in the instruction of the

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Lord. So the Psalmist is longing, hoping, and delighting in God's law,

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God's word. Job 23 12, I have not departed from the commandments of his lips.

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I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. Treasuring God's words, longing for God's words, hoping in God's words, delighting in God's words.

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First Peter 2 3, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the

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Lord is good, right? I forget who it was last week, they made the analogy.

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Milk is for infants, meat is for adults. I don't know how long all of you have been

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Christians, but if you're a Christian five years or more, you should be off the milk and chewing on the meat, right?

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Are you in the word enough, chewing on the word enough that it's affecting you and affecting the people around you?

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Right, or are you still on the bottle? Now, I don't mean to shame anybody, but we need to follow what

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God says. We need to long for his precepts, hope in his word, delight in his word, treasure his words.

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Hebrews 5 12, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need milk, not solid food.

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For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he's a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

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Where do we learn how to distinguish good from evil? The word of God, trained by constant practice.

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Are you constantly practicing reading your word and being trained by it, right?

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The psalmist long for his word, hoped in his word, delights in his word, treasures his word, and now is trained by constant practice being in the word.

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Jeremiah 15 16, your words were found and I ate them. And your words became to me a joy and a delight of my heart.

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For I'm called by your name, oh Lord, God of hosts. Jeremiah recognized that he was called by God.

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If you're a Christian, you've been called by God. Not to be a prophet like Jeremiah, but you've been called by God.

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And his words have to become a joy to you. Now this doesn't mean that every time you open the

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Bible, you're gonna understand everything you read. I don't think anybody does everything that they read.

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There's things that confront us, things that we have to dig into, things that we have to learn. And that's where the growth comes.

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You have to struggle with these things and in the struggle and in the study is how you grow. Okay, so are you wanting for the word of God?

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Now I'm gonna give you a little alliteration as if that was a surprise. Are you walking in the word?

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Are you working out the word? Are you wielding the word? And are you worshiping in the word?

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Okay, so I wanna go through each one of these line items. So are you walking in the word? Walking the word basically just means opening your

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Bible and starting to read it and go through it. Joshua 8, 33 and 35.

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Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded at first to bless the people of Israel and afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

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There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel and the women and the little ones and the sojourners who lived among them.

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So when somebody says, oh, he can only pay attention for 30 minutes, how long do you think it took him to read the

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Pentateuch? God's law, not a word of all that was written did he not read.

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Do you think we need to be reading all of the word of God or just select parts? All of it, all of it, it's important.

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Every word is important. Joshua 1, 9, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth.

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You shall meditate on it day and night. Why? So that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

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I was talking last night in a study with Job, reading the word can just become an academic thing for some people.

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Oh, look, I read, I understand. It's like you gotta read and then obey. What comes in here has to come out here, right?

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If it's not coming out of your hands, you gotta question yourself. Am I doing what

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God told me to do, right? In all of Paul's epistles, he starts out with deep theology, thick stuff, tells you what he wants you to know and then he tells you what he wants you to do.

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Put off this, put on that. Put off this, put on Christ, right? So the outworking of the word results in action.

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We need to be people of action. Not just reading it intellectually as an academic exercise but ingesting it, building us up so that we too would be

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Jesus to the people around us. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.

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Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go, right?

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God's word has to be a daily diet for us. Now there's reading the word of God and then there's studying the word of God.

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So continuing, walking in the earth, Proverbs 2, one through 15. You guys should all know this.

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My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding, yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the

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Lord and find the knowledge of God. If you love God, you want to know him better, right?

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How do you get to know him better? By seeking him in his word and trying to figure out what some of the difficult passages of scripture are telling us, right?

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And let me tell you something, when you do that, you get these nuggets, right? You get all excited.

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It's like, oh my goodness, I never saw this before. And you make the connection. Every morning when I read my

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Bible, I pray, Lord, may I not pass over the things that I've routinely skimmed over so many times.

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Make the connections for me. And he makes the connections. And it just fuels your heart.

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You're like, oh my goodness, this is an incomprehensible

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God. Like you run out of adjectives quick. For the Lord gives wisdom.

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From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He's a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the path of justice and watching over the way of his saints.

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Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity and every good path.

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For wisdom will come into your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

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Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will guard you, delivering you from the way of evil. You never find that on Facebook, Instagram, whatever social media you're on.

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That's where we gotta be. Rooted and grounded in God's word, eating it, consuming it, recognizing that this is where true wisdom and knowledge come from, being people of the book.

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All right, continue to walk in the word, right? Job 23, 12, I have not departed from the commandment of his lips.

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I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. Psalm 119, 103, how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

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Jeremiah, your words were found and I ate them and your words became to me a joy and a delight of my heart for I'm called by your name, oh

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Lord. We went through that one already. Ezekiel 289, but you son of man, hear what I have to say to you.

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Be not rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I give you.

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You getting the picture? God's feeding us through his word. Revelation 10, nine through 10,

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I told him to give me the little scroll and he said to me, take and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey, right?

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It's gonna make his stomach bitter because there's gonna be conviction sometimes when you read God's word, right? It doesn't say, it says some pretty tough things.

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Yeah, who wants to hear, die to yourself. Pick up your cross and follow me daily. Love your wife like Christ loved the church.

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Do I like hearing that? I love hearing that. Putting that into action, like, you know, trying to love my wife like God loves his bride.

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Like that's perfect love. Giving yourself over to the other person for their benefit and not expecting anything in return.

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Oh gosh, like that takes work. Okay, so walking in the word leads to working out the word, right?

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Because what do we do? We wanna take God's word in and then work it out in our lives and in the lives of the people around us.

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So walking leads to working. Second Timothy 2 .15, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a what?

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A worker. You need to work at this. A worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly what?

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Handling the word of truth. It takes work to handle the word of truth. Like, gotta be a Berean.

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You gotta take everything, they took everything that Paul said, oh, let's look at the scriptures. Let's see how it lines up. Right? Who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth, but avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene.

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Who knew God would talk about the Kardashians? Right here. Avoid irreverent babble, it'll lead people into more ungodliness, their talk will spread like gangrene.

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I am so happy I've never even seen an episode of that. Right? 1

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Timothy 4. If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

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Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths, rather train yourself for godliness.

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For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the promised.

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For the present life and also for the life to come. Right? Everything that you do in the word of God, training yourself to be obedient to the word of God, is gonna make a difference to you and the people around you.

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Right? And it's valuable for godliness, not just here, but on the other side.

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Right? 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. It's amazing on this side of the earth, oh

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I'm not a socialist, yeah people think you get to heaven, and everybody gets the same thing, that's God's fair, he gives everybody the same.

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That's not true. That's not true. Some are gonna get 30 fold, 60 fold, or 100 fold.

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What did you do with the giftings that God is giving you? Right? Revelation 1 .3,

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blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and what?

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Who keep what is written in it. For the time is near. You have to keep

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God's word. This is not just an intellectual exercise so that you can flex your theological muscles on Facebook, or Twitter, or wherever else it is.

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This is for personal edification, and to conform you to the image of Jesus. You have to work in the word, applying these things, train yourself.

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Paul talks about exercising, has benefits, working in the word, and applying it to yourself, and ingesting it, and understanding it, and wrestling with it, is profitable for your sanctification.

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You have been listening to the Reformed Rookie Podcast, where we aim to teach Reformed Theology to beginners, or rookies.

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Be sure to look us up on the web at www .reformedrookie .com, where you will find many more learning tools and aids to help you grow in your understanding of all things

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Reformed. And remember, Semper Reformanda. Dr.

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Luther, are you prepared to retract these writings? In some, I discuss faith and good works.

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If I were to retract these, I should be denying accepted Christian truths. I hear,

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Luther, you have not yet answered the question. Will you recant, or will you not?

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Here it is. I am bound to my beliefs by the texts of the

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Bible. My conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant.

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Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.