FBC Daily Devotional – July 28, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Wednesday to you. I trust your week is going well, and here we are in the middle of it already.

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Learning anything from God's Word? I hope these daily devotionals are at least encouraging you to get into the

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Word a little bit, and maybe thereby growing in grace and knowledge of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Well, today we're in Luke chapters 16 and 17, and in the last half of chapter 16,

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Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus. You know that story, right? A rich man had plenty to eat and plenty of comfort and ease and prosperity while he's on earth, and Lazarus is a beggar, sat outside the gate of the man's house, begging for daily food, and so on and so forth.

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Two men die. The rich man, he goes to Sheol. He goes to Hades.

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He goes to the place of torment. Lazarus, on the other hand, is taken into Abraham's bosom.

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He's taken into paradise. And, you know, in the story, the rich man is able to look up across this gulf, this great divide, and see

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Lazarus enjoying respite in Abraham's bosom. And he cries out, and he said,

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Please send somebody to dip the tip of their finger in some water and cool my parched tongue.

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Nope, can't do it. Well, would you please? There's a gulf fixed between us.

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Nobody can come over here. And then he said, Well, would you please, please send somebody back to my relatives and warn them, lest they come to this same fate as I'm experiencing.

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And then you have this response. It says, No, they have

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Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. In other words, they have God's word.

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Let them hear God's word. And the rich man says, Oh, no, no, no.

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If somebody comes, somebody comes back from the dead and warns them from the dead, then they'll listen. Then they'll hear.

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And the reply comes back like this. If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead.

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You see how important, how critically important the word of God is?

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The scriptures, the Bible, and how critical it is to receive and to believe

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God's word. And yet I think of our Western culture today.

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Just yesterday, I got in the mail a complete Bible. This was this was a gift, if you will, a complete

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Bible. It was unlike anything I had. It's called the Men of Character Bible, and it's in the what is it?

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The Christian Standard Bible translation, I believe. I can't remember. I don't have it in front of me right now, but it's in an

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English translation. And then also in that same package were two sample booklets of a couple of other translations.

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One of them was from the Life Application Bible, and the translation for that one,

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I have it right here, is the New Living Translation. And then the other little sample thing, here it is.

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You can see it. It's called the First Nations Version. I never heard of such a thing.

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And what in the world is that? And I got leafing through it. And here it's a it's a translation put together by a bunch of Native Americans who, you know, are translating the scriptures from the perspective of their language and their way of seeing things.

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So, for example, they'll have First Nation, they call it

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First Nation terms for names of God and so forth. And I don't want to go into all that.

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But anyway, the point is this, the point is this. We are flooded. We are flooded in our land, in our

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Western culture with copies of the Bible. And we have the Bible available to us in many wonderful translations, and some that are so very helpful to the modern

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English ear. And yet, and yet, in spite of all of that wealth of God's word right before us, how many people in our land completely ignore it?

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Completely ignore it? Clearly, clearly, the vast majority.

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In fact, even those who profess to be God's people will rarely pick up the

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Bible. In a lot of churches today that are, you know, conservative at least, you can go to church, not take your

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Bible and not even worry about it. Because the preacher may get up and he may quote a few verses of the

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Bible or refer to a few verses and maybe an extended passage. But, I mean, you don't have to actually look it up or pay attention to it yourself.

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The bottom line is this. The bottom line is this. Here in the Western world, where the

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Bible is so readily available and it's so prolific, so many have been exposed to it through their lives and through the years.

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And yet, the vast majority of us in this land ignore it. We're eager to pursue ease and comfort and prosperity, just like the rich man reclining and, you know, faring sumptuously at his table.

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And then the end comes and he's totally unprepared, totally unprepared.

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And that's exactly the way it is for all who will ignore the

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Word. The key to escaping that eternal perdition?

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Listen to Moses and the prophets, the Lord Jesus said. Listen to the Word of God. Listen to the gospel message.

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Listen, receive it, believe it. Be delivered.

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Father, help us to appreciate the gift of your

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Word. And not only to appreciate it, but actually to listen to it. And this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake.

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Amen. All right, well have a good rest of your Wednesday. May God bless you in it.