DATE: – SUNDAY 30TH AUGUST, 2020
TOPIC: – THE POWER OF THE WORD PF GOD (Part 10)
BIBLE PASSAGE: – 2 Timothy 3: 10 – 17
MEMORY VERSE: – “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and its profitable fir doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2Timothy 3:16).
INTRODUCTION: – With the spate of increase in false teaches and doctrines all over the places these days in the Church leading to the falling away of many from the faith that was once delivered to the saints, there is urgent need to get the truth of the Bible taught in every Church and Christian homes. And the Bible has the power to effect a wonderful change in the trend of things in the world. We shall consider the characteristics of the Word of God and see the wonders of its power.
LESSON OUTLINES
1) The Bible Is Inexhaustible
Its depth is infinite; its height is infinite. Millions of readers and writers, age after age, have dug in this unforthemable mine, and its depths are still unexhausted. Age after age it has generated, with ever-increasing power, ideas, plans, schemes, themes and books. The greatest minds have been its expositors. Myriads if students have studied it daily, and its readers from day to day can be numbered by millions.
The volumes that have been written on single chapters or even verses would fill the shelves of many a library, and today they are as fresh as fertile, as inexhaustible as the day they were first written. The treasures yet to be found are as the stars of the sky, of infinite multitude.
2) The Bible Is Authoritative
This is another wonder. It breaks upon you as the voice from heaven. Five hundred times in the first five books of the Bible it prefaces or concludes its declarations with the sublime assertions, “The Lord said”, or “The Lord Spake”! three hundred times again in the following books it does the same; and in the prophetical books it does so twelve hundred times with such expression as “Hear the Word of the Lord” or “Thus, saith the Lord”.
No other book dares thus to address itself to the universal conscience. No other speaks with such binding claim or presumes to command the obedience of mankind, and men in every age and clime acknowledge this claim. The Book speaks to their inner consciousness, with authority, the authority of God Himself.
3) The Bible Is Living And Operative
Men think of the Bible as a Book that was inspired. But the wonder of the Bible is that it is vivifying and operative now. From the far-distant heights of time it comes sweeping into the hearts of the man today, and the same breath of God that breathed into its mystic life make it living and energizing today. It is the Living Word, vital with the life of the Living God who gives it living power.
The twenty-third Psalm was inspired. But again and again in today, as it is whispered in the hush of the death chamber, or read with the hidden cry, “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law” (Ps.119:18), it is a Living Word, and the Spirit breathes life through it once more.
And this is the most remarkable and unique feature of the Bible. I feel that it is mine. Its promises are mine. As I read the 103rd Psalm, it is not ancient Hebrew, it is present-day power; and I, a living soul, overwhelmed with gratitude, cry out: “Bless the Lord, O my soul”. (Psalm 103:1).
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The Word of God remains forever. The importance, value and motive behind all human efforts and the prevailing standards of society must constantly be evaluated and judged by the Bible, rather than the Bible being judged by them. The moral absolutes of God’s Word will stand long after the collapse and self-destruction of today’s relative.
Those who try to God’s Word to conform to the intellectual and moral trends to their generation betray the “Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”
QUESTIONS
- Is it possible to exhaust the mines of the Bible?
- The Word of God is living; explain this.