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Nov 30

Sermon Follow-up: “God’s Words–Better than Gold”

2011 | by Trent Hunter | Category: Sermon Follow-Up

In Sunday’s sermon, “God’s Words–Better than Gold,” Ryan unpacked the second half of Psalm 19, which is something like a love song about God’s Word. God’s Word, says David, is perfect, sure, right, pure, and clean. It revives the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, endures forever. It’s better than much fine gold and sweeter than honey. All of this is true because it is true of the One who gave it to us. The Bible is the “Word of the Lord.”

If the Bible is true and it really is the Word of God, then what it says about itself must be true. It also does what it says it does. The Bible is, as Ryan said on Sunday, self-authenticating. It proves itself true. C.H. Spurgeon put it this way: “Scripture is like a caged lion. I defend the truthfulness of the Bible the same that I would defend a caged lion. I don’t need to defend the lion to prove to others that he is a lion. I simply need to let the lion out of his cage.”

If you’re interested in learning more about what the Bible is and how the Bible works, there are several resources worth checking out. First, a few years ago Ryan conducted a four part Saturday Seminar, The Reliability of the Bible, and the audio is available online.

Additionally, there are now two books at the Resource Center at a super cheap price that are worth picking up:

Finally, if you missed Clarus this past April, the theme of the conference was, Scripture: God Speaks. In the course of his talks, G.K. Beale mentioned three things that discourage us from reading our Bibles: 1) Media immersion, 2) Busyness, and 3) Expecting the sensational. These conference talks are full of helpful reflections like this. Here are links to the talks from this year’s conference:

The Law of the Lord is perfect, and it is perfect because the Lord is perfect. Therefore, it is good for us to make a big deal out of it, to read it, to hear it, to memorize it, and to speak it. It’s also right for us to respond as David did with the kind of prayer David prayed: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).