The last time you picked up your Bible did you feel anything? Do you fully realize what you are holding? It is the very Words of God. Our personal creator and the creator of everything that has ever existed loved us enough to write down instructions for life and He gave them to us in one Holy Book. Sixty-six different books, written by over 40 Holy Spirit inspired men over a course of about 1500 years. Three different languages written across three continents and every single Word inspired directly by God. When you pick up your Bible you are holding the very Words of God and God’s Word is forever. Folks, when you hold your Bible you are holding forever in your hands.
It’s interesting as I travel, to see the difference in how the Bible is seen and treated. I guess you could say it’s simply a result of supply and demand. When in China, Bibles are not very common. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not illegal to own or possess a Bible in China. In fact, there are 5 legal religions in China and one of them is Christianity. The problem in a communist nation though, is freely exercising the laws you have been afforded. You see Bibles are difficult to obtain and any church over roughly 15 people has to be sanctioned by the Chinese government. What I noticed was that since Bibles were hard to get in China, they were treasured as a rare book. But here in the US, with all due respect, Bibles are a dime a dozen. We have free and easy access to Bibles and as a result, we see ourselves on the very opposite side of supply and demand. You can get all you want so therefore they’re not in high demand and not seen as special.
As far as how most see God’s Word in the US, I’ll never forget a story I witnessed a few years ago. Our church runs the single largest ESL, (English as a Second Language) course in Tarrant county. Fort Worth is home to one of the largest Middle Eastern refugee colonies in the U.S., so to help them adjust to life in the States, we offer free English classes. Margie and I volunteered to help and ended up working with the teens while their parents were in class. We had teens from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. We taught them about Christianity and what it entailed, and of course, all teaching was from the Bible. During one class, a church member had placed their Bible on the floor and walked away from it. One young man from Iraq looked at it and questioned us. “If this is the Word of God you say it is, then why would you place it on the ground?” You see to Him, if it were truly important to us, he thought we would show it the due respect it deserved. A lesson that has and always will stick with me.
This morning in Leviticus chapter 23 we see a chapter full of festivals, 7 to be exact. God had the festivals perfectly spaced out in His perfect way for the Israelites to observe in a very specific way. Within the instructions for the festivals we find twice these words:
“It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations” Leviticus 23:21b
We serve a forever God. God was in the beginning. As Jesus returns and the world is transformed into His kingdom, God will remain. And within all of this, God and His statutes, commands and laws, remain. Unchanged, unwavering, a constant within the passing millennia. There’s an old saying that says “change is inevitable”, but folks, that saying doesn’t apply to God and His Word and His commands. You see God is the same today, tomorrow and forever. (Heb 13:8) And friends within that very simple statement is where mankind gets lost.
Humans just don’t understand forever. We see forever as an oddity, as a foreign language, as a stranger in our path. We just can’t grasp the idea that something can be unchanged forever. In order to do that it must be perfect from the start, and well, perfection is also something humans just don’t get. The human race is out to achieve perfection though. A strange race we run to achieve something that we don’t fully understand or comprehend. We perpetually change the constant to move towards success, not fully realizing that we might be changing perfect to get to perfect. The thought drips with irony.
Today we see a society that has not only changed God’s forever laws but butchered them. The statutes that God says are forever have been twisted and mutilated to meet mankind’s modern, sinful needs and desires. God says do not murder (Ex 20:13) but America exercised 862,320 legal abortions in 2017. God says a marriage is between one man and one woman and that homosexuality is “an abomination” to Him (Lev 18:22) yet we not only approve of homosexual marriage but make it legal in “God’s country.” We’re told that the love of money is the root of all evil, (1 Tim 6:10) but we are a nation of idolaters at the feet of money, greed and materialism. We have seen God’s laws of forever radically lost just within our generation. Forever has ended before our very eyes.
Folks, when you grab your Bible today for your personal study time in God’s Word, feel forever in your hands. Feel the power of the Alpha and the Omega rest beneath your fingers as you turn the pages. You see, you’re not simply holding some paper with printed words, your cradling the very Words of God. Pure truth that has been passed down over 1500 years. Men and women died to see that those very Words could be touched by your eyes today. You see those people got it. They knew. Within those Words are life. Within those pages are eternity. Within those verses lie salvation for a lost soul. Within those pages are forever.
God bless you as you meet with Him today in His precious Word.
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