THE VALUE OF HAVING A BIBLE
Phil E Hogan
Hebrews 10: 38 to “by faith”
Isaiah 49: 8 to “preserve thee”
Our brother has spoken earlier about the matter of comfort. I have been thinking for a while that this book that we have in our hands has given more comfort than any other book that has ever existed. It is the most widely translated, widely printed and most widely circulated book ever. And that book is the Holy Bible.
In this world, with its social media and other forms of communication, why is it that this book, that you and I have been privileged to have been brought up with, is still so popular? It is because it is different to every other book. It is not a book that is just formed out of paper and leather and printed, but, as it says here, “Every scripture is divinely inspired, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction”.
So, through the Bible, through the Scriptures, God would speak to hearts; and before the pages were written in this book, God was writing in hearts. And He is still writing and forming features of Christ in human hearts. He is doing that now, currently. And what is He forming? Every aspect of what He is forming is marked by perfection because every detail of it, every stage of it, takes after the One who was the Man of God’s choice, the One who loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. What we find as we pick up our Bibles and look through the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, is that the Spirit works in our hearts in order to magnify Christ and to bring the Lord Jesus to our attention.
The reason I read in Hebrews is because the existence of a Bible in our own language came at a tremendous cost. As an illustration: in 1536 William Tyndale was burned at the stake because he translated the Bible into English. At that time the national church did not want the people, the general population, to have the Bible, but Tyndale was unwilling to go back on his word and they burned him at the stake.
The reason that William Tyndale did that is because of this verse: “But the just shall live by faith”. Now you and I might take that statement for granted. You could say it is one of the very basic principles, a very basic doctrine in what we believe, and what we enjoy, and what we enter into, as is the fact that we have a relationship, a direct relationship, with divine Persons. But at that time what men were trying to do was put an intermediary between God and man, someone in between. In the Old Testament there was a point when Job said, “There is not an umpire between us”, Job 9: 33. Well, what I can tell you is that the Lord Jesus is the Mediator. The Lord Jesus is a divine Man and He can put His hands upon God and man. As a result you and I have been brought into a sphere of liberty. We have been brought where salvation is for time and for eternity and no one can say anything against it. So, that is just an illustration of how at that time, in the Dark Ages and in recent times as well, people were willing to die for the Scriptures. They were willing to die for something that they believed in. You might say, 'Well, that was a long time ago', but it still happens in different parts of the world.
I have an old book which has a photo of a Bible, and the Bible has a bullet hole in it. The story relates to this scripture in Isaiah. There was a soldier in the trenches in the First World War, and all the soldiers had been issued with Bibles. An enemy bullet went through this man's tunic and it stopped on this line in the middle of verse 8: “And I will preserve thee”. After he recovered, he opened the Bible and there it was: a bullet “and I will preserve thee”. The soldier wrote a letter home to his mother and told her how his life had been preserved. That soldier's name was George Vinall. Now, he went on to become a missionary not just because the bullet had stopped on this line, but because he came to know the Man, who as God, saved his life: saved his life physically and saved his life spiritually.
So for that one individual the bullet stopped on that line, but there are millions and millions of persons who have come to know salvation. As it says here, “In a time of acceptance have I answered thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee”. What a salvation we have, dear friends, a salvation that is assured. It is not just for a future time but salvation that is applicable now: a present salvation. Why is that? Because faith gives us a different objective. Faith gives us an objective of a risen Man in heaven. Faith gives us a hope, which is a source of great encouragement.
What it is to go through this world with such a hope in your heart! Think of the multitudes of people at the moment who are going through this world who do not have such a hope. They have their hope in all sorts of other things. They might have hope in material wealth. Perhaps they have a hope in what the next political party can do. They have their hope in things that fade and deteriorate and eventually end up in death. We have a hope in the One who is the Originator of life. We have a hope in One who is our Lord and Saviour. And as a result of that we can know present assurance and the present certainty of this. So it says, “And I will preserve thee”. What an encouragement that is, that in our life here, whatever else happens in our circumstances, despite the fact that we are fragile mortal beings, as James says in his epistle, “what is your life? It is even a vapour” (chap 4: 14), so our life is just as short and delicate as a vapour, but God says, “and I will preserve thee”.
I think as we are gathered here this evening, we know something of what it is to be preserved, what it is to be sure, what it is to be certain and to know the certainty that we have to do with a God of love. Think of what it is that the God that we have to do with, the God that we have a near and close relationship with, is a God of love. You might wonder how we can understand the Old Testament, where some of these scriptures are very obscure, some of them seem difficult and complicated. Well, we have access to the Holy Spirit, and He would give us the sense of it. In Nehemiah 8: 4-8 it speaks about person who stood on a stage, "And they read in the law of God distinctly out of the book, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading".
And that is what the Holy Spirit does. You may look at a scripture in the Old Testament and it might look dark and difficult, and sometimes in the Old Testament there are all sorts of negative things - warfare and violence and all these things, but then like a spark of light, the Holy Spirit would illuminate it and He would make it living. Then all of a sudden what you see is some impression of the greatness of Christ, some impression of the greatness of what God is doing and has done. The Spirit would make that living now, and He would make it living presently. That is the wonderful resource that we have now, and what an encouragement that is. So, as we go about our daily lives - whether it is at school, whether it is at work, whatever our situation is - our view is not just of the circumstances that surround us here, which are marked by deterioration, but our view is heavenly. Our view is of a Man in heaven, and as well as a view of the Man we have a view of the place. We can have a sense of the atmosphere of heaven. As we gather on a Lord’s day morning, I think we do have that. We gather in a simple way, but there are many ways in which we can have a sense of the atmosphere of heaven. There is One who we can gather around and He is the Centre, so that there is a circle that gathers around Him. What an encouragement that is from week to week to week. May we not take these things for granted; they came at a cost, and yet we can enter into them at present.
Finally, I read in Revelation where it says, “And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should shine for it”. There will come a point shortly, dear friends, dear brethren, where we will not need these Bibles any more. The Bibles themselves will have done what God intended them to do. And then we will know the reality of having to do with the Lord Jesus. This life that we live down here is just for a period of time ( and none of us know how long that time is because it is different for every one of us), but our view is not marked by the limitations of time; our view is marked by the whole scope of eternity. Think of that. There will come a point when even the Bible that we know and love, the Bible that has meant so much to us over the years, will not be needed any more because the reality and the enjoyment of what God has in mind for us will be there to be enjoyed through all eternity. At that point we will be with Christ. Think of what it will be to be with the Lord Jesus, to see Him in reality.
In the meantime we can see Him by faith. There is coming a point when we will be able to see Him in all His greatness, all His glory and all His love. In the meantime may we be helped to have a greater appreciation of what has been involved, and what is involved and what can be enjoyed and what can be appreciated in these scriptures that we hold in our hands.
May the Lord bless the word.
Word in Ministry Meeting at Grangemouth
8th January 2025