People are coming out from the coronavirus lockdown but the need for the Word of God persists. This message is to remind us of the importance of regular Bible study.

<p>People are coming out from the coronavirus lockdown but the need for the Word of God persists. This message is to remind us of the importance of regular Bible study.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Light in the Darkness

Good evening and I want to just say thank you to the Salisbury Memorial English Church in India for whom the sermon is being recorded.

We are in at the 3 Angels Church in Newington, Connecticut during the coronavirus lockdown as it begins to be lifted here in the United States.

And we are recording this for our brothers and sisters in India.

It is an honor and a privilege to be able to present to you.

And I pray that when this is all over and we can all travel again, that either some of you would come here or I'd be able to go there and we could all fellowship as Christian brothers and sisters.

And if not, we'll see you at the welcome table and on the sea of glass in the New Jerusalem.

So we are going to talk tonight about the importance of studying the Bible.

Our scripture reading is taken from 2 Timothy 3, starting at verse 16.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Our message For the Salisbury Memorial English Church is a light in the darkness, a light in the darkness, the importance of studying the Bible.

Father God, we thank you for your word that we're going to talk about tonight.

We thank you for the precious truths that it holds.

Lord, I pray once again that you make me a nail on the wall and hang a portrait upon that nail.

Father God, you need to speak through me tonight.

We need to hear what you have to say on this issue and topic.

It's our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

We're going to start in the book of Matthew, the fourth chapter.

Matthew chapter 4, verse 1 says, then when Jesus led up, then what was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, After Christ is baptized by John the Baptist, the Spirit leads him into the wilderness where he must meet his arch enemy, the devil.

It was in a garden that Lucifer, as Satan, deceived Eve and Adam and caused the fall of the world.

It was around the issue of appetite, the taste and texture of a fruit that the serpent promised the original parents would make them like gods and that they would not die.

Here now, the spirit leads Christ almost to the sequel in this story, where there is another showdown between a man and the devil, except this time the man is the man Christ Jesus.

The Bible says in verse 2 that before he met the devil he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights and afterward Christ was hungry.

Verse 3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

We are told in the Spirit of Prophecy that in fact those stones looked like smooth loaves of bread laying all over the wilderness floor.

Christ in his hungry state, and we know this as a physician I can tell you that after 40 days it is almost impossible for humans to go on without food.

The devil waited for the 40 days because he knew that at 40 days Christ would be at his physically weakest point.

So the devil comes sweeping in and his first temptation is 1 around appetite and self.

He's saying to Jesus, sustain yourself, use your divinity to serve yourself, which is not Christ's mission and would have been a sin if Christ had done it.

Matthew 4 and verse 4 says, Jesus answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Unlike Eve, who allowed Satan to twist God's word, confuse her, and she was led into sin, Christ comes back with a staunch it is written, thus saith the Lord, man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And let me say this, if we are going to do a study on why the Bible is important I want you to understand that it is encapsulated in this verse that in fact all of the hunger that the world gives us, even at our weakest point as Christ was, our answer must always be to the temptation of selfishness, pride, and abomination.

Our answer must always be, we choose God's word over the bread of this world.

So while you're on your coronavirus lockdown there, in India and the rest of the world and here in the States, as even as it's being lifted, there is no better time for us to spend time in the Word of God, getting to know him better and getting a better understanding of his truths.

This time is a time before the great time of trouble.

And so we need to be preparing for God's word.

Spirit of prophecy says here, we should not be satisfied with a superficial knowledge, but should seek to learn the full meaning of the words of truth, to drink deep of the Holy Spirit of the Holy Oracles." This is counsels to parents, teachers, and students.

She says, God works in us by the light of his truth, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world.

The scriptures refer to the works of God as they are revealed in our world.

As so many teachers whose voices have gone out through the whole earth, proclaiming the attributes of God, the mind must see the truth and the will bend to its claims when it is presented to us based on scriptural evidence.

The Bible, what the Spirit of Prophets tells us here is when you study God's Word it actually is it's like It's like a force on the character that will bend your will towards what God wants you to do.

It's through studying the Bible that you'll be able to face down the devil.

Another reason it is very important to study the Bible is that the Bible will transform your mind.

As you study God's Word, when I was in medical school, 1 of the ways that I prepared for my tests in medicine is I studied the Word of God first because I found that there was something about studying the Word that prepared my mind for the science that I was going to study for those exams.

The Word of God will move your mind and empower your mind to think more clearly and more powerfully.

Hebrews 4 and verse 12 says, For the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This analogy of the word being like a sword we'll come back to again.

But I want you to know that when you take up God's word and you read it, you could almost say not just a sword, but the word of God is like a scalpel.

And what it does is it goes in and it will begin to excise from you all of the cancerous lesions that sin and iniquity has left on your soul.

But it isn't just the scalpel, it is also the eyes of the surgeon.

It is what allows you to see where sin has had its effect.

If you are reluctant or sheepish in your study of the Word of God, you will allow sin to grow unchecked like weeds in a garden.

It will separate the foolishness in your life from that which should remain.

Ellen White says, the transforming power of the word, the word makes the proud humble, the perverse meek and contrite, the disobedient, obedient.

The sinful habits natural to man are interwoven with the daily practice.

But the Word cuts away the fleshly lusts.

It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the mind.

It divides the joints and marrow, cutting away the lusts of the flesh, making men willing to suffer for their Lord.

What the Bible does, it takes like a scalpel again.

It gets in there and it cuts away the lusts of the flesh.

And it makes you not just free from sin, it allows you to move to a place where you are willing to suffer for your God.

Because when you understand the Bible and its promises, you understand that the suffering in this world is temporary.

And so you're willing to go all the way in the Word of God.

And then why it goes on, cutting away the surplus of self.

Practical truth must be brought into the life and the word like a sharp two-edged sword, must cut away the surplus of self that there is in our characters.

The scriptures, The Spirit of Prophecy, and she's quoting the Scripture, Hebrews 4.12, but the Spirit of Prophecy is telling us, it will cut away the surplus of self on our characters.

The surplus of self cannot remain and you'll be a follower of Jesus Christ.

You must be studying the Bible, the word of God, to see where you are selfish, where you are leaning on the arm of flesh, where you are moving in the direction of self so that you can move away from self and toward Christ, leaning on the everlasting arms rather than on the arm of flesh.

2 Timothy 2.15 gives you a little bit of the how.

It says, study to show yourself, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

And then he actually goes on in verse 16 and says, but shun profane and vain babblings, for they will lead unto more ungodliness.

The Bible is 1, the way that you study to show yourself approved to God.

And I know many are studying engineering, they're studying medicine, they're studying nursing, they're studying physics, they're studying philosophy and history, even theology.

And many times you're studying so that you can please and approve yourself to man.

What Paul is telling Timothy here is, and he's telling us, is that you ought to study so that God is approved, because everything we do we are studying.

Something called the leaky bucket theory.

And this is a theory I used to tell students to help them do better in school, but it works spiritually as well.

The leaky bucket theory basically says that your mind, your conscious mind, is like a leaky bucket.

When you take in information in class, when you go to school, and you hear the lecture, it fills up the leaky bucket if you're paying attention.

And if the test is in 2 weeks and you never study again, all of that information slowly leaks into your subconscious mind and is difficult for you to retrieve and you will fail the exam.

But if every day you take notes in class and at night, every night you review the notes from the first class on the first night, the first class and the second class on the second night and all the way through until on the fourth night you're doing class 1234 and you review like that all the way through to your exam, you keep the information in the leaky bucket.

You keep filling up the leaky bucket and you'll do good on the exam.

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Light in the Darkness

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