The profound exploration of our attitudes toward God's Word reveals a critical aspect of the our experience. In this discussion, we delve into the essence of how our hunger for spiritual sustenance mirrors our physical appetites. Drawing parallels between the necessity of nourishment for our bodies and the necessity of the Scriptures for our souls, we emphasize that just as we seek food to satisfy our physical hunger, we must cultivate an insatiable desire for the divine revelation found in the Bible. The episode further illustrates that the Scriptures are not merely ancient texts; they represent direct correspondence from the mind of God, intended to guide and instruct us. We reflect on poignant metaphors that liken the Scriptures to milk and meat, emphasizing that a genuine spiritual appetite should lead us to crave the deeper truths contained within God's Word. As we engage with these ideas, we invite listeners to consider their own attitudes: Are we merely passive consumers of spiritual teachings, or do we actively yearn to know and understand the depths of God's will? By fostering a heart that longs for God and His truth, we can truly embody the spirit of Psalm 119:161, where the Psalmist expresses awe and joy at the Word of God, akin to discovering a great treasure.

Takeaways:

• The Scriptures serve as profound correspondence from God, revealing His mind and intentions, which we must cherish and respect.
• Our attitude toward God's Word should reflect an insatiable hunger akin to physical appetite, driving us to seek spiritual nourishment continually.
• Understanding the divine origin of Scripture compels us to acknowledge its transformative power and our need to engage deeply with its teachings.
• We must cultivate a respectful and loving attitude towards God's truth, avoiding idolization of personal relationships that could overshadow our commitment to His Word.

Christianity is very diverse, but all denominations share a common source that by its nature has created problems for which there is no biblical antidote.

Tim Glover provides an alternative.

Join him each Wednesday at 10am to share his studies with you.

Good morning and welcome again to A Study from God's Word.

In the time that we have together to talk about attitudes, proper attitudes, and in this morning's session, we want to talk about the right attitude toward the Scriptures.

Of course, last week we looked at the right attitude or some attitudes we should have toward God.

Today we want to look at attitudes toward His Word.

Have you ever gotten a letter from someone that had particular significance to you?

Perhaps it was a love letter from your sweetheart?

Perhaps a letter of reconciliation from an estranged friend that asked for your forgiveness or wanted to meet you to reconcile the differences?

There may be any number of other possible letters that we just value.

We read such letters over and over again, each time reliving the emotions that are generated by the words that we've read.

And the Scriptures can have that kind of an effect.

They're special.

They're detailed correspondence from the mind of God.

When I say that it's exactly what Paul said when he wrote the the Corinthian letter, that no man knows the mind of God except the Spirit of God.

And he says that they, or the apostles and prophets, they reveal them unto us.

God has revealed them.

In chapter three of the Ephesian letter, he says, how be it by revelation was made known to me the mystery wherein I wrote a four in few words.

So there's the letters.

And he says, when you read it, you can understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.

So the Scriptures are the correspondence from the mind of God.

It's the mind of God put down on paper.

And those who are his people acknowledge the divine origin and inspiration of those scriptures.

Second Timothy, chapter three, verse 16.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thought, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.

And so we understand its origin, and we understand the human agency as well.

In second Peter 1:20 beginning, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, and so God has revealed them.

He's revealed them unto those men and women to whom he has revealed this mystery, the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers.

And now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but Paul wrote to the Corinthians, but the Spirit who is from God that we might know.

And literally the meaning here is that we might know the freely given things of God.

The things that God has freely given us.

We can know that how?

Through the revelation.

So it's not the book itself.

Sometimes I think we over misunderstand that the book itself is not to be revered.

Not the COVID the pages, the ink.

I'm talking about the literal book.

It may be special to you, but the very.

That's not the point of its value.

False and the principles contained in it.

That's the value.

And that's what we ought to revere and honor and respect.

In the Scriptures God has revealed his plan down through the annals of time.

The redemptive thread that he has brought throughout all the the ancient world.

You see it begins in Genesis 3, that God that the seed of woman would crush the head of the serpent.

He would be inflicted a bruise on his heel, but the crushing blow would come from this, this man who is the.

The seed of woman.

And so from that time on, the whole entire of the Old Testament scriptures, from the choosing of Israel and the law of Moses, down through their history, it was all coming to this time pointing to another time in which the Son of man would come.

Galatians 4 and verse 4, he was born of woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them who were under the law.

And so that whole entire thread of human history was designed to bring about it had a very coherent purpose is my point.

And God has revealed the nature of man through those years.

He has revealed his thought processes, he has revealed the ambitions of man, the weaknesses of men.

But he's also talked about the divine imprint upon his soul.

The Bible speaks of eternal destinies, a matter that consumes our thinking as our life speeds on toward that end.

In Deuteronomy 29, in verse 29, there's a scripture that I think is relevant for all time.

The law says the secret things belong unto the Lord our God.

But those things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever that we may do all the words of this law.

So there's a lot of things perhaps that we'd like to know that we'll never know because it's never been revealed.

And we can't know the mind of God outside of that revelation.

We've just looked at that.

And so the only way that we can know anything about God and His will and his expectations of the human race is for us to look into the things that he's revealed to us.

There's no sense engaging in baseless speculation and guesswork about things that God hasn't said anything about.

And so I have to be content when someone asks me some questions that I can't find a Bible answer to and just say, I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question.

If you ever find it, let me know.

I've not found it in the Bible.

And so we can fill our lives with concentration upon what he's revealed, reflecting upon what has been revealed, and never fully grasp at all.

Even then, why should we spend our time looking and worrying about that which has not been revealed?

And so because we have what little we have, our attitude should be one of thankfulness that we that we even have such correspondence of our Creator, that we can read and understand his mind.

As a result of that, another attitude that we should have is a hunger and thirst for God and his Word.

In Hebrews chapter 5, the Hebrew writer chastises his readers for being dull of hearing when for the time they ought to be teachers.

He says, you have need that someone teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and are need of milk and not of solid food.

He tells us that the solid food is for full grown men, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to to discern good and evil.

And First Corinthians chapter 3, Paul says that he could not write to these brethren in Corinth as unto spiritual because they were still babes.

And he has to write to reflect their carnality.

They're still carnal.

In other words, bicarnally means they're still fleshly.

They don't see a spiritual side, they don't understand, they're waging a spiritual warfare and that there is actually a spiritual presence, a spiritual world, if you please.

And so they're only living on what they can see, feel and taste, something that's tangible.

The scriptures are sometimes spoken of in metaphors that relate to food like milk and meat.

And so the corresponding appetite that we should have toward that meat or milk is one of thirst or hunger.

It's described that way in 1st Peter 2:2, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow thereby.

And so while hunger is physical, we understand a physical hunger that's a built in thing.

There is a sort of spiritual hunger.

Now it has to be created obviously, but it comes from the realization that we need resources from outside ourselves if we're to be perfected spiritually.

And that of course perfection takes its root first in faith and confidence and Trust in God.

Just as our bodies are fueled and fortified by food, our spirits need to be nourished by the inside instruction in God's Word.

There's a passage that's similar to this over in First Timothy, Chapter 4, when Paul's writing to young Timothy.

He says in verse 16 or 6, if you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine that you have carefully followed.

Notice it, please.

Paul says that you've been, yet you'll be nourished in the words of faith.

So hunger and thirst and nourishment that implies, well, actually thirsting for something and hungering for something implies an eagerness, you know, you've just got to have it.

I'm hungry and I can't wait.

I can't be satisfied until I get that nourishment.

Or I'm thirsty and won't be satisfied until I can find the water.

The same kind of thing is true, of course, metaphorically, as we apply it to the spiritual world.

There's this eagerness to eat, there's this eagerness to learn.

There's no reluctance, no apathy.

There's nobody wanting to go home or bored with God or His Word.

They're just longing to get more.

They can't get quite enough.

They're so hungry.

And so Christians should not have to be coerced into feeding upon the Word of God.

They shouldn't have to be begged to give time or give some moment to spiritual things.

There are those, of course, who have a very little spiritual appetite.

And why?

Because they're still carnally minded.

They're still immature.

They're like the young child out playing games and having too much fun to come out, come inside and eat.

They don't recognize the value.

Well, there's another attitude that we should have toward God and His Word.

And it's similar to attitude toward God.

Because if God is the author of that which he's revealed and we have his mind in, you might say, communicated to us, then we not only love God, but we would also, of course, love his truth and in love for His Word.

If we genuinely love.

My point is, if we have a true appreciation for the author of the Scriptures, then we will have a corresponding affection for what he has said in response to everything God has said.

There's on the other side, Satan.

And Satan and his allies have issued denials and distortions and misinformation and disinformation and all kinds of Lies that people have bought into.

People say, well, why do we have so many different ideas and doctrines and views on things?

Well, because we've had a lot of help, that's why.

And there's hardly any aspect of God's word that has escaped some perversion of some kind.

Somewhere along the way, someone has taken the simple truth of what God has revealed and perverted it into something else.

False prophets and idolaters in the Old Testament Scriptures opposed the truth of the prophets.

But the New Testament is likewise people.

We find a lot of warnings against perversions of truth all the way in it.

We find these warnings in Acts 20 and verse 30.

When Paul speaks to the Ephesian elders, he gives warning about what's going to happen when he after his departure, he says, from among yourselves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.

Perverse is from this Greek word, a Greek word that means to twist or to distort something.

And even some among the elders in Ephesus who taught faithfully by Paul would take the Scriptures and twist them out of shape and distort them in something altogether different from their original intent.

In Galatians, chapter 1 and verse 7, Paul was surprised that the Galatian brethren had been so quickly removed from the Gospel.

He says in verse seven, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ.

And of course, this refers in context.

If you'll read it, the whole book, it refers to those Judaizers, these Jewish teachers, who did so much to damage Paul's influence in what he was preaching, trying to require circumcision as a demand of law, and obedience to the law of Moses, and recognition of their feasts and their festivals.

So pervert is from the Greek word that means to transform into something of an opposite character.

And that's what they were doing to the Gospel.

In first Timothy, chapter four, we wouldn't be surprised to find such warnings to Young Timothy, verse 1.

Beginning, in latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy.

And then two chapters later, the sixth chapter, early in the chapter, verse three.

If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine that is according to godliness.

He is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling and evil, suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the Truth.

Well, there isn't no doubt but that that kind of character is still among us.

They still exist.

Even though I think Paul is writing about a time more imminent that is more applicable that Timothy and his friends would see.

Still, there are men like that today he's talking about the latter times in the last days.

Again, you have a very similar statement in the second letter that he writes to Timothy in chapter four, the very last chapter, verse three, beginning.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears.

They will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

Speaking of fables, they're kind of figments of people's imagination.

They're stories that people might tell that oftentimes become equated with the truth and can be very easily put out there as being the truth.

I've heard people tell stories about Jesus's life and what he did and how he did it.

And apparently someone picks that up and they, they take it and tell their children what Jesus did and how he did it.

And, and it wasn't anything like that revealed in Scripture, but they got it from some, some figment of some man's imagination.

Be very careful that we don't distort the Scriptures.

That's why it's so important, ladies and gentlemen, that if you're going to appeal to truth, just look at the Word of God and read it for what it says and then let people discern what they've, what they hear.

It seems to me that too many times we take the liberty of telling others what the Bible says and we misquote it and we misrepresent it.

Oftentimes if we're not careful, we will do it to our own hurt and those hearing us.

There is also, as we think about this matter of attitudes toward the truth, balancing love that we should have.

What I mean by that?

The Scriptures reveal the very thoughts of God.

Our devotion to him will certainly elevate our respect for His Word.

But if we love someone else more than we love the truth, then we become what the Bible calls idolaters.

That's what an idolater is.

It's someone who has erected something else, something of more value and more importance than the word of God.

Well, what could that be?

Well, it could be your job, where that's just about pretty much all you do in life and you would rather do it than anything else.

It could be money, it could be television.

It could be sports, it could be the love of a woman, it could be your family.

All these in and of themselves might be very good.

But anything that would place us over our affections for God becomes an idolatrous relationship.

That's why we have such statements like Jesus gives a man does not hate his own mother and father.

He cannot be my disciple.

Some people read that today and they get all bent out of shape because, well, I never can serve a God that wants me to hate my mama.

But that's not what he's saying.

He's talking about this very idea that I'm talking about.

And that is that we need not put anything, elevate anything over God.

Nothing should take precedent over him and his word that he's revealed.

There ought to be an aspiring for him at his will and a love for him and his will so that nothing else takes, takes over.

Some put their family ties above the truth.

When some family member becomes unfaithful or they leave, go out into the world and they somehow resist any kind of effort to bring that person to God or in any way talk to them or no, the Bible talks about the need to rebuke and exhort, warn.

And sometimes people just can't do that with their own family members.

Why do they have a reverence for their family member above God and a love for that family member above God, that they can't do what God wants them to do.

Others just simply deny plain words of Scripture because they know their loved one didn't believe it, or they know that their loved one didn't practice what the Scriptures taught.

And, and they've just dug their heels in the ground.

And they said, well, I.

If that's the case, then I just won't do it either.

And some may condone a preacher or teacher who fosters error.

And if it's good enough for him, he would never teach us wrong, he would never tell us what's wrong.

And so they feel so attached to them.

That kind of a preacher itis, we call it, that they'll just follow him to the ends of the earth.

And if old brother so and so said it, it's gotta be so.

Well, my friend, that can certainly be and is a form of idolatry.

Our personal feelings can interfere with our loyalty to the truth.

Paul saw this principle at work in Peter's life.

He fell into hypocrisy along with Barnabas in Galatians, chapter 2.

And Paul's assessment of it was in verse 14.

He said, but when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel.

He said he went to Peter, stood before him before all because he stood condemned.

Paul saw a much deeper, more serious problem in in the shunning of the Gentile brethren than just hurting people's feelings.

He saw sinful compromise to the truth and destroying everything that he had worked for in building a teaching, a gospel that taught justification on the basis of law versus justification on the basis of faith and his support.

His teaching was it is by faith in Christ Jesus and not by law.

Now to give in to these Judaizing teachers who are requiring circumcision and keeping the law and withdrawing yourselves from those Gentiles who are not doing it was in fact spitting in God's face to say, I don't care what you reveal, I'm going to go ahead and please my friends over here.

They mean more to me.

It's peer pressure, in other words, and he compromised the truth.

On the other hand, we must not let blind zeal turn us into nitpickers and cranks and zealots, people who create suspicions and controversy.

The New Testament condemns this mindset just as much as the other and describes it as sort of a cowardly compromise.

In first Timothy, chapter one, in verse four, Paul talks about not giving heed to fables and endless genealogies which cause disputes, rather than godly edifices, which is in faith.

He says in verse 6, from such having strayed, turn aside, turn aside the idle talk.

They desire to be teachers of the law, understanding either what they say nor the things which they affirm.

That's interesting, isn't it?

There are a lot of people who don't know what they're saying nor whereof they affirm, but they still want to be known as being teachers.

That's a pride problem, isn't it?

In Titus, chapter three, verse nine, he says, but avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless.

So we have to channel our love for God and respect for His Word into being good students of the Scriptures to know what the Bible says and therefore what we believe and why we believe it because of what the Bible says.

In other words, knowing what we believe and why we believe it has its basis in Scripture.

And so we have to prepare ourselves to completely defend against distractors and detractors, to examine ourselves also.

Second Corinthians 13, 5, Paul says, examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith, prove all things.

So we must examine ourselves in light of the Scriptures to see our flaws and our shortcomings and not to walk away as James describes the man who sees himself in a mirror and he walks away and forgets what manner of man that he is.

We need not be forgetful hearers, but doers of the Word when we see God's Word and how we fall short of it, to immediately then acknowledge it to God and have the courage to change it, to always be mending and amending and transforming our minds.

You may remember what we said about that in Romans 12, be not conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.

That's an ongoing process of adding and working on our hearts and our attitudes and our minds and our conclusions.

It is our shortcomings that we must acknowledge, and it humbles us to realize them once we have, and to know and have the confidence, as we've already noted last week, that our God is.

Is willing to forgive us.

He's ready and anxious to accept our call to come back or our effort to this new creation to be the kind of people that God wants us to be.

It's our attitude toward the truth more than anything else, more than formal education, more than our memory, whether we're having a feeble memory or length of time that we've been a Christian.

It's our attitude toward the truth, my friends, that will determine how much you know or how much you retain and how much you'll utilize, how much you will apply.

It will all be based on your attitude toward the truth.

We need to say with the Psalmist in Psalm 119, I'd like to read starting in verse 161.

It should be the attitude of all of our hearts this morning.

My heart stands in awe of your Word.

I rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure.

Do you remember?

That's what Jesus said about describing the kingdom is likened to that man who saw a treasure in a field, and he goes and buys all, sells all that he has, that he might buy it, that he might acquire notice the value of it is depending on what he's willing to.

To give up for it or what he's willing, the cost that he's willing to pay for it.

And Jesus says, you give up, you sell everything you have to buy that field because of the treasure in it.

And so the wise man says very similarly, I rejoice at your word as one who finds a great treasure.

I hate and abhor lying, but I love your law.

You see the contrast, friends, I'm interested In truth, as much it might hurt.

It might hurt me to acknowledge it and to accept it.

It might hurt me to acknowledge it because it might apply more readily to a friend or loved one or my wife or my children.

But truth is valuable.

It's like a treasure, and I should want it above all else.

Even though it may hurt to acknowledge.

The wise man said, I abhor lying, but I love your law.

Seven times a day I will praise you because of your righteousness, because of your righteous judgments.

Great peace have those who love your law and nothing causes them to stumble.

We can learn from others.

We can learn from the attitudes the Jews had regarding God and His Word, and we can compare that or contrast that as it were, to the attitudes that we should have.

But the real factors that lead to a genuine appetite for God's Word and is my attitude toward God.

And I ought to be full of gratitude and thanksgiving for the one who's given so much in order that I might have life and have it abundantly.

And I need an appetite for God and His Word.

I need to have a patience for my understanding of that Word.

In other words, don't come to the point ever in your life when you think you've got it all figured out.

I've got it off here.

It doesn't take much.

I read it one day and I understand everything there is to understand.

And after all, the Bible is not too difficult to understand.

And we hear that said, and what more is there to know?

I know it.

Just ask me any questions.

And it's that sort of an attitude that produces a complacency.

It produces an attitude that says, I don't value it as much anymore.

Why?

Because I already have it.

It's not like that treasure in the field in which a man goes and sells everything he has to get it.

That feeling, that joy or that willing to sacrifice that insatiable desire that you're seeking to have something is never met.

That's why you hunger for it all the time.

That's why you thirst for it all the time.

But if you think you've arrived, if you think you've somehow got all the answers and there's nobody can tell you anything, and my friend, you're not going to grow any more than you have.

And unfortunately, the things that you've missed in the scriptures will evade you for a lifetime because you've got that sort of an attitude.

We don't need that attitude.

We need to adopt a very different one.

One that loves the Lord, one that loves his will and is willing to sacrifice all else to have it to get it.

So that's my thoughts for you today.

I trust that you will have a pleasant day today and a good week.

And we will continue our study on attitudes, proper attitudes.

Thank you.