The Word of God a Cause for Thanksgiving - Gerald Birky

Good morning. I wish to extend Christian greetings to all

this morning. It's good to be here.

Good to be in the house, the House of the Lord,

the House of God. Welcome here. Whether you're a regular

or a visitor, you're We're glad for your presence. I've been.

Been impressed with the with the service thus far. The

various thoughts shared. These verses from Isaiah the brother Leland.

Just read that a little scribble on the side of

my Bible. You know, our God is this big, views

views nations as a drop.

Very impressive.

The sermon on the mount that we were looking at

in Sunday school, Jesus doing something talking to people, communicating

Darren's devotional this morning. The picture of an empty chair,

people trying to communicate with God communicating. Mm hmm. For

a title this morning, well, like I think you'll see

how these things can connect somewhat. The title that I

have here on the top of my page. I was

actually struggled a bit to come up with a title.

But finally did I have simply here the word of

God A cause for thanksgiving.

You can say, a cause forgiving of thanks We have

God's word to us, a cause.

A reason for us to give to thank.

Him Thanksgiving.

This week.

Thanksgiving is a day on the calendar day that most

of us take off work and get together with family.

I enjoy the time of year. The time of year

you get to the end of the year, it's getting

cold and wet and nasty outside. We don't really feel

like being out there too much after four point thirty

in the afternoon. End of the year, we have a

Hall of Christmas, holiday season coming up in another month,

and school vacations, and and it's a time of reflection.

It's time of thinking, rejoicing, celebrating. Lots of things happen.

So I have a couple of quotes here. I was

going to going to read one, well, this has to

do with Thanksgiving. I'm going to be looking, I guess

a little more in introduction to where are my thoughts.

Where I'm planning to take.

You this morning is is a little bit down this

the thought of Thanksgiving, but then moving your minds on

toward communication and the Word.

Of God and how some of that works.

But quote I picked up read about Thanksgiving. It's one

of these little twists of English words. If we pause

to think, we'll have cause to think. If we pause

to think, we'll have cause to think. In another verse

from Isaiah fifty seven, explaining this sentence, God has found

in two places. God is found in two places. One

of his dwellings is in heaven, and the other is

in a meek and thankful heart. Isaiah fifty seven fifteen

says this, for thus saith the high and lofty one

that inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in

the high and holy place with him. Also that is

of a contrat and humble spirit, to revive the spirit

of the umbil and to revive the heart of.

The contrat one.

Contrat ones that's plural, contrat and umble, polar opposite, diametrically

opposed to entitled and complaining. None of us enjoy being

around spending time with people who are entitled and complaining.

Globally, the Americans are.

Known as that entitled and complaining. Hopefully, the American Christians

are not. Another definition of thanksgiving.

That I that I thought I.

Would share here written at three little paragraphs here written

by Joel Gregory from the book one thousand and one

Quotes and Illustrations, and may Jaden may be able to

correct me, but I'll just read this. It talked about Africa.

I have no experience there, but it says this Actually marcellous,

he could probably shed some light on this. But this

this I've read and found very interesting. The Massi tribe

in West Africa has an unusual way of saying thank you.

Translators tell us that when the mass I express thanks,

they bow, put their forehead on the ground and say

my head is in the dirt.

Something like that is what it would mean.

When members of another tribe, African tribe want to express gratitude,

they sit for a long time in front of the

hut of the person who did the favor and literally say,

I sit on the ground before you. These Africans understand

well what thanksgiving is and why it is difficult for us.

At its core, thanksgiving is an act of humility. Thanksgiving

an act of humility. So if I were to move

on and say, what are you thankful for this morning?

We've done, We've done this, had services where we opened

it up and had testimony time, and and that that

is that is interesting and a blessing. I don't think

we're gonna do that this morning, but I'll I'll take

I'll take I'll take my liberties because I'm here. I

would say, if I were going to mention one one

thing part of this is from from my study, I

would say, I'm grateful for I'm thankful for literacy and

the written word of God, the Bible. You see, literacy

is this is this means or or the way we

the way we communicate the Bible is neat at all.

You know, it's it's a it's a well put together volume,

a volume of words.

But if you're illiterate, if.

You don't know how to understand, it doesn't do you

a lot of good. So to demonstrate that, we call

it the Word of God. And Darren's devotional this morning

talking about the Word of God, I was I was

thinking about this. We're we're trying to communicate, but we're

trying to communicate with a spirit.

That's we're we're used to we're.

Used to communicating with flesh and blood and people and

Homo sapiens.

But how does it how does that.

Communication even work? So I'm gonna I have a word here.

I'm gonna say, actually I could I could write it

on the board and if I if I made some

lines on the board, I could communicate to you, but

we also do it with sounds. And so if it's

is a very not even third grade, less lower than

third grade illustration.

But but if when I.

In an effort to communicate with you, communicate something to you, make.

These sounds at cat, A very simple little few sounds,

right cat? But immediately in your mind something comes up.

Everybody knows what a cat is.

Gotto lagata, different set of sounds.

What did that communicate?

You see communication? Whether it was written up there or

whether it's the sounds I threw out at you, what

your previous understanding, your previous knowledge.

Comes to play. You have to have you have to know.

What a cat is before you know what cat means. Communication,

communication and words. So we know what those words mean.

Got a little little story though communication is a little complex.

I have a little story in this. This comes from

this year.

About This is about actually about cats.

About five years ago we moved on to the place

we live on where we lived and there were two

cats that lived in the on the behind the house,

under the porch. I don't know where they we don't

really know where they lived.

They just they just showed up.

For meals and eventually one of them. Well before we

moved there, Bob Cook, the neighbor, was moving out of

the house, said I mean it's gruff way.

Hey, if I leave you a couple of bags of

cat food, will you feed my cats? Yeah, we'll feed

your cats. We'll keep feeding the cats, all right. So

we took care of the cats winter ago. One of

them died.

They were they were very old cats. One of them died,

the second one had problems. Eventually we wound up being

the second one disappeared, and so we were without cats.

And somehow, in the course of communicating about cats, the

fingers are pointing at me because I apparently I remember

in conversations saying that we were had a cat free home. Basically,

we don't have any cats in our back porch anymore.

And whether I said we wanted some or didn't is

still up for discussion. But about June or July of

this year, someone showed up on our back porch with

a box with three cats in it. They were little, nice, cute.

I call them our local socialists there. They're there every morning,

happy for a handout. What happened to the communication about cats?

It's okay, I like there being cats around. I just

didn't want them to be my cats. I wanted them

to be somebody else's project. But we had a bit

of a communication problem.

Partly I will blame I will blame.

The person who heard me speaking about cats. They might

have had a bit of an agenda, something that they

wanted to hear out of this.

They had a problem. How do we get rid of

too many kittens? We understand that problem.

I didn't realize that problem was happening when I commented

about cats and the lack of them.

So what we hear?

Context? And I'm taking you I'm taking your minds. I

wanting to take your minds to God's word. But first

fourth grade boy, first fourth grade boy joke? We need

one of those. This is actually what took me, got

me started on this subject. I read, I read, I

think this is within the last several months, and I

can't even pull back together in my mind what the

context was. But it had to do with a schoolboy.

So fourth grade boys? How many of them we got here?

Fifth grade boys? Davids you in fifth grade? There's a

couple of fifth grade boys verse ninety nine in the Bible.

You want to look that one up for me verse

ninety nine.

There's actually only one of them in the Bible, and

we're gonna look at that chapter. Psalm one hundred nineteen

is the chapter that has ninety nine verses, and this verse,

this verse ninety nine, a fourth or fifth grade boy

could probably get himself into trouble with a school teacher

if he just nice, loudly and quickly read the first

half of the verse. Let's say the school teacher said,

all right, tomorrow, there's a test, a big history test tomorrow,

and the fifth grade boy is pretty sure the teacher

doesn't understand the situation. It's not time for a test.

Next week would be a better time for a test.

And if he blurts out, I'm mister teacher number ninety

nine here says I have more understanding than all my teachers.

May be a way to get in trouble.

Context. What's the rest of the story, what's the rest

of the verse. Let's read this section. I believe brother

Jason preached he preached from one of these sections here

in psalmone nineteen, and quite frankly, they're all rather they're

all quite similar.

So exactly which which.

One he went through, I'm not sure it may have

been this one, but let's read it. Psalm one nineteen,

verse ninety seven to one oh four. Let's look at

these the verses say this, Oh, how love I thy law?

It is my meditation all the day. Thou, through thy commandments,

hast made me wiser than mine enemies, For they are

ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers.

For thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than

the ancients. Because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained

my feet from every evil way that I might keep

thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments. For

thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words into

my taste? Yea sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through

thy precepts, I get understanding. Therefore I hate every false way.

This is just this is just pulled out of eight

eight verses. Pulled.

You could call this out of context, but it is

actually a It would be a I guess, a versive song.

You might call it this Psalm or chapter or a

cross stick. I think it's called.

There's seldom this is This is a quote from Barnes notes,

but said there's seldom any coherence between the verses. But

like Solomon's proverbs, it should be more be likened to

a chest of gold rings and not a chain.

Of gold links.

The chain of gold links' I'll call that the Bible

genesis through revelation. The entirety of God's word are our books,

our stories are an account linking creation to the end

of time.

Call that a golden chain. But there's there's a.

Couple of books in the Bible. Proverbs is one, and

this Most psalms tend to go through a story and

you can follow it, but not this one, this Psalm

one nineteen is it should be called a chest of

gold coins. Every everything you pull out of it kind

of is is a standalone, but it has a very

recurring theme. And the theme here is the law of God

or what or God's communication. And so I've put this

down more like you would do an equation. If you

if you look at that verse, and most of those

verses are split into two parts, if you put an

equals sign in the middle of it, what would what

would your equation look like? And so just go, I'm

going to not spend a lot of time here going

through these. But the law verse ninety seven says.

I love thy law. Who wrote it?

Possibly David, probably David. I'm going to I'm going to

I'm going to act like that's who I think wrote it,

though it's not it's not certain.

I don't believe.

There's actually this, this this concept, this thing of God's law.

It well, the law. The next one was the commanders.

Yeah, this thing of God's law in this in this chapter,

I guess there were about ten different Hebrew words that

were translated law law. What we know of is the

law of God or what we would call the Bible,

God's God's written communication with man, and so would if

we just whip down through this this song making these equations,

thy law equals my meditation. What's meditation the act of

meditating that's continued or extended thought, reflection, devout, religious contemplation,

or spiritual introspection looking at oneself.

But God's law is what I meditate on.

Thy commandments the next verse, Thy commandments has made me wiser. Now,

this thing of commandments law or written written laws or

written commandments when it's it's probably referring here to to

the tablets of stone that we're in the arc. You see, David,

if the song is David wrote this, there would have

been a he would have he would have actually known

where to go to find the written law of God.

He couldn't see it, but at the tabernacle inside there

there they're guarded. But when Moses came down off the

Mount Siginnie with this law, it was not a new

concept in society.

Three hundred years.

Before the time of Moses, there was a Babylonian king,

Hammer Rabbi was his name, and he had written a

set of I can't remember the number, two hundred and

eighty two. I think it was a number of laws

chiseled into stone, a special kind of stone that still

I guess part of that stone still exists. And so

the idea of a nation, a nation having a stone

set of laws was probably something that they knew about,

hadn't probably hadn't experienced. But now they had it. Moses

gave it, Moses went up Mount Sinie. God gave it

through Moses. And so this God's commandments makes me wiser

than the enemies. The next verse ninety nine, thy testimonies,

see I have thy testimonies is referring to the same

block of information God's testimonies or what he has written

down statement or declaration of a witness. Another definition is

the decalogue as inscribed on the two tablets of the law,

or the arc in which the tablets were kept. Those

were those This word was used to refer to that.

And so it's that. It's it's God's law. It's God's

instructions that made this person wiser than his teachers. Why

his teachers are human. His teachers are trying to explain

God's law. But God's law, God's communication demand.

Is higher thing.

The next one verse one hundred, I keep thy precepts.

What's a precept, Well, it's a commander or a direction

given as a rule, an injunction as to moral conduct,

how you should act.

So I keep thy precepts.

But because of that, I have more understanding than the ancients,

than the old people, if I keep God's law. The

next one verse one oh one, the refraining of feet.

All of a sudden, this shifts just a little bit.

Proverbs one fifteen. There's this versus, my son, walk not

thou in the way with them, refrain thy foot from

their path. See Solomon wrote that most probably refrain thy

foot from their path, don't walk with them, So all

of a sudden, it's your it's my responsibility to refrain

my feet, and by carefully choosing my path is what equals.

My ability to keep thy word.

Verse one oh two. Thou hast taught me, and that

equals my refusal to depart from thy judgments or again,

the communication, the written the written communication of God. I'm

not going to depart from that, because you have taught me.

I know where my current knowledge has come from. It's

a very reputable source. Therefore, I refuse to depart. Sweet

to my taste, This is as good as it gets.

You could think o that verse, how sweet are thy

words to my taste? In other words, it's agreeable to me.

God's plan, God's communication demand, God's way works.

This is as good as it gets.

This direct command, this piece of advice give that was

given from God, the creator in heaven to these Jewish people,

his words, his commands, the best advice for how to

live prosperously.

That's what that was. This is wonderful.

He's saying, they're they're better than honey, sweeter than honey.

And the final verse there one o four. Through thy precepts,

through through this, through this, through this communication, through.

This law, through God's word, I.

Get understanding, and because of that I hate.

Every false way you see.

Understanding the entire situation, Understanding the whole situation, which includes

God's communication, my will, and my choice. When I use

the word choice, that means that there's there is a

there is a wrong way to go. There's a broadway

Proverbs fourteen twelve. There's a way which seems right into

a man. But the end, there are the ways of death.

There is a danger. You say, so great as the

God's law exists, we have it. But what's God's will

for me? What am I supposed to do with my life?

How did God really reveal reveal himself? Those are questions

that we ask. But the singer of this Psalm one

hundred and nineteen, and I guess, I guess it would

be it would be an interesting thing to hear this

song as a as a personal testimony, as a something.

Actually we read it, we read through it very interesting,

but we kind of just go on and we live life.

But we ask questions about how am I supposed to live?

What am I supposed to do? Am I doing the

right thing? G Campbell Morgan wrote this throughout this Psalm.

The singer reveals his conception of the value of this

great will. He's talking about the will or what God wants,

both in itself and in its revelation, and utters words

showing his determination to be obedient, there too, combined with

constant prayer to enable him to do so. This attitude

is supremely revealed in his declaration.

Verse ninety seven. I love the law.

It's my meditation. Verse one hundred and five, which is

the next one. My word is a lamp under my feet.

It light into my path. The lamb for the feet

is that which illuminates the immediate pathway. The light is

that which reveals the general direction. But now think of something,

Think of something else with me, just a little bit.

The Bible as we know it versus the Bible as

the law. In other words, this Psalm one nineteen was

written without the New Testament. This was long before the

New Testament. God's communication demand was precious then. But the

compilation that we have today, the Holy Bible.

I see it as a.

Chain of these gold links spanning from creation to the

coming return of Christ on earth, is far more impressive.

The complete the completed canon of Scripture. Do we understand

do we appreciate what we are holding, what we were

holding in our hands? If you like statistics and numbers,

approximate total number of Bibles printed? I I asked my friend,

my friend the Google that question, and it was very

impressive to me. Actually, chat GTP asked the question, and

I wondered how they would go about determining that. Actually,

I'll just read you what it came back with. It

said six to seven billion copies. Most sources place this

number in the in this range as of twenty twenty.

That's the answered the question how many how many copies

of the Bible have been printed? And then it goes

on to say why it can't be exact the Bible.

It can't be exact because one Bibles have been printed

for nearly six hundred years since Gutenberg fourteen fifty four.

There are hundreds of Bible societies, ministries, and commercial publishers

world wide. Many governments and private printers never report numbers.

Digital copies further complicate tracking, but they're not included in

the printed estimate. General consensus the Bible is the most

printed and distributed book in human history, with a total

comfortably in the billions and surpassing any other book by

a large margin.

Mm hmmm. So what's it worth? What's it? What is

it worth to you? Is it of value to you?

Those are just some questions that I came that came

came up in my mind. Think of think of think

of this concept. Now one other one this is this

is this is back to back to a little bit

to the communication thing, but discipline and things of value,

discipline and things of value. Think about what you have?

Have something you have that you value? Your pick up,

your house, your marriage, your family relationships, how about your education,

your ability to read. But I'll point out that there's

there's a there's a trail, a thread running through there.

You had any one of those things that I mentioned

that you have if you have it, if you have

if you have acquired one of those relationships or friendships

or house, marriage, family, although all of these things, your education,

your ability to read, you have you acquired that thing

of value with discipline. Discipline was required to acquire it,

to get a hold of it, to actually have it.

And another concept that goes with that is that when

you said yes to acquiring this, you said no to

something else. We could also call that time management. And

so this this thing that we hold in our hands,

this Bible, it does us not much good unless we

actually read it.

The principles are there.

But this, this is simply the record of how God worked,

what God did with men. From creation. Just just think

about all the phases creation, the giving of the law,

and mount sinei, priests, kings, prophets. Finally, Jesus Christ came

two thousand years ago, and now we hold we hold

this record in our hands. And this this sub also came.

It came came to my mind even even a little

bit more so a couple of weeks ago, going through

the ordination process. Here in somewhere the question it was

either part of the vows or one of the questions

in the in an interview. I'm not sure where it

came out, But will will you encourage your people to

read the Bible? To study the Bible? I think the

word study was was used there. Please study your Bible.

I'll just say it that way. Study your Bible at

a very minimum, read it. I know that sounds if

it sounds too difficult to study it, read it.

It will it will do you. It will do you good.

It does us good to.

Think back to the think back to my my my statement,

or my my illustration with the word cat. You had

to know what cat was before that that word made

much sense. And the same I believe the same thing

applies with our with our reading of the Bible, with

our reading understanding God's word. If we want, if we

expect to hear God's whisper, we we have to learn.

We we have to be open. You can say, well, I'm.

A slow reader, I can't hardly read, I don't like

to read. And I and I will, I will, I

will allow for that there is there is. We are

not all. We are not all made the same. It's

it is indeed more difficult for some than others. But

at least be open to it. But understand that how

much time does it take to read the Bible the Bible?

Read the Bible through seventy four hours? If you're a

slow reader, sixty seven if you're average, a little less

than that. If you're fast, make it practical. Make a

plan three and a half chapters per day. Get we'll

get you through the book in a year. Last time

I stood up here, I talked to you a little

bit about I was talking about a opening a bookstore

in Portobayo to Mexico. In that process, we were, you know,

deciding which books to put in there in bibles, and

I was talking with a man.

I had a different Bible there.

I had a Spanish nineteen sixty chronological Bible. And I

knew this man knew quite a bit about I know

him fairly well, and so I asked him, have you

read the chronological Bible.

He looked at it and said, yeah, I have. Yep.

Basically he was looking at what we were putting on

the show. What were we going to have for sale?

Yep, I read, I read. I read the Bible chronologically.

And then I asked him a question about I think

maybe my wife had a different version there.

I said, so, have you read this version?

I forget what it was, the revised or the anyway.

He said, yes, I read that.

And he didn't tell me this next thing in a

boastful way, but but he kind of took me aside

just a little bit. Our wives were our wives were there,

just a little bit. He said, listen, Gerald, I used

to read a lot. I read a lot of books.

And he said, if you give me a book today,

I'll probably read it, but I would read it just

because you recommended it.

I don't.

I don't go looking for books anymore. I've moved my

reading to the Bible, so I read lots of versions,

and I read a lot. I read about two and

a half hours a day, and that puts you through

the Bible every forty days, and I've been doing that

for years. Okay, thanks for coming into it. Thanks for

talking to me about books. You see, this man is

not a wealthy man. This man you could say he

doesn't have time. But I believe personally, I believe there's

a blessing. There's a blessing in getting into and appreciating

God's word. So I remember this context matters. Don't just

take the first half of a verse to make it

suit your suit your day. Discipline and things of value.

To acquire something of value, you will need to add

discipline to the equation discipline, and the reality is you

value some things. So back again to the thanksgiving, I'm

grateful for literacy and the written word of God.

We're not supposed to worship the Bible. That's not the point.

Our worship is to be directed to God. But our

exposure to the Bible is a great help to the

Christian life. Thank you for your attention. Let's have a song.