I. WE NEED TO SEEK GODS FORGIVENESS.
If it were announced upon reliable authority
that on a certain date in the near future an angel from heaven would visit New
York and would deliver a sermon upon the invisible world, the future destiny of
man, or the secret of deliverance from the power of sin, what an audience he
would command! There is no building in that city large enough to accommodate
the crowd which would throng to hear him. If upon the next day, the newspapers
were to give a verbatim report of his discourse, how eagerly it would be read!
And yet, we have between the covers of the Bible not merely an angelic
communication but a Divine revelation. How great then is our wickedness if we
undervalue and despise it! And yet we do.
We need to confess to God our sin of neglecting
His Holy Word. We have time enough - we take time - to read the writings of
fellow sinners, yet we have little or no time for the Holy Scriptures. The
Bible is a series of Divine love letters, and yet many of God's people have
scarcely broken the seals. God complained of old, "I have written to him the
great things of My law, but they were counted as a strange thing" (Hos. 8:12).
To neglect God's gift is to despise the Giver. To neglect God's Word is
virtually to tell Him that He made a mistake in being at so much trouble to
communicate it. To prefer the writings of man is to insult the Almighty. To say
that human writings are more interesting is to impugn the wisdom of the Most
High and is a terrible indictment against our own evil hearts. To neglect God's
Word is to sin against its Author, for He has commanded us to read, study, and
search it.
If the Bible is the Word of God then -