Meditate therein day and night

“And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.”--Revelation 5:4

In Jesus Christ’s day, “most of the masses were careless listeners (much like today) for they were willing to listen to hearsay rather than check out the facts for themselves,” writes R. Dawson Barlow in his 2005 book The Apostasy of the Christian Church.

The first occurrence of the word “read” in the King James Bible, where somebody is physically reading something, is in Exodus 24:7: “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.”

Jordan says, “Notice Moses writes the words down in a book. He sprinkles the book, but before he does, he READS the w-o-r-d-s. You see, it’s important in the Bible that you read the Bible.

“When Moses describes to Israel about what they’re to do when they enter into the ‘land of promise,’ one of the first things he tells them (Deuteronomy 17) is that when the king ‘sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
[19] And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them.’

*****

“If you want God’s Word, the truth of who you are in Jesus Christ, the life of Christ, to work in you, you need to get into READING. If you want who God has made you—He called Israel to be somebody and if that was to work in them, they had to get those w-o-r-d-s, read them all the days of their life so those words would work in them.

“You don’t operate simply on your memory. You don’t operate on what you heard a teacher or preacher say. You sit and read the words yourself.

“When Moses dies and Joshua takes his place of leadership, God advises, ‘Be strong and of good courage.’ He says in Joshua 1:8, ‘This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.’

“You see, they’re to take that book, they’re to read it, they’re to meditate on it, they’re to think about it, they’re to fill their mind with it.

“Joshua 8:34 says, ‘And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.’

“When they’re going to be led into blessing, led into the land, they’re going to be corrected for their misbehavior, they’re going to look at verses in their Bible and read them. It’s that important, folks.

*****

“By the way, this BOOK that Moses starts writing; it just keeps growing. He keeps adding to it. God is writing His Word, growing His Word, adding Scripture to it.

“Joshua 24:26 says, ‘And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD.’

“The verses are showing you there’s this BOOK and they’re reading it and the Book is why it’s important. Now that’s why there’s a Book, by the way.

“The Lord says in Isaiah 30:8, ‘Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.’

“The reason the emphasis is so much on that Book, and reading the Book, is because God designed His people to be People of a Book; of a written record of His Word.

*****

“I remember the first time I read through the Koran, and I had asked my neighbor to ‘get me a copy of the Koran that you guys use.’ I had gone and gotten the one that Arthur Arberry did and I didn’t know whether it was right or not. If you get a translation of somebody’s scripture you want to find the one that the people doing it want.

“I told myself, ‘I’m going to read this through at least 6-8 times so I have a little information in my head about what’s in it.’ Thomas Carlyle said reading the Koran was the most vain effort there is to read and he was right. It’s a confusing kind of thing.

“Read it 4-5 times and you begin to see there really is no pattern to it, but I was struck by how, over and over, they refer to Christians and Jews as ‘The People of the Book.’

“That’s who we are. God wrote a Book. Now, that’s why READING it is important, because the reason you’re reading is you’re reading the Book that contains the w-o-r-d-s of God.

“God didn’t say to listen to DVDs and CDs; He said, ‘Read the Book.’

“Now there’s a listening and hearing issue too, but it starts with the reading. Why does Isaiah 30:8 say to note it in a book? ‘That it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.’ Notice they are to take the word God gave them (through the prophet) and write it in a book so it can be preserved for the future.

*****

"In theological circles, there’s a great discussion about inspiration. II Peter 1:20-21 says, ‘Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
[21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

“Notice it didn’t say they wrote as they were moved. It said they SPAKE. See that? Romans 16:22 reveals, ‘I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.’

“Wait a minute, I thought Paul wrote Romans?! I thought Paul said, ‘Read what I write and you’ll get understanding’? Does that mean Romans doesn’t fit if this dude Tertius wrote it? What’s the deal there?

“Paul didn’t write most of his epistles. In Galatians 6, he writes, ‘Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.’

“It’s only six chapters. But evidently he had some problems with his eyes and he didn’t actually do the penning. He spoke, and as he dictated, Tertius wrote it down.

“But the verse says ‘holy men of God SPAKE as they were moved.’ So where was the inspiration? In spirit, in breathing; that’s talking. Then they record in written fashion the w-o-r-d-s. You know what the recording is? That’s preservation of what’s spoken. There’s inspiration and preservation in one verse.

*****

“It’s fascinating that you take the average doctrinal statement of the average church, and the average Christian institution since the turn of the 20^th Century, and they talk about the Bible. They say, ‘We believe the Bible was given by inspiration of God.’

“And they talk about verbal, planarian inspiration and dynamics in the original autographs. You know what the problem with that is? You’ve never seen an original autograph. You’ve never seen an original copy. The book Paul wrote to the Ephesians, you never saw the original. Most people didn’t. What did they see? Copies.

“Well, if it was only inspired in the original, what have you got now? By their definition, you have an uninspired bible. You say, ‘Well, that’s not good.’

“Now when you go out and raise that question, these people blow their stack at you and they say, ‘Well, you’re one of those ‘King James Only’ people.

“The point is God wrote His Word, He spake it and it was written down, and was designed to be preserved. How long did Isaiah 30:8 say it was meant for? Why did he say to go write it down? So it could be preserved for the next generation and the next generation.

“It’s still as much His Word after it’s written down as it was when it came out of Paul’s mouth. The scholars say Tertius is Paul’s ‘amanuensis.’ I love that title. That’s just means it’s his secretary. That’s a just a big fancy definition for ‘he’s taking dictation.’ You can’t charge somebody $50,000 for an education if you don’t teach them big words.

“What Tertius is doing is preserving for you the inspired w-o-r-d-s God gave through Paul. By the way, look at Romans 16:26: ‘But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.’

“If God’s Word is to be made known to all nations, what would that require? It’s going to require that it be translated. You remember that verse in Zechariah 8 where he says that ‘ten men shall take hold out of ALL languages of the nations’?

“God knows there’s all these different languages and if His Word is designed to be made known to all nations, He doesn’t tell all nations, ‘Come learn this language.’ He says, ‘Take my Word and put it into the languages of the nations.’

*****

“If you go back and study doctrinal statements before the turn of the 20^th Century, you know what you find they say? They don’t say God’s Word is found in the originals only. They say God’s Word was found in the originals and then preserved through history, designed to be translated into the languages of the nations.

“In fact, the Westminster Confession, the great old confession that everybody says is supposed to be the standard of everything, says that His Word is designed to be preserved PURE through all generations. God is going to preserve His word through history in written form, through copies, translating. It’s designed so it can be permanent and precise.”