14 What’s so Special About the Bible? (Jeremiah 36:1-32)

Krisan Marotta: Hello and welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. Today we'll be looking at Jeremiah chapter 36. This is the fourteenth talk in our series on the book of Jeremiah. For links to everything mentioned in the talk and lecture notes, please go to our website, which is wednesdayintheword.com slash Jeremiah 14. Thank you for joining us. When I was a new believer back in the Dark Ages, I learned that the Bible contained all the keys to wise living. So I was in high school, and my friend showed me that when you needed an answer to a question, this is what I learned. You probably run into this too. So I would pray for a specific answer to a question, and then I'd close my eyes, kind of randomly open the Bible to whatever page fell open, point to a verse, and that's your answer. Anyone else ever do that? Well, it never worked for me. You know, I'd pray like, where should I go to college? And I'd get, do not eat of any unclean bird. Okay. But I didn't know any better at the time. Now, incidentally, I do not recommend that point to a random verse method of Bible study. Several of you have commented that you're new to Bible study, so if you want to know what to do instead, there are lots and lots of good books on how to study the Bible. One that I would recommend is called Basics of Bible Interpretation. It's by Bob Smith, and it is now free online. You don't even have to buy a hard copy, although I think you still can. So I'll put a link to that in the lecture notes, which you can find at wednesdayintheword.com slash Jeremiah 14. But it's called Basics of Bible Interpretation. It's by Bob Smith. It's a classic, but it's still all the methodology is still true and good. So obviously we expect different things from different books, so you don't pick up a cookbook looking for the same thing you would expect to find if you pick up a history textbook or vice versa. And you expect a different kind of experience from a beach read or a suspense thriller or from a travel guide or a self-help book. So we go to different kinds of books looking for different kinds of things, and we pick them up and read them for different reasons. And so the question we're going to tackle today is what do you expect from the Bible? What kind of book is this? What do you hope to gain from reading it? So the qu I phrased it, what's so special about the Bible? Now, unlike the other questions we've been looking at, this was probably not a question that Jeremiah's audience was asking. But we're looking at a story in chapter 36 that involves the written word of God and kind of the process, how it came to be. So we're going to look at that and ask, what can we learn about the nature of the Bible from that story? Now it is rare in Scripture to get a story about Scripture or the process of how Scripture was written, but we have one here. The Lord tells Jeremiah to write down everything he said, so we're going to look at why God want him to write it down and how does God expect us to respond? And in doing that, we're going to answer the question what's so special about the Bible? So you'll recall that Jeremiah began his ministry as the dominant world power, the Assyrians, went into a civil war, and as they be went into civil war and began to lose their power, both the Babylonians and the Egyptians tried to race in and fill that power vacuum and become the next world power. And in the midst of that political chaos, God calls Jeremiah and tells Jeremiah to predict basically that the Babylonians are going to win, they're going to come, and he's using them to judge Israel, they'll be taken into exile, and then he will restore them to the land. So we're looking at the whole of chapter 36 today, and the first part gives us the background, the particular time in this place in history where it started. So let's start with that. Look at verses 1 through 4. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, the word came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, Take a scroll and write on it all the words which I have spoken to you concerning Israel and concerning Judah and concerning all the nations, from the day I first spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, even to this day. Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the calamity which I plan to bring on them, in order that every man will turn from his evil way, then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. Then Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Nariah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken to him. So the Lord instructs Jeremiah, write down everything I've told you thus far, and it's in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which is covers 605 to 604 BC. And then verse 9 tells us the scroll was read in the temple in the ninth month of Yehoiakim's fifth year, which would be December of 604 BC. So since we don't know exactly when he started writing it, we don't know how long it took, and we also don't know the exact context, but because it's dated in 605, it has to be the oracles and prophecies that were given before 605, which is mostly in Jeremiah's chapter 1 through 25 and chapters 46 through 51. Those are the oracles that would have predated this. So the process of writing the scroll was for Jeremiah to dictate to a scribe. In this case, that's Baruch, and he writes down all his words. Now, there's something else significant about the fourth year of Jehoiakim. As I said, this is 605 BC, and this is just before the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem for the first time. So remember the exile happened in three different waves. There were three different deportations. And the first one occurred in 605 BC after the Battle of Carchimesh, when the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, defeated the combined forces of Egypt and Assyria. So after his victory, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah and took the best and the brightest people away into exile. And that's when he set Jehoiakim up on the throne as a puppet king over Judah. And the prophet Daniel was in that group of exiles. So eventually Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon. He tries to become independent. So Nebuchadnezzar comes again. He conquers again. He takes another large group of people away. This is the second wave, or the second deportation, and that's around 597-598 BC. And the prophet Ezekiel is taken in that group, and Zedekiah is placed on the throne. And then just to finish the story, the third and final deportation comes in 588 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar says, Enough of this. He decides to wipe out Jerusalem once and for all, and that's when there's the final destruction, when they level the temple, and all but the poorest people are taken away. So these events happen, scholars debate, either probably after the Battle of Carkamesh, maybe just before the first deportation, or maybe just after the first deportation, but sometime in that time period. Babylon has defeated the Assyrians and their allies, the Egyptians. So now it's very clear they're the new bully in town, they're the new people we have to deal with. But Judah was a vassal state of Egypt. So when Egypt is defeated, Judah's like, hmm, does this mean we're free because our overlords have been defeated, or do we now become the property of Babylon? So it's kind of this political limbo of where are we? Who's is Babylon gonna come and put us under their thumb or not? So into that chaos, you can imagine what life was like while all these powers are warring around you, and then we have the new victor, and we don't know exactly what the new victor is gonna do and how he's gonna treat us. So it's kind of chaotic, and into that chaos, God speaks. So in the midst of these trials, tragedies, and political upheaval, God speaks into the chaos. He says, Jeremiah, write down everything I've given you to preach. So here then is the first answer to our question. What's so special about the Bible? The first thing we learn is that it's divine, the it comes from God. Jeremiah is writing words God has given him to speak. You'll recall that the word of the Lord is a key phrase in this book. It occurs in almost 5% of the verses. That's one out of every 20 verses says, Thus says the Lord, or the word of the Lord came to me. And everything Jeremiah says and does relates to the word of the Lord. So we know the Bible is a divine book. It's written, it's the written word of the Lord, and ultimately God is the author. Now that sounds pretty familiar to us. We all know, of course, the Bible is God's Word. In fact, some of us spend a lot of time defending that to others because we live in a world where people deny that claim, or they claim to have their own divine books, so we have to defend why the Bible is really divine. So I'm not going to explore that issue, but I want to stop and ask, well, what does it mean to us that this book is divine? What type of response should we have to a book that is written by God? And one thing I love about this passage is God just doesn't speak, He tells us how He wants us to respond. Look at again at verse 3. Perhaps the house of Judah will hear all the calamity which I plan to bring on them, in order that every man will turn from his evil way, then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. So notice that, in order that every man will turn from his evil way, he says, I am writing this down, and my goal in writing this down is that the people hear and they turn. And if they turn, then I will forgive them. So this is what God wants. So that's the second thing we learn about what makes this book special, is that God wrote it so that we might hear and repent. It is a divine book, but it's a book that calls for a response. When he speaks, he expects something, and in that he expects a response, and that response is to hear and repent. Now, some of you have probably heard the acronym for Bible, you know, B-I-B-L-E, basic instructions before leaving earth. Heard that an acronym before? Well, the Bible certainly has a lot to say about how we should live our lives, but that's not the primary objective. The primary objective is in order that every man might turn from his evil ways. So it's not just a book of collected wise sayings about how we should live or what we should think or how we should respond in certain situations. It's God wrote it so that we might hear and repent. Well, think about that too, because the message today that's coming over a lot of the airways and the popular media is God loves you. And it's become kind of the kind of I don't know if I want to yeah, maybe the heresy de jour, everyone saying, Oh, God loves you, but there's no mention of God loves you in spite of the fact that you're a sinner. It's just God loves you. And there's no actual mention in this passage of God loves you. It is implied because he's writing this down and he wants people to repent, but he tells us what he wants from us, and it's that he wants us to turn and repent. So the primary takeaway of the Bible is not God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That's true, but the primary takeaway is you need to repent. God's word calls for a response, and that response is not an emotional rush of warmth and peace and mushigushi feelings, it's that we hear and repent. Now, repentance is an about face. It's more than feeling sorry or feeling ashamed or feeling guilty. Repentance is I am turning away from one thing and turning toward another. So it's not enough that we feel sorry for our sin, it's that we are turning away from it, fleeing from it, rejecting it, and in its place we turn toward God. Now you're probably saying, okay, that sounds good, but you're looking at one verse in Jeremiah. I'll grant you that God's purpose in writing Jeremiah was that we should turn and repent, but what about the rest of Scripture? Well, let's look at how the Gospel writers summarize the gospel and the message of Jesus. This is Matthew 3.1. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and then quote, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So how do they summarize John's message? Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Then Jesus comes, Matthew 4.17. From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is Mark 1, 14 and 15. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. So we have a summary from both John and Jesus. The summary of the gospel was repent and believe. Then when Jesus sends out the twelve the first time and he sends them out two by two and gives them authority, this is Mark 6.12. This is how he summarizes their message. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. So I think that theme is picked up throughout the Bible. That God is writing and his agenda is that we repent. Now, why is that so important? Why is that the primary takeaway? Because our primary problem is that we are sinners before a holy God. So our primary problem is not security, love, peace, fulfillment, or lack thereof. Our primary problem is we are guilty, sinners, before a just and holy God, and that problem must be solved before anything else. So the first thing God wants for us is to hear and repent. Let's see what actually happens. I'm going to read verses 5 through 20. Jeremiah commanded Barut, saying, I am re restricted, I cannot go into the house of the Lord. So you go and read the scroll from which you have written at my dictation the words of the Lord to the people in the Lord's house on the fast day. And also you shall read to them to all the people of Judah who come from their cities. Perhaps their supplication will come before the Lord, and every one will turn from his evil way, for great is the anger and the wrath of the Lord that the Lord has pronounced against the people. Notice again the repetition of in verse 7 perhaps their supplication will come before the Lord, and every one will turn from his evil way. Again that repetition of the goal. Then verse 8, Baruch, the son of Nariah, did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading from the book of the words of the Lord in the Lord's house. Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem, and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord. Then Baruch read from the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the chamber of Gamariah, the son of Shepan, I can't pronounce these names, the scribes, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house to all the people. Now when Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shepham, had heard all the words of the Lord from the book, he went down to the king's house, into the scribes' chamber, and behold, all the officials were sitting there, and then they named them all, which I will skip. And Micaiah declared to them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read from the book to the people. Then all the officials sent Yehudai, the son of Nath Nathaniah, the son of somebody else, and so on, to Baruch, saying, Take in your hand the scroll from which you have read to the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Nariah, took the scroll in his hand and went to them. And they said to him, Sit down, please, and read it to us. So Baruch read it to them. When they had heard all the words, they turned in fear one to another and said to Baruch, We shall surely report all these words to the king. And they asked Baruch, saying, Tell us, please, how did you write down how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation? Then Baruch said to them, He dictated all these words to me, and I wrote them with ink on the book. Then the official said to Baruch, Go and hide yourself, you and Jeremiah, and do not let anyone know where you are. So they went to the court of the king, but they had deposited the scroll in the chamber of Elisha the scribe, and they reported all these words to the king. So we have quite a journey here. Jeremiah is not allowed to enter the temple, so he sends Baruch to read the scroll in his place, and we're not told exactly why he was barred from the temple, but we can guess he'll would probably be arrested if he goes there. He's probably preached about this coming judgment in the temple so much that they have banned him from doing so. And you'll remember we looked at chapter 7 in the fall, one of the sermons that he preached in the temple. So they probably didn't like his message, and so they barred him from entering. We're told in verse 9 that the scroll is read on a fast day. Well, national fast days were not fixed days on the calendar. They were recalled in response to some emergency or some crisis. So it is this is the very month when the Babylonian army sacked the Philistine city of Ashkelon, which is just to the north of Israel. And some scholars think that, well, they called a fast day in response to this sacking of Ashkelon, because it means the Babylonian army is approaching. So on such fast days, lots and lots of people came into Jerusalem, came to the temple, and they prayed to the Lord for deliverance. So it's most likely that Jeremiah picked that day because lots of people would be there, because they're gathered at the temple, and lots of them would then have a chance to hear these words, and hopefully it would inspire their repentance. So Baruch reads the scroll in the midst of all the people, and then Micaiah, one of the kings, the son of one of the king's officials, hears it, recognizes how important it is, he takes it to all the king's officials. Then the king's officials say, This is really important, and they say, We've got to get it to the king. So notice how many people are involved with getting the message out. God presumably wants to say something to the king. So first he tells Jeremiah, take a scroll. Jeremiah tells Baruch, Baruch writes it down, Baruch reads the scroll, Micaiah hears it, gets excited about it, then they take it to the officials. The officials hear it, get excited about it, and then they finally take it to the king. So this word comes from Jeremiah to Baruch, to Mercaiah to the officials, and finally to the king. Well, God could have spoken directly to the king, right? I mean, if he spoke directly to Jeremiah, he could have spoken directly to the king, or he could have found, he could have sent Jeremiah himself into the king's presence for a face-to-face confrontation. But he doesn't do that. He uses all these people and all these, we don't know how many, but presumably hundreds of people or thousands, heard this message. So you have all these different people hearing the scroll, they understand it, and they want someone else to hear it, and then they say, We've got to get this message out. So that tells us the third thing we know about the Bible. This is written to ordinary people, using ordinary people, in ordinary human language. All these people, they couldn't all have special training. They all hear it and they understand. So it's a divine book, is the first thing we learn. God wrote it so that we might hear and repent. That's the second. And then the third is it is written in normal human language, and we are expected to understand it. So in that sense, it's a human book. There's no secret code. You don't need magic golden glasses to decipher it. You don't need, you know, a decoder ring or something. There's no look at the numbers on the pages or start backwards from the bottom and count up every third word or something. And that sounds silly, but a lot of people have tried to approach the Bible that way. But in this chapter, we see lots of people hear it. When they hear it, they understand it. And when they understand it, they tell others about it. And the reason they can do that is because this is ordinary, common human language. So that's the third thing that's special about this book. God writes in Norman language, using normal people to deliver his message. Now, sometimes around the 19th century, people decided that because the Bible was human, it could not be divine. So there was this criticism of, well, you've got all these different authors, and they wrote with different styles, and they influenced emphasized different ideas, and they wrote at different points in history, and so it's only a human book, and therefore it's not divine. We shouldn't listen to it. But I would say, how can we listen to it if it's not a human book? I mean, if God didn't communicate it to us in our language, how could he expect us to understand it? So, yes, it takes some time studying and thinking and praying about it, and some of the language is older or the culture has changed, and we have to take time to figure that out, but it's still written in normal human language. So I would say the fact that that this book is divine means we should listen to it, and the fact that it is human means we can listen to it. We can hear and understand. So finally the scroll arrives in the king's chambers, and here it's read again. And before we find out how he responds, I want you to realize that this story would have been familiar to later Jews reading this, because it this chapter bears a striking resemblance to something that happened about 18 years earlier, which was recorded in 2 Kings chapters 22 and 23. So Jehoiakim's father, Josiah, who was king before him, was on the throne. He was a remarkable king. He was young, but he cared about the Lord and encouraged people to follow him. And as I said, this is in 2 Kings chapters 22 and 23. And during his reign, he decided to renovate the temple because it had fallen into disarray. And during the renovation, They uncovered what's described as the book of the law, which was probably a copy of Deuteronomy, which apparently they had lost. And so the scribe brings the scroll back to Josiah the king, and they read it. So we have essentially the same situation. Josiah and Jehoiakim are both faced with a scroll. They are presented the word of God. They both sit down and listen to it. And how do they respond? Well, 2 Kings 22, 11 says, when the king, this is Josiah, heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. So he hears the book of the law. He goes into mourning, he's convicted, he tears his robe, he burns down all the altars to the foreign gods that were around the temple complex and around the land. He reinstitutes the celebration of the Passover and the feasts, and he seeks to turn the people back to God and away from their following other gods. So in short, Josiah hears and he repents. He does exactly what God wants him to do after hearing. He turns back to God and he attempts to turn the whole nation back to God. So with that as a backdrop, now we see his son on the throne. He's about to be presented with a new scroll from Jeremiah, and let's look at how he responds in 21 through 26. Then the king sent Yehude to get the scroll, and he took it out of the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and Yehudi read it to the king as well as to all the officials who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month with a fire burning in the brazer before him. When Yehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with the scribe's knife and threw it into the fire that was in the brazer, until the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazer. Yet the king and all his servants who heard these words were not afraid, nor did they rin their garments. Even though, and then he lists three people, El Nathan, Deliah, and Gemaras, however you pronounce their names, pleaded with the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to him. And the king commanded Jeremiah, this king's son, Sariah, and he missed a bunch of other people to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the Lord hid them. So you couldn't get a sharper contrast. When Josiah heard the word of God, he turned back. It says he tore his clothes and burned down the altars. When his son, Jehoiakim, hears the word of God, he doesn't tear his clothes or burn the altars, he tears up the scroll and burns the scroll. And that's a pretty powerful picture because you the picture is they're unrolling the scroll and he's like slicing off a column and throwing it away, and then they unroll the scroll and he slices off the next one and burns it up. So it's not, he responds in anger and passionately, you know, crumples it up and throws it away. This is very methodical, calculated. I'm doing this column by column, slicing it away. So he systematically destroys the word of God, and then having destroyed the scroll, he seeks to destroy its author. He wants to go seize Jeremiah to have him killed, but the Lord protects him and hid him. So God wants his people to hear and repent. Josiah did exactly that. His son Jehoiakim didn't, and that should raise the question to us: who are we like? Are we more like Josiah or are we like Jehoiakim? Now, old-fashioned preachers used to talk about turn or burn, and I kept thinking this is kind of a twist on that. You can turn or you can burn the words of God, because you have Josiah turning and Jehoiakim burning the scroll. And that's the question. When you hear it, what do you do? Do you turn toward it and embrace it and repent, or do you seek to ignore it or burn it? Now, as modern Christians, none of us has probably ever burned a Bible, and we probably wouldn't burn it, but do we turn? I mean, we can it's easy to study the Bible and then file it away on your shelf and forget about it until next Sunday. But reading and studying and learning the Bible ought to provoke a response. It ought to be more than this knowledge we gain or cool facts we can share to impress our friends. The point of Bible study is not to learn about the Bible or to learn about ancient history. It's so that we might encounter God, that we might turn and repent. Not just learn the Bible, but turn toward God and seek out a relationship with Him. So, what's so special about this book? It's divine, it comes from God, He is the author, it is human and that it is in normal human language, and God wrote it so that we might hear and repent. But there's one more thing we can learn about it. Look how the story concludes in 27 through 32. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll and the words which Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah, saying, Take again another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, burned. And concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you shall say, Thus says the Lord, you have burned this scroll, saying, Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will make man and beast to cease from it? Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim, King of Judah, he shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out into the heat of the day and the frost of the night. I will also punish him and his descendants and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring on them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the calamity that I have declared to them, but they did not listen. Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch, the son of Nariah, the scribe, and he wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had burned in the fire, and many similar words were added to them. So in the first part of this passage we learn why God wrote his word. He wants people to turn back to him, but instead of coming back, the king spurs him, he tears up the scroll, burns it up, and how does God respond? He speaks again. So he responds the same way he started. He goes back to Jeremiah, he says, take another scroll and write it down again. So the first scroll was destroyed, but the word of the God was the word of God was rewritten. And notice, not just rewritten exactly as before, but now we get with more detail. Verse 32 says, many similar words were added to it. So maybe he wrote down more of the oracles than he had written before, or God amplified what he had spoken before. So this is the fourth thing we learn about what makes the Bible special. It cannot be destroyed. Yehoiakim tries to burn the scroll, but God's word survives anyway, and in a sense it multiplies because he writes down more of it. So Jehoiakim burns it and it comes back stronger than ever. And Jehoiakim is judged in the process, but the word of God prevails. Isaiah echoes the same thought. This is 55.11. So will my words be, which goes forth from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. So he's saying, God's word will be, will prevail. It will not be thwarted. Ultimately, his plan will be carried out, what he says will happen, his purposes will be served, and he will not be defeated. Now that ought to be comforting to us because what's at stake for us is not God's plan. So if anyone ever tells you, oh, there's a second best will for your life, and you can thwart God's plans if you don't do whatever, fill in the blank, then that's false manipulation because it's completely unscriptural. God's plan is not at stake. What's at stake is our participation in it, whether or not we will hear and repent. But his word won't be destroyed, his word won't be stopped, it won't be thwarted, it will succeed. So Josiah was forgiven because he turned and repented. Jehoiakim was judged because he did not, and that's the choice we face. You can turn and repent and be forgiven, or you can face judgment. If you turn and repent, then all the blessings and promises of the gospel and the kingdom of God are yours. And it is really that easy. You don't have to get your act together first. You don't have to go out and do some quest or something to prove that you're worthy of God's forgiveness. You don't have to muster up complete obedience and prove to God how worthy you are and how much you can obey. You don't have to negotiate. If you do this for me, then I will do this for you. You don't have to earn forgiveness or figure out how to impress God. All you have to do is humble your heart and ask. It is that easy. Turn and repent. I find that very comforting because if I had to get my act together first, it would it would never happen. Now, this side of the cross, we've seen more of the plan, and we know that God's plan to forgive involves sending his son Jesus to die for us, to take our place on the cross, to pay the penalty for our sins so that God might forgive us. So while it is very true that God loves you, it is the point we don't want to forget is that he loves you in spite of the fact that you're a sinner. We talked about this, I think, a couple weeks ago. So it is true that God loves you, but it's also true that he hates sin. And he does not overlook sin, he does not excuse it, and he does not let it slide. There I have yet to find a case in Scripture, and I don't think I ever will, where sin happens and there is no consequence. There's always a consequence. There is always some kind of penalty. Now, God can redeem and turn those consequences into great and glorious purposes and bring wonderful things out of them, but there's always a consequence. He never just says, Oh, don't worry about it, that's sin stuff. We'll just overlook it for this time. It's never overlooked. Sin is not just unfortunate, it's wrong, it's criminal, it's law-breaking, and justice must be satisfied. So God in his mercy does what we can never do for ourselves. He pays the price for our sin. He satisfies our debt to justice so that he can forgive us. And then we hear, we repent, all we have to do is humbly ask him to forgive us, to save us, and then he showers blessings upon us. So what we've seen about this book, I think, is pretty remarkable. It's a divine book in that it is God's word. He wants to communicate with us, and he chose this way to do it. And because it is divine, we ought to listen to it. We ought to pay attention to it. It's a human book in that it's delivered through normal human language, through normal people, and that means we can understand it. It doesn't take it does take a little study and thought and practice learning, but it it's not out of anyone's reach. And the basic message of the gospel is repeated over and over again throughout Scripture, and we may not understand some of the esoteric or more obscure passages, but the basic message of the gospel is clear and repeated often. So the most important things are not hard to understand. So it's divine, it's human, and it should provoke a response. It invites us to turn and repent, it invites us to seek God, not just collect facts, not just have a you know a great moral code that we follow, but to turn to the living God and seek a relationship with Him. And then finally, the fourth thing we learned is that His words can't be stopped. They can't be thwarted, can't be destroyed, we can't mess up His plan, we can't do anything to thwart His will so that now suddenly, you know, we've lost we've ruined everything and now we're down at like God's fifteenth plan for our life. None of that is true. He has a plan, it will be carried out. He does forgive our sin. There are always consequences, but there is also forgiveness and there is redemption. And he can take even the most horrible tragedy and bring something good and glorious out of it. So his word will be fulfilled and his plan will be accomplished. So all that, I would sum that up in this book is special because it tells us how to meet God. So it's not special because it tells us the right way to live. It's not special because it contains a profitable, bless you, a profitable moral code from wise teachers. It does contain all that. But it's special because it tells us how to turn and repent and gain eternal life. As Mark 1.15 says, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe. That's all we need to do. Repent and believe. Let me pray for us. Father, thank you that you did write down your words so that we could understand it, so that it wouldn't be lost, and that it will go forth. We just pray that in the midst of whatever chaos we're in, whether it's a personal trial or a national trial or a family trial, whatever the chaos and the circumstances that seem to overwhelm us, that we would realize you have spoken, you're acting, you're in control, and that your word is actively at work, that you are bringing about your plan for your glory and for our good. And that we just ask that we would trust you for that. And if anyone here does not know you, I just pray that she would turn today, turn her heart toward you, humbly ask you for your forgiveness and your mercy because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.