Reverence
"But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."
Isaiah 66:2
A man sits on a platform in front of a congregation. He crosses one leg over the other, and the raised boot comes up level with his lap. He opens his Bible and rests it there — spread open across the sole of his shoe — and reads from it while another man preaches.
Nobody in the room reacts. Nobody leans over to say anything. The service ends, people go home, and the whole thing is filmed and put on the internet where thousands watch it without a flicker.
Now read that first paragraph again, slowly, and say the sentence out loud in plain words: the Word of the living God was resting on the bottom of a man's shoe, in a church, during the preaching, and not one person present thought it worth mentioning.
If that sentence does not land on you, the problem this article is about has already gone further than you know.
Consider what we claim, out loud, in our statements of faith and from our pulpits.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16)
"For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven." (Psalm 119:89)
"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword." (Hebrews 4:12)
We say it is God breathing. We say it is settled in heaven and cannot fail. We say it is alive, and sharper than a sword, and able to divide a man to the depths of him. We fight over its translation. We call ourselves Bible believers and put the words on our signs.
"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." (2 Peter 1:21)
"The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." (Psalm 12:6-7)
And then a man sets it on his boot without a thought, and nobody blinks.
Either the thing we say about the Book is true, or it is not. If it is not, we should stop saying it. If it is, then something has gone badly wrong with the way we handle it — and the wrongness is worse for being unnoticed.
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Matthew 24:35)
There is a chapter in the prophets that ought to be read by anyone who thinks the physical handling of the written Word is a matter of no consequence.
God commanded Jeremiah to write His words on a roll. Baruch wrote them, and read them in the house of the LORD. The princes heard, and were afraid, and told the king. And so the roll was brought to Jehoiakim, sitting in his winter house with a fire burning on the hearth before him.
"Now the king sat in the winterhouse in the ninth month: and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him." (Jeremiah 36:22)
As it was read to him, three or four leaves at a time, the king took a penknife, cut the roll, and threw the pieces into the fire, until the whole roll was consumed. And Scripture records, with terrible plainness, that neither the king nor his servants were afraid, nor tore their garments.
"And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth." (Jeremiah 36:23)
"Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words." (Jeremiah 36:24)
God's answer was not small. He told Jeremiah to take another roll and write all the former words again — and then pronounced judgment on the man who had burned the first: that he should have none to sit upon the throne of David, and that his dead body should be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night.
"Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah hath burned." (Jeremiah 36:28)
"And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them." (Jeremiah 36:31)
Weigh what that means. A man did something physical to a physical document. He cut leather and burned parchment. And God treated the act as what it was — a man's verdict upon the words of God, expressed with his hands.
Now hold Jehoiakim beside the man in the chair, because the comparison cuts in an unexpected direction.
Jehoiakim took the Word of God seriously. He listened to it. He understood it. He hated it enough to destroy it deliberately, with a knife, in front of witnesses. His sin was open rebellion, and God judged it.
The man with the Bible on his boot did nothing so grand. He was not rebelling. He was not thinking at all.
And that is precisely the horror of it. Contempt at least concedes that the thing matters. To hate a book enough to burn it is to grant that it has power. But to rest it on your shoe without a single thought crossing your mind — that is the treatment we give to objects of no consequence whatsoever. A newspaper. A menu. A piece of junk mail.
Jehoiakim's knife said the Book was dangerous. Our carelessness says it is nothing at all. Ask yourself honestly which verdict is further from the truth.
The objection must be granted, and granted fully, because it is true and important.
The leather is not holy. The paper is not holy. The ink is not holy. A Bible that falls in a puddle has suffered no spiritual injury, and a Bible in ashes has not diminished the Word of God by a syllable — which is exactly the point God made to Jehoiakim by having every word written again. Superstition about the object is not reverence; it is a different error, and a real one.
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." (Isaiah 40:8)
We do not kiss the book. We do not carry it in a cloth. We write in ours, underline them, wear them out, and replace them — and marking a Bible until it falls apart is an honour to it, not an insult.
So the argument here is not that the paper is sacred.
The argument is this: what a man does with an object tells you what he actually thinks that object contains. Not what he says. What he does, when he is not thinking about it at all.
Nobody sets a wedding photograph on the floor to steady a table leg. Nobody rests his boot on a letter from a son who has died. Nobody uses a passport as a coaster. These are only paper too — and yet the hand refuses, because the hand knows what the thing represents even when the mind is elsewhere.
That is the test, and it is unanswerable. Our hands are honest about the Book when our doctrinal statements are not.
Let me tell you about a father, and then ask you one question.
His son was nineteen. He was killed overseas, in a war, on a morning in some place his father had never heard of before the telephone call came. The body was flown home in a box and buried on a wet Tuesday, and the father stood at the graveside with a folded flag and no idea what to do with his hands.
Three weeks later, a letter arrived.
The boy had written it days before he died — an ordinary letter, in a hurried hand. He was well. The food was bad. He missed his mother's cooking. He was sorry for the argument they'd had before he left, and it had been stupid, and would his father please forget it. He'd be home in the spring. He signed it the way he always signed it.
And on the corner of the page there was a stain, brown and irregular, that had soaked through two folds of the paper. The letter had been in his breast pocket when he was hit.
Now the question.
Where does that father put that letter?
Does he drop it on the hall floor with the junk mail? Does he set his coffee cup on it because it was the flattest thing on the table? Does he slide it under a table leg that wobbles? Does he sit down of an evening, cross one leg over the other, and rest his boot on it while he watches the television?
You felt something as you read that. Something in you objected before you finished the sentence — and I want you to notice that objection, because it is the whole argument of this article.
Of course he does none of those things. He reads it until he knows every line. He carries it folded in his own breast pocket for the rest of his life, over his own heart, and takes it out when nobody is watching. When it begins to wear along the folds he has it framed, or sealed, or copied — and he keeps the original anyway, stain and all.
And if you asked him why, he would not say the paper was holy. He knows exactly what it is. Wood pulp and ink, and it will yellow, and one day it will crumble. He would say something much simpler and much heavier:
My son wrote that. And that is his blood.
Now look down at the book beside you.
A Father wrote it. His Son died. And the blood is not a stain in one corner of one page — it runs through the whole volume, from the coats of skins in Genesis to the Lamb in Revelation, and every promise you have ever leaned on was bought with it.
"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9:22)
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." (1 Peter 1:18-19)
So where do you keep it? And when did you last take it out when nobody was watching?
Take three more scenes, and be honest about each one.
A letter from a queen. Suppose an envelope arrives with a royal seal on it — a personal letter of recognition, naming you, thanking you for something you did. What happens to that letter? Be truthful. It does not go in a drawer. It gets framed. It goes up in the hallway where visitors have to pass it, and you mention it lightly so that somebody will ask. You would sooner lose a month's wages than lose that letter.
A doctorate. Seven years. Nights after work. A marriage strained, a family that saw less of you than it should have, and a viva you thought you had failed. Where is that certificate now? On the floor? Under a mug? Folded in a boot? Or is it on the wall, in a frame that cost more than the paper, hung at eye level where anyone sitting opposite can read your name on it?
And consider what that certificate actually is. A sheet of paper, signed by a man or woman who will one day die and be buried, testifying that you passed an examination set by other people who will also die.
We frame that.
Now — what about a Book signed by the living God?
The flowers. A husband comes home on a Friday with flowers for his wife. Where do they go? Under her feet? In the boot of the car? Behind the bin, or on the floor of the hall?
You know exactly where they go. The best vase in the house. The middle of the table. The centre of the room, where every person who walks in will see them before they see anything else.
And here is the striking part: those flowers will be dead by Wednesday. She is not honouring the flowers. She is honouring the man who brought them — and she is preaching a small sermon to her whole household every time somebody walks past that table. This is from my husband. He thought of me. He is worth this.
Where you put a thing is a message about the one who gave it. That is true of the letter, the certificate and the flowers, and everybody understands it without being taught.
"A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?" (Malachi 1:6)
"Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the LORD is contemptible." (Malachi 1:7)
Mark how God answers His own question. They did not know they had despised Him. They would have denied it under oath. He does not point to their words — He points to what their hands had put on the altar.
So what is the message when the Word of God is on the floor of the car? What is the message when it is under the phone and the keys and yesterday's post? What is the message, in a house of God, in front of a congregation, when it is resting on the sole of a shoe?
Whatever we intended to say, that is what was said.
The shoe is only the most visible instance. Read this list slowly, and do not read it as a list about other people.
Every one of these is done by people who love the Lord. That is not a defence; it is the indictment. Nobody here is a scoffer. These are our own hands.
There is a reason the Book is in your language, and it is not a pleasant one.
William Tyndale spent his life translating it into English so that, as he said, a boy who drove a plough might know the Scriptures better than the clergy did. He was hunted across Europe for it. He was betrayed by a man who had befriended him, imprisoned in a cold castle at Vilvoorde for over a year, and in 1536 he was strangled at the stake and his body burned. His last recorded words were a prayer for the king who wanted him dead.
He was not alone. Men and women were burned at Smithfield for owning portions of Scripture in English. Some were led to the fire with the pages they had copied tied around their necks, so that the words would burn with them. John Wycliffe had been dead forty years when they dug up his bones, burned them, and threw the ashes into the river — because he had put the Bible into the language of ordinary people.
Ordinary families hid pages in wall cavities, under floorboards, sewn into the lining of a coat. Some were caught. Some were killed for it.
"They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:)" (Hebrews 11:37-38)
"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." (Revelation 6:9)
The Bible sitting beside you did not arrive by ordinary post. It came through fire, and men paid for it with their bodies.
And we rest a boot on it.
You can find the videos in a minute if you look for them, and I would ask you to.
A crate is opened in a village where owning this book has been dangerous. Bibles are handed out — plain, bound, printed, with their own language on the cover.
Watch what the people do.
Grown men take one in both hands and break down. Women press it against their chest and rock back and forth. Some cannot speak at all. Some hold it up above their heads. Some sit down on the ground with it in their lap and weep as though somebody had come back from the dead.
Why? Because it is the first time in their lives they have held a whole Bible of their own. They had heard verses whispered. They had shared a torn page between four families. Some had copied out a Gospel by hand, at night, a chapter at a time, because there was no other way to have one.
And now there is a bound copy in their hands, and it is theirs, and nobody has to teach them how to hold it. Nobody instructs them not to put it on the floor. The care is automatic, because they know exactly what it cost to get it to them.
"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart." (Jeremiah 15:16)
"Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." (Job 23:12)
"The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." (Psalm 119:72)
Now set that beside our own houses. Six copies. One on the shelf, unopened since the year it was given. One in the car footwell under a scraper and a parking ticket. One under the coffee cup because it was the flattest thing on the table. One on a man's boot, last Sunday, in front of a whole congregation, while the preaching went on.
If that comparison does not shame us, what will?
This needs saying plainly, and it is said as one who lives here.
The casual handling of Scripture is unusually common among American and Canadian believers — including in the churches that hold the highest doctrine of the Book. It is not a mark of liberalism. You will find it most easily in the places where inspiration is preached hardest.
Some of the reason is simply abundance. We own six of them. They cost the price of a meal. They are on the shelf, in the car, on the phone, free in the hotel drawer. A thing that costs nothing and can be replaced by Friday is a thing the hands stop respecting, whatever the mind believes.
Some of it is a reaction, and an understandable one. We watched other traditions treat the object with ceremony while emptying it of authority, and we wanted no part of that. So we became deliberately informal — and informality, given thirty years, quietly became carelessness.
But go where the Book is rare and it is a different sight. Ask a believer who owned one page of Scripture, copied by hand, buried in a wall, taken out at night. Ask what his hands did with it. That man had less Bible than any of us and more reverence than all of us.
And it is worth remembering what the Jewish people have done for centuries with the scroll of the Law: not touched with the bare hand, but followed with a pointer, so that the fingers never wear the letters. Carried standing. And if a scroll is dropped, the congregation is called to fast.
We would say, correctly, that we are not under those ceremonies. Very well. But when a people who do not have the New Testament handle the Law with more care than we handle the finished revelation of God — the whole counsel, the Old Testament and the New, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ — the comparison should stop us where we stand.
There is a scene in Nehemiah that ought to settle this on its own.
Ezra brought out the book of the law before the congregation, men and women and all that could hear with understanding. He stood on a platform of wood so that everyone could see. And then this:
"And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up." (Nehemiah 8:5)
Nobody had commanded it. There is no instruction recorded, no order given. The book was opened, and a nation got to its feet. And when he blessed the LORD, they answered Amen with lifted hands and bowed their heads to the ground.
"And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground." (Nehemiah 8:6)
We still do a version of this. In many assemblies the congregation stands when the Scripture is read. We ask people to rise, and they rise, and it is a good and right thing.
Now hold the two pictures together, because they are from the same hour of the same morning.
At five past eleven we stand up out of respect for the Book. By twenty to twelve it is resting on the sole of a shoe.
Which of those two things is the congregation actually learning from? The one we announced, or the one we did without thinking?
And now the part that should make us most careful of all.
There is a child in the third row. He is seven. He is not following the exposition and he could not tell you the text afterwards. But he is watching everything, the way children do — and he is learning a doctrine of Scripture right now, from hands, not from words.
He is learning where the Bible goes when the sermon is finished. He is learning whether it is set down carefully or tossed on the pew. He is learning whether it goes under the coffee or on top of the table. He will not remember one sentence of what you preached about inspiration. He will hold his own Bible, for the rest of his life, the way he saw the men at the front hold theirs.
"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)
What did the children learn last Sunday?
And there is something else, harder to say. Some who read this are parents whose children have walked away from the faith. There are many reasons for that and most of them are nobody's fault. But it is worth asking, quietly and only of yourself: what did the Book look like in our house? Was it the thing the family gathered around, or the thing that lived under the newspapers? Children are not persuaded by what we assert. They are formed by what they watch us treasure.
Let it be defined, so that nobody swaps one fault for another.
First, say plainly what it is not, because this must not tip into the opposite error.
We do not worship the book. To bow to paper would be idolatry, and the same God who asks for reverence forbids that absolutely. We do not kiss it, carry it in a cloth, ascribe power to the binding, or treat a copy as a relic. Mark your Bible. Underline it. Wear it out and buy another. A Bible falling apart from use is an honour to it, not an insult.
But refusing to worship a thing does not licence us to despise it. There is a wide space between worship and contempt, and its name is honour. We do not worship a flag, and we do not let it touch the ground. We do not worship a wedding ring, and we do not throw it in a drawer with the loose change. We do not worship a war grave, and we do not picnic on it.
We do not worship the words. We honour what those words are, and Who spoke them.
"Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word." (Psalm 119:161)
Reverence is the ordinary care that follows from actually believing what you say the Book is. That is all. It shows in small, unremarkable things:
None of that is legalism. There is no rule here to keep and no merit to earn. It is simply the behaviour of a man who believes his own confession.
Here is the verse that ought to be hung in every vestry and every study.
"For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." (Isaiah 66:2)
God has just said that His hand made everything there is — the heavens His throne, the earth His footstool. And out of the whole creation, He names the one man He looks at.
Not the impressive one. Not the man with the finest building or the largest congregation or the most correct doctrinal statement. Him that trembleth at my word.
Trembling is a physical word. It describes what a man's body does. And it is precisely the opposite of what a body does when it rests a Bible on a boot without noticing.
God says elsewhere in the same chapter, hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word — as though those who tremble were a recognisable class of people. One wonders how many of us would be counted in it.
"Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his word." (Isaiah 66:5)
There is one more turn, and it is the one that should silence us.
Scripture gives the same title to the Book and to the Son. The Word of God written; the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)
"And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God." (Revelation 19:13)
The two are not the same, and no one should confuse them — the Book is not to be worshipped, and Christ is not a volume on a shelf. But the connection is God's own, not ours, and it carries a warning.
For when the Word made flesh came, men did not chiefly rage at Him. Most of them simply did not notice. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. The innkeeper had no room and thought nothing of it. Nazareth heard Him read and went back to work. His own received Him not.
The men who spat on Him and struck Him were at least engaging with Him. The far larger crowd walked past, entirely untroubled, on their way to something they considered more important.
That is the disposition to fear, and it is the disposition in the chair. Not hatred. Not rebellion. Simply not noticing — treating what God has spoken as furniture, as background, as something to rest a foot on while attending to something else.
Look where yours is right now. Not where you think it is. Actually look. What is on top of it, and what is it lying on? That answer is more honest than anything you would put in a doctrinal statement.
Change what your hands do. Not by making rules, but by the small deliberate acts that retrain a habit. Move it off the floor. Take the cup off it. Give it a place. A week of that will do more than an argument.
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." (Colossians 3:16)
"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." (Psalm 119:11)
Watch how you set it down in front of others. Especially if you stand in front of a congregation. Your hands preach a doctrine of Scripture every Sunday, and the children in the third row are learning it whether you intend to teach it or not. They will not remember your sermon on inspiration. They will remember where the Book ended up while you were sitting.
And if you must speak to a brother about it, go to him yourself, privately, and gently. Not to a group, not to the internet, not by hint or by photograph. If a thing is worth correcting, it is worth doing in the way Scripture prescribes — and a man who receives it kindly from a friend will hear what he would never hear from a critic.
Remember too that carelessness is not the unpardonable sin, and that most who are guilty of it have simply never had it pointed out. Correct as you would want to be corrected, and reserve your severity for yourself.
None of this matters if the Book is merely respected and never obeyed. There is no virtue in handling reverently a volume you do not believe, and God is not honoured by careful hands and an unconverted heart.
The whole purpose of that Book is to bring a reader to a Person:
"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." (John 17:17)
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31)
Everything written above could be obeyed to the letter by a man whose heart never moved an inch. That must be said before this article closes, or it will have done harm instead of good.
It is entirely possible to read all of this, and from next Sunday set your Bible down with great care, and never once put it on the floor again — and be no nearer to God than you were before. Worse: to be further away, and pleased with yourself about it.
Remember who handled the Scriptures most carefully in the whole New Testament. The scribes counted the letters. The Pharisees carried the words in boxes on their foreheads. Nobody in Jerusalem was more scrupulous with the sacred text than the men who read it aloud, argued from it in the temple, and then took the Author of it outside the city and crucified Him.
You may have the cleanest hands in the congregation and a heart God will not look at.
So mark where Scripture puts the two together, in one verse, in that order:
"He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." (Psalm 24:4)
Clean hands and a pure heart. Not one without the other. This whole article has been about the hands. The heart is the greater half, and it is the half no article can reach.
Here is the plain order of it, and none of the three may be dropped.
First, love God. Not admire the Book — love its Author. That is the first and great commandment, and it is not satisfied by reverence for an object.
"And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." (Deuteronomy 6:5)
Second, obey what it says. There is no honour in carrying a book carefully while quietly disregarding every line in it. God said so plainly to a king who had brought Him sacrifices instead of obedience:
"Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22)
And the Lord Jesus Christ asked the question that ends all argument on the point:
"And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46)
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." (James 1:22)
God described this exact condition through Ezekiel, and it is a portrait of a certain kind of churchgoer that has not changed in twenty-six centuries:
"And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness." (Ezekiel 33:31)
They came. They sat. They listened. They even enjoyed it. And they did not do it. A man may hold that Book like a treasure and be exactly the man in that verse.
"This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." (Matthew 15:8)
Third, serve Him with a pure heart. Not to be seen, not to be thought sound, not to be counted among the reverent — but out of a heart God has cleansed.
"But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law... to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul." (Joshua 22:5)
"Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Timothy 2:22)
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12:1)
And here is how the Lord Jesus Christ Himself settled the question of how love for Him is measured. He did not say, if ye love me, handle my words with care. He said something far more searching:
"If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
"He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (John 14:21)
"Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23)
"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." (1 John 5:3)
Read them together and the standard is unmistakable. Love is not measured by how carefully the Book is carried. It is measured by whether the Book is done.
And the warning at the end of it is the most solemn sentence in the Sermon on the Mount:
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 7:21)
So take the Book off the floor — and then open it, and do what it says. The first without the second is religion. The second is a life.
Nobody is asking for ceremony. No one here wants a cloth, a kiss, or a rule.
What is being asked is that our hands stop contradicting our mouths. We say the Book is the breath of God, settled in heaven, living and powerful and sharper than any sword. Then let it not be found on the floor of the car, under the coffee cup, or on the sole of a shoe in the house of God.
"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever." (1 Peter 1:24-25)
Jehoiakim burned it and God judged him for it. We would never do such a thing. We simply put our foot under it and think about something else — and God, who watched the king with the penknife, is watching that too.
Go and find yours. Take whatever is lying on top of it off. Put it somewhere that says what you claim to believe about it.
"...but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."Isaiah 66:2
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who is the living Word, and who honoured the written Word in every trial. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "To this man will I look... that trembleth at my word" (Isaiah 66:2), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You of the carelessness of our hands toward a Book bought with blood. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to teach every reader, and every child watching him, how the Word of God is handled, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).