(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

to come together and to hear your word preached. Thank you for your word. Please bless the message we're about to hear. Help us keep distractions to a minimum and open our hearts and our ears so that we may hear and understand what you are here to tell us here. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, we're in 1 Kings chapter 19 and just in case you arrived late, you might be wondering where Pastor Menes is. And we have about 30 church members and Pastor Menes is in Washington, we just started a church plan up there and you might wonder why are we taking on something big when we have a lot going on. It's because you know what, when you look at what's going on in the world, there might not be that much time left. And we gotta go big. We gotta go big now and try to reach the world with the gospel and that's what we're trying to do. And there's a great group in Washington and so we have a lot of our men up there, a lot of our soul owners are up there in Washington. Now we're here in 1 Kings chapter 19 but before we get into the message here, I wanna kinda go back to 1 Kings 17. You don't have to turn there but let me just give you a little bit of a background. So Elijah first comes onto the scene in 1 Kings chapter 17. And when Elijah comes onto the scene, the first thing he does is he tells the king of Israel, it's not gonna rain, there's not gonna be any dew unless by my words. And that's a pretty bold first statement for somebody entering the Bible. He says there's not gonna be any rain. When my wife and I moved out here in September of 2015, Sacramento was in a little bit of a drought. And when you go through a drought, it's gonna cause a lot of problems. But you know, this drought we see lasts three years and six months, the Bible says. Three and a half years without any rain. You're gonna have massive problems when there's no rain for three years and six months. Now at this time, Ahab is the king of Israel and Ahab's wife is Jezebel. And Ahab the Bible says was an extremely wicked man and this was largely due to his wife being such a wicked woman. Now you kinda wonder at the time, I don't know how seriously they took him, whether or not they really believed it wasn't gonna rain. But once you don't see any rain for six months, they're gonna figure out, okay, Elijah's the man that's at fault. And so God actually tells Elijah to hide by the brook Cherith. And he's gonna hide there because they're actually hunting to kill him. You see in 1 Kings 18, they're hunting from country to country. They're gonna do whatever they can to kill Elijah because this is the way the world works. When you're the preacher and you're preaching the truth, you always get blamed. Even though it's because Israel was wicked and not following the Lord, they blame the messenger. See, Elijah was merely the messenger. That was God's pronouncement on Israel because they were wicked and yet everybody decided to blame the prophet and they figured, well, if we kill a prophet, it's gonna fix the problem. That's just gonna add to your problems if you end up killing him. And during this time period, Jezebel was actually killing the Lord's prophets. So there's actually 100 prophets that are hidden in a cave because she's trying to kill the Lord's prophets. And God tells Elijah to hide by the brook Cherith. Now, we don't exactly know the amount of time he was there because during this time period, a raven was actually feeding him in the morning and at night with bread and flesh. And then he was actually drinking from the brook to get his water. And see, that's kind of how it is with a preacher. You know, people get mad at the preacher for preaching the truth. But if you notice, it doesn't benefit the preacher. It doesn't benefit the man of God in his physical life by preaching the truth. People are gonna wanna kill you. You're not gonna be rich. You're not gonna be loved. And when you see people like Joel Osteen that are rich, that shows you there's a problem there because all the men of God, when they preach the truth, they weren't rich. They weren't blessed. People wanted to kill them. Jesus preached they wanted to throw him off a cliff. And it's funny today that people think, well, you know, if you're doing what's right, everybody's gonna love you. That's not the case because people have always hated the words of God and they're always gonna get mad at the messenger. They're gonna blame him instead of blaming themselves for being such a wicked people. So during this time period, he's by the brook. And you know, I kind of have a thought about this before we get into the message of what he's doing during that time period. You know, I kind of figure during this time period, there's probably a lot of people that are struggling financially. There's probably a lot of people that are without water. He's by the brook all day. I believe there's probably a lot of people that came to that brook to try to get water. I believe he had a lot of opportunities to preach the gospel. Now the Bible doesn't explicitly say that, but it does make sense to me that if you're without water, you're gonna go where water is. And he was probably still able to do the Lord's work by the brook tareth. And eventually he goes to a widow's woman house where she's gonna sustain him. Now the Bible doesn't explicitly say that, so I'm not saying that's definitely true. That's just kind of my thoughts on that. Now you say, well, why wasn't the government able to find him when he's hiding by the brook? Well, because that's probably an area where the government probably wasn't gonna go. See, anyone who works for the government probably has a lot of money. Whenever you're corrupt, you probably have a lot of money, and you're probably not gonna try to be finding water by the brook. They probably had all the money in the world, the people that worked for Ahab as chief men. So they're probably not going down there, but he probably had lots of opportunities to preach the gospel. And so he goes to this widow's woman house where she sustains him, and then in 1 Kings 18, he's gonna present himself before Ahab again. And right when he gets there, Ahab says, "'Art thou he that troubleth Israel?'" So once again, Ahab, the king of Israel, is blaming the man of God. He's like, you're the reason why it's not raining. And then Elijah says, no, you're the one who's at fault. And then Elijah stands before 850 false prophets, the false prophets of Baal and the false prophets of the grove. And he's toe-to-toe with these 850 men. And all day, they're just calling on their false god. And these 850 false prophets, they're actually cutting themselves to try to get their false god's attention. And of course, he's not answering because God's gonna show his power in this story. And eventually, once Elijah calls unto God, then all of a sudden, the fire comes down immediately. Then all of a sudden, the people are extremely fickle because right then, it says they bow on their faces and they say, the Lord, he is the God. The Lord, he is the God. So after he has this big victory, he ends up going back, and then we see in 1 Kings 19, that's the end of 1 Kings 18. And then 1 Kings 19, look at verse number one. "'And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, "'and withal how he had slain all the prophets with a sword.' "'Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, "'So let the gods do to me and more also, "'if I make not thy life as the life of one of them "'by tomorrow about this time.'" So Jezebel, Ahab's wife, threatens to kill Elijah. She sends a messenger and says, you're gonna be killed. I'm gonna kill you. And you notice Elijah's reaction. Now at first glance, you might think, he just stood against an entire nation. He just stood against 850 false prophets. He's gonna be extremely bold. But then notice what it says in verse number three. "'And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life "'and came to bear Sheba, which belongeth to Judah, "'and left his servant there.'" So he actually flees. Now, to be honest, it makes sense to me why he flees. It makes sense why he's afraid. This woman has already killed the Lord's prophets. It makes sense why he'd be a little bit afraid. What doesn't make sense to me is how one man could be so bold against 850 false prophets. That is an amazing story in 1 Kings 18. See, the only answer for that is the power of God. The only answer for that is being filled with the Spirit that you would be able to stand against 850 false prophets. You'd be able to stand against an entire nation. The only answer is being filled with the Spirit, and that shows you the power of God. Now, it makes sense to me he's afraid here in verse number three. Look down at verse number four. "'But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness "'and came and sat down under a juniper tree, "'and he requested for himself that he might die, "'and said, "'It is enough now, O Lord. "'Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.'" So you see here that Elijah wishes to die. He's afraid, he's on the run, he leaves his servant, then he goes a day's journey into the wilderness, and he wishes to die. He's come to the end. He's exhausted with the Christian life, basically. And it says in verse number five, "'And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, "'behold, then an angel touched him and said unto him, "'Arise and eat.' "'And he looked, and behold, there was a cake-baking "'on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head, "'and he did eat and drink and laid him down again.'" That's pretty amazing right there. An angel touches him and says, hey, you know, arise and eat. And he looks, and food's already prepared for him. He didn't have to prepare it himself. Now this is a man who doesn't have a lot of money. He doesn't have a nice 401K or anything like that. He doesn't have a fancy house. But somehow, God provides food for him. And it's amazing in today's world, people that are struggling financially, oftentimes we doubt that God will provide our needs. But when you read the Bible, it's amazing how God always provides your food. He always provides you with clothing, and that's what he promised. He will provide you with food and raiment. We might not be rich, we might not be driving a really nice car, but God will provide our needs. And then it says in verse number seven, he lays him down again in verse number six, and it says in verse seven, "'And the angel of the Lord came again the second time "'and touched him and said, arise and eat, "'because the journey is too great for thee. "'And he arose and did eat and drink, "'and went in the strength of that meat "'forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.'" So we see in verse number seven that the angel touches him again and says, arise and eat, the journey is too great for thee. The angel knew, hey, you're gonna go on a big journey, you need a lot of food if you're gonna make it on this journey. We see that that journey is 40 days and 40 nights. Now, you know, I love going hiking, I love going running. You could ask my wife, I'll work on sermons, I'll go out walking for a couple hours, just look over my notes. After a couple hours, I'm tired. I want something to drink, I wanna relax. This is a 40-day journey. That's pretty amazing, 40 days. And the angel says, you need to arise and eat because the journey is too great for thee. Now, this is an actual story that takes place, but there's a very obvious spiritual application that the Bible's trying to make. You see, you see that Elijah is exhausted with the Christian life. Elijah doesn't feel that he can go on any further. And Elijah wishes for himself to die. And Elijah's getting prepared for a big battle and he needs a lot of physical food. But see, the same is spiritually as well. We can very easily become exhausted with the Christian life. And if we're gonna go on a big journey and do something great for God, we need a lot of spiritual food. And see, the Bible says the words of God, this is our spiritual food. You see, I'm gonna be preaching on to you this morning about Bible reading and the importance of Bible reading. We're gonna look at three different points in this passage we can learn, but before we do that, I just wanna show you a couple verses that show the importance of the Word of God. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter six. This is your fifth book in the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter six. And while you're turning there, I'm gonna read to you 1 Timothy 4.13 where it says, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. So we see here that when Paul is giving instructions to Timothy, one of the big things he says is, give attendance to reading. And I'll tell you what, I believe that men of God today, if they were to give you advice, one of the big things they would say is, read the Word of God. And that's something that is probably missing more than anything else in Christianity today. We knock on doors and people have no clue who the characters are. They have no clue about what the Bible says about anything. And they just rely on their pastor to spoon feed them their messages and teach them the Word of God rather than deciding to read the Bible for themselves. Yeah, I'm afraid too many of us have way too many distractions in life. I'm afraid too many of us are spending time watching TV, spending time on Facebook, spending time with video games or music or things that don't really matter. When the Bible says that we need God's spiritual food right here, we need to read the Word of God every single day. Till I come, give attendance to reading. And it's not just within the broad sense of Christianity. Even in our movement, our church is kind of a unique church. We have a few different friends of ours that are pastors in various different areas. And they're doing great things, getting lots of people saved. That's what's up in Washington. They're already getting lots of people saved. That's gonna be a great church. But honestly, even in our movement, one thing that is really missing is reading the Bible. There's people that have been to these churches and they go soul winning every single week. They've been at church for five years at a church like this and they've read through the Bible once or twice or three times. There's something wrong with Christianity today and we need to decide to personally fix it ourselves. We need to all give attendance to reading. Now in Deuteronomy chapter six, look at verse number three. The Bible reads, and he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not. Neither did thy fathers know that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Verse number three, that's something that's quoted in the New Testament. And actually, you know, when Jesus is being tempted by the devil, he quotes the book of Deuteronomy three times. I kind of wonder if we got tempted if we would be able to quote the book of Deuteronomy three times. And see, Deuteronomy is not the book that people would look at as being the most important book or the most exciting. We need to know our Bibles. We need to know both the New Testament and the Old Testament. And it says in verse four, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. 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 walks by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. You can see the emphasis is on the words of God. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. We need to know the Bible. We need to memorize the Bible. We need to read the Bible. And how are you gonna be able to teach your children if you don't know the word of God? What are you gonna do? Just try to find a sermon online that will answer the question. You need to know your Bible for yourself so you can teach your kids what the word of God actually says. The emphasis in the Bible is on the word of God. We need to know God's word. Turn back to 1 Kings 19. And while you're turning to 1 Kings 19, which is our text this morning, I'll read you Hebrews 4.12 where the Bible says, for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Bible says the word of God is quick and powerful. Quick there means alive. This word of God, it's alive, it's powerful. It has the ability in a 10, 15 minute conversation to lead someone who's trusting in their works for salvation to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This has the power to change your mind, your thoughts, your meditations. There is power in the word of God. And yet, I don't know if people don't believe it or if they're just too lazy or what the problem is, but I'll tell you what, if this is something you struggle with, and honestly, I struggle with this sometimes as well, but if Bible reading is something you really struggle with, you need to make a difference. You need to make a decision today, I've got to make the Bible part of my life because I don't want to end up being like Elijah who's at the point where he wants to die, basically where he wants to just give up. Because the Christian life is pretty exhausting and if we don't read the word of God, we're going to be just like Elijah. Now look at 1 Kings 19 where we started. It says in 1 Kings 19, at verse number four the Bible reads, but he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life for I'm not better than my father's. The first point I want to make out of this passage is that if you don't get the spiritual food, if you don't get the word of God, then you'll become exhausted with the Christian life. You're going to come to the point where you end up having a dead faith. Now you say, wait a minute, brother Stuckey, I thought you couldn't lose your salvation. You can't lose your salvation. The Bible says, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. It says, whosoever believeth in them should not perish but have everlasting life. It says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is eternal life, your sins, past, present, future, big and small, they're all wiped away. You cannot lose your salvation for any reason. It is eternal life. But here's the thing, there is a difference between having an alive faith and a dead faith. You know, this week I've been, while Vladi's been up in Washington, I've been feeding his dogs and watering his lemon tree. And right now he just got this lemon tree, so it's not full-fledged lemon tree right now. But he asked me to water it because he says, if it doesn't get watered, it's going to die. And basically when you say that lemon tree's going to die, what you're saying is it's not going to produce any lemons. See, an alive lemon tree would be a lemon tree that actually produced lemons. A dead lemon tree would be a lemon tree that produces no lemons. And see, that lemon tree will die if it doesn't get water. That's what's necessary for it to survive. Turn to James chapter two, and I'll show you what the Bible talks about this, having an alive faith. And while you're turning to James two, I'm going to read a few verses for you. In Matthew 4, four, the Bible says, but he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So see, physically you need bread to survive. You're not going to live without bread, but spiritually you will not live unless you get every single word of God. I'm amazed that there's a lot of people that are, and look, I love the King James Bible. I praise the Lord that we have the King James Bible in the English language, but there's a lot of people that will fight tooth and nail about the King James Bible and say how it's perfect, it's the word of God, but they don't even read it. What difference does it make if it's perfect if you don't read it? It does no good. You know what I mean? There's no point, I mean, big deal that it's perfect if you don't read it. It has no value to you. I mean, actually read the Bible rather than just learning how to prove that the King James Bible is perfect. The Bible says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. In Job 23, 12, Job said, 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 said he esteemed the words of his mouth, God's words, more than his necessary food. You see, food is necessary. You're gonna die without it. He understood, yes, necessary food, but a lot of people don't see the necessity in God's word. Yes, food is necessary, but we need God's word. And Job said, I've esteemed the words of the mouth more than my necessary food. You know, I kinda wonder if maybe people decided, I'm not gonna eat breakfast in the morning until I actually read the word of God. I wonder if that would make a difference in people's lives. Because then you'd be putting more value in the word of God than your physical food. Because I don't think there'd be too many people that would just go a week and say, well, you know, I'm not gonna eat any physical food. I'm just gonna let myself starve to death. Eventually you would break down and say, okay, I'll read the Bible so I can eat. I mean, maybe some people need to take on that challenge or something because if you don't look at the word of God as being valuable, there's a problem. Because we consider our food necessary, physical food, but we don't consider the word of God as being important. And Job said, more than my necessary food. And you're in James 2, I'm gonna show you one more verse. It says in 1 Peter 2, 2, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. See, the Bible, the word of God is likened to your physical food. See, just as a baby needs milk to survive and to grow, it says as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. And just as a baby will cry out to express its desire to be fed, we ought to be the same way with the word of God. And unfortunately, there's people that have been saved for 20 years that have never read this book. And it doesn't matter how long you've been saved. If you don't read this book, you are a baby Christian. That's the truth. It doesn't matter if you've been saved 10, 20, 30, 40 years. If you don't actually read the word of God, you are a baby Christian. I mean, can you imagine today if someone was a full-fledged adult up here and they're being spoon-fed? Wouldn't that be a little bit embarrassing to still be a baby? And see, that's the way a lot of people are in their spiritual lives. They're spiritual babies because they don't read the word of God. I mean, that would be embarrassing. We need to decide that, hey, this is our necessary food. In James chapter two, look at verse number 15, the Bible reads, if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled. Notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead being alone. See, the Bible talks about having a dead faith, a faith that does not produce works. It doesn't produce actions. And the bottom line is this, there's a lot of people that have dead faith, that they're not helping out people that are in need, that they're not going out and going soul winning. And here's the thing, the Bible says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. And so God gives the same example like with the lemon tree, and if you as a saved person are not producing other Christians, you're not leading other people to the Lord, you're a dead Christian according to the Bible. Yes, if you're saved, you're on your way to heaven, you can't lose your salvation, I give unto them eternal life, but the bottom line is you are a dead Christian. You have dead faith, you're not producing anything. You don't have an alive faith like God wants you to have. How are we gonna have an alive faith? It's gonna be by reading God's word. You know, there's a lot of people, I got saved in college in West Virginia, and I was very fortunate that I was around a lot of other people that decided they wanted to live for God, because in West Virginia, they're the number one drinking school in the nation every single year, pretty much and it's just a complete party school. There's not much in West Virginia, I guess, to do besides people decided to drink. And I was lucky because there was probably like 10, 15 guys that got saved around that time that decided they wanted to live for the Lord. And we would read the Bible together, we'd have Bible studies, we'd listen to sermons, and things like that. And the group kind of changed from time to time, but there's probably up to 18 guys at one time that were on fire. It's just kind of like that group in Washington. A group of people that were really on fire, and honestly, that helped me grow a lot. But if you look back at those people today, I can think of four people that in the last couple years have done anything for the Lord. Four people that still have an alive faith. And honestly, the only four people, the difference between those four people and the other 10 to 15 people, those four people decided to read the word of God every day and the other ones didn't. You know, my friend is a missionary down in Mindanao in the Philippines. He's leading lots of people to the Lord. I have another friend who's probably gonna be sent out as a pastor in a couple years in West Virginia, and I have another friend who's led lots of people to the Lord in the last couple years, and all of them read the Bible. But the bottom line is this, there was a lot of people in that group that went soul winning all the time, and they're doing nothing now. Because you can only go so far spiritually without the word of God. See, the Christian life, when you start out and you go soul winning, hey, it's exciting, you're hearing these sermons, you're getting together, you're going out and knocking the doors, hey, it's exciting, but that's gonna eventually fade. And the only thing that's gonna keep you is if you actually read God's word. Because think about the analogy of spiritual food. You know, if you don't eat physically, you're gonna become weaker every single day. Can you imagine if you went a week or two without eating? You're gonna become exhausted. You need to get food in order to keep going, and the bottom line is this, if you don't get the word of God, then spiritually you're gonna become exhausted and you're gonna wanna just give up and say, I don't care about living for the Lord anymore. You might start going down to some watered down church down the road, or you might still be here, but you're not gonna be a fruitful tree. You're not gonna win people the Lord. The bottom line is this, that if you don't read the word of God, you're gonna become exhausted in the Christian life. You know, and I can think of various different people who maybe they have really busy schedules. Maybe they can't go soul winning several times a week. We're at different stages in life. You know, if you're a single guy, you probably have time to go soul winning lots, and that's great. Use that time for the Lord. But the bottom line is, I'm not worried about the person that's really busy that's going soul winning once a week and is still reading the word of God about whether or not they're gonna fade. I'm worried about the person that goes three or four times a week and it's really exciting to them, but they don't read the word of God, because that person will drop out. I've seen it with my own eyes. It makes sense with what the Bible says. If you do not read the word of God, you will eventually leave this church. You will eventually quit winning souls. You have to decide yourself to start reading the word of God. Otherwise, you will fade in the Christian life. You will not still be a fruitful tree. You will end up having a dead faith like the Bible talks about. Turn back to 1 Kings 19. So the first thing we saw is this, that you will become spiritually exhausted with a Christian life if you do not read the word of God. But look at verse number seven. I want you to notice something. It says in verse number seven of 1 Kings 19, And the angel of the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose and did eat and drink. Now you notice in verse seven and eight, he ends up eating and look at the change that happens. All of a sudden, boom, he arises and he's ready to go. Like after he eats and drinks, he goes on his journey right after that. And see, what I'm showing you here is this. If you actually read the word of God, it's gonna cause a difference in your life. You're not gonna be the same person you used to be. Once you start reading the word of God, it's gonna make you alive, it's gonna make you excited. You will be a different person. Turn to Psalms chapter 119, Psalms 119. Thank you. Psalms is in the very dead center of your Bible. And we're gonna look at a few verses. Psalms 119 is famous for being the chapter about the word of God. I believe there's 176 verses. And you know, the whole chapter is amazing. But look down at verse number seven in Psalms 119. Psalms 119, verse seven, Psalms 119, verse seven. He says, I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments. I will keep thy statutes, oh forsake me not utterly. And notice in verse number seven, what he will praise with uprightness of heart. When is he gonna praise? When he's learned of thy righteous judgments. Once he learns of the judgments, that's when he's gonna praise. Look down at verse number nine. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word? Once again, we see if someone's gonna cleanse his way and be a good Christian and live a clean and non-sinful life, it's gonna be like taking heed to God's word. We need God's word. Look down at verse number 10. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hidden mine heart that I might not sin against thee. You see, if you hide God's word in your heart, it's gonna help you not sin against the Lord. You could go through that entire chapter and just see how reading the word of God, it's going to cause a major difference in your life. Turn to Exodus chapter 34. Exodus chapter 34, the second book of the Bible. And while you're turning there, I'm gonna read to you Joshua chapter one verse eight where the Bible reads, 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. And he says, the word of God, it's not gonna depart from thy mouth. And he says, meditate therein day and night, and that's when you're gonna observe to do all that is according, you're gonna observe to do according to all that is written therein. Actually, once you start meditating on God's word, there's a lot of people in here who would probably say that they wanna live for the Lord. You wanna live a clean life, you wanna do what's right, but the bottom line is this, if you don't get the word of God, you're not going to live that clean life. You've gotta actually meditate on God's word. And it's not just listening to sermons. You know, it's not just, I mean, I forgot to mention this in the last point, but talking about becoming a dead Christian, but you know, this is the way I think a lot of people live their lives. You show up for Sunday morning, and Pastor Menes preaches a sermon, and he gives you lots of verses. And you're excited, you wanna make a difference in your life, you say, hey, amen, praise the Lord, that was great, I'm coming back tonight. And then you come back on Sunday night, and you're excited, you get the word of God, and you grow a little bit on Sunday. Then Monday comes around, and you have a plan. You're gonna start making a difference. But you don't take the time to read the Bible that day. It comes to the end of the day, and you've read like one or two chapters, and then you're like, oh man, what happened? It was a busy day. I'm gonna have to start again tomorrow. Tuesday rolls around, you do the same thing. Then Wednesday rolls around, you do the same thing, and then you drag yourself to church. You put a smile on your face. You act like you've been really zealous all week. And then all of a sudden, Pastor Menes preaches again. You get a lot of the word of God. It helps you grow, it helps you keep going. And you say, okay, I messed up these last couple days. I'm gonna start Thursday morning. Thursday morning, the same thing as Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Friday, the same thing as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Saturday rolls around, and I'm giving people a lot of the word of God. I'm giving people a lot of the word of God. I'm giving people a lot of the word of God. And then you come in Saturday morning for soul winning, and you come up, you're excited, but honestly, you haven't really been reading the Bible much, but you wanna show up here because if you don't show up, people will know that you didn't come. And you come soul winning, and then on Saturday night, you're pretty much at your death point. You're in your death bed, and literally, Pastor Menes is resuscitating you every single Sunday on your death bed because you're not reading the Bible, and you need God's word. You need God's word, and that's literally how people live their lives every single week over and over and over again. I mean, I would rather just read the Bible every day and just every single day just helping myself up, getting the strength rather than just go from week to week. And honestly, if that's you, you are at the point of dropping out of church. You could easily drop out. See, you have to understand something that people, the last thing they're gonna stop doing is coming to church and coming soul winning because those are things that every single person can see. But honestly, I don't know how much anybody in this room is reading the Bible or how much anybody's praying or memorizing the Bible. That's something for you and God to know. And here's the bottom line. You might show up for church, and I guarantee there's people in this room now that you show up for church, and probably a lot of people think, maybe even myself, that you're reading the Bible a lot, but you're not. And if you don't make a change, you have to understand, eventually, you're gonna drop out. Sometimes we see people that have been great members of church, and they eventually drop out, and then people start saying, man, that person's been backsliding. They've been missing church for the last several weeks. When in reality, they were backsliding six months ago, eight months ago because they weren't reading the word of God. That's just the outward manifestation that they started to backslide a long time ago. They didn't just start backsliding when they started missing church. They started backsliding a long time ago. Or maybe they didn't even start front-sliding if they never started reading the Bible. I mean, the bottom line is this, that if we don't read the word of God, we're just gonna drop out of the Christian race. You're in Exodus chapter 34, Exodus chapter 34, second book of the Bible, and the Bible reads in Exodus 34, verse 27, verse number 27 in Exodus 34. And the Lord said unto Moses, write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words, I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He did neither eat bread nor drink water, and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the 10 commandments. So we see here that Moses is with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights, and notice verse number 29. And it came to pass when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wished not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. You say, what exactly does that mean? When it says he wished not, it means he did not realize. Moses did not realize that his face actually shone when he talked to God. And here's the thing about this. Well, look at verse 31. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses behold the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come nigh him. So Aaron and everybody else, they see that Moses physically looks different, and they were afraid to come near him, to come nigh him. They were afraid because he's a different person. Moses didn't realize this. He wished not. He was not aware that his face actually shone. And see, the Bible's trying to give us a real example here with the spiritual life. You see, when you get close to God, you're gonna have a difference in your life. Now, you're not physically gonna look any different. We're talking about a spiritual application, but you will be a different person. And those that you know, they won't be able to recognize you. They might be afraid to come nigh you. And see, that's what it is when you spend time in the Word of God, you are going to be a different person. You see, there's a lot of people here that when you got on fire for God, your family didn't wanna talk to you anymore. And your friends, they don't wanna talk to you anymore. And here's the bottom line. It's because you're a different person. It's funny to me, sometimes people come to me and say, man, my friends and my family, they all changed in the last year. And it's like, they didn't change. You changed. See, you got on fire for God, and they don't recognize who you are because you're not walking in the flesh anymore. You're walking in the Spirit. And now, they're afraid to come nigh you because you're a different person. You don't wanna watch the movies with them. You don't wanna listen to the rock music. You wanna talk about the Bible. You want something different than they want. And honestly, the truth is, they didn't change. They're the same person. But since you're different, you no longer wanna be friends with them. That's the truth. And honestly, I know lots of people in my life, once I started to get on fire for God, there's a lot of people that I was just like, I don't know, I have nothing to talk to them about anymore. I don't wanna talk about sports anymore. That's what I used to do. I don't really care anymore about sports. It doesn't matter. The Word of God is what matters. And unfortunately, there's not many people that care about the Word of God. And see, honestly, when you have a church where people love the Lord and they actually care about the Word of God, you oughta make it a point to be here for every service. Because these are your friends. This is your real family in this room right here. That's the truth. Because when you get on fire for God, your old friends, your old family, they're not gonna wanna be around you anymore. Because they talked about whatever before, and that's what you talked about. But now, you're not doing that anymore. And honestly, we don't realize that we're different. But that's what we see in the Bible. Moses didn't realize. The truth is, when I was at Faithful Word a couple weeks ago, because I used to go to Faithful Word Baptist Church for a couple years, a long time ago in Arizona, and I preached the Sunday and evening service. And somebody came up to me after the morning service, someone I've known for years, and he told me, and he said, you know, Brother Stuckey, he's like, I don't know who you are. He's like, you're not the same person that was here you know, years ago. He's like, you're a completely, he's like, I don't know what happened to the old Matt Stuckey but you're not the same Matt Stuckey. You're completely different. And honestly, that was a really encouraging statement to me. I didn't really realize that I've changed that much in the last six, seven years. Apparently, I have. You know, that's pretty encouraging. And I would say the big reason why is because I've made it a point every single day to even if my schedule is crazy, to get at least 30 minutes in the Word of God every single day. And you start slowly growing day by day by day. And before you realize it, you start just talking about the Bible all the time and you're able to quote verses and things like that. You don't realize the change because it's slowly over time. But the bottom line is this, when you get in God's Word, when you read God's Word, when you meditate on God's Word, there will be a change in your life. You will be a new man. You're gonna be like Moses. You're gonna come down from that mount and the people that knew you before, they will not recognize you. And honestly, even people at this church might not recognize you. I've seen people that have been here over the last year that I've been here. They started coming to church. And when they started coming, maybe they had some problems in their lives. But I've just seen a huge difference. They might not notice that there's a difference but they just start talking about the Bible more. They just start caring about the Bible more instead of talking about the things of the world. And the bottom line is this, when you get close to God, when you read God's Word, you might not recognize the difference but there will be a change in your life. Turn to 1 Kings 19. We're gonna look at the last point here this morning. In 1 Kings 19, I wanna show you two different verses here. Look at verse number four of the Bible reads. So the first point we saw is that if you don't read the Word of God, you will become exhausted in the Christian life. The second thing we saw that is, with the Word of God though, it's gonna cause a difference in your life. It's gonna cause you to have the ability to go on that 40-day journey that Elijah went on. But the third thing we're gonna look at, look at verse number four. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree. And he requested for himself that he might die and said, it is enough now, O Lord. Take away my life for I'm not better than my fathers. So Elijah, he comes to Beersheba and then he goes a day's journey into the wilderness and he's exhausted. But look down at verse number eight. And he arose and did eat and drink and went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 40 nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. See, he becomes exhausted going a day's journey but then when he arises and eats twice, he goes on a 40-day journey. And see, the third point that we can see is this. The amount of spiritual food that you eat, the amount you read the Bible, that will determine how great of a journey that you can go on. See, there's a lot of people that wanna do something huge for God. There's a lot of people that say, hey, you know, I wanna be a pastor one day. And I'm one of those people. I would love to be a pastor of a church one day. But the bottom line is this. How much you read the word of God, that is gonna determine how big of a journey that you go on. There's a lot of people that I know that wanna do something great for God. They go soul winning all the time. The one thing they really struggle with is reading the Bible. And honestly, that is gonna stop them from going on a great journey. They will not be able to go on a 40-day journey. They won't make it into being a pastor or being an evangelist or whatever they wanna do if they don't read the word of God. It doesn't matter how zealous you are winning souls. You must get your spiritual food. And if you don't, that will prevent you from going on a great journey. And honestly, I think for myself, this is something I used to really struggle with many years ago. I would go soul winning all the time. But reading the Bible, that was tough because there's so many distractions. You have to be around your computer and things like that. And you just have to decide, I'm gonna get away from those distractions because I believe that that prevented me from going on a bigger journey than I could have gone. And I don't wanna stop the hand of God moving in my life. I wanna go on a massive, big journey. And the bottom line is this, if I don't get in this word of God every single day, this sermon is for me as well. If I don't apply this to my life, that's gonna prevent me from going on a big journey. And it's the same with anybody in this room. How much you read the Bible, that is gonna determine how big of a journey that you go on. Turn to Hebrews chapter five. And while you're turning to Hebrews five, I'm just gonna kinda explain the story in John chapter four. When Jesus talks to the woman at the well, it uses the terminology that Jesus was wearied with his journey. He was physically exhausted on the journey that he was going on. And then the disciples actually go to get meat and he gets the water from them. So you see that example there, and this is a physical example, but this shows the spiritual, that if you are going on a long journey without food, without water, you're gonna get exhausted. That's what we saw with Elijah, that's what we see with Jesus in John chapter four. Now in Hebrews chapter five, Hebrews chapter five, the Bible reads in verse number 12, "'For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, "'ye have need that one teach you again, "'which be the first principles of the oracles of God, "'and are become such as have need of milk, "'and not of strong meat. "'For everyone that useth milk is unskillful "'in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. "'But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, "'even those who by reason of use "'have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.'" He says at this time, you ought to be teachers. I mean, if you've been saved for years, and you've been in a church like this for years, you should be a teacher at that point. You shouldn't be a baby Christian anymore. And he's looking at this group of people, he's like, you should be a teacher, and yet you're not ready for the meat. You're still a baby Christian. You're a babe in Christ. You're still the person up here who's getting spoon-fed every single week. You're a baby Christian. You ought to be a teacher, but you're not. And that's the sad truth, that there's a lot of people like that in this world. People that have been saved for years, they should be inexperienced Christian. They should be training people on how to go soul winning and be able to preach sermons and teach the word of God, but they're still a baby Christian. And the reason why is because they're not reading the Bible. Turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 34. We're gonna look at one more place in the Bible. 2 Chronicles 34, if you go back to 1 Kings 19, right after 1 Kings 19 is 2 Kings, then 1 Chronicles, then 2 Chronicles. We're gonna look at King Josiah. King Josiah's a really interesting character in the Bible because he became the king when he was eight years old, I believe, very young age. Can you imagine being the king at the age of eight? I'm not really sure what sort of life I would have done or what I would have done if I was the king at the age of eight. I think that throughout the whole country, there'd just be soccer fields everywhere, probably, because that's all I did when I was eight years old. I don't know. But in 2 Chronicles chapter 34, 2 Chronicles 34, it says in verse number three, for in the eighth year of his reign, so this is when he's a teenager here. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father. And in the 12th year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places and the groves and the carved images and the molten images. So he's getting rid of the false gods. Verse number four, and they break down the altars of Balaam in his presence, and the images that were on high above him, he cut down, and the groves and the carved images and the molten images, he break in pieces and made dust of them and strode it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even on to Naphtali, with her Maddox round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves and had beaten the graven images into powder and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. At this time, King Josiah is doing some good things. He is getting rid of the false gods from the country. He is cleaning house. He's getting rid of all the sin and the wickedness. But at this time, there's one problem with his life. He did not have the word of God at this time. See, when you go back, go back to 2 Kings chapter 22. 2 Kings 22. So we see this story in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34. You have to compare these to find out what's going on. But in 2 Chronicles 34, where we just read, that is before they find the word of God. And it says in 2 Kings chapter 22, verse 10, And Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. So here's a pretty good king. He wants to do what's right. He's cleaning house with all the false gods and the false worship and things like that. But once the word of God is actually read, and I don't understand how you can lose the word of God. It says they found the word of God. That'd be a shame if I went to your house today and then I said, you know, hey, can you show me your Bible? And you're like, oh man, I gotta find it. It's here somewhere. But I mean, that's what we see here in this story. They don't know where the word of God is. And then all of a sudden, once the word of God is read, he rents his clothes. He realizes, man, we're a lot more wicked than I realized. He cleaned house a little bit, but he needed to clean house a lot more than that. And go to 2 Kings 23. We're gonna look at one more verse regarding him. And see, he was already a good man without the word of God. And I think there's a lot of people like that that they wanna live for the Lord and they're going soloing, they're doing things that are right. They're already a pretty good person, but they're not getting the word of God because they're not reading it. And this is what it says in 2 Kings 23. And like unto him, there was no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the law of Moses. Neither after him arose there any like him. So we see here that King Josiah was a man who wanted to live for the Lord and he was doing some good things, but there was something preventing him from being the best king. And see, in 2 Kings 23, we say that there was no king that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might. There was no king like him. He was a great man. And the one thing that was preventing him from becoming that man was they're missing the word of God. He wasn't getting the word of God. He was trying to do what's right, but he just did not have the word of God. Now in this story, it's not really King Josiah's fault, but I'm afraid there's a lot of us who we have nothing preventing us from reading the word of God. The word of God is not expensive in today's world. You can go down to the dollar store and get the Bible for a dollar, two dollars or whatever. You can get a dollar for four dollars. We give out Bibles for free. If you don't have a Bible, we'll give you one after the service. It's not hard to get the word of God, but unfortunately, even though it's very accessible, people in today's world, they are not reading the word of God. They have too many other things that are too important to them, and honestly, they're just not gonna do much as a Christian because they are just not reading the word of God. Now before we leave here, I wanna just leave you with three quick principles on how to read the Bible. I hope that you have a desire to read God's word. I hope that you say yes, I need to start reading God's word, but I wanna give you three quick principles on things that I learned over years of reading the Bible that really helped me out, and honestly, these three things are extremely basic, but if you would apply these to your life, it would help you out tremendously. And this might be something you might wanna write down if this is something that you struggle with. First thing is this, read the Bible early. Read it in the morning. Don't wait until after you get off work and your kids are running around crazy and stuff like that. You're not gonna be able to get the Bible reading done. You're gonna have a lot of distractions and you're probably just not gonna get around to reading God's word. The first thing I would say is read the Bible early in the morning. Now some of you might say, well, I'm not a morning person. I understand, I am a morning person. Some of you may not be, but try to read the Bible early before you go to work because if you wait later on in the day, there's a good chance it is just not gonna happen. And if you just decided every day, I'm gonna get in five chapters before I eat breakfast, I believe you'd start getting the word of God in your life. Read the Bible early. The second thing I would say is this, set a goal for yourself on how much to read the Bible. If you haven't read the Bible cover to cover in your life, that's a good starting point. Set a goal to read the Bible through cover to cover and set an amount you're gonna read every single day. Set an amount of chapters, set an amount of pages, set an amount of time, make a decision, but set a goal. And if you have questions about that, I can try to help you after the service. We hand out daily Bible reading schedules and things like that, but try to get through the Bible once in a year. Set a goal for yourself. I still set goals for my Bible reading every single, and even still, even though I read through the Bible, I still set a goal for myself because that helps me out. And the third thing I would say, which might actually be the most important, is get away from distractions when you read the Bible. You see, one reason I love reading the Bible in the morning is because I wake up extremely early and there are no distractions. When I go to bed, I put my computer in a room where my wife and I are, and I don't get in that in the morning because if I do, it's gonna wake my wife up and she's gonna be mad at me. So I keep it there, and so when I get out to the living room, I don't have a computer to distract me. And honestly, I used to just, at my old church, I used to drive to a park next to my church about an hour before church and just read the Bible, every single church service, because there's nothing else you're gonna do when all you have is a Bible and you're sitting on a bench in the park. It forces you, and turn off that cell phone. I mean, make sure that your text messaging isn't going off every five minutes. How great a Bible reading are you really gonna get done if your phone keeps distracting you over and over? You're gonna completely forget what you're reading. Turn off your cell phone. Do what you have to do. Get away from distractions. Many people I know that read the Bible a lot, they drive places to read the Bible a few minutes from their house to get away from distractions. And I would still advocate that. I still do that sometimes. I'll just go to a place where there's no distractions, no noise, and I'll just bring out the Bible, and I'll just start reading it. Get away from distractions. If you would apply those three things, read the Bible early, set a goal for yourself, and get away from distractions, I believe that would greatly help you out. Say, okay, Brother Stuckey, I got it. I need to read the Bible. You've given us principles, but I just have one last question for you. You say, well, how much should I read the Bible? I did mention in the sermon reading the Bible through cover to cover in a year, but honestly, if you were to ask me how much did you read the Bible, I would say, I don't know. You say, what do you mean you don't know? You preached a whole sermon on reading the Bible and you don't know the answer to that question? Well, you say, Brother Stuckey, just tell me, how much do I need to read the Bible? Well, I'm gonna ask you three questions, and once you apply these to your life, these three questions will give you your answer. How alive do you want your faith to be? How big of a change do you want in your life? How big of a journey do you wanna go on? That's your answer to your question. See, I wanna go on a big journey, and it requires a lot of Bible reading. I wanna have a massive change in my life. I wanna have a really alive faith where I'm able to lead people to the Lord every single week and do something in my life that actually makes a difference. Those three questions, that's gonna give you your answer. I would say at least once cover to cover in a year, but I'd say read the Bible as much as you can. If you wanna go on a big journey, if you wanna have a change in your life, if you wanna have an alive faith, read the Bible, meditate on God's word. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here this morning in the house of God, and I ask you to help us apply this to our lives, including myself, to just every single day, just pick up the Bible and read your word and just meditate on your word, God, and I pray you'll help us out with this. We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen, let's turn to song number 363. Song number 363, Wonderful Words of Life. Song number 363. ["Wonderful Words of Life"] This is song number 363. Sing it out on the first. Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life. Let me more of their beauty sing, wonderful words of life. Words of life and beauty, teach me faith and duty. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Christ the blessed one gives to all, wonderful words of life. Sinnerless to the loving God, wonderful words of life. All so freely given, wooing us to heaven. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Sing it out on the last. Sweetly echo the gospel call, wonderful words of life. Offer pardon and peace to all, wonderful words of life. All souls only, Savior, sanctify forever. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life. Amen, good singing this morning. Before we're dismissed, if there's anybody here who has any questions about how to know for 100% certainty that you're on your way to heaven, or if you have any questions about church membership or baptism, Brother Stuckey will be at the back. He'd be glad to answer your questions or to direct you to anybody who will. I'm gonna go ahead and ask Brother Evan if he'll close in the word of prayer today. Father, thank you for the message today, Lord. Thank you for the importance of reading the Bible. And I extend you just as much as you can. Thank you for coming. Amen.