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

Amen. So the title of the sermon this morning is Resolve to Read, Resolve to Read. Of course, we're coming up on the new year. This is a time of year when a lot of people are starting to think about their resolutions, what they're going to change this year. At least they should be. I think that's a really good habit to get into, to think about the past year and how you're going to improve on yourself and your walk with God, or whatever area of life it is. A lot of people make a lot of different resolutions this time of year, but probably the most life-changing, the most profound resolution that anybody could make this year would be the resolution to read the Bible, read the Bible. To at least have read it one time through, you say, you know, this is a subject that you preach about this time every year, and that's true. That's because of the fact that I know that I'll get up and I'll preach this, and yet six months from now there'll still be people who have not begun to even read their Bible. There will still be people who get to this time next year that have never read the Bible through. Let me just come out and say it, if you've never read the Bible cover to cover once in your life, that needs to be the number one priority in your Christian life this next year. You need to do that before you do anything else. You can have all these other resolutions, but at the top of that list, you should resolve to read the Bible because of the fact that the Bible is going to make such a profound impact on every area of your life. I mean, think about all the other resolutions people are going to make this year. They're going to make resolutions about their finances. They're going to make resolutions about their health. They're going to make resolutions about their family and all these other things. Well, you know what the one thing that's going to help you in all those areas is Bible reading. You know, if you've read the Bible, it's going to help you in every single other area of your life. There's no part of your life that the Bible does not address. It addresses our health. It addresses our finances. It addresses our families. It addresses our child rearing, our relationships, our friendships. It touches every other area of life. So there is no other resolution that you could make that's going to touch every other area of your life other than Bible reading. Resolve to read your Bible this year. Look there in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. It says this, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. You know, a lot of people get in this rut of only reading a little bit of the Bible. They might only read a proverb of the day. They might have a devotional. I remember when I first got started out in the Christian life, people handed me, you know, I was handed more than one devotional. Here's your daily Bible reading. It would be, you know, a verse and then like a page of somebody else's thoughts. That's not a devotional. That is not Bible reading. Bible reading is sitting down and reading the Bible cover to cover it. Now I'm not against devotionals. You know, that's fine if you want to have one of those, just be careful what you're eating. A lot of times they're filled with error, but you know, if there's some nice thought you want to get some, you know, proverb of the day, I'm all for that too, but don't let that become a substitute for your daily Bible reading of sitting down and making a plan to read the Bible through at least once this year. Because it says there that all scripture, Old Testament, New Testament, every single book in the Bible beginning in Genesis all the way to Revelation is profitable. There's nothing else that's going to profit you more in this life than the Bible. So read it. Read the Bible from beginning to end. All scripture is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. You say, I want to be a better Christian this year. I want to have a better prayer life. I want to be a better soul winner. I want to start soul winning. I want to start praying or whatever. If you want to improve some area in your life as a Christian, well, the Bible says that it is profitable for instruction and righteousness. Verse 17, that the man of God may be perfect, complete and entire, wanting nothing, as it says in James. That's the use of the word perfect there. Thoroughly furnished unto all good works. You know, if you want to improve in some other area of your life, you need to read the Bible because the Bible's going to give you the wisdom, the knowledge, and the understanding and how to excel in that area of your life. You make some other resolution, there's wisdom in the Bible to be had that's going to help you in that resolution. So resolve to read your Bible this morning, in this coming year. You know, if we resolve to do the Bible reading, you know, so many other things that we want to endeavor to do would just fall into place. So many other things would just follow through. The prayer, the soul winning, the church attendance, our attitudes, our actions, our purity, all of these other things would just start to fall in place if we would just resolve to read the Bible on a daily basis. You know, I thought of an illustration to kind of, to make this point and hopefully I can make this clear and it makes sense, but let's say I were to go somewhere and I needed you to meet me there. Okay, I said, hey, I'm going to be on the other side of town. I'm going to be at this location and you know, I know it's, you say, well, I'll just use GPS. Okay, but let's just pretend we don't have that. All right, for a minute, let's go back, you know, to the eighties or whatever, you know, nineties, probably. I don't know when GPS became a thing for everybody, but the advent of the smartphone and so on. Well, let's just pretend, you know, you went full minimalist, got rid of your smartphone. You just, you know, you're old school. You don't have, you don't have access to GPS. And I went back to the, you know, like they did in the day where I wrote out, you know, handwritten instructions. You know, you're going to pull out of the parking lot. You're going to take a right on grant. You're going to go past, you know, underneath the 10. You're going to go a few miles. And I don't know Tucson that well. So that's about as far as I can get you. That's how, that's about how far I go. Right. But let's say I gave you handwritten instructions, say, I need you to meet me at this time, at this day, at this place, you know, and let's say that was a month from now. I said a month from now, I'm going to be at this place. I need you to meet me there at this time, exactly one month from now. And I just gave you these detailed instructions on how to get there. You know, if you took those instructions out and you diligently read them every day, you just run over them every single day for like 30 days, whatever, you know, that every day that went by until that meeting, you were reading it, you'd probably get to the place where you could probably just get there without even having to looking at them again, because you would know those instructions so well. You know what I mean? If you just spent every day reading it and reading it and understanding the instructions of how to get from point A to point B, when the day came that you need to get to point B, you could leave point A and probably not even have to look at the instructions because you're so familiar with the instructions. You've thought about it, you've read it, you've rehearsed it in your mind, you've imagined the route, you've gone over it, you know how to get there. You could find me without even needing those instructions on the day of. But what about if you never read them? Do you think you can find me? What if you just never read them? Maybe you just never, what about even the day of, you're just like, oh, I'll find brother Corbin. And you just got, the day I gave you the instructions, you're just like, I don't need these. I'll find him. And then you're just wandering around Tucson trying to find me. You're going to have to read those instructions at some point to come find me. And as silly as that sounds, a lot of people live their Christian life that way. God has given us instructions on how to go from point A to point B, how to reverse through this life, how to live this life. God has given us big thick book of instructions. But do we read it? We need to become so familiar with the instructions that God has given to us that we can find our way to heaven and get there and hear those words, well done thou good and faithful servant. Not everybody's going to hear those words. Just because you're saved doesn't mean you're going to get to heaven and God's going to be pleased with you. The Bible says there are going to be some people that are saved even so as by fire. All their works are going to be burned up, but they themselves shall be saved even yet so as by fire. It's not a matter of working your way to heaven, but you want to just get to heaven and just say, well, you know, at least I'm here. And then look back and think about and God's going, well, you know, you could have had this reward. You could have had this reward. You could have had this crown and you could have had this and you could have done. And I would have given you this, this and this. Yeah, and you're in heaven and it's great. But you know what? There's a lot of things that we need to know and understand and learn from the Bible that are going to help that journey go smoothly, help it get us to point A to point B. Is that making sense this morning, that illustration? Hopefully that made sense. You know, it's a silly illustration, but you know what? What's even sillier or even sadder is the fact that a lot of Christians, it's exactly how they live their life. They're saved. They're on their way to heaven. They know they're going there, but they're, they're just stumbling through life. They're just tripping all over themselves, making mistakes in this area, messing up this relationship, you know, not ever getting this sin out of their life, never starting this godly practice because they don't read the instructions. They don't resolve to read their Bible. Look, if you read your Bible, I've heard it said, and I believe this to be a hundred percent accurate. If you were to be, if you sat down this year and said, I'm going to read my Bible cover to cover, you would be an elite group. You would probably be in like one to 5% of all Christians. The vast majority of Christians go through, and it's sad, but it's just, it's just a case. It's just the way it is. They go through this life and they never read the Bible. They go years. They'll go decades and never have read the Bible one time. You know, when you think about the Bible itself, why wouldn't you read it? I mean, it's the greatest work of English literature of all literature ever, ever created. And those that are reading their Bible know this is true that the more you read it, the more you want to read it. The more the, the, the passages speak to you, the more you're just moved to read it. There's so many great gems in there. Why wouldn't you want to read it? It'd be like if I brought out a treasure, treasure chest full of, you know, all kinds of gold and silver and everything else and just said, it's all yours. And you just said, well, no thanks. You know, and then just continue to go through life struggling to make ends meet. Well, meanwhile, there's just this wealth waiting for you that you just refuse to touch. You know, you can apply that spiritually. People are starving spiritually. They're, they're in spiritual poverty. They don't have the riches. They don't have the fullness of the knowledge of Christ. And God has given us this treasure chest called the Bible. And if we would just open it and read it, even, and I'm not saying you have to sit down and read for hours at a time, although there'd be nothing wrong with that. But if you could at least resolve to read the Bible one time this year, that's my challenge. You know, last time I preached a sermon, I kind of was up to it and said, Hey, you know, you need to try reading it multiple times. And I gave some advice on how to read multiple times. And I think that's great, but you know what? The fact is most people need to just work on reading it one time, just once this year. And you know, if you've never read it, that's the goal. Just read it one time this year. Go to, go to Proverbs chapter 22. Go into Proverbs chapter 22. Let me start reading in verse 17 of Proverbs 22. It says, bow down thine ear and hear the words of the wise and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. And really, that's the reason why a lot of people don't read. It's because it's effort. You know, we're living in a day and age where, you know, we want to just turn on the television, pick up the smartphone, look at the tablet, and just have information kind of spoon fed to us. We'd want to just skim through some feed somewhere and have somebody speak to us and entertain us and just keep us preoccupied from one moment to the next. But you know, that's not going to make you a spiritually sound individual. That's not going to impart unto you any, you know, spiritual wisdom doing that. In fact, it's probably just going to make you dumber. You know, a lot of that stuff just dumbs us down. You know, develop the short attention span where it's just, I mean, these apps that are out there like this, you know, TikTok where it's like, or even Instagram, like where it's like you have 60 seconds to say something and then it's on to the next video. You know, people, they just, they're, this is what they do and they just, it's the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, you know, but that's not the Bible. You know, to get real wisdom, you'd have to do what? You have to apply your heart unto knowledge. You have to sit down and focus and actually, you know, have an attention span that's going to allow you to absorb the word of God. And you can tell when people are doing this, you know, and, and, and, and it's kind of a, it's kind of a mixed blessing in a way because people email, email the church and I can tell which people are, are reading their Bible through from their emails because they'll, they'll come up with all the same questions. Like, what are the sons of God? You know, you can tell, they'll, they'll email you and they'll have a question about Genesis and then a few weeks later they have a question in Judges and then a few weeks later they have a question, you know, in First Chronicles or whatever. You could see how they have all the, and it's always the same questions and you're kind of like, again, you know, I got to answer this question again, but you know, God bless them because you can tell they're at least reading their Bible, you know, and that maybe that's a little tip right there. You know, as you read your Bible, don't get hung up on things you don't understand. I think it's a problem. A lot of, one reason a lot of people don't ever think they start out reading their Bible and then they get into something and they got, they want to study that out. They want to like, oh, let me figure out who the sons of God are and so on and so forth. Look, that's great and fine to do and there's lots of, you know, we could direct you towards sermons that'll explain that very quickly or you could ask somebody that can explain that kind of stuff. But how about when it comes to just Bible reading, if you don't find something, or if you find something you don't understand, you know, maybe highlight it and just keep going. You know, the answer might be in the next page, in the next chapter, in the next book, the next testament. You know, it might be that you have to, you know, God does that in His Word. There's some things that aren't entirely clear in the Old Testament and you get to the New Testament, you're like, oh, this really makes sense now. You can see it all comes together. But he says there in Proverbs chapter 22 to hear the words of the wise and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. You know, you're gonna have to apply yourself if you're gonna gain the wisdom that God has for you. And look, it's wisdom that God has for all of His children. Every single believer has access to this wisdom. The Bible says in first John that you need not that any man teacheth you, but by the same spirit of anointing which you have, teacheth you all things. And I'm paraphrasing, but the Bible tells us that we, because we had the Holy Spirit, we had the Word of God, there's nothing off limits to us. You know, but don't expect God to just pour out these golden nuggets of wisdom and knowledge and understanding if all you're gonna give Him, you know, is a cheesy devotional, you know, every other day or something like that. If you're not diligent and applying your heart and bowing down your ear and hearing the words of the wise, don't expect to hear the words of the wise. You have, there's a process here, the bowing down of the ear, the hearing of the wise, applying your heart unto my knowledge. You say, well, why should I? Well, look at verse 18. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee. They shall withal be fitted in thy lips. You know, that's such a great verse talking about how, you know, if you keep God's words, if you apply yourself, if you bow down your ear, if you hear the words of the wise, it's a pleasant thing if you keep them within you. The Word of God will begin to dwell in you. The Bible says to let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you, richly with all wisdom. And when we allow that to happen, we become familiar with the Word of God and we understand what it says, you know, eventually those things will be fitted into our lips. Someone says, well, why do you do that? Why do you live that way? Why do you say that? Why do you believe that? Well, because you've done the reading, you know why. It's not just because, well, that's what my church does. Well, that's what brother Corbin said to do. It's because I read it in the Bible for myself, and here's what the Bible says. This is why we do what we do. This is why we believe what we believe. Because it's within you and now it's fitted in your lips. And it's a pleasant thing that the Bible says when that happens. The Bible says that, you know, a word spoken in due season, how sweet it is. Look at verse 19, that thy trust may be in the Lord. I have made note to this day, even to thee. Look at verse 20, have not I written to the excellent things and counsel and knowledge that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth. I mean, I think the big reason why Christians don't read the Bible is because they don't realize what they have. They take it for granted. He's saying, have not I written to the excellent things and counsel and knowledge. I mean, we go through life and we struggle in so many areas. Oh, I wish I had wisdom and understanding. My parents didn't teach me this. The school system taught me the complete opposite. You know, this culture is teaching me something totally different. I wish I had the knowledge and the understanding to be able to know how to handle the situation, how to live my life. And God's saying, have not I written unto thee? God's saying, I've done it. The wisdom's there. The knowledge is there. You know, I want to make thee know the certainty of the words of truth. I've written it. The question is, have you read it? You have to get into it and read it. You have to apply your heart that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that said unto thee. See, the Bible has wisdom and instruction for every area of our life. Go over to the book of, keep something in Proverbs. We'll be back in that area eventually. Just go over to Psalms 119, Psalms 119. We all know the Proverb of Matthew 7, the instruction or the wise man and the fool built his house upon the sand. The one built his house upon the rock. And Jesus said that everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto the foolish man which built his house upon the sand. Look, there's a lot of people today building their houses, their lives on the shifting sands of everything that is not the word of God. Because the Bible tells us what the rock is. And he says, and the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew and beat upon the house and great was the fall of it. He goes on to say that whosoever shall dig deep and lay his foundation upon the rock, the same storms are going to come, the same winds are going to blow, but that house shall stand. Why? Because it was built upon the rock and that rock are his sayings, his word. His words, the Bible is the rock that which we had to build our lives based upon. People ought to make every decision based upon the Bible. I believe that. Every decision you make in life, you should say, well, what does the Bible say? And whatever the Bible says, line up your life with what the Bible says. And you know what you'll be doing? You'll be building your life upon a rock. You know, and people might scratch their head and wonder what you're doing or why you're making those decisions. But you know what? When the same storm comes, it's going to hit them, it's going to hit you, that the outcome is going to be, you know, there's going to be a stark difference there. Their house is going to crumble and fall over time and yours is going to stand strong and firm because it's built upon the rock. It might not make sense in the time, but they'll say, oh boy, well that turned out nice for you. Well, yeah, because I actually took the time to read what the Bible had to say and then I did it. Like it says in James, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves, your own selves. You have to be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer of it. Look, how are you going to be a doer of it? How are you going to build your foundation upon the rock if you've never even read it? You don't even know what it says. You don't know what the Bible says about child rearing. You don't know what the Bible says about marriage relationships. We don't even know what the Bible says about friendships and, and all these other areas of life. I mean, you just pick an area of life and then ask yourself, do I have a biblical answer for that? What does the Bible say about that subject? And there's a lot to know, isn't there? You know, and here's the thing, you're not going to, you're not going to download that information overnight. You're not just going to plug in a card somewhere in your brain. And now I have that. It's not the matrix, people. You know, you have to actually take the time to read it and let that sink in and sink in. And a lot of things you read, you have to read again, and you have to read again. You have to be reminded again. And we have to read these things if we're going to build our house upon the rock of the word of God, and then we can learn how to do them. Are you in Psalm 119? Look at verse 97. Psalm 119, verse 97. Psalm 119, verse 97. Oh, how I love thy law. I love that, that phrase that David makes there, how I love thy law. You know, a lot of Christians today, they would say, oh, the law, you know, it's okay. You know, it served its purpose back then. But you know what? We know that's not true. That all scripture is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction, righteousness. And David here understands it. He says, I love thy law. I love the Old Testament. I love the New Testament. I love what God said back then. And he's saying, and he hasn't changed. It's not like he's saying anything different. But I love God's word through and through, from the beginning to the end. I love all of it. Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than mine enemies. What is it that made him wiser than his enemies? God's commandments. Was it David's own intellect, his own cunning craftiness? Was it his own, you know, street smarts or whatever? No. What made him wiser than his enemies was God's commandments. And it wasn't just the fact that God wrote some commandments down. It was the fact that it was his meditation all the day. I mean, he was thinking about the word of God. Getting up, you know, that's a good test to see where you're at spiritually. What's the first thing you wake up, think of when you wake up in the morning? Sometimes, I often do that. I'll wake up and I'll think, why am I even thinking about that? Some vain, trivial thing. And I'll know I'm doing right or I need to, if I'm not, you know, I know I need to pick up the pace or work on some area of my life when I'm not waking up and thinking about godly things. And I'm not thinking about what I read the day before or what I'm going to be preaching that week or something I heard in preaching or something I read in the Bible. You know, I like to think, I often check myself when I wake up in the morning. What's the first thing I thought of? What's for breakfast, right? That's probably what goes through everybody's mind, right? And you know what, I'm not saying you can't ever have your own personal thought, you know what I mean? But obviously, we all have to think about the responsibilities that we have, things to do, goals, so on and so forth. But is there any time during the day where we're just meditating and thinking, do we find ourselves drifting back to the word of God? Do we find our minds when they wander wandering to the things of Christ or to the things of the world? You know, if we spent more time in the Bible, reading the Bible, thinking about the Bible, you know, this would happen probably quite naturally. They'd say, I love it so much that it's my meditation all the day. You know, a lot of times if we want to memorize or meditate on something, we have to force ourselves into it. But if we love God's law, if we love the Bible, if we love reading it, and you find yourself in it, and you're reading it because you want to, not just because you have to, you know what's going to happen is it's just going to become your meditation all the day. You're going to be thinking about what you read that morning, thinking about what you're going to read that evening, so on and so forth. And that is what's going to make you wiser than your enemies. And, you know, we have enemies, you know, especially spiritually speaking, you know, we have the devil walking about his roaring lion seeking who we may devour. You know, there are many Antichrists that are got out into the world. There's evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Perilous time shall come. You know, we have to stand. We have to put on the whole armor of God. And a big part of that is the Bible. If we're not reading it, we're not meditating upon it. You know what? We're not going to be wiser than our enemies. They're going to be wiser than us and we'll be deceived. You see people who get deceived and caught up in false doctrine. You go, how did you come to believe that? Well, I wonder, have they been reading their Bible? Or they're following somebody who's wrapped up in grievous error. You know, some preacher gets up and starts preaching damnable heresy or something, just some, you know, just strange odd thing that's just completely off base from scripture. And everybody just sits in the pulpit and just says, well, it makes sense to me. It's like, are you, you must not be reading your Bible. How do you explain the fact that false doctrine just gets preached from across pulpits every single Sunday in this country? I'm saying from Baptist churches, preachers get up and just preach error. You know, maybe not, and not knowingly, but you know, they themselves haven't done the reading. And then they have a crowd full of people that aren't doing the reading and nobody catches it. And this, this lies and these false doctrines are just perpetuating. They go on and on and on. He says in verse 99, I have more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation. You know, you want to, you want to outsmart your teacher. You want to grow past the person that you're following, the person, you know, who's, who's, who's leading you. The word of God will do that for you. You know, and I'm not, he's not doing that out of, you know, saying out of some vein glory, like, ah, you know, I'm, I'm smarter than the preacher. I know more better. I know the Bible better. You know, I'm, I'm glad that that's the way this church is, you know, that we have a church where there's people that know the Bible. Then when you get up and preach, you better be careful what you say. You better know what you're talking about. Cause I, you know, people will take you aside and say, hey, you know what, actually, have you considered this? You know, and that's a blessing, you know, as a preacher, it keeps you on your toes, right? But what David is saying here is that I understand, I have more understanding than all my teachers. Why? For thy testimonies are my meditation. It was the word of God that made him wise. I understand more than the agents because I keep thy precepts. And he's not saying this in a haughty way. All he's doing is he's praising God for his word. All he's doing is extolling the word of God and expressing how much he loves it. And he's talking about all the benefits that come with it. It gives you wisdom. It makes you smarter than your teacher. It makes you smarter than the ancient. It makes you wiser than your enemies. What? The word of God and nothing else. The reading of the word of God. Look at verse 101. I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. You know, when you start reading the Bible and getting into it, you start to realize the sin that's in your life. And then you start to say, I'm going to refrain my feet from every evil way. You got because a big part of that, I think, is because you start to learn about who God is. And you learn that God is a God that does not have pleasure and unrighteousness, that he chastens his children, that he's angry with the wicked every day, that God is a God of holiness and righteousness and purity, and that his ways are above our ways and his thoughts are far above our thoughts. And you read that, you know, what it causes you to do is to refrain your feet from every evil way. Maybe some of those sins that you were involved in, you say, well, you know, I've been reading my Bible and God doesn't like that. And I know who God is, and I want to be pleasing to him. So I'm going to refrain my feet from that evil way. You know, reading the Bible will keep you pure. Reading the Bible will keep you from committing certain sins. I'm not saying it's going to be, you know, some kind of magical experience, but where you just read the Bible, and I'm never tempted by sin again. I'm not saying that. But I'm just saying, if you read the Bible, you're going to know what sin is, what is a sin, what isn't a sin, what happens when you sin, you know, and when next time you're tempted with your sin, you're going to, some Bible verse is going to come to mind. If you've been meditating and reading on the Word of God, you say, well, I don't want to do that. I don't want to mess this up. I don't want to upset God. Reading the Bible will make you wiser, smarter, and will help you to refrain your feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. Look at verse 102. I have not departed from thy judgments, for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. I mean, this is a guy that just loves the Bible. He loves reading the Bible. He loves God's words. Through thy precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. You ever seen anybody who just gets really impassioned about false doctrine or sin? You ever see a preacher or somebody who just, even a layman, who just, they hear some false teaching, they hear some, they see some sin taking place and they just get mad to the point where they hate it? That's because that person's been reading the Word of God and they love it. Because they care more about, you know, the truth and having integrity with the Word of God than anything else. And when they see that being violated, you know what? They hate that. It bothers them. They get passionate about it. You know, then some people, they just kind of go, what's the big deal? Yeah, I know it's wrong, but they really don't get upset. You know, that person probably doesn't love the Word of God the way they think, the way that they should or the way that they think they do. So again, I'm just talking about, you know, resolve to read your Bible this year. That's the topic here this morning. And let me just go ahead. You know, I've already kind of been giving you some reasons to read. You know, hopefully this portion was more of an inspiration. You know, trying to inspire you to read the God. If you want to be wiser, if you want to be smarter, if you want to be able to, you know, improve every other area of your life. Because people, again, they're making all these resolutions this year. The Bible has all the answers that are going to help you in every other, every other resolution you could possibly make. So make reading the Bible the number one resolution. And hopefully that, you know, this first portion has been, you know, a bit of an inspiration. But let me just give you some other practical reasons why you should read your Bible. Go over Deuteronomy chapter 17. Deuteronomy chapter 17. How about here's a reason to read the Bible. Because it's commanded. Because it's commanded. Maybe you're sitting there this morning like, well, you know, I know my life's not perfect, but it's good enough. You know, I know there's some areas I'm struggling with or things I don't have understanding in or I'm lacking wisdom in some area. But I'm okay with that. You know, I've made it this far. Or, you know, I'm surely that's not going to affect me. You know, you're a young person. You're thinking you're six feet tall and bulletproof. And, you know, you're going to make it through life just fine without reading the Bible. And you don't need, you don't need to love his law. You don't need to have it be your meditation. You're not worrying about, you know, his testimonies or having more understanding than all these other people. But let me just give, so let me just give you, if that's you, some other reasons to read the Bible. How about, first of all, it's commanded to read the Bible, regardless of how you feel about it. Regardless of whether or not you're excited, whether or not, you know, you don't wake up and say, oh, thy word is sweeter to my mouth than the honeycomb. It's sweeter than honey to my taste. Maybe that's not you. Maybe you wake up and you think in the Bible, you think, oh, it just looks like a bland bowl of white rice or something. You know, it's just some plain food to me. I don't get that excited about it. Doesn't matter. You still need to, you know, proverbially speaking, you got to, you know, belly up to the table and eat your veggies all the same. You know, whether, whether you look at the Word of God and it's a big bowl of dripping honey, or it's a big plate of, you know, boiled Brussels sprouts or boiled spinach. Yeah. Right. I like spinach in a salad, but if you boil that stuff, yeah. And my wife, you know, she's trying to get her iron in. She's been having me boil spinach this whole time and feed it to her with salt. And she, I just, I don't know how she eats it. And you thought childbirth was rough and they're eating that spinach. It's like, to me, it looks anyway. But what I'm saying is this, like whether or not the Word of God to you is a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch, like I've been enjoying recently, right? Or a bowl of spinach. Either way, you got to eat. You got to eat. It's commanded. You need it. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 17, verse 18. And it shall be when he, this is talking about the king, right? The king of Israel. When he sit at the pond, this throne of his kingdom, he shall write him a copy, a copy of this law in a book out of that, which is before the priests and the Levites. They say, well, that's for kings. This is the Old Testament. Yeah, but the Bible teaches us that we, as God's chosen people who are saved by Christ, God has made us kings and priests. That we are a chosen generation. We are a royal priesthood. God has made us to rule and reign with him. So you can apply this to you. Okay. Because whether you realize it or not, you are a king in Christ. You know, you are royalty today. Because think about it. If you're saved, you're an heir, you're a co-heir with Christ. That's what the Bible says. You're a co-heir with him. And he's a king. You know, you have the same inheritance that he does. Now, I'm not saying we're all going to sit on the same throne and all have the same, you know, authority. But look, you can make the application that, you know, you are a king this morning. And Deuteronomy is written to you. And look, the reason why it's good for the leaders, because it sets an example to the followers, first of all. But he says it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy out of the law in a book. You know, we're like, oh, I got to read the Bible. Yeah, but at least God's not making you sit down and write it. At least God's, you know, but maybe that would do us some good to sit down and just transcribe the Bible by hand. You sit down with an open copy and say, okay, I'm going to write my own copy out of this. Because back then they didn't have the printing press. You know, everything had to be handwritten. You wanted a copy of the Bible. You know, it wasn't at the dollar store. And let me just say this to every single person who, I know I just, I'm getting some things off my chest, but these emails, people are like, where can I get a Bible? I'm like, are you serious? Do you know where I could find the King James Bible? I don't know, anywhere. You know, next time you're in a hotel room, look in a drawer, you know, although Gideon's are going New King James or whatever, go to a thrift store, go to the Dollar Tree, go to Barnes and Noble, get on Amazon. I mean, it's like the most available product out there. It's like a household commodity. It's so easy to find. And we take it for granted. I mean, there's just stacks of worn out paperbacks back there already. You know, we give those Bibles out and I can, you know, people would just use them and set them aside. They get all dog-eared and dirty. You know, we just, oh, I'll just grab another one. Oh, I'll just grab another one. And that's fine if you're using it and reading it. Great. But think about being the king back then. You need to know the word of God. And by the way, there's only a few copies here. So if you want to know it, you got to write it all out by hand. And that's what he commanded him, you know. And all I'm challenging you to do this morning is just to read the Bible one time, not to write it all out by hand. He's saying he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, which is before the priests and Levites, and it shall be with him. And he shall read therein all the days of his life. Not just when he feels like it. Not just when he's in the mood. Not just when, you know, it's Christmas time and Jesus is on my mind. I think I'll read through, you know, the story in Luke. And that's the only Bible reading I'm going to do this year. Wrong. He's going to read there all the days of his life. Every single day he was to be in the word of God so that he could judge and rule and reign with wisdom and knowledge and understanding. You know, we might not be ruling over a kingdom, but we're running our lives. We have other people that we're influencing. We have households that we're running. We're, you know, it'll help us in our jobs if we have employees or employers. It's going to help us in every area of our life. So why wouldn't you read it every day of your life? To know what it says. That he may learn to fear the Lord is God, to keep all the words of this laws and these statutes, to do them. That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren. Now there's another big reason. Is to stay humble. You know, nothing will humble you more than Bible reading. I mean, there might be some other things that'll come in as a very close second, but Bible reading will keep you humble. And a lot of times, you know, if you see somebody getting lifted up with pride or somebody who becomes very hard-hearted or cold-hearted towards, you know, their brethren to their fellow Christian, you know, it might be that they're not reading their Bible. That, you know, if I were to take a spiritual diagnosis and see somebody who's lifted up with pride, you know, they're very just, you know, puffed up, haughty spirit. You know, if we were to take a spiritual thermometer into the diet, the reading would come back and would say, not reading their Bible. Because when we read the Bible, you know, it's a humbling experience. So we start to read about the mistakes other people made in the Bible and go, oh, I've done that. Oh, I did that too. Oh, it turns out all these great men of God are flawed just like I am. Oh, it turns out all these prophets and these priests and everybody, they make mistakes too. And oh, it turns out God gets upset with them just like he would get upset with me. And it turns out there's just as much grace and mercy and hope and for me, when I'm in my time of need, that it was there for them. And then we'll read the passage to tell us not to bite and devour one another. We'll read the passages that we're supposed to put on bowels of mercy and charity and compassion and long suffering and kindness and be all these things. You know, you're not going to know to do those things if you don't read them. And that's something that's just ad nauseam in the Bible, to be merciful, to be long suffering, to be patient. And when we don't read, you know, we let our own carnal nature get out of control. There's nothing tempering that. We can become very puffed up and our hearts can become lifted up above even our own brethren. That he turned out aside from the commandment, it says in verse 20, to the right hand of the left, to the end that he may prolong his days and his kingdom. He and his children in the midst of Israel. The Bible is saying that if he would just read all the days therein, if you read the Bible, all the days of his life, that his kingdom would be prolonged, that his life would literally be prolonged, that his children's life would be prolonged. Look, we need to read the Bible, not just because all the benefits that it brings to us, but because it's commanded. I mean, why do you think God commands us to read the Bible? Why did God give us the Bible? They tell us to read it all the days of our life. Just because he's some cruel taskmaster, just because he wanted to give you some homework, you know, to do while you're away, just because there's going to be an exam or a test or something like that. No, because he knows that all the wisdom, because he doesn't, you know, God's not just going to come down here personally and speak to you one on one. And it's important that we all understand that, right? Because I've known people that think God talks to them personally and they get into some weird stuff. And a lot of times they end up thinking, anyway, that God doesn't do that. You know, do you have a hotline to God? Can you take your phone out this morning and dial a certain number and talk to the Lord? No, but you can do that in prayer. And God speaks to us in his word. And you know what? He blesses us through it. God has given all this and command us because he wants to bless us through his word. So reasons to read. One, it's command. How about it's necessary for study. We were in 2 Timothy this morning. It says in chapter two, verse 15, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. You know, we ought to study the word of God. We ought to know what it says. Otherwise we're going to get caught up in false doctrine. How about for spiritual strength? For spiritual strength. Read the Bible so you can have some spiritual strength. The Bible says it is the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit. They are life. We need to read God's words for spiritual strength, for spiritual safety. The Bible says in Proverbs 30, every word of God is pure. He's a shield unto them that put their trust in him. You know, if you want to be protected from the fiery darts of the wicked today, you know, that tower is the word of God. That shield is the word of God. It's going to protect you. It's going to keep you from, you know, to help you avoid error. And you know what? This is something that even, you know, people who have taken on the office of a bishop, you know, pastors today are unfortunately, you know, are guilty of this. Of being in error in their preaching. And getting up and saying things like, oh hell's not forever. You get out of hell. Or, you know, hell's not hot. Start teaching this borderline Jehovah Witness type of doctrine in Baptist churches. How does that happen? Well, there's probably some other explanations, potentially. You know, that's all speculative. But I guarantee you one thing, some Bible reading's not taking place. And if it is, and it's not being understood, well, that leads to other questions. I mean, that's what Jesus rebuked the Pharisees. You can read, go read through Matthew. How many times, and just mark it every time, have you not read? Have you not read? Have you not read? Have you not read even so much as this? Over and over and over again, when he's just rebuking the Pharisees and their false doctrine, what does he always come back to? The Bible. Have you not read? Have you read even so much as this? Have you not, do you never read in the Scriptures? He's like, did you ever even read the Bible? You know, you got your long robes and your big position, and you got the title, and everyone's lifting you up and respecting you, but you haven't read the Bible? That's why I want to ask some of these preachers, have you even read it? Because some of the things that they're saying make no sense. They're not Scriptural. It makes you wonder if they even read. So hopefully, you know, I've inspired you, or at least exhorted you, to read your Bible, to resolve to read. Look, I think it's great to make resolutions. You know, I've been mulling over it for the last few weeks what resolutions I want to make, you know, and I thought about preaching a whole sermon on it, but I probably won't, because I think it's a personal thing, and people kind of, if someone's serious about resolutions, they'll figure out how to make resolutions. But, you know, if you're going to make, you know, let me just give a quick, you know, five minute thing here, whatever. You know, if you're going to make a resolution, you know, to determine what it is you want to improve, and then actually sit down and think about how you're going to do it. You know, often we think, I'm going to lose x amount of weight, or I'm going to get out of this much debt, or I'm going to do this or do that, but we never step down and go, how am I going to actually accomplish that? What steps am I going to take to actually accomplish this resolution? Whatever it is, whatever resolutions you have, at the top of that list this year, reading your Bible has to be one of them. And again, I'll say it again, if you've never read your Bible even once, that is the number one resolution for you this year, to read it one time. And, you know, a lot of, I think the mistake people make is they go, they hear a sermon, or they get convicted, and they're like, oh, I got to read my Bible, I've been saved for whatever many years, and I've never read my Bible, you know, and they think, well, I got to catch up. So, they've gone from never having read their Bible, like, I'm going to read my Bible seven times. I'm going to read my Bible every 30 days. I've never read my Bible in 30 days. That's a tall, or, and I know people that have, and they're usually single guys. Not a lot else going on, all right? And if, hey, if you're in that time, if that's a time in your life that you're in, and you have the time and the ability and the resources to sit down and read your Bible in 30 days, I say, do it, go for it. If that's what you want to do. But if you've never read the Bible one time, I think that's a, that's, that's kind of a tall order. Why don't you just work on reading it once, and then next year say, I'm going to read it twice, and then the following year you can, you know, go from there. Whatever. But how are you going to do that? Say, you know what, I'm convinced. You've inspired me, or, you know, you've convicted me. There's so many benefits in the Word of God that I can, I can glean from just reading it, the wisdom and the knowledge and the understanding that's just there waiting for me. You know, or, you know what, maybe I need to just do it even though I don't feel like it, because I'm a king. I'm a priest. I need to rule and reign with some wisdom and instruction and understanding. I need to have the wisdom of God in my life to not make these mistakes, to not be lifted up, so on and so forth. Whatever, you know, whatever camp you're in this morning, you're still, both camps are going to have to do the same thing. How are you going to accomplish that goal? How are you going to accomplish that goal? You know, you can't just say, I'm going to lose 50 pounds this year, and then not think about, well, how many calories do we eat a day? How many calories do I need? You know, am I going to do any exercising? You know, you actually have to sit down and think through the plan, right? And actually execute it. Well, how are you going to say, I'm going to read my Bible this year. How are you going to do it? How are you specifically going to do it? Because this is the part where everyone gets inspired. This is the annual Bible reading sermon right before the new year. Everyone gets all amped up. You know, first year comes, they're cracking open Genesis. Then, you know, a few weeks go by and they're in Leviticus and everything gets real heavy, you know, or dry as I've heard it called. And look, I was going through Leviticus a couple weeks ago and I loved it. I was noticing things and I was, you know, I was thinking about things. I go into it now thinking about things like, oh, this is that book that talks about this topic. Let me see if I can, you know what I mean? And once you've read your Bible a few times, you start to do that. But I like Leviticus. You know, I like all these books. You say, oh, the, you know, first Chronicles, man, those first 16 chapters are heavy, right? All those names. Someone's like, I got this email. Here I go with the emails again. Why does God have to put all these names in there? Like it's just name after name. Well, one, it was real practical back then because of the fact that they traced their genealogies. That was a very important thing. But how about, you know, and I used to think the same thing. I remember, and I've been guilty in the past. I would get to those, I would just turn on Scorby and just be like, I'll let him do the talking. Do you know what I found as someone who has to read the Bible publicly that that did not help me at all? I mean, it helped to hear how they were pronounced, but you know what's more important is pronouncing it yourself. You know, going, getting a Bible that pronounces those names phonetically will make you a better reader. Slowing down and actually trying to pronounce every name accurately will make you a better reader. Think about that. Just think about the fact that just reading the Bible makes you a better reader and then getting, then reading the Bible get easier and easier. And man, it's cool when you get up and say our facts, Ed, you know, you'll get some hard passage in the Bible and you're like, you know, or whatever you can nail some name in front of everybody, you know, and I'm not saying we're, you know, we're trying to do it to impress, but you know what? It's a lot better than choking on some name and look, there's, there's pastors that do that. There's preachers, people that have been preaching for decades. I understand some names are hard and everybody makes mistakes, but if that's just like all the time, you know, when you get to those hard passages, read them out loud, read them out loud, take the time, say them right, it'll make you a better reader. But how are you going to accomplish this task? You got to read every day. How are you going to read every day? You have to pick a time. Everyone needs to pick a time. And look, you know, I've heard people say you have to read in the morning first thing, and I think that's a great recommendation if that's possible, but some people have to get to work pretty early. You know, not, maybe that's not the best thing for you. Maybe that's not practical. You know, maybe that's where, you know, the proverb of the day comes in and then the, the, the, the meat of the Bible reading comes in, in the evening. You need to read every day. Morning is best, I, I think. I think it's best to start out that way. And for most people that's going to work. You know, if you've got to get up a little earlier, make a little bit stronger pot of coffee, whatever, you know, I know that works well for, in my household because usually for the most part, that's when it's quietest is in the early morning hours and then after bedtime, right? If you want to be able to concentrate. You know, Job said, neither have I gone back from thy commandment of his, the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. You know what Job's saying is like, I'd rather skip breakfast and read my Bible. And you would get more, you know, that might help with that, that weight loss resolution too, right? It's, it's two birds with one stone people, right? He's saying, look, reading the Bible is more important to me than food. And Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. You know, and that, that, Job's right. You know, you should, that should be our attitude. If we're pressed for time and it comes down to a cheap bowl of cereal in the Word of God, take the Word of God. You know, you're not going to starve to death missing a meal, right? But what I'm getting at is this, you have to pick a time. You have to have some time where you just say, I'm going to read the Bible. And I think that early in the morning is best, but whatever works, whatever's going to get it done. Next you have to determine how much to read. And again, you know, last year when I, when I preached on this topic, I, I made, I kind of went into like, you know, how you can break down the Bible, you know, and you could count the pages and everything. Look, if you haven't read the Bible one time, 15 minutes is days ago. If you're an average reading ability, if you have just average reading skills, 15 minutes a day, 15 to 20 minutes, you will read the whole Bible in a year. People look at the Bible and go, I can't read all that in a year. You don't have 15 minutes. You don't have 20 minutes. Even if it took you a half hour, we can't carve out a half hour. 15, 20 minutes of our day to read the Bible. Well, for all the benefits that it brings to us, all the wisdom and the knowledge, the instruction, all the protection and the provision that God gives us through the word of God. And we can't find 15 minutes to read it, but we'll find 15 minutes for a lot of other things, some endless run game, you know, or whatever game. Games and distractions and messages and filtering through our junk email or something like whatever. All the stupid things. You know, I'm going to buy shoelaces. You know, people put all these other things. You laugh, but people put all these stupid things ahead of the word of God. I just don't have time to do it. But if we followed you around, I'm sure we could say, well, you could have cut 15 minutes out right there. You could have cut 15, 20, 30 minutes out right there. And the truth is we could probably find even more time than that, if you're honest. But again, the challenge I'm putting forth this morning, the resolve that I want people to have is to, if they haven't done it, to really read their Bible one time this year, just once. And focus on that and that alone. Put that above everything else and do it even when you don't want to do it. And the other thing is people, they have a goal of getting it read and then they fall back. They miss a day or two or whatever, and then they feel like they have to catch up. Then they go from having to read 15 minutes to having to read 45 minutes. Look, don't do that. If that happens this year, don't do that. Just start where you left off and just go back to the 15 minutes. Just go back to whatever we would have gotten. If you have to go a week past January 1st, 2022, so what? At least that's a huge leap from last year, right? If you hadn't read it. And last year I noticed, I pointed out the fact that if you listen to the Bible, if you just listen to Alexander Scorby, which if you have a smartphone, you can do this. It's free on Android. And I'm telling you, it's worth the 20, 50, whatever bucks it is to get it on an Apple phone or whatever. You can find them free. Maybe it's not even Scorby, but Alexander Scorby reads the Bible in 72 hours. That's 20 minutes a day. You could do that on a commute. Now, personally for me, and this is a preference thing, I'm not going to get up and say, and I've heard people say this, listening to the Bible doesn't count. That's hogwash. When God commanded in the Old Testament, they would all come together and then they would read the words of this law in their ears. And they did that once a year. And God was saying, that's good back then. But look, some people do better with audio. I'm not one of them. I'm a very visual, tactile, that's why I like nicely bound Bibles because I like feeling it and gets me in the book. But some people, they can just listen to it and get things just through audio. That's not really me. But if that's you, look, I'm kind of envious. If you can get the same quality Bible reading out of just listening to it, because now you're multitasking. You kind of have to check yourself. I do listen to audio, but I'll notice when I'm not listening anymore, when my mind has gone somewhere else, I'll turn it off. Because I don't want to just turn into this background where I'm not really listening to it. But here's the ideal. This is another thing that I've done in the past and I really like, especially if you're trying to get the pronunciations down, you're trying to hear how the Bible reads. Not just how words are said, but the actual tone of the passage to where you can get the sense of how, not what's being said, but how it's being said, is to read and listen along. Listen to someone reading the Bible like Alexander Scorby and then reading along with him. I've used that in the past because I tend to read too fast. I'll start to read quickly and then I'll get through a whole page and be like, what did I just read? Because the words will go quick. So Scorby actually slows me down and makes me think about what I'm reading. And I'll do that. If I notice I'm getting into that habit, that's what I'll do. So these are just suggestions. I'm just throwing this out there. But at the end of the day, if you're going to resolve to read the Bible, you have to pick a time of day that you're going to read it. You have to pick how you're going to get it done. Are you going to listen to an app? Are you going to pick up the book and read it? The other thing you have to do is you have to keep track of it. And this is what I would recommend for everybody if you're going to do this. Read through the Old Testament and the New Testament concurrently at the same time. Don't just start in Genesis and then at the very end of the year, knock out the New Testament. Because the New Testament is quite a bit shorter than the Old Testament. Being in the Old Testament, you can kind of get a little depressed if you're in there too long. Because it's heavy. I mean, come on, it's just a lot of judgment and people messing up. And Jesus is in there, but not like he is in the New. And if you're going to emphasize one Testament above the other, it's going to be the New. But I don't want to go on about that. But that would be my recommendation. Put a bookmark in Genesis. Put a bookmark in Matthew. And then just figure out. I've got to read X amount of pages in the Old Testament every day to get through it in one year. I've got to read X amount of pages in the New Testament every day. And it's really easy to do. Just take the total number of pages there are, divide it by 365. That's what you've got to do. And you'd be surprised how little that actually is. Most Bibles would probably be like four pages of the Old Testament and maybe one or two in the New. It would get you through five pages a day. But how are you going to do it? You're going to say, I'm going to resolve to read this year. Pick a time. And how are you going to get it done? And keep track of it. Get a checklist, something. Get bookmarks, do something. And then this is the warning I always give when I talk about this is that don't let the Bible become just a math problem to you. That shouldn't be a problem if you're just trying to read it once. But I remember there was a time when I was trying to read it quite a few more times than one. Trying to reach this certain mark of having read it 10 times. And what I found was that it just came about checking off a list. Just scratching off my checklist. Just getting through my Bible reading. And it kind of made the Bible just like this chore, this task, this math problem that I had to just finish, figure out, and get done. And you don't want that to happen. And look, that's not going to be a problem if you're trying to read it one time. But you know what? Maybe you're in the room this morning and you've already read the Bible once. Again, you are in a very elite category of Christians having read the Bible one time. And you say, I'm ready to read it more. I'm going to try to read it three, four, five times, which is kind of like those upper limits of reading. You say, I'm going to try and do that. That's great. But don't let it become just about marking off, I've read the Bible five times. Because it's not just the physical reading. It's what you're reading that matters. It's what God is saying when you're reading it that matters the most. Absorbing that knowledge and that wisdom that God has in the Word of God. That's why we read. We don't read just so we can go, well, next year when Brother Corbin reads, you know, preaches this sermon, I'm not going to be sweating so much because I did it this year. You know what I mean? That's not why you're reading the Bible. This is all to motivate you to read the Bible. Because why? Because it's through God's Word that He blesses us. It's through God's Word that we benefit in all these other areas of our life. The Bible says in Psalm 119 verse 105, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. What is the light that's going to guide us through this dark world? The Bible says that the whole world lieth in wickedness. That we are living in a world where the God of this present world reigns, the prince of the power of the air. We're living in a very dark world, spiritually speaking. You know, this is the illustration I always use. If we were all to go out on a moonless cloudy night in the darkest parts of some wood somewhere, just pitch black, you can't see your hand in front of your face, and I handed you a flashlight. You know, that flashlight's going to be pretty important to you. So you've got to find your way back. Here's the only thing I'm giving you, a flashlight. It's got enough battery to get you all the way there. You wouldn't just put that in your back pocket and say, I'll use that later, and then just proceed to stumble through the woods trying to find your way home. You'd have that light out, and you'd be watching where you're going. That light would be pretty important. It'd be a lot more important to you in that situation than if we just walked out in the parking lot this afternoon and I handed you a flashlight. You'd say, I don't need this. But you know what? Spiritually, we need that flashlight. We are in the woods in this world. We are in the pitch black night of Satan's kingdom. And you know, I'm not just trying to be dramatic here. That's the truth. We live in a dark world today, spiritually. It's hard to believe that living in, you know, Arizona, where it's sunny all the time. But if we could see things spiritually, there is a dark cloud in this world that's just blocking out the light. But you know what? God has given us a flashlight. God has given us a light and a lamp unto our feet and unto our path. What is it? It's the Word of God. So how are you treating the light that God has given you? Has it been a while since you turned it on and looked around? That's my challenge to you this year. Resolve to read the Bible at least once if you haven't. Let's go ahead and pray.