Latest / Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast / “The Wonder of the Old Book” with Pastor Paul Strand | October 10, 2026

Transcript

“The Wonder of the Old Book” with Pastor Paul Strand | October 10, 2026 · Trinity Tinley Park Sermon Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lord be with your children on this earth.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when they worship this week, either a private moment with you as they open up the Bible, or a Bible study somewhere in that fraternity or sorority, or fellowship of Christian athletes there in some high school, or a small group here, or whether it be a worship service, where we receive not only God's word in form of a message, but the hymns we sung sing the scriptures that are read tomorrow, the choir that sings.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Keep us close to your Lord by keeping us close to your word in our Savior's name.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: The text is Luke 21, 33.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus saying this to his disciples.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: The message is entitled The Wonder of the Old Book.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: The wonder of the old book, the first sermon I ever preached 49 years ago there in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: First sermon I ever preached was a sermon on the Bible.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: The wonder of the old book.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I preaching on it?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because we just finished four weeks, did we not?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Finished four works, uh weeks, living freely, walking freely, breathing freely, discovering our true wealth in Christ.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: The wealth being joy, difficult at times on this earth, peace, difficult at times, and hope.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Discovering your true wealth in Christ.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where did it come from those four weeks?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it came straight from the pages of the old book, came straight from the Bible.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: That sermon about your time on this earth being used by God.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: The time is yours.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Acts 17, he's appointed the time that you are to be on this earth, and what you are to be doing with the time, straight from God's word.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: The talents that we have, 1 Peter 4.10, use whatever talent God has received you, has given you to serve others.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Use the talents that He's given you.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's 1 Peter 4.10.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever gift he's given you, use it to serve others, straight from the old book.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then Sauer's sermon last week on the treasures we have.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now talking about the ultimate treasures, your faith, or the other treasures sitting perhaps next to you or waiting for you at your house.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some friends, some family member, some child.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Those are great treasures.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: But Pastor Sauer last week, he centered on one other treasure you and I have.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: If we have that treasure called a job and our boss is difficult, we're praying all the time.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: If our boss is a good one and the people we work with are good people, we don't think too often about thanking God for that treasure.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if we have a job and all of a sudden we hear that the boss, after 40 years, has no one to turn the job over to, the business over to, and all of a sudden we're wondering if we're going to lose our job, we start praying to God a year ahead of time.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if it so happens that that job no longer exists in your life, you will pray more fervently about, Lord, help me to find that job, and you ask family members and your last pastors and your last friends to pray the same prayer.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever the Bible has to say about our time, talents, or treasures, it's all in the old book.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when it says to us, if you have a job, if you are so blessed to have employment, and you receive that paycheck once a week or once every two, or at the end of the month.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor Star covered it well last week.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew 23, 23, if you are of such a nature, you give 10% back to God.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: You say, now here's 10%, you give me 90% to use however I desire.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 16 goes a different direction.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: It says on the first day of the week, set aside a portion of that paycheck, a portion, 2%, 5%.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Set aside a portion.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't say set aside a portion for Travel League Baseball.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't say set aside a portion for McDonald's hamburgers.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't say set aside a portion for anything else.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Set aside a portion of what I have given you to put a roof over your head and food on the table.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Give a portion of that back to me.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the old book.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Psalm 119, verse 105.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you sit and say, Yeah, when things get dark, then it's really a lamp and a light.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: When things really get dark and I'm on my knees to him, then it's a light and a lamp.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I look at his promises, I receive strength.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm being confirmed from the eighth grade, I most likely will find a confirmation verse that says, Do not be afraid, I'm with you.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: They do it all the time.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: 70% of the verses are do not be afraid.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: These promises from God in this book, they're not just a light when your path is dark.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're a light all the time.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you have succeeded, when you've got accepted into the university or the academy, when you got that 32 on your ACT, when your job was saved and your boss said, I'm gonna give this over to my relatives so y'all can keep your jobs.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: When something good happens, his word is still a light unto your path.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you why he does that, to let you know it wasn't you.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah 9, 23, it wasn't your connections.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't your wisdom, it wasn't your wealth.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was God Himself.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when you see a football player, a baseball player praising God, when you see a hockey player praising God, when you see someone winning an award at the CMAs or the Academy Awards, first words out of their mouth, they're praising God.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: They understand it.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and whatever award I ever get, wherever I get on this earth, if it seemed like heaven on earth on that particular day, his word tells us it's come from me.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say that to be arrogant, he says it to remind us where our blessings come from.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: The parochial school, every single day, they get the old book.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And every morning, our principal, principal goal, he reads from the old book and they memorize verses from the old book.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you go to a small group, and every single one of them has a basis of the old book.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when you go to the youth program, if it's not a Bible study per se, which it is the end of this month, there's a devotion from the old book.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And when the fraternity meets at Harvard University and they're having studies there, Bible studies, these brilliant people at Harvard, they are reading from the old book.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: One of our dear ladies is at Northwestern University and their business school.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: She got quite a head on her shoulders.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she tells me that the sorority she belongs to has Bible studies four days a week.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't even ask her, what books do you study?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're at Harvard University.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: They study from the old book.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament, the New Testament, the prophets, they study from the old book.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Want to tell you about the Bible, the miracle of it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sir Walter Scott, greatest Scottish novelist historian that has ever lived, it's his deathbed.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: He tells his son-in-law, Lockhart, wants you to read to me from the old book.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's an hour before he dies.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And his son-in-law says to him, Sir Walter Scott, what book are you referring to?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he sits up in bed a little bit, weak as he was, looks Lockhart in the eye, says to him, There's only one book.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Bible.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: In the whole world, there's only one book, the Bible.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is the voice.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And every book that I've ever written, in every poem I've ever written, it is but a shadow of the voice.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about the construction of the Bible.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: That book that's sitting right in front of you.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: That book that you have in your house, I hope, front and center.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: The book next to your bedside there in the hospital, I see it so often.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: The book there in the senior facility where you've been living for the last eight years, I see it so often.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: The book they have by their bedside.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is the old book, the Bible.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can I tell you about its construction?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a miracle that it even exists.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: You study the history and origin of the Bible, and you're in awe that it even exists.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: No single man was ever given the order by some publishing company to plan the book.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: There was no unified effort on the part of the 40 different authors of the Bible.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: There was no unified effort on the part of any of them to say, hey, you guys, let's put it together.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's have one book with all of our writings, and let's call it the Bible.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Great mystery of all time that it grew gradually and ponderously through the long march of the centuries, the dynasties and the kingdoms.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: One man writing his fragments in Arabia, another man writing his fragment in Italy, another writing in Northern Africa, another writing in Jerusalem, another writing in Greece.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Isaiah is a prophet, he's gonna take a shot at it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ezra is a priest, he's gonna take a shot at it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew is a tax collector, are you kidding me?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna take a shot at it.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Luke, the dear physician, he's gonna take a shot at it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Moses the shepherd, John the fisherman, they all take a shot at it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they write their fragments in the Bible.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: The first part, Genesis, is written 1,500 years before the man who wrote the last book of the Bible is ever born.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Ranges over a period of 16 centuries.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: There are three miracles from God that are unequaled.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: The Trinity of miracles.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: The first is the creation that you see, including the human body, the bones and blood vessels and major organs that are in you.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: The second great miracle of the Trinity, Jesus' death and resurrection, one man out of a quantum trillion that will ever live.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the one man dies for the sins of those 3,000 years ago and the sins committed this day by any one of us.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when he rises from the dead, one man, Son of God, salvation of all who will ever be born on this earth who call him Savior.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the third miracle of the Trinity, this Bible.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Every book takes a year to ten years to find its way into print.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's written by one man or woman in their own generation.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: This book, sixteen hundred years to write, sixty generations.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It greatly enhances my conception of God.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Calmly, quietly, he watches the stresses and strains, the haste and the busyness, the sinfulness of man.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And slowly the book grows.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: David, Psalm 19, he said, Thy word is more precious to me than all the silver and gold that I have in this kingdom.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: He only has 600 years of the Bible.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's only got Moses.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Moses 1500 BC, David 900 BC, he only has 600 years.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Thy word is more precious than silver or gold.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have another thousand years tacked on.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if David can write that before Jesus was ever born, before he ever did a miracle, before he ever died on the cross and rose again, what must we say about the Bible?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: More precious than silver or gold.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But David, as he's fighting Goliath, he remembers the Red Sea.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: God, if you could open the Red Sea for the Israelites 600 years ago, you can open the Red Sea as I fight Goliath.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And when he's being chased by King Saul for twelve years, he remembers how David was chased.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: When he looks at the Bible, only 600 years.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then he says, Thy word, more precious in silver or gold.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Moses dies, five sections of the Bible.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: David sits on his throne a few more sections.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Isaiah from his court, a few more sessions.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Major and minor prophets.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden the Old Testament is done.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: God said, That's enough.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And for 400 years there's nothing.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then God said, Time for the word to come down.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have it at Christmas time.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: The word became flesh and dwelt among us.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: The word, Christ.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: You look at the New Testament, you're even more amazed than the old that it exists.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because the Jews were not a writing people.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: They were oral tradition.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Of all the Jews who ever lived, there's only one that was a writer, it seems.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: The great historian Josephus.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Bishop Westcott once wrote, The Jews were trained in oral work, not literary work.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Everything in the heritage of the Jew would preclude the New Testament ever being written.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Reverendly speaking, the Master Jesus, not a writer, never wrote a single word save for a few scratches in the sand.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't say to his disciples, when he went up to heaven, he said, Go and make disciples of all nations.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't say, Go write this all down.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew, you write, and Mark, you write.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't say that to them.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: When the Apostle Paul comes along and he's transformed on the road to Damascus, he doesn't say to Paul, you're going to end up writing half the New Testament.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is what Jesus did say.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: John 14, 26, the Holy Spirit's going to come.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when the Holy Spirit comes, he's going to do two things.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to teach you all things.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: He will be the professor.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: He'll teach you all things.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he'll bring to your remembrance everything that has happened these last three years.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And everything that happened in the Old Testament.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to bring it to your memory.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew, you're going to sit and say, I don't remember that, John.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And John's going to say, Well, I did remember it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's going to cause you to remember all things.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the Holy Spirit is the publishing house for the New Testament.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit, when He teaches them all things and brings it to their remembrance, he becomes the suggester and designer and the collaborator of the New Testament.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: You need proof, 2 Peter 1.16.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Peter wrote, We do not follow cleverly invented miser tales when we made known to you the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We were eyewitnesses of everything we wrote and everything he did.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Four verses later, 2 Peter 1.20, of this one thing you must be certain.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: No prophecy in Scripture ever originated in the mind of the prophet.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: No prophecy in Scripture ever had its origin in the heart of the prophet.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: The construction of the Bible.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not of man, but of God.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Your eyes can see creation.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Your eyes of faith can see his death and resurrection.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: God said, I'll leave you a miracle tangible.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You put your hands on that Bible.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the tangible miracle.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: First Thessalonians 2.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: When you heard the word of God which you received from us, you did not receive it as the word of men, but as the very word of God.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let me talk to you very, very briefly about its circulation.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: How many copies of the Bible every year?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: A hundred million.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Every single year.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: 100 million copies of the Bible are printed.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Twenty million copies in the United States.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: They asked the leading book seller in the world this question some 30 years ago.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: They said, What's the most popular book that you sell?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: He said, There are two categories.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: There is one category far above any other category, and that is the Bible.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Every other book I sell is measured in its circulation by the thousands.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible is measured in the tens of millions.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Circulation of the Bible.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: At every wedding, the Bible.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Every hymn that you'll sing in this congregation, every hymn ever sung in a Protestant congregation, straight from the Bible.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: His name was Sir William Dawson.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was the greatest scholar, scientist that Canada ever produced.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And in his mansion, which still stands, there would be a nanny reading a Bible story to his three-year-old and his four-year-olds, reading a Bible story of Joseph and his brothers.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the very next room, one of the brightest minds on planet Earth would be reading the Bible for an hour and a half every evening, marveling at the grace, the mercy, the power, the love of God.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You pick up that book.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm up in Minnesota this past four days.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: My brother's got prostate.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Cancer.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's pretty vicious.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: One to see them.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lumberjack church up there on the coastline of Lake Superior.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: A lumberjack church.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the lumberjacks come to worship.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And my brother said, quite a crew when you see these lumberjacks in their boots and their uniforms come walking into that church.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: I said, how many?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: He said about a hundred.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I see marching in there.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: When you read the Bible, you're reading the same book that Herschel read, that Sir Isaac Newton read, that Sir Alexander Pope with an IQ of 210.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he read.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's what he wrote about.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: The older I get, for some bizarre reason, I told you before, I look at when the hymns were written and who wrote them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I sit and say, My goodness gracious, what was going on 150 years ago when he wrote that hymn?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: What was going on in his life or in the life of his village or in the life of this world?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: What was going on in Martin Luther's life when he wrote the hymn we just sang?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sophia, what was going on in her life when she wrote the hymn we sang in the opening hymn?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: This Bible, it ought to be front and center in the house that you and I live in.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that Bible ought to be read on a daily basis.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not just when the days are dark, but when the days are light.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me close with this thought.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Mark and I and his wife are driving around Lake Superior.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Aren't the trees beautiful, the colors amazing, absolutely amazing?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: He said, in three weeks all the leaves will be down.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And from eight miles away, we'll be able to see Lake Superior.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's all covered up by the leaves right now.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: But in three weeks, all the leaves down, we'll see Lake Superior from this distance.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself today, the fall of the year comes, and the busyness goes.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: The travel leagues are done.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Family reunions are done, our vacations are done.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Fall of the year comes.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do we see this more clearly?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Choirs begin again, youth group begins again, our school begins.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do we see this more clearly?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have more time.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you get old, the fall of the year comes into your life.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Why are there so many gray hairs in churches?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's Parkview or whether it's here or the Catholic Church, why are there so many gray hairs?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because the fall of the year of our life has come.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the business has left for the most part.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Cannot do what we did when we were younger.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And where does one gravitate in the kingdom?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: They gravitate this direction.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why should they not?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because we get ever closer to that final destination, as Pastor Rock would always say.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: This earth and not our final destination.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And as we get closer to this destination, and as things slow down because of our age, this becomes far more clearer to us.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Consider the miracle of the Bible and consider its crowning glory, the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: 270.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: 270 revelations in the Old Testament that Jesus would come.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then He does come.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this world and our lives are changed forever.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because you always take Him with you.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're in your teens and you're far away from home, you take Him with you.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're middle age and you're grappling with the problems of middle age, you take them with you.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And when health finances or relationships are on the fritz, you take them with you.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when I visit the hundred-year-old at Smith Crossing, she's always got that Bible.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Closing word, Tom Zordani told me a story.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Red Sea Rules, straight out of the Bible.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Our study on Lord's Prayer, straight out of the Bible.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Our study on the Psalms, straight out of the Bible.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I gave Tom Zordani a book, The Red Sea Rules, and he gave it to his friend who was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when he was called to the nursing home, because his friend had died, there was a book laying on his chest that he was reading when he passed.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that book was the Red Sea Rules.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Straight from the Bible, straight from Exodus 14.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: You understand what you have.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: May it be the light unto your path and the lamp unto your feet.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And no matter where your circumstance is at this moment in time, here is the place that you and I go.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: I saw Hank Weidler's wife this past week.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was talking to her, and there was minimal conversation, I said to her, May I read a devotion from the Bible?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a twinkle in her eye, a little smile on her face.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: As if that word, the Bible, still meant something to her hearts.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, keep us close to you.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Better spoken.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Keep us close to your word.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because in the word and in the sacraments and in the circumstances of life, we shall bump into you over and over and over again.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the divine power from God is placed upon us.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: When we read your word, Lord, may we take that word and share it with someone else you bring across our path.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: In our Savior's name.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.