“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” – James 1:22
Pastor Stuart Briscoe was teaching the principles of Bible study, showing how to pick out the promises and the commands in Scripture, and what to do with them. When he reviewed and asked, “Now, what do you do with the commands?” A little old lady raised her hand and said, “I underline them in blue.” Sadly that’s about as far as some folks go when it comes to responding to the word of God. They don’t seem to know what to do. James however makes it perfectly clear. We are to be more than students or scholars of the Word, we are to be servants and that requires obedience.
I recently read this story of a seminary professor who was studying in the Holy Land when he met a man who claimed to have memorized the entire Old Testament in Hebrew. So the professor asked the man if he could give a demonstration. The man agreed, and the two met at the man’s home. The professor took out his Hebrew Old Testament as the man asked, “Where shall we begin?”
“Psalm 1,” replied the professor, who was an avid student of the Psalms. And beginning with Psalm 1, the man began to recite from memory while the professor followed along. For two hours, the man continued without a single mistake as the professor sat stunned.
When the demonstration was over, the professor discovered something even more shocking about the man. He wasn’t a Jew nor a Christian, but an atheist. He knew the Scriptures better than most Christians ever will, and yet they had done nothing to change his life because he simply didn’t believe them.
Sadly many who are acquainted with what the Bible says do not apply it to their lives. That leaves them worse than had they not heard. Adrian Rogers said – “One of the finest psychological truths that I’ve ever learned in my life is this— Impression without expression leads to depression. Now, what does that mean? If you come and listen to me preach, and you get these things in your notebook—you get these things in your head—but you do not practice them in your life, it’s not going to make you a better person—it’s going to make you a worse person. You’re going to have more and more guilt, and more and more despair, because you’re hearing these things, and you’re not doing them. Jesus, in the Bible, says, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:17)” – HDS
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346
