I'm very pleased to be here this evening once again to represent the work and witness of the Trinitarian Bible Society. In God's goodness, the work continues to expand. Last year, the Society was able to publish and distribute 3.6 million scripture items translated into 41 languages and sent out to 98 countries. Now, 3.6 million scripture items represents a 10% increase on the previous year. So we're quite encouraged by the ongoing demand for God's Word. But we're particularly encouraged by the increasing number of translation projects that are under consideration. So at the present time we have 90... live projects. By that I mean projects where work is being undertaken, progress is being made as we speak. In addition, there are another 45 translations under consideration, so we are looking to what needs to be done and who may be able to do it, and so in due course they may become live projects as well. So that's especially encouraging. Now, of course, that's encouraging, but that comes with its own financial strain, as you might imagine. The more scriptures we translate and distribute, and of course, more resources are needed to that end. But we continue to look to the Lord to provide for the needs of the society. He has done so since 1831, when the society was first founded, and we trust we shall see increased expansion of the work. I'd like to just bring to you one or two encouraging letters and let me first of all tell you about the Bibles that we published back in 2022. We published around about 45,000 Platinum Jubilee Bibles and then the next year Coronation Bibles, similar quantity. So over 90,000 special print Bibles were made available mainly for children in schools. Now, I was taking a meeting in Berkshire early this year, and after the meeting a lady approached me and she said, there's something I'd like to tell you, it may take some time. So we had a phone call the next morning, for about half an hour, and she told me that for many years with her late husband she attended an Anglo-Catholic church. And then after that she went to a charismatic church for around about 20 years. And one day she was looking through a raft of books by charismatic authors like Benny Hinn and Rodney Howard Brown and so forth. A book that rather differently is by J.C. Ryle. And she took it home and she read it through and she said that was the means of bringing her out of the charismatic movement. So she now attends a place of worship much like yourselves here. loves the authorised version, loves conservative reverent worship style and so forth. But she said she found it very difficult over the years trying to make contact with her children regarding spiritual things. I think she has three daughters and a number of grandchildren. And back in the Platinum Jubilee year, she decided to purchase a number of these to present to her grandchildren. So she wrote What she felt was a suitable verse of scripture on the inside of the front cover, and prayerfully left it with them. Two years passed, and then one of her grandsons, who's now 15, he said to his mother, where's that Bible Gran gave me? Well, the Bible was found, and he started to read it. It's been the means of completely changing his life. He doesn't take God's name in vain anymore. He doesn't use bad language anymore. In fact, he pulls up his mother sometimes when she uses bad language. But more recently, he said to his mother, I want to go to a place of worship. So the grandmother recommended a place where the worship would be conservative and the ministry sound. So now you have a mother and the son under the preaching of the gospel. And this boy has friends at school and he talks to them. There's one particular boy who's got all sorts of problems. And he says to him, you need to seek the Lord as well. And let's be encouraged by that. And that came about simply through the prayerful presentation of one Bible. We trust the Lord will use that young man to be a means of showing forth the light of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Another encouragement came regarding Bibles presented in schools. In Hertfordshire, there's a little village school I've been going to three years in a row. It came about through a Christian mother who has children in that school. She was able to make the arrangement for me to go. And this year I was told there were 19 children due to leave the school, but bring just 18 Bibles, because the 19th child was a boy from a Hindu family. I assumed he wouldn't want a Bible. Well, I took 19 Bibles just in case. And I'm glad I did, because when the children were called up after I'd spoken to the school assembly, All those children gladly came up to receive their own copy of the Word of God. The very next day, I had a message from that Christian mother I referred to a moment ago. She said I had some wonderful encouragement last night, which also reproved me for my lack of belief in God's power. The mother of the Hindu boy told me how pleased and grateful they are with the Bible. and that he is reading it already and insisted on taking it to school yesterday so he could continue reading it. Apparently his grandmother in India has converted to Christianity and he is excited to talk to her about what he is reading from the Bible. So you never know how the Lord may work in these situations and who it is who really wants a Bible who is glad to read it. We trust the Lord will work in that family also, through the Word of God, and bring that Hindu boy to a same knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. Well, we ought to be encouraged by these things, aren't we? And we're thankful for these openings to spread the Word of Truth. Now, this year, and next year, marks a very special anniversary. the 500th anniversary of the first printing of the New Testament English having been translated for the very first time from the original Greek by William Tyndale. Now over 100 years before, The Bible in translation to English from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe. Now the Latin Vulgate Bible had its own problems as a translation. It didn't always accurately reflect God's truth. So that was carried forward into the English translation as well. So instead of having the word repentance, you had words like penance, which is a very different thing of course. But where it did convey God's truth, God blessed it to quite a number of people who became not only followers of John Wycliffe, but followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They became known as the Lollards. We don't know exactly what Lollards means. It probably wasn't intended to be complimentary. It probably meant something like the mumblers, something like that. In 1408, a new law was passed to outlaw the reading of the Bible in English. So very severe persecution soon was raised against those who really wanted to read God's word in the English tongue. So we're going to fast forward to around about a hundred years later, to the time of William Tyndale. Now, Mr Ransbottom in his little booklet, How We Got Our English Bible, he was originally an address to young people, he said that he believed that Tyndale perhaps was one of the greatest men that ever lived, and I think that's no exaggeration. Also it's true to say that Tyndale was forming a language for England. Don't forget in those days Latin was the church language, the language of the universities, the language of the law courts, French was the language of the nobility and the rich and fashionable, English was a kind of second-rate language spoken by the common people. but as a result of Tyndale's excellent English translation and the increasing use of the English scriptures from that time onwards, it was the means of popularizing and exalting the English language. So today English is the most widely spoken language. 1.5 billion people speak English and Tyndale was a key factor. His translation was a key factor in the increasing use of the English tongue. So to just give you a few details regarding Tyndale himself, he was born in 1494 or 1495, we can't be more precise than that, about 20 miles north of Bristol up the Severn Valley, the Slimbridge, Stinchcombe area, into a yeoman farmer's family. Now yeoman farmers were quite well off, they had their own property and that meant there was money to send young William to school at a later point. Now, just a few words about the rough and ruddy times in which Tyndale was raised. It was thought unhealthy to take a bath, and it's said that the streets of the towns and cities were lined with animal and human waste. And it was thought that the body was made up of four humans, so medical knowledge was still very primitive. So, if you were unwell, it was thought there was an imbalance of those four humans, so bloodletting to supposedly restore the balance by knives or leeches was the order of the day. If people needed some sort of surgical operation they went to the barber surgeons. Barbers didn't just cut hair, they were the people with the knives and the scissors and they could cut anything else that needed cutting. But no doubt people died from infection because those things were little understood in those times. And no doubt you're aware of the traditional pole outside barber shops, the red and the white lines on the pole. Well, that's intended to represent the blood and the bandages of the barber surgeons. Also when it came to things to eat or drink, you were somewhat more limited. No tea or coffee, no pineapples, no bananas, no potatoes. Those things hadn't been imported in this country at that stage. And no Bank of England, so if you had a quantity of gold, you went to the goldsmith. If it weighed a pound, he'd issue you with a pound note. And after a time, it was realised not everybody wanted their gold back at the same time, so additional notes were put into circulation. The Bank of England wasn't formalized until the 1690s. So a very different world to what we're used to today. But when you think of the spiritual landscape, it really was dark. Effectively, the church was the state, and the state was the church, and people's consciences were held in an iron grip. So the way it worked was this, that you did all the things the priest told you to do, so you went to the church services, you went to the mass, and you paid your dues and effectively the priest was supposedly the one who did all the things necessary for you spiritually and if you were obedient to the teaching of the church then you were told that when you died you would pass through purgatory for an unspecified period of years eventually you would reach heaven people knew no better because the word of God was locked away in the Latin language for the most part And people had no idea that salvation was a free gift in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. So you can see how terribly dark the medieval church was at that stage. But that was going to change. And Tyndale was going to be mightily used as God to bring the light of truth to bear upon the minds and consciences of men and women and boys and girls. So to come back to Tyndale's life, he, we believe, was first sent to an ABC school run by a local clergyman. Then to Barclay Grammar School, which is, I understand, one of the oldest grammar schools still in existence. And then, at the age of 12, he went up to Oxford University. Now, it wasn't unusual in those days, if you had a precocious child, and the money to fund it, you'd send them to university at the age of 12. and lessons began at 6 a.m. Just notice the breadth of learning. Divinity, Law, Medicine, Grammar, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, Rhetoric, Logic, and Philosophy. After nine long years, Tyndale completed all those studies and graduated as M.A. and was considered suitably qualified to take a position in the church, but not once had they opened a Bible with him. But, thankfully, under his own initiative, having learned the Greek language, he went to the Greek New Testament, so the pure source of the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit was enlightening his understanding as to the way of salvation. We can't put a date on his conversion, but here and there he gives away a few hints in his notes in the margins of his translations as to his own spiritual experience. But as a result of coming to understand salvation by grace, He became very concerned about bringing people into a knowledge of these things through the English translation. It's understood he went on to Cambridge, possibly for another four years, where he would have come into contact with some of the early reformers like Hugh Latimer, Thomas Bilney, Thomas Cranmer, and Miles Coverdale. And then he received an invitation to become the tutor to the two children of Sir John Walsh at Hillsobury Manor in Gloucestershire, and I'm sure he's quite happy to go back to his home county and to spend time with his family, but there he had time to study God's word and to translate. Now Sir John Borsh was a very sociable man, and he invited all sorts of people round his dining table, deans and archdeans and abbots and so forth, and there'd be some lively discussions because Tyndale was there as well, and if they broached any doctrinal error, any falsehood, he would correct them from the word of God, which somewhat irritated them. But there was a famous occasion, you've probably heard this said before, when there was a learned man at the table, And he seemed somewhat frustrated with Tindale because Tindale wouldn't move from his biblical position. And so this man said, we'd be better without God's law than the Pope's law. And Tindale moved with no doubt a measure of indignation and said, I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years, I'll cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the scriptures than thou dost." Really it's like a mission statement, a summary of the work he's going to do for the rest of his days. Well, filled with hope and optimism, he went up to London in 1523, quite expecting the Bishop of London would give him a place in his palace where he could translate, but he is bitterly disappointed. The Bishop said, I've no room for you in my household. but he was given opportunity to preach at St Dunstan's in the West, in Fleet Street, and his ministry impressed some of the wealthy cloth merchants who attended. Among them was Sir Humphrey Monmouth, who became a close friend and a benefactor, and supported Tindale for the rest of his days. Now, Tindale was given a place by Sir Humphrey where he could translate, but he came to the realization that if he completed this English translation, who'd be prepared to print it in England because it was illegal to do so. So he decided he'd have to leave this country and in 1524 he went to the continent, first settled in Hamburg then moved on to Wittenberg. Now, of course, Wittenberg was a powerhouse of the Reformation. There was Martin Luther and his friend, Philip Melanchthon, and other scholars. And Europe, of course, was abuzz with excitement because in 1517, Luther had now his 95th thesis to the church, taught Wittenberg, challenging the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church regarding the practice of penance and promoting the biblical doctrine of true repentance. So it was an era of much discussion and sometimes heated debate. But there's no doubt that Tyndale was very much encouraged by what he saw there at Wittenberg. Luth had already translated the New Testament from the Greek into German. and here was England lagging behind. So Tyndale completed his translation by 1525 and moved on to the city of Cologne to make contact with the famous Reformation printer Peter Quintel. So the work was put in hand, some thousands of English New Testaments about to be printed, and then an enemy intervened. Johan Coplius, a self-appointed critic of Luther and all things reformed, got to hear about this, and he made friends with the men at the print shop, and in their spare time he plied them with plenty of wine, which soon loosened their tongues, and the truth came out that these thousands of English New Testaments were about to be printed. Thirdly, Tinder got to hear about this just in time, and he rushed to the print shop and snatched up these half-printed Gospels and then fled up the Rhine to the city of Worms where in 1526 he had them printed as a separate publication and then the New Testament was completed and published. Possibly as many as 6,000 New Testaments were printed in that first print run. Now the challenge for Tyndale was this. How is he going to get all these illegal English New Testaments into the country? Well, thankfully in God's good providence he had many friends amongst the English merchants, so cryptic marks were placed on certain items. So there were sacks of grain, there were bales of cloth, there were hampers of paper covered over with flax, and there were marks on these items and people at the English ports were in the know, some of them at least, and they would make sure that these were set aside and the New Testaments retrieved and got into the hands of the people that really wanted them. But the wonderful thing is this, in God's goodness, there's a ready market for the Word of God. It's all very well having Bibles, but if people are not interested, then not much good is done. But there was a hunger for God's Word. People were weary with all the medieval superstitions. People wanted to know the truth. And God was using the written Word of Truth to bring people to a saving knowledge of Christ and salvation. Well, of course, there's much more that could be said about Tinder, but that gives you some idea of what was happening 500 years ago. Now, T-Best, of course, is commemorating this year. We've published this little booklet. William Tyndale, the Apostle of England, do help yourself, they're free. take as many as you feel you can use, also a free bookmark, and you'll see on the back the Beatitudes, you can see how close Tyndale's translation of the Beatitudes is to the authorised version. Very similar indeed. Something like 85-90% of Tyndale's New Testament translation was simply carried forward into the authorised version. And it was very carefully scrutinized by many scholars during the time that it had first been produced to the time the authorized version was printed. But it was found it couldn't be bettered at those particular points. So we live in the benefit of Tindale's translation work. Also, we have produced a commemorative Bible. So you have on the front cover a larger than life-size statue of Tindale on the Thames Embankment. And the interesting thing is this, that here is Tyndale, seen to be standing on a piece of ground that used to be the back garden of one of Henry VIII's palaces. It was Henry VIII who had Tyndale arrested and put to death in 1536, but here is Tyndale on his back garden. But this is one of the many statues. In fact, there are three monuments. in memory of Tyndale, two in this country, one in Vilvoorde in Belgium, and there's a memorial tablet in Westminster Abbey. Now this is what is known as the Hampton Text Bible. Now for many years we produced Bibles this size, known as the Ruby Text Bible. We were beholden to Cambridge, we had to pay royalties to have them printed, but we decided to reformat it, we've devised our own typeface. So we've called it the Hampton Text Bible. So it's very similar to LookApp, but it's clearer. And also, there are explanations for unusual words. So if a child received one of these at school as a presentation Bible, they may come across the word chastening. If they don't understand what that means, well, it's explained for them at the bottom of the page. So around about 5,000 explanations. So it's particularly useful for young people, and it's a timeline regarding Tyndale and his work. So do have a look at these after the meeting. So the Ruby Text Bibles were £9.75, these are just £8. So let me move on to some of the current day translation work that TBS is involved in. And it's true to say that we stand in the same tradition as Tyndale. You may be aware that our headquarters is called William Tyndale House. But we translate from the same textual basis. traditional text of scripture that God has providentially preserved down through the years, and also we translate using the same translation philosophy. So, where possible, trying to keep us closely to the very words and the word order in the original Hebrew and Greek, and conveying as much as possible of the fullness of each word into the target language. So that's the way we proceed in our translation work. That's the time on the way of translating the Word of God. So let me first of all take you to the country of Nepal. Now, Nepal is north of India, borders with southern Tibet, has a population of around about 31 million. The country is dominated by the world's most impressive mountain range, the Himalayas, with Mount Everest, the highest point, five and a half miles high. Nepal is a very superstitious country. Basically it's a Hindu country, but also there are Buddhist and ancestor worshippers. But the way it seems to work in Hinduism is you can sort of invent your own deity to suit your own purpose. So you have your own house god and as many other gods as you wish to invent for your own purposes. So it's said there are more gods worshipped in Nepal than there are people. 31 million people but more gods worshipped than people, and more temples and shrines than there are houses. That gives you some idea of the spiritual darkness that prevails in Nepal. But it's not all bad news. Now, going back to the 1980s, it was believed there were only 500 Christians in Nepal. Today, the figure stands at around about 1.5 million. Possibly as many as three million, some suggest, we don't know for sure, but supposing it's one and a half million, that's very considerable progress in more recent decades. So, the Lord has been at work in marked ways in that country. So it's not just the towns and cities that have a gospel witness, even some remote villages have groups of believers meeting together for worship. But having said that, 90% of Christians in Nepal do not have a place of worship like you have here. Often they have to meet in some private dwelling, and often try not to be noticed too much by others because there are people who are pushing back against this growth of Christianity in the country. They want to set up a Hindu kingdom to suppress Christian testimony. So what they do by way of worship and outreach has to be very much behind the scenes. So it's not easy for Christians in that country. For some years TBS had available the whole Bible for the Nepali speaking people. This took 27 years to complete. Part of the reason why some translations take so long is because some translators work full time and they have to give their spare time to translation. So we admire their dedication and perseverance in seeing the project through to completion. There was a great need for this because previous to this translation One of the Bibles in circulation was a translation from a Hindi Bible. Now, a translation from a translation is not the best way to translate. Sometimes it's the only way, if you don't have people with Hebrew or Greek abilities, but if it's not done very carefully, you could end up with some very serious misleading translations. Let me give an example. In Proverbs 27 verse 10 it says, better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off. You could illustrate that first by thinking of the man on the road to Jericho who fell amongst thieves. If he had brothers, evidently they were far off. But a neighbor was near, the good Samaritan. So better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off. In that Nepali Bible it came out like this. Instead of saying, Better is a neighbour that is near, it said, Better is a demon in the house than a brother far off. So you can see how misleading. some translations can become if they're not done well. So this is a translation directly from the Hebrew and the Greek. We're thankful for the good work they've done and something in the region of a hundred and fifty thousand of these have been published and distributed not only in Nepal but also in parts of India where the language is spoken. And what I find particularly encouraging is this. It's awakened an interest amongst other lesser known tribal groups in that country who have seen what we've done in this translation and they've come to us and said can you do something of similar quality for us in our tribal dialect well there are 131 languages spoken in Nepal so we have run about a dozen pilot projects in some of these lesser known languages and three of those languages have the Gospel of John published already This is the Gospel of John in Pashimicam. You've probably never heard of Pashimicam, but this is spoken by 300,000 people, so it meets a considerable need, and we're thankful for the progress. And the other interesting thing is this, that some of these publications is the very first publication of anything in some of these languages. It really is groundbreaking work. So it means reducing the spoken language to a written form, modifying the alphabet where necessary to make it work that language, and teaching people how to read. So you can see the dedication involved in translation and bringing the truth to bear upon the minds of people as they are taught to read. So we're thankful for work that's going on there in Nepal. Now we recognise that some people in Nepal will never learn to read, so we've made the whole Bible available in an audio format, so one way or another they can gain access to the truth of God's Word. So we value your prayers regarding the work of TBS there in Nepal. Then moving on to Mongolia. Now, we don't often hear about Mongolia these days, but I'm talking about Outer Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is part of China. Outer Mongolia is a kind of buffer country, so sometimes it's been interfered with by China, other times it's been invaded by Russia. So it's a country that's been through various difficulties over the years. Maybe you think of Genghis Khan and his enormous Mongolian empire all those years ago. Mongolia is a land of contrasts. On the one hand you've got the city dwellers with the belching chimneys and the attendant smog and health problems. Then you've got the rural parts where they live in their white felt tents and they move from place to place trying to find grassland for their cattle. It's also a land of contrast in respect to the climate. In the summer it might be 40 degrees, but in the winter it might be minus 40. And it's reckoned the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, is the coldest capital in the world. Now, the vast majority of people in Mongolia would consider themselves to be Buddhists. It's been one of the most closed countries to the gospel for a long time, but that's starting to change. I was talking to a missionary some years ago and he said when he first went to Mongolia in the 1970s as far as he was aware he was the only Christian in Mongolia and he said in fact he was put into prison for a time but then he was released and was able to make known the gospel but by 1999 there were still only four Christians in Mongolia whereas today the number seems to be around about 35,000 to 40,000 professing evangelicals But the situation is quite confused because the inroads of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and so forth, but to use a biblical phrase, the Lord has his 7,000 have not bowed the knee to Baal, you understand what I mean. Now the country is a troubled country in many ways, widespread unemployment, widespread poverty and widespread immorality. But TBS has been working on an important translation project. We found a translator who's prepared to leave home comforts in Mexico with his wife and two children. They went to Mongolia and he learned the language and the cultural use of language, which is important. And we first produced the Gospel of John in Mongolian, which has been well received. Christians who are very zealous in that country in promoting the word of God as much as they possibly can. He was also able to complete the New Testament translation. Now, one of the great challenges for Christians in Mongolia is this. It's a cultural problem, really, and that is getting people to understand this is a book that needs to be read. The way it seems to work in their culture is this. If you buy a book or you're given a book, You don't think about reading it. You wrap it up in silk and you put it away on the shelf. There it stays until someone comes to visit your home, you get it down, you unwrap it, you pass it round for people to give their nod of approval, then you wrap it back up and put it on the shelf. It's a kind of status symbol. You don't think about reading it. So you can see what's a great challenge for Christians. Explain, this is God's Word. God speaks to us through His Word. You need to read this book. So that's one great challenge. Now, another challenge is this. against a cultural problem. In Mongolian culture, men take a very laid-back view of life. So much of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the women. And sadly that spills over even into the churches. So it's difficult for churches to find men who are prepared to take proper responsibility regarding spiritual things. Having said that, the women really set an example because I've heard of women who stand at the bus stop, mid-winter, I mean nearly minus 40 degrees perhaps, they stand there with their fur coats and their little children all wrapped up to keep them warm and they do that week after week because they want to get with God's people to worship the Lord on a regular basis. So there's encouragements and there's discouragements regarding the work of God in Mongolia. Now regarding the Old Testament translation, our New Testament translator was called away to some other line of ministry and we found someone from the USA who was prepared to leave home with his wife and seven children to go to Mongolia and the children have been very enthusiastic, they've all learned Mongolian tongue, they speak Mongolian at home. And during the COVID pandemic, our translator was very seriously ill. He went to hospital, he was put on a machine and his heart was stopped and his lungs were stopped and the machine was doing the work for him. And that was intent to aid his recovery. And then one day, unexpectedly, the machine suddenly stopped working. And the hospital staff were scurrying around trying to get the machine working as quickly as possible. And then, remarkably unaided, his heart started to beat again. That was the beginning of his recovery in God's goodness. Well, he's now working some other capacity, but we've found someone else to continue his Old Testament translation work, so it's going on well. and we hope it won't be too long before the Old Testament will be complete. So we are quite encouraged by what is happening, the progress that has been made. And only recently I heard that 400,000 copies of the Gospel of Mark have been published in the Mongolian language. So there seems to be a growing opportunity for spreading God's Word in that part of the world. Now we haven't been doing this entirely on our own. We've had the support of First Bible International in America. They've done good work in sending printing presses to Mongolia. They set up a Bible Institute in their country. So in various ways they've supported the work down through the years. So this gives you some idea of the present activities of the society and we very much appreciate your ongoing prayerful interest in the work of the society. Well let's turn now to God's Holy Word and I invite your attention once again to Jeremiah chapter 23. So we turn to Jeremiah chapter 23, and I'll read again verse 29, where the Lord says through Jeremiah, is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? on the 30th of September 1938 our British Prime Minister returned from Munich among his first words were these I believe there's peace for our times so go home and get some quiet rest something similar to that was happening here in this chapter the false prophets were saying peace peace when there was no peace In one sense it was different because I don't believe Neville Chamberlain was deliberately deceiving the people. He was just simply misguided. He'd been taken in by the smooth words of Hitler and the Nazi party. And war broke out in due course. But here, there was a deliberate effort by the false prophets to deceive the people. They were preaching a message out of their own heart. professing to have had dreams from the Lord and they were delivering those messages to the people and it was just what the people wanted to hear it was smooth words, words of deceit and God says in verse 21, I've not sent these prophets yet they ran I've not spoken to them yet they prophesied and God then had a controversy with the people of Jerusalem and Judah, they preferred this smooth message, rather than the faithful words of Jeremiah. Since the end of verse 28, what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord. Jeremiah's ministry was like the good wheat, it was wholesome, it was true. But they would rather throw him into prison, and for him to die in the dungeon they really wouldn't have cared. But they preferred the light and false message of these prophets, which was like the chaff that were going to be driven away in God's judgment. So it's quite a dark passage in many ways but have you noticed so often in the Old Testament when you have a message of judgment and condemnation Christ is not far away and that is true of this chapter. Notice verse six he's described there as the Lord our righteousness in complete contrast to the unrighteousness of the people of Jerusalem so we notice verse 29 in particular we notice two figures of speech regarding the word of God and we notice first of all that God's word is like a fire well a number of things we can say on this point perhaps the most obvious thing to say is that God's word is like a fire because it warms our hearts I'm sure we've all known times when we've read God's word we felt rather cold and perhaps distant from the Lord in some way and as we've read the word of God our hearts have been strangely warmed we felt something of the preciousness of the truth that we've been reading it comes home to our hearts with a spirit of refreshment and we feel the blessing of it God has graciously warmed our cold hearts with heavenly heat as we sometimes sing warm our cold hearts with heavenly heat and set our souls on fire we need that don't we it reminds me of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus how distressed they were because Christ had been arrested, put to death, and it seemed everything was over. The faith and the hope they had in Christ seemed to be buried with him in the grave. And so they're wandering away from Jerusalem down to Emmaus, And then a stranger draws near to walk with them. They didn't know it was a heavenly stranger, the risen savior. But he began to speak to them from the scriptures. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expanded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. And as he began to take them through these Old Testament scriptures, they said later, did not our hearts burn within us? As he talked with us by the way, They experience the warmth of God's word, particularly as they saw Christ in the scriptures in a way they'd never seen it before. So God's word is like a fire because it warms our hearts. And as it warms our hearts, it softens our hearts, just like the rays of the sun will soften wax. And our hearts then are melted, as it were, in a sense of contrition, and gratitude and admiration of the Lord's mercy and grace towards us and we feel a sense of renewed zeal in the things of God also God's word is like a fire because it separates remember 1 Corinthians 3 where it speaks of the danger of building wrongly upon the foundations only one foundation Christ and Him crucified better foundation can no man lay than is laid that is Jesus Christ But we need to be very careful how we build upon that foundation. If our building is no better than wood, hay and stubble, it will be consumed. But if we're using gold and silver and precious stones, they will endure the fire. So it's quite a sobering consideration, isn't it? Fire separates, isn't it? How separating was the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ? You think of the end of John chapter 6 where the Lord Jesus spoke of the need for faith in his sufferings and death and he used quite a graphic illustration except he eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink his blood. There is no life in you. Some were offended by that and they went back and walked no more with Jesus. And the Lord Jesus turned to his disciples and said, will you also go away? And you remember that Peter nobly responded by saying, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And there's the distinction. There are those who, they are building upon the foundations it were with wood, high and stubble, and it didn't endure. Peter and the other disciples, apart from Judas, they loved Christ and they loved the truth and they weren't offended by his words. Also, God's word is like a fire because it purifies. This introduces us to the refining process. You know how it worked in ancient times. You think of a lump of gold ore placed in a crucible over the fire. and heated to a certain temperature and the dross starts to come to the surface and has to be removed and the process is repeated time and again until you have pure gold or pure sterling silver and God's word is like a fire because it refines, it has a sanctifying influence And it's often been said, isn't it, that the goldsmith or silversmith, he knows his trade, he knows what he's doing and he has to heat it to the right temperature until he sees his own reflection in the face of the precious metal. Then he knows the work is complete. And likewise the Lord, who is the great refiner of his people, he is intending that his reflection may be seen in his people, that we may be greater image bearers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We may wonder sometimes what the Lord is doing with us in our lives. Why this trial? Why this affliction? Why this disappointment? Why this seeming setback and adversity? The Lord knows what he's doing with his people. There's a refining process going on, isn't there? And one day that refining will be complete. But there's something else in relation to God's Word being like a fire that's important. That is, the Holy Spirit also is likened to a fire in the Scriptures. You think of the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down with a clove and tongues of fire and settled upon the heads of the apostles. We're also told not to quench the Spirit. the Holy Spirit's gracious operations can be quenched. That's the implication of that verse. That's not suggesting the Holy Spirit as a person can be quenched. Of course not. He's Almighty God. But we can offend, we can grieve the Holy Spirit. So like a gentle flame, we are told not to quench the Spirit. Remember Joseph Hart in one of his hymns, he says, so gentle sometimes is that flame that if we take not heed, we may unkindly quench the same, We may, my friends, indeed. Now, when I first preached in a Calvinistic Methodist church in Wales, I learned that the Calvinistic Methodist denomination have a symbol. It's an open Bible and an emblem of a dove above the Bible. And the motto is, the word without the spirit is dead, and the spirit without the word is dumb. Because the intention is to convey that it's the word of God applied by the power of the Holy Spirit that becomes a life-giving influence. And without the Word, the Holy Spirit is dumb, meaning that it's through the Word of God the truth is conveyed. The Holy Spirit never speaks contrary to the Word of God. So these two things are important, the Holy Spirit and the Word, both likened to fire in the Scriptures. That's no coincidence, surely, because both are needed As we send out the word of God, we must pray the Holy Spirit may convict people through it and open the eyes of the blind through it and reveal Christ to their hearts. We must move on to the second figure of speech here, where we're told that, is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Maybe the first thing to say here is that God's word like a hammer can be misused. when I was in the motor trade in the late 1970s and early 80s. I did an apprenticeship at the Technical College. One of the lecturers said, if I had my way in the workshop, I'd lock up all their hammers. I think he was deliberately overstating the case to make a point. Because, of course, it's possible for an apprentice to perhaps get out a big hammer and do damage, rather than think of a better way to solve the problem. But God's word can be misused, just like a hammer. I remember an elderly Christian telling me he could remember in the 1950s or 60s a communist, standing up on Bexley Heath with an open Bible, open at Psalm 53, and he kept saying to the people, there is no God, there is no God, even the Bible says there is no God. Of course, he's only quoting part of a verse. The fall has said in his heart, there is no God. So, you can make the Bible mean what you want it to mean, if you deliberately misapply or only just select one or two words from a sentence. So, God's word is like a hammer, it can be misused. Now hammers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, don't they? From the humble toffee hammer to the great sledgehammer which might be fourteen pounds or more. And it says here that God's Word is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Our hearts are likened to a stone, aren't they, by nature. It needs the power of God's Word to break our stony hearts. So it's a reminder of what happens in conversion. but conversion experiences are very different aren't they for some it's more like a crisis conversion like it was with Saul of Tarsus this hardened Pharisee who hated Christ and hated the people of Christ and was doing his utmost to eradicate the early New Testament church and here he is on the road to Damascus with letters of authority in his pocket to arrest God's people there in that city and he's struck down where by the truth of the The Word of Christ, who speaks to him directly from heaven. It's like the sledgehammer blow, isn't it? And all he could say was, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Suddenly he was humbled. Suddenly he was made alive. Suddenly he realized the glory of Christ. He felt the power of the Word of God. And it came as a heavy blow to his heart. You think on the other hand, you think of Lydia. There in Philippi, she was accustomed to go to the place where the women met for prayer by the riverside. And the apostle Paul went to sit down with them. It wouldn't have been a formal sermon, I don't think, it was just a conversation, you might say, on the things of God. But as he spoke, the Lord opened Lydia's heart. It was the gentle hammer blows, you might say, of the Holy Spirit applying the truth to her soul. Her heart was broken, her heart was opened, so that she attended unto those things spoken by Paul. Many conversion experiences are more like Lydia's perhaps than that of Saul of Tarsus, but whichever way it might be in God's wise dealings with his people, the end result is the same to humble the proud sinner and to make us attentive to the truth, that we might receive the Word of God in our hearts by faith. So, is it not like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Every conversion experience is the same at this point, that we can testify of something of the effect of the power of God's Word in our hearts. It's also true to say that God's word comes like a hammer, sometimes to backsliders, if they refuse to hear the gracious pleadings of the word of God, calling them back to the truth. God sometimes has to bring terrible things in righteousness to his people to make them think again, and to bring them back to himself. It was like that for King David, wasn't it? He has sinned with Bathsheba. He tried to cover his tracks by having Uriah, her husband, set for the hottest part of the battle, so he died. It looked like just another casualty of war, didn't it? But it was something very different, wasn't it? And the Lord knew and David knew. And he seemed to go on in a state of indifference for some time, until Nathan the prophet was sent to him and convey that parable of the new lamb. The rich man who didn't take from his flocks and herds to kill for the meal for the wafering man, but went to the poor man and took his little ewe lamb. And David heard this and he was incensed, he was, you could almost say enraged. The man that hath done this thing is worthy of death, he says. You remember how Nathan turned the tables on David and said, David, this is what you have done, thou the man. And David felt the hammer blow of God's word. and he was brought to repentance and godly sorrow. And he confesses in Psalm 51, doesn't he, the sacrifice of God or a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou not despise. He understood then in a new way something of the power, the hammer blows of God's word. Thomas Watson, the famous Puritan, once said, a broken sinner and a broken Christ well agree." Well, the Lord's people prove that, don't they? Something of the tender pity of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we feel the brokenness within consciousness of our sinfulness, we feel a sense of contrition, a sense of remorse for our sins, but in coming to the Saviour, we find His tender mercy and grace toward us. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquity. And the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. So as we send out God's Word, this is what we pray for, isn't it? That God might use His Word in this way as a fire and as a hammer. to bring people to a point of true humility and submission to the truth and ultimately to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless these thoughts to our hearts. Amen.