Let us ask the Lord's blessing.
Let us pray together. Almighty and ever-gracious God,
we draw near this evening, our giving thanks for the Word of
God we have before us, the freedom we have to gather around the
Scriptures. We pray that this evening may
be for thine honour and glory and for our mutual edification,
that we may be built up in our most holy faith and encouraged
as we hear of the spread of the Word of God in these times. Lord,
we are thankful for the many aspects of the work of Bible
translation, the many projects being undertaken Lord, we pray
that we may be encouraged as we think about these things together.
Bless us as we sing, may we do so with the understanding and
sing in the spirit that we may be spiritually engaged in each
part of this meeting. Draw near, we pray to bless us,
to help us as we ask these things for Jesus' sake. Amen. We're going to begin by singing
from Gatsby's Hymns number 43. The tune is 687. Edwin has kindly chosen these
hymns for us this evening. 43 From Gatsby's Hymns, Precious
Bible, What a Treasure! Does the Word of God afford?
All I want for life, for pleasure, food and medicine, shield and
sword, is revealed in Jehovah's sacred Word. All heart and pleasure does the
Word of God afford. All life long for life of pleasure,
faith and wisdom, spirit and soul. It's revealing in you the sacred
truth. of the Spirit, of the Spirit,
till thy hope is fulfilled. ? Faith is strange and sickly ?
? O when Satan hurts my mind ? ? Call yours to revive me quickly
? ? Illnesses fill my mind ? ? When my Jesus ? when my Jesus shines
every glint in my mind. In the hour of temptation, Satan
cannot reign with you. ? For the word of consolation is
to me a mighty shield ? ? O Jehovah, O Jehovah ? ? Gives me faith
and truth to feel ? When in faith I take the sword,
Then will He's light guide him through me. Satan trembles round
the world, When my helper, when my helper Wiser, doubting of his proud
and strong. Sure I am, Lord, surely wiser,
I have reached this glorious goal. For our scripture reading we
turn to the prophecy of Jeremiah chapter 23. The 23rd chapter
of the prophecy of Jeremiah. We're going to take up the reading
from verse 16. Verse 16 to the end of verse
32. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto
you. They make you vain. They speak
a vision out of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the
Lord. They say still unto them that
despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace. And they
say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his
own heart, No evil shall come upon you. For who hath stood
in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and heard his
word? Who hath marked his word, and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind
of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind. It shall fall grievously upon
the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not
return until he have executed, until he have performed the thoughts
of his heart. In the latter days ye shall consider
it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets,
yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet
they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel,
and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have
turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. Am I a god at hand, saith the
Lord, and not a god afar off? Can any hide himself in secret
places, that I shall not see him, saith the Lord. Do not I
fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord? I have heard what the
prophets said, that prophesied lies in my name, saying, I have
dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the
heart of the prophets, that prophesied lies? they are prophets of the
deceit of their own heart which think to cause my people to forget
my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor
as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal the prophet
that hath the dream let him tell a dream and he that hath my word
let him speak my word faithfully for what is the chaff to the
wheat saith the Lord Is not my word like as a fire, saith the
Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?
Therefore behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord,
that steal my words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I
am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues,
and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that
prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and
cause my people to err by their lies and by their likeness. Yet I sent them not, nor commanded
them. Therefore they shall not profit
this people at all, saith the Lord. This is a sobering passage
of the Scriptures. I want to come back to that later.
We're going to ask God's blessing. Let us pray together. Almighty and gracious God, we
would humble ourselves at the throne of grace, giving thanks
that we can draw near, we can venture in the name of thy beloved
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We can even come boldly, and
we are exhorted to do so, to find grace to help in time of
need. And we pray that we may be blessed
together as we have gathered this evening hour around the
word of God, We pray that our hearts may be touched and uplifted.
We pray, Lord, thy word may prove to be a word in season. It may
be a means of encouraging the hearts of the people. It may
be a means of spiritual refreshing and a sense of encouraging true
assurance and a sense of knowing and belonging. And we pray, Lord,
that bless the people then through the word, that thy word may speak
to us in our circumstances and our needs. We pray that we may
behold the glory of the Lord in the pages of scripture, that
it may not just be a book whereby we seek to find comfort or direction,
but may our great ambition be to know thee, whom to know is
life eternal, for thou hast made thyself known through thine only
begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the hope of thy
people. And so we pray that bless us,
let us know the spiritual needs of the people, the spiritual
state and standing of each one. We cannot hide these things from
thee, but we pray, Lord, thy word may be a blessing to us
all. And may we be encouraged to see
the broader picture of thy work around this world, as thy word
is being translated and published and distributed far and wide,
even to the four corners of the earth, even to remote places
where Christ has not been formally named. We pray, Lord, that through
the dissemination of the holy scriptures, that the word of
God may have a blessing. It may be the means of convicting
men and women of their sinfulness, that they may realize they have
broken thy holy law, that thy word condemns them from their
sin, and that they have come short of thy glory. We pray the
Holy Spirit may accompany the reading of Scripture, not only
in conviction, but in conversion, that such who are made aware
of their desperate need and their terrible plight, they may apply
themselves to thy beloved Son, that they may rejoice to hear
of sins forgiven through Christ they may wander afresh at the
virtue of the blood of Christ is able to wash away even the
vilest of sins. We thunder for that perfect righteousness
that Christ wrought out in his spotless obedience here below
and that this righteousness is imparted and imputed as a free
gift and we pray Lord thy blessing may accompany the work of the
society We pray for those who are busy in translation and often
may perhaps feel weary with such close concentration given to
the original languages of the scriptures and their endeavours
to convey carefully and accurately the Word of God in the target
language. Bless them, we pray, in the good
work they're doing. They may in some cases be in
remote places and perhaps under an oppressive regime and perhaps
may be uncertain as to whether they will be discovered in the
work they are doing and be interfered with in some way. Lord we pray
that have thy good hand of protection upon thy people and be with them
and bless them we pray. Oh Lord we pray for this congregation
and pray thy blessing may be upon our brother's ministries
he seeks to pass to the flock To preach the word of God and
to make known the gospel of saving grace, we pray that his words
may be conveyed to the hearts of the people with Holy Spirit
power. There may be an unction from
heaven, so that the word spoken may not be forgotten, but may
make the hearers think, and may send people home to pray and
to seek the Lord. We pray this may be true of many
of the children and young people, that while they're young they
may early come to know the fear of the Lord in their hearts,
that they may feel their need to pray, that they may be aware
that they have a never-dying soul that needs to be made right,
needs to be made clean. We pray that they may truly seek,
that they might find. We're thankful for the precious
promises given in thy word for those who are young, that they
have reason to hope and to believe that if they genuinely seek,
they will indeed find to the joy and rejoicing of their hearts. And so we pray it may prove to
be that while young they may come to a clear, distinct, saving
knowledge of the truth. We pray, Lord, that Thou wilt
bless each one, that there may be others added to the Church,
who freely and with a sense of love and constraining grace in
their hearts may confess Christ. We pray for this locality hundreds
and thousands of men and women and boys and girls that live
near this place of worship. You may not have any real understanding
of the issues of life and death and eternity. We pray that moved
by thy spirit and use the testimony of thy people here as a light
in the darkness, as a voice crying in the wilderness as it were,
that there may be those who will find straight paths to the Lord.
So we do commend to thee this church and congregation and their
pastor. And we pray, Lord, that be pleased
to bless all of thy people throughout this nation in these days of
small things and days of increasing wickedness and open blasphemy
and sadly, pride, even the most abominable of sins. Lord, we
pray that thou'lt yet be pleased to build thy church in troublous
times in this nation and elsewhere. So, Lord, do receive us graciously,
we pray, as we ask all these things with the forgiveness of
our latest sins. For Jesus' sake. Amen. We're going to sing together
from Hymns for Worship, number 143. that June is 142. The hymn 143 from Hymns for Worship. Teach me, O Lord, the perfect
way of thy precepts divine, and to observe it to the end I shall
my heart incline. 143 from Hymns for Worship. Oh, what a rich and still life,
and to turn it in the end, I shall my own do. ? But from thee I shall also live
everly ? ? In thy laws, God, make me to man, how I delight
therein ? Down, down away, my son, the
light of your eyes. I'm very pleased to be here this
evening to represent the work and witness of the Trinitarian
Bible Society. Thank you for your interest and
support in the society's work. We don't take meetings such as
this for granted. We appreciate your ongoing interest
in the society's activities. Last year the Society was able
to publish and distribute 3.3 million scripture items. Half
of that figure was given away completely free of charge. We
believe that's important to do so because there are so many
people around the world that can't afford to buy a Bible.
And if we only sold Bibles then of course they'd have to go without.
And so we try and exercise discernment as to the most needy and send
Bibles free of charge to such places and rely upon people that
we know well who will exercise discretion as they distribute
the Word of God. So 3.3 million items in total
were published last year in 38 languages and sent out to 111
countries. We're very thankful how the Lord
has had his good hand upon the Society's work through another
year, and we're thankful for those who are working with us
in various parts of the world. Let me share with you a letter
from a contact we have in Northern Ireland, a very dedicated brother
who frequently goes down to Southern Ireland, Dublin in particular,
to make contact with people in the streets of that vast city,
and he received from us a large quantity of calendars in the
Ukrainian language and also other Ukrainian scriptures. Perhaps
I should just say that it was two years ago when I mentioned
the Ukrainian Bible that TBS has and the sudden increase of
demand for it since the outbreak of war with Russia. And previous
to that, there'd been only a small demand for our Ukrainian Bible.
But it's often the case, isn't it, when people's lives are turned
upside down, they start to think about the issues of life and
death in a different way. And so, there's more of an openness,
generally speaking, to the teaching of the Word of God in such circumstances. So, over the last two years,
we've distributed 50,000 Ukrainian Bibles. Now this contact received from
us, Ukrainian Bibles, but also the Gospel of John. We decided
to publish the Gospel of John in Ukrainian as a separate publication.
And he said, I'm so grateful for the 2024 calendars. The Ukrainian
will be a special blessing to our thousands of Ukrainian refugees
all over Ireland in so many refugee camps. from north to south and
east to west. So far we've used 80,000 Ukrainian
John's Gospels and thousands of children's literature, plus
so many Ukrainian Bibles all over Ireland, plus several hundred
Russian Bibles. Thank you very much in helping
us spread God's Word. Well we're thankful for this
brother who's particularly dedicated and has been for many years in
distributing the Word of God as published by the Trinitarian
Bible Society. Now when I came to you this time
last year, in fact it was July last year, I mentioned the large
quantity of Platinum Jubilee Bibles that we published for
2022. We initially published 40,000 copies And to keep up
with the demand, we published another 10,000. And we were so
encouraged by the pastors and elders and other Christians who
reached out to local schools and offered free presentation
Bibles to children. And many schools did open their
doors and many Bibles were presented. And not only so, but there was
opportunity to go and speak to the children first, which I believe
is important because we don't want children to think this is
just a souvenir. something to be put on a shelf and just sort
of dusted off now and again. We want people to know this is
the word of God. God speaks to us through his
word. So 2022 was particularly encouraging
from that regard and then last year We've published 46,000 coronation
Bibles. And I was dubious whether we'd
move another large quantity of special print Bibles in view
of the Platinum Jubilee year. But I'm happy to say there's
very few left now. They're hard to come by. and
the vast majority have been purchased to be presented to children in
schools. So when you start to add up the
figures, something in the region of 95,000 children now have a
Bible. In many cases, this will be the
only Bible they've ever handled or possessed, and probably the
only Bible in their homes. Who knows what the Lord may do
through just one copy of the Scriptures going into these homes? I was talking about this at a
church in Bristol last summer, and a lady came up to me afterwards
and said, for your encouragement, she said, Some years ago, my
daughter received a Bible in school. She didn't seem particularly
interested and laid it aside, but I took it up and read it,
and the Lord saved me. And it always rejoices our hearts,
doesn't it, to hear of the Lord working through His Word, sometimes
without any outside help, just simply reading the page of Scripture,
and God speaks through the Holy Spirit and brings them to saving
faith. And the very natural consequence
of that is because people then want to gather with God's people
to meet for worship with the people of God which this lady
is doing I mentioned this to the church in Hertfordshire a
few months ago and a man said to me afterwards that he received
a Bible when he was young 40 years passed before he got round
to reading it and the Lord blessed him in so doing And he came along
to our headquarters back in March for our Open Day and he was quite
moved emotionally when he saw this large quantity of Bibles
in the warehouse in various languages ready to go off to the four corners
of the earth. And we're very thankful for all
who are interested and supportive in the work that we are doing
in disseminating God's Holy Word. Now I'd like to say this evening
a few things about the work of TBS in respect to India. There's a vast work going on
in that country. I want to give you a bit of the
background to the work of the Gospel in India to begin with,
because you've probably heard of William Carey, a famous missionary,
a famous Bible translator, who left these shores to go to India
in 1793 under the auspices of the Baptist Missionary Society.
He's often referred to as the father of the modern missionary
movement. So where did this all begin?
We go back to the year 1761 to the little Northamptonshire village
of Pawlesbury. That's where he was born and
brought up in a strict church family. So he went to the parish
church week after week In looking back in after days, he said it
was a carnal and a lifeless ministry. There was no preaching of the
gospel. It's just a form of religion. So he did have some knowledge
of certain Bible truths that he'd heard. But when he got into
his teenage years, his ambition was to become a gardener, but
he was prevented from doing so because he had a rare skin condition.
which meant he couldn't be exposed to the light of the sun for any
length of time. So his father decided to apprentice him to
a shoemaker. And in God's remarkable providence,
that brought him into contact with a fellow apprentice who
was a believer and spoke to care about his soul and gave him good
books to read and encouraged him to attend gospel services
and prayer meetings. And little by little, the truth
of the gospel dawned on young in the River Nen in Northampton.
You will know the name John Ryland because he's written a number
of hymns that we still sing, like Sovereign Ruler of the Skies,
Ever Gracious, Ever Wise. It wasn't long before Carey felt
a call to preach the gospel and this brought him to contact with
other preachers and pastors. It soon became evident that Carey
had a particular ability in languages and he taught himself to read
Hebrew and Greek and while he was mending shoes he would set
up a Greek New Testament and he would catch a glance from
time to time as he was working. In fact you can go to the village
of Moulton in Northamptonshire and you can see the very workshop
where he was labouring hard making boots and shoes at the same time
studying the Word of God. And he also learnt Latin with
the help of another pastor John Sutcliffe and also learnt Dutch,
Italian and French. He was a man with considerable
abilities in languages. The other thing that concerned
him was the lost millions around the world. He had read the journals
of Captain Cook. It has been said where Captain
Cook's journals ended, the modern mystery movement began, because
he became more acquainted with other nations and other areas
of the world. And as he became more aware of
these things, he became more burdened about the souls of these
people. In fact, he gathered together a vast amount of information. And it must have taken a lot
of doing in those days, because today you can go to Google and
in three seconds you've got it. But in those days it would have
meant going through large tomes, no doubt in libraries, to find
the information. he was looking for. And in 1792
he published this book. This is a facsimile of the original
publication entitled An Inquiry into the Obligation of Christians
to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen. And he's got
information on even remote islands and remote peoples, how many
people lived in these islands and what language they spoke
and what the beliefs of the people were. And he was presenting this
information to fellow preachers and pastors and encouraging them
to think about the possibility of establishing a society for
sending up missionaries to various parts of the world. There was
some hesitation among some people because many of these pastors
were quite poor and they weren't sure whether it was possible
for their churches to support anything of this nature. One
of the climactic points in this process was a sermon he preached
at Nottingham And it has become known as the Deathless Sermon.
It was based upon the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 54 where
it speaks about the church enlarging the place of its tent and so
forth. And the sermon had two heads. The first was this. Expect great
things from God was the first point. The second point was attempt
great things for God. And both of those things are
important, aren't they? To expect great things from God,
to remember that he is able to do more than we can ask or think.
He's able to bless the preaching of the word and the distribution
of the word of God. And at the same time, we are
to be directly involved. We are to attempt great things
for God. The Lord uses means, doesn't
he? He uses his people who pray their way along. And as a result
of this, eventually a organization was established entitled, with
a rather unwieldy title in fact, the Particular Baptist Society
for the Propagating of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen. You can
see why it was abbreviated to Baptist Missionary Society after
a few years. And Carey was the first volunteer. And he left in, as I've mentioned
earlier, 1793 to go first of all to Calcutta, then he established
a work for the Lord in Serampore in southern India. Keri was appalled by the practices
of many of the people in India. One of them was hook swinging.
I don't know whether you've heard of this but they would set up
a tall pole with ropes attached to the top and at the ends of
these ropes were metal hooks and they thrust these metal hooks
into their sides and they would swing their whole weight around
the pole and this excruciating pain was considered to be meritorious
and would somehow bring them into favour with the gods. That
was the thinking. in that Hindu country. Then there
was widow burning known as sati. So when a man died, it was believed
he'd need his wife in the afterlife so she'd be burned alive on the
funeral pyre. And Kheri campaigned for years
to bring an end to these things. He lived to see the end of widow
burning. But he hadn't gone just to moralize
the people, improve their social conditions. He'd gone to preach
the gospel. and he realised if the work of
the gospel was to be properly established that people must
have the word of God in their tongue. He also had the wisdom
to realise that he must first grasp the ancient Sanskrit language
because Indian languages that were spoken in his time. He realized
were based upon the Sanskrit language It's a bit like learning
Latin if someone knows Latin. Well, they can learn more quickly
Latin based European languages so having Established himself
in the Sanskrit language. He was able then to move on to
other translation Projects, we don't know for sure quite how
many translations he produced how many Bibles or parts the
Bible he produced in how many languages? Possibly as many as
40 different languages. An astonishing accomplishment
for a man who had very little formal education. He was once
asked the secret of his success and he said, I'm able to plot. He was a persevering man in spite
of all sorts of difficulties he faced. On one occasion, a
building was burned down. They lost so much of the work
they had done, but he began again. And so the Lord prospered and
blessed his labors. Now, I think it may be appropriate
to say a few words about the British Empire and India. I know
it's popular today to view the British Empire in an entirely
negative light, but there's a lot of positive things that came
out of the influence of the British Empire, and particularly in respect
to India. 40,000 miles of railway track
were laid in that country, canal systems were dug, Telegraph systems
were put into place, and a parliamentary democracy was established, laying
a foundation for what India is today, one of the fastest growing
economies. Now, Kerry realised the need
for education, so he was able to set up the first education
system in that country. The people need to learn to read,
if they're going to really benefit from having the Word of God. Keri laboured for many years
before he saw any real conversions. The first conversion was a Hindu
man by the name of Krishna Pal. You may have come across his
name if you're familiar with the Christian hymns because there's
a hymn in that hymn book written by Krishna Pal and translated
by one of Keri's helpers. Let me just read a few verses
to you which gives you an insight into how this man had come to
a clear and distinctive understanding of the substitutionary work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. O thou, my soul, forget no more
the friend who all thy misery bore. Let every idol be forgot,
but, O my soul, forget him not. Jesus for thee a body takes,
thy guilt assumes, thy fetters breaks, discharging all thy dreadful
debt, and canst thou ere such love forget? renounce thy works
and ways with grief and fly to this most sure relief nor him
forget who left his throne and for thy life gave up his own
this man Krishna Pound became a preacher in fact an eloquent
preacher of the gospel what an encouragement that must have
been to carry and those who are working with him Now TBS has
been working for some years in quite a range of Indian languages. For many years we have distributed
literally tons of English Bibles in India. English is a widely
spoken language. It's used in schools. It's a
business language. So there's scope for reaching many, many
people with English Bibles. But we also believe it's important,
where possible, to provide Bibles in the local dialects of the
people. If English is a second language,
of course, they understand their first language that much better.
So if they can have the Bible in that language, it is so much
easier for them to understand its teaching. Let me just name
to you some of the projects that we have been working in some
of them for some years now. Some years ago we published the
Gospel of John in Tamil and we're trying to further this project.
Tamil is spoken by a large number of people in southern India and
Sri Lanka. Then there's the Hindi tongue
which is widely spoken and we're working on a project in that
language. Then there is Kham, Chothay. The Chothay Bible is
now complete. Then there's Manipuri, the Vaife,
the Vaife scriptures are now complete. You may recall last
year in the news there were reports of deep unrest And violence taking
place in Manipur. Manipur, as you look on the map,
is the far northeast of India, sort of forgotten by the Indian
government, it seems. And there are many people who
felt very isolated. There are lots of Christians
in Manipur, but they were attacked by Hindu extremists, and a large
number of churches were burnt to the ground, and many Christians
had to flee. And some women were terribly
publicly violated, and much violence was agitated amongst the people.
So it was an area of great distress and trouble. And we trust the
Lord will help them to rebuild their churches. And amongst the
Manipuri people are people who speak the Vaifei language. Now,
our Vaifei translator came over to England last year. He spoke
at our Annual General Meeting at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
And he's invited to come to Bedford Chapel to speak about his translation. The people were quite moved by
hearing directly from a man who had family involved in these
things and has seen these things firsthand. And the encouraging
thing is the Vifay Bible is now complete. And we trust it will
be a great blessing to those who receive it. Many more languages
could be mentioned. Let me just name some of them.
You may not have heard of these languages before, but most of
them are spoken by tens of thousands, or if not more, people. So there's
a great need for God's word in these tongues. There's Gangti,
Kanada, Zel, Hamar, Dasuri Tharu, Bojpuri, Halam, and Hamar and
Damaso and so forth. And it just goes on, it just
seems like the The number of language translation projects
the editorial department tries to manage just increases year
on year. It's over 70 projects that are being managed at the
present time. We have 52 live translation projects. In other words, projects where
work is progressing. But there are other projects
where investigations are being made as to who can do the work
and what needs to be done and so forth. So there's so much
that's happening and especially so in India. Now children, you'll
be interested in this. There are over 1,500 languages
spoken in India. And 1.3 billion people live in
that vast country. And there are some parts of India
where they've been completely unreached by civilization and
by the message of the Word of God. And it's been like it in
those parts for thousands of years, sunk in the Hindu caste
system. And it's a kind of fatalistic
world view. And this is completely alien
to our understanding, but this is how it is in some of these
parts of India. So if they have a large family, they find it
difficult to feed their family. If one of the children fall ill,
they don't get a doctor. They just let the child die because
that will help the family finances. That's completely alien to our
thinking, isn't it? Or if your parents get old and they can't
be of any use to you anymore, you let them die as well. That's
how people think. And if you try and persuade people
otherwise, they think that's going against cosmic justice.
That's the way it works for many parts of the rural areas and
remote parts of that vast country. It's a great need for the light
of God's word to shine in the lives of these people. And it
seems that Manipuri, as I mentioned, in the far northeast, has been
especially blessed with Christian witness. over a hundred years
ago there's a missionary by the name of William Pettigrew who
went to the Thado speaking people in Manipur and he experienced
great blessing so the Thado speaking people regard themselves as a
Christian community that doesn't mean that all believers necessarily
but they have a regard for God's Word and only very recently had
they had access to the whole of the Word of God in their tongue. Some years ago we published 10,000
copies of the New Testament for the Thaddeus speaking people
but in addition to republishing the New Testament we published
the Old Testament as well and there was great rejoicing when
this was finally available. One of our contacts wrote to
us to say I thank God for providing us with His Living Word through
TBS London and First Bible International in the USA. I trust that by reading
the Word of God in their own dialect, the Thaddo Christian's
faith will be strengthened and also many will come to know Christ.
There will be a great change and transformation in the lives
of the Thaddos by reading the Living Word of God. And these
Christians will become a significant instrument for advancing the
work of evangelism in Southeast Asia. We're very thankful for
the good work that's being done in these various Indian dialects. What a great need there is for
God's Word to be made available in an accurate form for these
people. I have time just to mention very
briefly one more project. I'll only mention this briefly,
but As a result of a conversation before the meeting, I'm going
to talk about the British Sign Language project TBS is embarking
on. Now, you may be aware of this,
but British Sign Language began in the 1500s. A certain system
was formally arranged for the deaf, but British Sign Language
as we know it today was established in the 18th century. It's estimated
that 150,000 people in the UK benefit from that sign language. It's now an officially recognised
language. and TBS has been working on a
project with members of the Metropolitan Tabernacle where they have a
large deaf fellowship and the plan is to produce the whole
of the Bible in signing and the way it's going to work is in
video format so on the one side of the screen there will be the
text of scripture and on the left hand will be someone signing
the words now this is a long-term project the Bible is a big book
The authorised version has 783,137 words. In other words, over three
quarters of a million words. Now, signing doesn't mean you
have to sign every word. That doesn't work like that.
It's a more broad brush than that. If you watch someone signing,
someone talking, you can see they're only signing certain
words and key concepts in the sentence. But nevertheless, to
provide the whole Bible in British Sign Language is going to be
a project of some years. and with that was made a good
start and we trust God's blessing will rest upon that which is
being done and it may be a real blessing to those who are able
to benefit from it I think it's difficult for us if we can hear
well difficult for us to identify with people that are profoundly
deaf or completely deaf it's a very isolated existence but
to be able to understand God's Word in this way now someone
said to me Well, why is there a need for making the Bible available
in sign language for deaf people? Surely they can just read the
Bible? Well, the reason it's so necessary is because people
who are profoundly deaf find it very difficult to learn to
read well. Often their ability at reading
is at a child's level, even though they might be an adult. So for
someone to actually sign the Bible is very beneficial for
them. So we're thankful for the way
in which this project has gone off the ground. We trust it will
be a great blessing to those who receive it. We're going to
turn now to God's holy word and I direct your thoughts to the
passage we read from earlier, the prophecy of Jeremiah chapter
23. the prophecy of Jeremiah chapter
23. Do turn to this passage with me and I especially draw your
attention to the words found in verse 29. 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 amongst his first
words which had become quite famous were these I believe that
there is peace in our times so go home and get some quiet sleep
now they were mistaken words weren't they but something like
that was happening here at this time in Jeremiah's ministry the
false prophets were saying peace peace when there was no peace
judgment was coming but the false prophets just spoke smooth words
and uttered deceits our prime minister of the day he wasn't
deceiving the people deliberately he was simply misguided being
taken in by the smooth words of hitler and the nazi party
and as you know the second world war soon broke out afterwards
but here this was quite deliberate Here were people who were directly
contradicting what Jeremiah was saying. And God was displeased
with them on that account. Verse 21 says, I have not sent
these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet
they prophesied. There's an expression we sometimes
use, playing to the gallery. In other words, saying what people
want to hear. And this is what the people here
in Jerusalem wanted to hear. They wanted to hear that it didn't
matter that they were disobeying the voice of the Lord. It didn't
matter that they were worshipping idols and copying the ways of
the heathen nations round about. And the false prophets were saying,
nothing's going to happen. No judgment will come upon you.
There's going to be peace. There's something rather familiar
about that, isn't it? Because we're hearing something
like that today. in so-called Christian circles people are
saying God accepts you just as you are God is a God of love,
He doesn't judge anybody so there's no need for repentance, no need
for you to change you can carry on in your lifestyle as it was
before and you can still be considered a good Christian that's deceptive
that's not the message of God's Word God calls for repentance
He calls for holiness and godliness to live according to the pattern
of God's Holy Word And every one of us, we need repentance
before God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. So it's the
false prophets today who are issuing the same kind of message
as was true here in Jeremiah's day. You see, there's nothing
new under the sun, is there? The same things come up again
and again. And we're told in the end of
verse 28, There's a contrast made. What is the chaff to the
wheat? The message of the false prophets was like the chaff.
It was light of no substance. Whereas Jeremiah's message was
like the wheat. It was wholesome. It was good.
It was sound. But they hated him for it and
they cast him into prison. They wouldn't have cared if he
died in the dungeon. such was their callousness and indifference
to the truth. So it's quite a dark passage,
isn't it, from that point of view? But the remarkable thing
about God's Word is this. Even in the most dark passage
of Scripture, you find that Christ is not far away. And that's true
in this passage, in verse 6, you read of Christ, the Lord
our righteousness. What a contrast! with the lives
of these people, here is our Lord, our righteousness, the
Lord Jesus Christ. So we're going to notice verse
29 where you have two figures of speech in respect to the Scriptures. The first we shall consider is
God's Word being likened to a fire. Maybe the first and most obvious
thing to say is God's Word is like a fire because it warms
the hearts of believers. I'm sure many of us have had
this experience where perhaps we've come to God's word and
we felt rather cold and distant and unfeeling maybe. But as we've
read the scriptures maybe almost by surprise something touched
our heart. We felt warmed by it. We felt
encouraged. We felt uplifted and instructed
maybe even reproved in some way. The Lord met us in the pages
of his word. and warmed our cold hearts. There's
a hymn we sometimes sing. Warm our cold hearts with heavenly
heat and set our souls on fire. It was like that for the two
disciples on the road to Emmaus. How cold they felt spiritually.
It seemed like everything had come to nothing. They would be
numb and dejected and distressed. It seemed like their hope in
Christ was all in vain. We believe, they said, that it
had been he who had come to redeem Israel. Now look what's happened.
he was arrested and put to death and as they talk about these
things Christ the risen saviour draws nigh they don't realise
it's the risen saviour at that stage and he begins to reason
with them from the scriptures And as the scriptures are rehearsed
before them and brought to their attention, their hearts were
warmed. And they say later, did not our
hearts burn within us as he taught with us by the way? It's no small
blessing to have our hearts warmed by the grace of God and by a
sense of the wonder of the truth, the glory of Christ, and the
teaching and blessing of the holy scriptures. And also we
say God's Word is like a fire because it comforts, doesn't
it? You think of how uncomfortable it is when you feel really cold
in the winter. And maybe you're far from home
and you would long to be by the fireside, but how relieved you
are when at last you get home and you are warmed all over again. Well, God's Word is like that. It warms our hearts. Also, God's Word is like a fire
because a fire separates, doesn't it, between certain materials.
You think of the way in which the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians
3 spoke of God's judgment, His Word in that sense being like
a fire. The foundation cannot be improved, can it, because
better foundation can no man lay than is laid, that is Jesus
Christ. But we have to be very careful how we build upon that
foundation. If we build with wood, hay and
stubble, it's going to be consumed. If we build with gold and silver
and precious stones, it will abide the fire. So God's Word
then, it separates, doesn't it? It separates between people,
between the righteous and the wicked, between those who are
genuinely the Lord, and those who are only in a mere profession
of Christianity. It was like that in the ministry
of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have at the end of John chapter
6 the occasion when some were offended at what Christ spoke.
He used a graphic illustration of what faith is, true faith
in him. Except ye eat the flesh of the
Son of God and drink his blood, there is no life in you. An illustration
of real faith, partaking of Christ. And some were offended and went
back and walked no more with Jesus. And Christ turned to his
disciples and said, will you also go away? And Peter, a spokesman
for the rest, said, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life. So there was this distinction.
The word of Christ made this distinction. It was like a fire
and separated between those who are genuine and those who were
false. Also, it's like a fire because
it purifies. It has a sanctifying influence. This introduces us to the refining
process. You no doubt understand how it
works. Raw gold ore will be placed in
a crucible and over the fire and it's heated to a certain
temperature and the dross is removed. It's repeated again
and again until you have pure gold or pure sterling silver.
And God's word has this sanctifying influence upon the heart of a
believer. We have to be instructed again
and again, don't we? We are made aware of the dross
that's in our hearts that needs to be removed. And God uses trials
and difficulties and bereavements and shocks and setbacks as part
of the refining process. in the lives of his people. God's
word is used to that end. God chastens us and God instructs
us why we're being chastened for our spiritual betterment.
Now it's not by accident that it's also the Holy Spirit in
scriptures likened to a fire. Remember on the day of Pentecost,
the Holy Spirit came down in cloven tongues of fire and rested
upon the heads of the apostles, and they were anointed by the
Holy Spirit with a measure they'd never known to that degree before.
And the effect was astonishing on the day of Pentecost when
Peter preached, we're told that day 3,000 were converted. You turn over the page, there's
another 5,000 converted, and as you read through the Acts
of the Apostles, the Word of God grew, and many more brought
to a saving knowledge of the truth. The early Jerusalem church
was of enormous proportions. and it was because of the fire
of the Holy Spirit that came down upon the apostles. This
is what we need today, isn't it? The undoing of the Holy Spirit
upon the preaching of the everlasting Gospel and the Holy Spirit working
in the hearts of the people who hear the Word proclaimed. So
there's this likeness then between the Holy Spirit and the Word
of God. You remember the Apostle Paul
says, quench not the Spirit, lightening the Holy Spirit's
greatest influences like a gentle flame. which could be quenched. Of course the Holy Spirit as
a person cannot be quenched, but his gracious influences can
be quenched, he can be offended, he can be grieved with his people.
We need to be very careful how we act, how we live, lest we
should quench the Spirit and we feel a sense of withdrawing
of the Holy Spirit in some measure from us. So how necessary these
two things are? The Word of God which is like
a fire and the Holy Spirit which was symbolised by a fire because
the Holy Spirit must take the Word and apply it to the heart
if there's going to be any real saving benefit. When I first
preached amongst the Calvinistic Methodist churches in Wales 17
years ago I learned that they have a motto and a symbol. The symbol depicts an open Bible
and a dove above it. And the motto is this, the word
without the spirit is dead, and the spirit without the word is
dumb. A reminder to us that just reading the words on the page
doesn't bring blessing, but only if the Holy Spirit enlightens
our hearts and applies the truth to us, so that we are brought
to a point of embracing the truth by living faith. and without
the word the Holy Spirit is done. In other words it's through this
precious volume the Holy Spirit works to bring people to saving
faith. We move on to notice the second
figure of speech. It's 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
about God's Word being like a hammer is the fact that hammers can
be misused. when I was in the motor trade
as an apprentice I can remember one of the college lecturers
saying that if I had my way in the workshop I'd lock up all
the hammers I think he was deliberately overstating the case to make
a point because it's possible for someone not too experienced
in the motor trade to get a hammer as a first line of approach to
a problem when there may be a better way of dealing with the difficulty
and damage can be done in the process And likewise, God's word
can be misused. Let me give you an example. I
remember a Christian man, Bedford, telling me that he could remember
in the 1950s or 60s, he couldn't remember which, he was on Bexley
Heath, and on the Common there, there was a communist, an atheist,
who had an open Bible with him, and he kept saying to the people,
there is no God. There is no God. Even the Bible
says there is no God. Now he quoted that whole verse
from Psalm 53, it was said something rather different. The fool has
said in his heart, there is no God. You see, God's word can
be misused if words are deliberately taken out of context and made
to mean the opposite of what they're intended to mean. Now,
hammers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You have the
humble toffee hammer to the great sledgehammer, might be 14 pound
or more. And God's word The way in which
God uses it is different in people's conversion. It may be rather
different. You think of the conversion of
Saul of Tarsus. It was like a sledgehammer blow,
wasn't it, when the risen Christ spoke to him on that Damascus
road? Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he literally fell
to the ground, didn't he? Such was the power and conviction
of those words. But you think on the other hand,
Timothy or Lydia, think of Timothy who was brought up with a godly
mother and godly grandmother. He'd known the holy scriptures
from a child and the Lord had gradually brought him to a saving
knowledge of the truth. And in the case of Lydia, she
gathered with people at the riverside in Philippi, women who gathered
for prayer and Paul sat amongst them and spoke to them. And as
he spoke to them, the Lord opened Lydia's heart so that she attended
unto those things spoken by Paul. You see, it was the gentle movings
of God's Spirit opening her heart, breaking her heart and bring
her to feel her need of the Saviour. You see, this is what it says
here in this verse, the hammer breaketh the rock in pieces.
Our hearts by nature are stony hearts, aren't they? And it needs
to be broken. then it needs to be something,
the power of God's Word exercised by the Spirit to break down our
resistance, break down our indifference, break down our self-satisfaction
and self-sufficiency, making us humble sinners, realizing
we need Christ, that we are helpless in ourselves, we are ruined,
we are undone. And when we really feel that,
then we cry to the Saviour for deliverance. We feel a need to
fly to Him for relief. I remember years ago in a TBS
quarterly record there was a brief letter from a teenage boy in
Togo, a little West African country. He wrote to thank us for the
Bible we'd sent to him and he said this, when I started to
read my Bible it made me sorry for my sins and that's what we
want to hear isn't it people being made sorry for their sins
by the influence of God's Word because when people are truly
sorry with a godly sorrow then they feel a sense of attraction
to Christ who came to the world to save sinners God's Word is
also used as a hammer for backsliders sometimes if the backsliding
is serious It may be that after departing from the Lord, a person
may heed the call to return. But if those calls are unheeded,
if hardness of heart sets in, then the Lord may have to come
with power and conviction afresh, as it was with King David. He
sinned grievously against the Lord in sinning with Bathsheba
and then sought to cover his tracks by having a husband, Uriah,
die in the hottest part of the battle. It looked like just a
casualty of war to other people but the Lord knew what David
had done and David knew. But he seemed quite indifferent
to it for some time until Nathan the prophet was sent to him and
expounded to him the parable of the little new lamb. There
was the rich man with his herds and flocks and when a visitor
came he didn't take from his herds and flocks To provide for
the meal, he took the poor man's little ewe lamb, which was dear
to him. And David was incensed. He said, the man that's done
this thing is worthy of death. And Nathan wisely turns the table
and says, David, this is what you have done. David, you are
the man. You have done this. And David
fell under the reproof. His heart was broken afresh.
at the realization of his sin and departure from the Lord.
That's why he wrote Psalm 51 and in that Psalm at verse 17
he says, The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit,
a broken heart, O God, thou not despise. David genuinely had
a broken heart. The famous Puritan Thomas Watson
once said, a broken sinner and a broken Christ well agree. That's why the Lord has to work
in that way to break our heart because then we realise why Christ
came, why he must suffer, why he must die and these things
become very real to us, attractive to us and by faith we find salvation
in him. Well, I see no answer to the
ills, the social, moral and spiritual ills of society today, apart
from this taking place all over again here in this country. Many
hearts being broken by the hammer of God's Word. We look back to
revival times, the ministry of men like George Whitefield, and
there were people who sometimes were angry against the truth
he is preaching and would come with stones or bricks hidden
under their coats hoping to get as close to the preacher as possible
at some opportune moment to break the preacher's head but reader
some whose hearts were broken first and they had to confess
their evil intentions the Lord dealt mercifully with them and
convinced them of their wickedness and brought them also to a saving
knowledge of the truth. This is what is needed in these
times, that men and women and boys and girls may hear God's
word and hear it by the power of the Spirit, that it might
be like a fire and like a hammer. to bring them to a point of real
need and conviction. May our prayers in this regard
be heard and answered, that God may come again in great power
to his people and may raise up great preachers to go forth with
the blast of the gospel trumpet that many will be brought to
that point of true acknowledgement and confession of sin and rejoice
to hear of a Saviour who came to the world to save even the
guiltiest of sinners. Well, we're going to conclude
by singing a closing hymn from Hymns for Worship, the hymn 97. The tune is 175. 97 from hymns for worship. The spirit
breathes upon the word and brings the truth to sight. Precepts
and promises afford a sanctifying light. And as I should just say
at this point that, of course, there are TBS items of sale in
the Sunday School room. Do feel free to come through
after the meeting. Let us conclude then with hymn
97. and the truth you sought. Preserves and progress, spirit
of hope, eyes and defining hope. ? It gives a light to every age
? ? It gives but all is done ? ? A hand that gave its purest
supplies ? ? A gracious light and peace ? Its truths are bold,
and in ancient tithes, They write the men of stead. Yet everlasting, cleansed be
Thine, O Sancta Pride, ? Thus makes the glow of darkness shine
? ? With beams of heavenly day ? ? I shall with joy set to pursue
? ? The steps of King I love ? And now may the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, the fellowship
and communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, now and for
evermore. Amen.