Introduction: Books, of one sort or another, play a very important part in each of our lives. We started as children being read books by our parents, then we learned to read books in school. I’m pretty sure that there are probably some folks here who really do not have a huge interest in books - in printed form or the e-kind, but books are still very important. The cook used a cookbook. The mechanic refers to a manual when needed. The preacher to commentaries. The lawyer or judge to the legal books. I could go on but I think you get the point. Whether we love books or dislike them, they are very important to us. Books are a necessity of life if we are going to learn and not repeat the mistakes of past generations.

I came across this web site this past week called the Gutenberg Project. They are scanning books and making them available in electronic form on the internet. They are older books - pre-1923, but a gold mine of available reading, if that interests you. They are doing this because somebody believes these particular books are valuable and deserve the time necessary to make them available to the reading public.

But there is one book that more valuable than them all - God’s Book - the Bible.

The Word is so valuable that in Old Testament days, when they didn't have these nice leather bound copies, whole families continually memorized Scripture. Listen to this foundational command from Deuteronomy 6:6-8: And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

When they came into the land of promise, the Lord said through Joshua: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."(Josh.1:8).

If God's Word was so important then - it is still important now. Why should we give ourselves to disciplined study of the Word? Back in our main text, 2 Timothy 3:16 we read, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable..." "Profitable" is from ophelimos which means "advantageous, beneficial, gainful." Studying the Scripture is gain for your soul. How so? Well here in this we see four reasons. Then we will look to other passages to learn just how necessary it is for us to daily read and study the Bible.

A. The Word of God gives us DOCTRINE.

1. Many people don't want "doctrine." But the word simply means "teaching." It means orthodoxy, understanding what is true. It teaches us the truth about God and about men. It teaches us the truth about the past and the future. It teaches us about our sinfulness and God's graciousness. It teaches us about heaven and about hell. It teaches us how to live, act, speak and think. It teaches how to have a healthy church and a happy marriage. It teaches us how to raise our kids and handle our money. It teaches us the differences between men and women. It teaches us "all things that pertain to life and godliness" (2 Pet.1:3).

2. Do you understand what is true? Do you know what you believe about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God (we studied this last week), etc.?

3. This is one of the important aspects of our Sunday School program here at North Eulalia, especially in the Teen and Adult classes. There is a systematic study of the Word of God and various issues that are important to know about that the Word of God sheds light upon.

B. The Word of God gives us REPROOF.

1. "Reproof" carries the idea of convicting you when you are wrong in what you think or do. It exposes sin and false doctrine or misleading ideas. That is why we bring every thing back to the Bible. The question is not "what have we always done" or "what have we always believed" but what does the Bible say. That question is the foundation upon which this church is built. We are far from perfect, but we want to measure ourselves by the ruler of the Scripture.

2. This is a very important aspect of what the Word of God does for us, especially as it has to do with growing strong as a believer. We cannot grow strong spiritually if we are making the same errors all the time because we are not willing to read the Bible and let it reprove us. This is also why so many get involved in false doctrinal issues - they do not compare what they are being taught, or what they are reading from a book to what God has already said in the Bible. They really do not want the reproving aspect of the Holy Spirit’s use of the Word of God in their life.

3. Granted, being told that you are wrong is not something you put at the top of the list of things you enjoy happening to you. We will do whatever, sometimes, to skirt around being confronted with what we know is wrong in our life. But if we really mean business with God about this thing called growing up spiritually, we will read the Word of God and then allow it to convict us of sin and then confess that sin!

C. The Word of God gives us CORRECTION.

1. "Correction" comes from a word that means "to restore to the original condition." I like to "tweak" things. I fool around with my computer sometimes and make all kinds of adjustments. However, I am very glad there is a "system restore" function because this will take my computer back to its original condition and make it work properly. The Greek word referred to here means "sitting something back up that had fallen over or standing someone back up who had fallen down." Negatively, the Word reproves us. Positively, it corrects us. It dusts us off and sets us back up on the right path.

2. Sometimes we try to restore something that God has already knocked down. I’m reminded of the story from 1 Samuel 5:1-4 "And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.

3. In those cases we had better leave what God has knocked down in our life. But our God is not interested in seeing us "knocked down". He wants to see us restored to where we should be in our spiritual life. He desires to see us on the correct path of growth as a Christian.

D. The Word of God gives us INSTRUCTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

1. "Instruction" has in it the idea of the raising or training of a child. Some of you here are daily involved in that parenting business of training your children. Some of you are Homeschoolers and take very literally the principle of training up your child(ren). You know that it is important that your child(ren) get a good education, and you may use various books and teaching aids to get the job done. You make sure that your children read the books they are assigned to read; that they do their math problems and do them correctly. This is all done with the ultimate aim of raising well-educated, well-rounded, Biblically-literate young people ready to go forth into the world.

2. In the same way, as we give ourselves to diligent, disciplined study of the Word, we will be trained up in order to live righteous lives. Let me add that we all need further training in righteousness. Whether you are a new believer feeding on the milk of the Word or a mature saint digesting the meat, we all need to grow in righteousness.

3. We should never feel that we have arrived spiritually. Many of you in your jobs are required to take refresher courses or continuing education in order to keep your job. We do what we need to do in order to be current with our licenses, education, etc in the chosen field we work in. There are always new things to learn, but for some reason, many Christians, just because they come to church one time a week believe they are on-top of everything in their life that needs to be dealt with. Based upon what the Apostle Paul was teaching the young preacher, Timothy, that is not necessarily true. We need daily times in the Word of God. We need the instruction in righteousness that it will give to us.

Let's move beyond our base text in 2 Timothy 3:16 and let me survey some other Scriptures that pile on more benefits of being disciplined in the Word.

E. The Word of God gives us UNDERSTANDING

1. Psalm 119:130 says, "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; It giveth understanding to the simple."

2. Is there some area of your life that you just don’t know what to do, what decision you ought to make? It seems like there is a void of darkness before you? God’s Word makes the claim that if we will spend time in it’s pages reading it and meditating upon it, we will have the answers that God wants us to have. Notice how Psalm 119:130 starts off - "The entrance of Thy words giveth light". Just as when darkness flees away as soon as a light is turned on in a dark room or place, so too the darkness and lack of understanding about what is really important flees away when the light of God’s Word is allowed to be turned on in our heart and life.

3. What can happen if you are placed in a totally dark room with no source of light available and you start moving around? There is a good chance you will bump into things that you cannot see, or even worse, trip over something you can’t see and fall down and hurt yourself. What if there were some dangerous entrapments placed in that room of darkness for the purpose of entrapping the unsuspecting? With no light and being totally ignorant of such dangers around you - you’re in trouble!

4. I think you get the point. That is exactly the position that most people are in today who do not spend time in the Word of God. God’s Word is a light that points out all these dangers and helps us maneuver through the maze of traps and pitfalls that await us in the dark.

F. The Word of God gives us SALVATION and WISDOM

1. Psalm 19:7 says, "The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple."

2. Two great truths about the necessity of God’s Word are found in just this one verse:

a. It gives Salvation - The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul
The law of the LORD which is perfect (complete, whole, sound) is what God uses to "convert" the soul of a sinner. The thought behind the word "convert" is the making of a sinful man to be returned or restored to the place from which sin had cast him. "It is the power of God unto salvation", as Paul writes in Romans 1:16. And notice as well that the converting is not just a moral turn around - it is a converting of the soul.

We live in a world where it is believed that if you simply reason with or use humanistic philosophy with a man or woman caught up in their sins then they can be turned around and their life will be changed. What really needs to take place is a complete transformation of that person, and that is something that only God can do, and He does it through the power of His Word.

b. It gives Wisdom - The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
Illustration:Not long after my son Timothy got home from college the hard drive on his computer died. I was able to buy another one over Ebay at a very good price, but it didn’t have an operating system on it. He did have a rescue CD with the operating system on it for a Dell computer, but how do you do it? I spent a little time at the Dell web site and found some detailed directions on how you were to use that CD in getting the operating system on a clean but formatted hard drive. And you know what? When we followed those directions it worked.

In a far grander and important way, the Word of God is so certain, so true, so sure that when it’s precepts are followed to the letter and obeyed the end result is wisdom. Some of the wisest people who have ever lived on this earth have been simple folks who believed the Word of God to be just that. They knew it was unerring and totally dependable. As such they lived their life according to what God said and though not highly educated were far wiser than those who rejected God’s Word and did have degrees after their name. An education is wonderful and vital in this world, but it is not everything. This is why a Christian education in the Word of God is so necessary. Do you want wisdom for living your life in this world? Then be a consistent student of God’s Word.

G. The Word of God gives us SANCTIFICATION.

1. Jesus prayed in John 17:17, "Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth." Sanctification is the process of God making us holy, conforming us to the image of His Son. That includes putting off sin and putting on righteousness. This is impossible apart from the Word.

2. Psalm 119:9 says, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." Verse 11 says, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."

3. God sanctifies us, makes us holy by washing away the filth of this world as we diligently study the Word.
Ephesians 5:25-27 says, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."

H. The Word of God gives us HOPE

1. Illustration about hope: There was this little boy who was standing at the foot of the escalator at a large department store, intently watching the handrail. He never took his eyes off the handrail as the escalator kept going around and around. A salesperson saw him and finally asked him if he was lost. The little fellow replied, 'Nope. I'm just waiting for my chewing gum to come back.'" What an illustration of hope.

2. Psalm 119:49 says, "Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope." Romans 15:4 says, "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Sometimes I get so tired of this world and even discouraged in ministry. Don’t we all? But when we really sit down with the wonderful promises of God’s Word and read them, meditate upon them, and make them our own - then hope is restored. We know God’s Word is true and unfailing because Himself is true and unfailing and we can totally depend upon Him and what He has told us.

3. But as Romans 15:4 points out it is "through patience and comfort of the scriptures" that we obtain hope rather than despondency. At the end of Romans 15:3 Paul is quoting Psalm 69:9, a prophecy concerning Christ. He then makes the valid point that all the Old Testament scriptures were written so that we might learn what we need to know to be successful believers, especially in times of trials and persecutions in regard to our faith in Jesus Christ. Those same OT scriptures, and for us now, the NT scriptures, are just what we need when things are difficult. The word "patience" has a literal meaning of "abiding under", such as abiding under the trial(s) so that we can grow. The word "comfort" is the same Greek word that is used as one of the names of the Holy Spirit of God in John 16:7 where he is called the "Comforter". Think about it. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God, who utilizes the Word of God, illuminates the Word of God, wants to comfort our hearts with those same scriptures.

I. The Word of God gives us GROWTH.

1. 1 Peter 2:2 says, "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: Just as a baby craves milk, we are to crave the Word. Just as milk builds the strength of a child, so the Word builds us up spiritually. This is the whole point of this series of messages on growth in the Christian’s life.

2. In Acts 20:32 Paul says to the Ephesian elders,And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. The "word of His grace" will "build you up" or add to your spiritual house.

3. When a Christian is being torn down in their life, it can often be traced to the fact that they have not been spending quality time in the Word of God.

J. The Word of God gives us JOY.

1. Psalm 19:8 says, The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes Psalm 119:111 says, Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. A joyful Christian is one who is spending time in the Word. Show me a joyless Christian and at least one of his/her problems is that they have no disciplined time in the Scriptures.

Conclusion: We say many things are necessary in this world, but God’s Word is the most important necessity that we all need. What part does God’s Word have in your life?