Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family Podcast"with Steve Demme. I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. How are you today?

Steve: I am well. Getting ready for Thanksgiving. How are you?

Scott: Good. It's the start to the official eat-till-you-bust season.

Steve: I've started diet plans at Thanksgiving. How do you like that? Scott: Well, I should probably do that too.

Steve: Here's my thinking, generally you're going to put on a couple pounds. If you don't put on a couple pounds and actually lose a couple of pounds, it's a greater net gain. How's that for thinking?

Scott: There you go.

Steve: The title of this episode is "Read the Book, or Read the Bible." I'm assuming that people are going to get this about the middle of December when they're starting to think about New Year's resolutions. They have a little bit of time on their hands, maybe some vacation time. I want to just add my two cents to encourage people to read the Bible. I'm going to interweave the Scriptures with my testimony, and I'm sure you can add to it as we go. Let's pray.

“Father, thank You for Your Word, thank You, Spirit of God, for inspiring men of God to write it, and thank You for giving us an appetite to read it, us, Scott and I, for sure, and thank You that it all points to Jesus. And the more we're in it, the more we see Him.

Even though I normally like to just make this kind of a testimony and what I'm learning, there is an exhortation part of this. I pray that we'll all have ears to hear what Your spirit is saying, not what Steve and Scott are saying, but what Your Spirit is saying through Your Word to each of us this morning, in Jesus' name, Amen. Scott: Amen.

Steve: “This is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.” (1 John 5:11-14) I enjoy the Book of John. John doesn't mince words. He just calls it like he sees it. He's direct and he's to the point. He was a fisherman and now he's an apostle. He writes as an apostle, but he writes simply, and yet deeply at the same time. That is my favorite prayer verse, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. We know that if He hears us, then we have the requests that we have asked of Him. My testimony, which I've shared many times, is I knew I should be reading the Bible. I don't think there's a Christian I've ever met that didn't have the conviction that they should be reading the Bible and spending more time in the Bible.

I joined a small church in Massachusetts when I was attending seminary, and reading the Bible through every year was not overtly promoted. I discerned that many in the congregation had embraced this discipline and one Sunday I picked up this little reading chart in the back of the church. I started September 20th in the Book of Joel. That's still my anniversary. I began reading it and it's the best habit I've ever developed.

As I read through it though, I began noticing guys like David, they just didn't read it. They loved it, Psalm 119, "Oh, how I love thy law.” You could tell this was his passion. It was something deep that resonated in his heart.

I remember hearing Billy Graham say that if he had two things that he would do differently, he would spend more time in the Scriptures and read more missionary biographies. Isn't that interesting? I was also reading missionary biographies. I never forgot that. So, I thought, OK, I don't want to just read the Bible, for these missionaries, were like David. They loved the Bible. Their devotions were the most important part of the day. Their quiet time, their time that they waited on God. It was very clear, if you read any missionary biography, they new the fruit was tied to how much time they spent in God's word and in God's presence.

I had these thoughts in my mind, and as I was reading through the Bible, I found this lovely verse in 2 Thessalonians that uses this expression, "They did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” I latched onto that verse because I thought, receive, that sounds like something you could ask for.

It similar to grace. I reasoned that if you can ask for God to forgive your sins. You can ask God to give you a love of the truth. So I did. I prayed, and said, “help me to love the truth.” God answered my prayer and I've never been the same since. Let me read 1 Thessalonians 2:10 in context. This is 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, the first 10 verses. "Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

"Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. "Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

"And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."

When you read it in context, you can see this is life and death stuff. There's going to be so much deception in the last days, which I believe we're entering into and are in already in. There is so much deception and the man of lawlessness is going to build on that.

He's going to proclaim himself to be God. And people are going to be led astray unless they have the love of the truth and so be saved. That's what that last sentence said. He's full of false signs and wonders with all wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. They receive not the love of the truth so as to be saved.

We need to love the truth, not just because it's going to enhance our life, and I believe change our life, but because it's going to save us from deception. There's going to be signs and wonders and people are going to say, "Wow, this guy must be God. Look what he's able to do."

Those of us that know the truth are going to say, "Yes, but does he believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh?"and he will definitely say no. He says, I'm going to be god in the flesh, and I say, well, then you're the spirit of the Antichrist and you're out. Then whether I die, I die. It doesn't make any difference because I'm going to stand by God.

Another time that I prayed according to His will, and that was when I was speaking on Deuteronomy 6:7, “You shall teach them(God’s law) diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

That was the verse that had prompted me to homeschool and to have family devotions and to teach my children the Bible. When I was done speaking, a woman came up and asked me why I forgot to read the two previous verses. I said I didn’t know but would read them as soon as I could.

I'm going to read this whole passage now, not just the verses that changed me. I'm going to read the whole chunk. Deuteronomy 6:1-6. This passage is one of the central passages in the Pentateuch. It is part of something that the Orthodox Jews call the Shema, S-H-E-M-A, which means to hear. That's where we get the word Samuel, God Who hears.

Deuteronomy 6:1-6, "This is the commandment, the statutes, and the rules that Jehovah your God commanded me to teach you that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it, that you may fear Jehovah your God, you and your son, and your son's son, by keeping all His statutes and all His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. "Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as Jehovah, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one. You shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart."

When I read those last two verses, I realized that before I can teach my children to love God and His Word, I need to love God with all my heart, my soul, my might, and I have to have His Word on my heart. I asked God to help me to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to help me to love His Word afresh and have it on my heart.

In both instances, God answered those prayers, and they were life-changing experiences. Let's stop and pray. Anybody that's listening, make this your prayer as we're praying today.

“Father, help us to love You with all our heart, our soul and our might. Help us to love Your word. Help us to have Your word on our heart. We know this is according to Your will. We're asking in faith, believing that You will answer us, in Jesus' name, Amen.” Scott: Amen.

Steve: The first two points are, love God, love His word, have it be on your heart. Another objection I have heard is that people say I don’t read it because I don't understand it. Well, let's talk to the person that wrote it, Who is the in-spirited author, the inspiration, that's where the word comes from. The Spirit.

"The Helper, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you,"John 14:26. That's an incredible declaration that the Holy Spirit, the Helper, the Father's going to send Him and He is going to become their teacher because Jesus is ascending to the Father. He's sitting at the right hand of the Father right now. He's praying for us, but the Holy Spirit is the teacher and the remembrancer.

When Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Peter took pen to paper, it was the Holy Spirit who taught them what to say. He reminded them of all that Jesus had said when He was here. There's a verse in 2 Peter chapter 1 that affirms this, but once again, I'm going to read a couple of verses before it to get the context.

Peter writes, "We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to Him by the Majestic Glory, 'This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.'

"We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

"Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

It was the Holy Spirit who inspired the writing of Scripture, and we, on our part, have to mix HIs teaching with a teachable spirit, and we have to be doers of the word and not hearers. I'm going to read two more passages and then we're going to have some fun with math.

James 1:19-22, "Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls, and be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves."

Building on that, recall the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7:24-27, “Everyone, therefore, who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. "And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

We need to have a love for the Word, and a love for God. And it is important that we ask the Holy Spirit to teach us. Then we have to receive His words, His teaching, with meekness, and be doers of the Word and not hearers only. That's it. That’s the formula.

The last obstacle I know people say is, I don't have enough time. I understand that in this culture, where we live with all of our time-saving devices, we wonder how they did anything back before we had electricity and washing machines and computers and all these things that are supposed to save us time. All they do is add more and more stuff in our houses and more and more stuff to do.

I did some math. There are 783,137 words in the Bible. The average reading speed for a person is 250 words per minute. I've timed myself. Mine's a little different than that, but the average is 250. Most of us are between 200 and 300.

If you divide how many words in the Bible by 365, for the days in the year, you get 2,146 words per day. If you're going to read the whole Bible in a year, you need to read 2,146 words per day. If you can read 250 words a minute, that will take you nine minutes.

This is simple math. If you can read 300 words a minute, it might take you between seven and eight minutes. If you can only read 100 words a minute, you can still read the whole Bible through in 20 minutes a day.

You want me to break it down some more? That's 2 minutes a day to read the whole New Testament through in a year and 7 minutes a day to read the whole Old Testament. When you put them together, you read the whole Bible 9 minutes a day. Now, I know, Scott, that you like to listen to the Bible, as do I. I do a combination of reading and listening. The average speaking speed is 130 words per minute, just about half as fast as reading. If you do the same math and you divide 2, 146 by 130 words a minute listening to the Bible on tape, you can listen to the whole Bible in one year, by listening 17 minutes a day.

I'll give an example. On the way to church on Sunday, I put on James which has five chapters, and has 2,304 words. John and I were driving to church since my wife was

not feeling well. We listened to all five chapters. We have about a 17 minute drive to church and we listened to all 5 chapters. It was awesome. When we were reading chapter 3 about the tongue, John looks at me and stuck out his tongue. Now, I know people that listen to audiobooks, I'm not one of them, that they have the capability of increasing the speed. My experience along this line happened when I was I went to seminary with a blind man. Andrew had a reel-to-reel tape player, and all of the lectures were recorded. I visited him in his dorm and saw Andrew’s setup. iWhen he listened to lectures he would speed it up three to four times the normal speed. He would be listening about 400 or 500 words a minute and thus could listen to an hour lecture in 15 minutes. Then he would take notes with Braille. He graduated with a Masters degree by doing that. He was the first person I ever saw that increased the speed and I could understand it.

If you happen to use my Bible reading schedule, which I have on my website at buildingsfaithfamilies.org, down at the bottom of the page. Click on Bible resources and it'll pop up. There are four different verse charts that I've made. I like to read the New Testament and the Psalms on one chart and the Old Testament on a second chart. You can find it here: https://buildingfaithfamilies.org/bible-resources/ I spend three minutes a day in the New Testament average, and six minutes a day in the Old Testament average, but I read the whole Bible through each year. Right now, as I told you, I just finished James in the New Testament and this morning I was reading an Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

As a point of reference, if you read the Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books, that is about 900,000 words and longer than the Bible. If you've ever read the Harry Potter books, that's a million words, a lot more than the 783,000 in the Bible. There's really no excuse between audio books and apps on our phone. OK, Scott, wrap us up.

Scott: Joshua 1:8 ”Do not let this Book of the law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it, then you will be prosperous and successful.

Steve: Amen. Psalm 1, same idea.

Scott: Yeah. Then the other one I memorized was 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness."That one actually, I broke it down because I'm trying to remember those four words, teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Those four phrases, to me it made sense that if you have to be taught first, then the word can be used to rebuke you because you've already heard it. Then after being rebuked, then you can be corrected, and then after being corrected, you can be trained in righteousness.

Steve: Amen.

Scott: Just as far as my own little admonition, I would say just in listening to it or whatever, just whatever helps you. Like right now I'm listening to it, the audio version

by Kristen Getty, from Keith and Kristen Getty. They do worship music and modern hymns and stuff. She's got this nice Irish accent that just sounds beautiful. I'm thinking maybe when I get done with her version, I might get the James Earl Jones version because I just think it would sound cool to hear him do it. But anything that keeps it sounding fresh or reading it, and the Holy Spirit will do that for you anyway, I think when you're just reading, but I'm a lazy Christian. I need things to help me. Steve: Well, we have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling and figure out what works for us. What's the name of the Bible app that we use? Scott: I do the Daily Audio Bible. That's the podcast one.

Steve: The other is YouVersion, one word. Y-O-U-V-E-R-S-I-O-N. Thankfully there’s so much technology to help us. Many of us have scores of Bibles in our homes, but yet we struggle to read them. It's like having a treadmill in the basement. If you don't use it, it doesn't help. We simply have to read the book.

It never says in the Bible to read all of it every year. I think it's a great habit. Especially when we're coming into these last days, there is going to be the temptation to be deceived. We have to know the book.

There's our exhortation for the New Year. You'll read this in December. I hope that we can help you in any way that you'll email us or reach out to us. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your book. Thank You for all that You put into it. Thank You that Jesus was not only the Son of God, He was the Word made flesh. Help us to have an appetite for this. Help us deliver us from condemnation. Help us to work out a plan that will work for us and for our families. And we commit ourselves to you now, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Scott: Amen. And that's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the Building Faith and Family Podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the show, email Steve at spdemme@Gmail.com. If you have a question for me, you can

reach me at Scott at unsocializedmedia.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.