Utica Baptist Church, Utica, Mississippi

  "Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens."

Psalm 119:89

Two landlubbers were at sea for the first time. Looking out over the ocean, one said, "That's the most water I have ever seen." The other replied, "Yes, and that's just the top of it."

 When we gaze at the wonders of Scripture, we may be in awe as was the first guy above. We read Psalm 23 and enjoy its wonderful treasures and comfort. But let us remember that we could never completely understand everything about Him or His love. What we experience, what we see, “is just the top of it.”

Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas is the only diamond-producing site in the world open to the public. About once a month, park rangers plow a 37 1/2 acre field to bring diamonds to the top, so visitors can just walk along and pick them up. Or if they bring their own equipment, they can dig down to see if there are some still below the surface. And if you find one, you get to keep it!

God's Word can be compared to that diamond field. Some of the gems are lying right on top of the ground. They are easy to spot and pick up. Others are to be found only after a lot of digging and searching out. We read in Psalm 119:62, "I rejoice in your promise like one who finds great spoil."

God's Word can withstand the most careful scrutiny and examination. In fact, many of the wonders of Scripture can be found only after careful scholarship. The very process of examination can open up new insights into His truth that we may have previously overlooked.

Never should it be used as a weapon to hurt or control others. Never should we search its sacred pages for support of a habit, attitude or lifestyle we've adopted, looking for an excuse to continue. The Bible says what it says.

William Gladstone called it an "impregnable rock." Roy Smith wrote, "More people are troubled by what is plain in Scripture than by what is obscure."

Obey what you do understand. Commit the rest of it to God. He can handle it.
--Rocky Henriques, www.uticabc.com

  Several years ago, Yorkshire miner John Thompson set out to build a fish pond in his back yard. He planned it to be three feet by three feet, but he ended up with a hole 17 feet wide and six feet deep. As he began to dig, he discovered that buried right there in that little section of his backyard were twenty bed frames, a washing machine, railroad ties, porcelain ornaments, women's clothes, the skeleton of a dog, and a dead parakeet in a box. Everything but the kitchen sink? No, actually, he found two of them!

There was even a four-door car with 73,000 miles on it. The car still worked (!) but the body fell apart when they tried to pull it out of the hole with a tractor. A neighbor said that the previous owner of the property "liked to dig holes." John Thompson was quoted as saying, "I'm not digging any deeper. God knows what I'd find if I did."

Sadly, that is the attitude many people have about the Word of God. We may have had a little project that caused us to do a little digging in God's Word, at least for a short while, anyway. But then we started pulling out of that rich mine of God's Word things we didn't intend to find! So we stopped digging.

And we say, "The Bible? Well, I don't really understand it. It's too hard to comprehend in places. I don't really like some of what I read there. Some of it is okay, I guess, because it comforts me and gives me strength. But there are places that are just too difficult to understand. Jesus asks us to do some things which are impossible, such as loving our enemies." And on and on we go.

To be honest, sometimes we stop digging in God's Word because we already know what we will find: God's Word will contradict some habit or lifestyle we have chosen, and we will find ourselves under conviction. Take it from someone who has been under conviction many times--it is not a pleasant place to be, and the longer we resist, the more unpleasant it becomes.

Yes, there are some things about God's Word we may never know. Yet we are short-changing ourselves by not living out God's Word in our lives. We are neglecting the important concepts of God's Word that can change our lives to make us more like Christ, to give us more joy and meaning than we've ever thought possible.

So start digging! You won't find the kitchen sink, but you may find something much more valuable--the incredible love of our Savior.

--Rocky Henriques, www.uticabc.com