How Three Devotionals Rewrote The Bible

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Friday, March the twenty first, twenty twenty five. It is currently one thirty nine pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, my journey into Christianity, it really began when I was a teenager sitting in a pew during a fall revival service in a country church in Tuscola, Texas. What the population of Tuscola back then was what two hundred three hundred people.

0:51 It's a country church. I'm sitting there in the pew. I don't go to church. I end up there. Kind of a weird set of circumstances brings me to this revival service. I wasn't intending on going. Family didn't go, I had no real reason to be there, but I end up there. I'm sitting in the pew. In a moment, I realized I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to Hell. Jesus Christ died for me. He paid for my sins, and I believed in his finished work and that began my journey into Christianity. At that very moment, I became extremely emotional. I broke down. I was weeping like out loud, just weeping like uncontrollable. And they literally stopped the service, had an altar call, and I came forward to as they would say, accept Jesus Christ into my life. And that began my journey into Christianity. Now, when the revival service was finally over, everyone had left, the pastor walks into his office, he walks out, He hands me a Bible and he says, this is the word of God.

2:07 This is God's word. And I remember putting it in my hands, walking out of the church, getting into my car, putting the Bible next to me driving home, and I just kept thinking, well, if there's a God and this is his word, I want to understand everything about it. I want to understand this. And so I went home, I stayed up all night. I read the entire New Testament the very first night that I was saved, and within the week I had finished all the Old Testaments. So within one week of my salvation, I read from Genesis to Revelation and one week and that began my journey. I mean that began my journey really into the Bible, reading it, studying it, seeking to understand it, buying commentaries, buying systematic theologies, buying books on how to study the Bible, learning twelve methods of Bible study. Just read and read, and read and read. And I would like to tell you that my journey in the Christian world would be one that is all positive. It would all be I could just tell you how amazing it's been. It's been wonderful.

3:16 But if I'm being honest with you, the longer I've been on this journey, the longer I've been on this journey, this journey has turned into one of frustration. It has turned into one of irritation. It has turned into one of discouragement, depression, despondency, just wanting to give up and just see what this whole thing is just ridiculous. You could almost say, lead me almost to the brink of deconstruction in a negative way. And I know some people say, how that's not even possible. How can you even say that, because it is very possible because of what happens once you start the journey into Christianity. You see, it's one thing to say and maybe we should draw a distinction.

4:01 Is it my journey into Christianity that led me to frustration, irritation, discouragement, despondency, depression, and almost wanting to deconstruct what maybe would say, Maybe it'd be more accurate to say my journey into Churchianity, because Christianity and Churchianity are two different things. Christianity, that's the truth of Christianity. That's the truth that is taught right here in the Bible right It's the truth of God's word. It's the truth about Christ, his incarnation, his life, his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, is coming to judge the living and the dead. That's the truths of Christianity. Churchianity is something sometimes very different, and I think it's my journey into Churchianity that has led me to in many cases, to so many negative feelings. And I'm not going to go into all the reason why. I'm just going to focus specifically into one area. If you're a listening to this podcast, you know where I'm going to go. The sermon review. The sermon review I have loved since the very beginning, since that very first night of becoming a Christian, all the way to this day. I love listening toscermons.

5:21 I love listening discernments. I like seeing how a pastor opens the Bible, takes the text, how his approach to the text, his hermoneutical approach, his hypotheses, everything about it. I love how they structure it, how they do their introduction. I love everything about preaching, and I love it. However, the more preaching I've listened to, the more frustrating frustrated I have become. In fact, my irritation, frustration, depression, discouragement, and despondency, deconstruction, all of that. Really it actually flows from listening discermons, because time and time again pastors stand behind pulpits open the Bible, and somehow I don't know why they do this, but they insert us into text that are not about us. And we have seen this over and over with all the sermons. I mean, I've now listened to over one hundred sermons on Isaiah forty through Isaiah fifty five, and time and time again, you take this story Isaiah forty through fifty five. Words of comfort, Who are those words of comfort to They're to the people and Babylonian captivity. They're not to me. It's not about me. It's not about the church. It's not about you.

6:39 It's not about your problems. It's not about my problems. It's about those people and Babylonian captivity. That's what it's about. Isaiah thirty nine sets the entire scene forty through fifty five are the words of comfort to be given to those people in captivity. We've talked about it a million times, but sermon after sermon, Oh no, we're inserted into it. Isaiah forty through fifty five somehow becomes about me, somehow becomes about you. How is that possible? I don't know. It's not about us. And then we stumbled upon Acts chapter twenty seven, and what happens the storm of life metaphor. Anytime a pastor opens up the Bible and there's a story of a storm, that storm becomes now metaphorical, allegorical.

7:24 How about the storms and your life? And we started talking about that storm of life metaphor, and I declared war on the metaphor and talked about the history of that metaphor and where we think it originated from, because it doesn't come from scripture, and time and time again, I'm just like, what are you wait? We're over here in Ezekiel, We're over here in Isaiah, We're in Genesis. All of a sudden, it's the church. It's you, it's me, it's your problems, it's your issue, It's it's your goliath. What do you mean my goliath? How do I take out my goliath? How the Exodus becomes about my breakthrough? All this just nons and I'm like, I get so tired of it. Well, what I want to do today is I want to tell you the story of how this all came to be. I want to tell you the story about how three books changed the way we read the Bible, How three books changed the Church forever, changed Christianity forever, changed Biblical hermeneutics forever. And when I tell you the name of these books and we start talking about them, many of you, many of you are going to push back. You're going to disagree with me, You're going to argue, You're going to get very upset.

8:43 All I can ask is, please just listen carefully. Now here's what we're going to do in this episode. I'm going to tell the story in a narrative form. I'm going to tell the story in a narrative form. I've been using the narrative idea and our discussion about the Salem witch trials. I'm going to do this in a narrative way. Of course, I'll kind of go into the narrative out of the narrative, and then maybe over time I'll cover maybe some of the same material in a much more academic way and a much more normal teaching way. But I want to start today with doing a narrative to at least kind of give you an overview. So let's enter the narrative so that we can learn the stories about how three books, three books changed Christianity forever.

9:35 And even if you've never read those three books, I guarantee you you have been influenced by them. Even if your church has never promoted these three books, they have been influenced by them. Are you ready? Here we go? When we open the Bible today? What do we expect to find when you open the Bible today? What do you expect to find when the people you go to church with when they open the Bible? What do they expect to find when your pastor preaches a sermon? What do you expect to hear? I think this is a question we should be asking ourselves and you should be asking the people you go to church with, and you maybe even should be asking your pastor. Are you expecting a promise for your pain? Are you looking for a word for your day? Are you looking for a guide for your decision making? What are you looking for? Most people, whether we like to admit this or not, they don't come to scripture asking what did this mean to the people it was written to? Or how does this fit in the the story of God's redemptive work and history. Know, most people, most churches, most pastors, come to scripture looking for something deeply personal, immediately applicable, and emotionally resonant. That's

11:06 how people approach. That's what people want in sermons. They want a sermon that's deeply personal, it's immediately applicable, it's emotionally reson it resonates with them, it connects to them. And that's why I have said a million times and I will continue to say, sermons are the enemy to biblical understanding, because sermons come in and they want to make it practical, they want to make it applicable, they want to make sure it resonates with everyone's It's almost like just doing a performance. It's like a stage performance. And I'm not saying it's that means that means it's theatrical or dramatic. It just means they're going to the text and it's like, I gotta make this about the people.

11:48 I got to open the Bible. It doesn't matter where we are. It's about you. It's about your marriage, it's about your kids. It's about your work. It's about your life. It's about your problems. It's about your trouble. It's about your worry, it's about your anxiety. It's about you. You you you you you. And that's how come time and time again. We're in Isaiah forty through fifty five. Sermon after sermon makes it about us, makes it about the church. We're in Acts twenty seven. All of a sudden, it's it's about your storm in your life. Most people come to the scripture looking for something deeply personal, immediately applicable, and emotionally resonant. But how did we get here? How did we get here? How did we How did Churchianity end up in this mess? How did Christianity end up like this? Well, it didn't happen overnight. So that's what we're going to explore the answer in part lies not just in our pulpits, it doesn't lie really in our seminaries. So I'm gonna say that the problem, the real issue here at it didn't even start in the pulpit. It didn't necessarily necessarily even start in the seminary. It started really in three books, three best sellers, three devotional classics. And if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've either heard

13:20 of these books, or someone has told you, your pastor has told you to buy them, or if you're using the sermon audio app and you click on the devotional tabs, they're using one of these books to give you your daily devotional. And I think these three books are what caused all the problems. These books, these three books, they shaped how Christians read the Bible, how pastors preach it, how churches teach it, and how generations came to believe that the Bible is mainly about their own journey. I cannot stress this enough. These three books they shaped how Christians read the Bible, how pastors preach the Bible, how churches teach the Bible, and how generations came to believe that the Bible is mainly about their own journey. This is the story of the Pilgrim's Progress, Morning and Evening and my Utmost for His Highest. I know, I just went after the three most classic, famous, best selling devotional books in history. I'm going after like you're not allowed to touch these by me, even getting near and even

14:54 sounding like I'm going to offer criticism immediately. People are going to get mad at me. All the response to this is going to be extremely negative. But I lay the blame at the foot at the feet of these three books, the Pilgrim's Progress, which we've already discussed, The Pilgrim's Progress and its influence on how people destroy Isaiah forty three, Morning and Evening. I've told you so many times my frustration with Morning and Evening and my Utmost for its Highest. Oh don't I look. I've offered my criticism about it numerous times. This trilogy shaped modern devotional Christianity.

15:36 I could almost refer to these three books as the forget calling it a trilogy the Unholy Trinity. I know I should not say that, I know, because people will get very mad at me. But I'm gonna call it the Unholy Trinity in regards to its negative impact on preaching, teaching, and biblical hermeneutics. I'm not saying everything in these three books is bad and I'm definitely telling you not to read them. I would tell you to read them no matter how much I disagree with them, because I'm not into censoring and saying don't read this and don't look at this, read think process, question challenge. But from a hermeneutical standpoint, these three books are a complete and uttered disaster, and the impacts on Christianity is happening even today, on March the twenty first, twenty twenty five, again, I want to tell you the story of the Pilgrim's Progress morning and evening and my utmost for his highest This trilogy, this unholy Trinity, shaped modern day Christianity. Are you ready to tell to explore this story, Let's start with Act one, the allegory Pilgrim's Progress. Act one Action. All right, here we go, you're ready. We're going to tell the story of the Pilgrim's Progress. It's sixteen seventy eight. John Bunyan is sitting in a prison cell in Bedford, England. He's

17:08 not there for theft or violence, but for preaching without a license. An offense and the turbulent religious landscape of post Reformation England. And there behind bars, Bunyan writes one of the most important Christian books ever published, The Pilgrim's Progress. It's not a commentary. It's not a theology textbook. It's not a hermeneutics book. It's not a systematic theology. It's a story. It's a dream. It's an allegory. You see, a man named Christian leaves the city of Destruction Jewel and journeys towards the celestial city. Along the way he meets characters like Evangelist, Faithful, hopeful, and battles through Doubting Castle, Vanity, Fair and the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The brilliance of the book it turns the entire Christian experience into a symbolic journey. The entire Christian experience is now a symbolic journey. Now again, many, it's the most amazing thing.

18:27 I love it. It's the greatest thing ever. Okay, you hear that constantly, right, Everyone's like The Pilgrim's Progress, the Pilgrims Progress. Churches literally will will do entire sermon series on the Pilgrims Progress. They will they will give everyone a copy. I mean, the Pilgrim's Progress is like built into the DNA of Christianity. You see, it takes Bible characters and it places It takes Bible characters, Bible places, Biblical promises and dangers and reimagines them as your internal story. For a century, Christians read the Pilgrim's Progress alongside the Bible, and soon there was a way of thinking that was ingrained in their mind. There's a certain way of thinking that flows from the Pilgrim's Progress. No, I'm not going to say, John Bunyan, this was his intended goal, but it becomes the unintended consequence. Are you ready? Here's this idea.

19:31 Because the people now are reading the Bible alongside Pilgrim's Progress, here we go. Soon there's an instinct, there's a way of thinking that is ingrained the story and scripture. That's me. David's battle, that's my battle, Israel's exodus that's my breakthrough. Now every story in the Bible becomes a part of this over arch allegory. It's all about me, right, It's all about me. What Abraham is facing that's my story. What what Jonah is facing, that's my story. What anybody, it's me, me, me, It's all me. And so everything and now is now framed and well, you're inserted into the story. You're now David, You're now Jacob, You're now Joseph, You're it's.

20:25 You you you you you you you you you you you you you, and. We just insert ourselves everywhere. See, Banya did not invent allegory. No, but I am not claiming that. To claim that would be historically inaccurate. He didn't invent allegory, but the book Pilgrim's Progress made allegory the dominant lens for Christian devotion. It's the dominant lens for Christian devotion. So you'll get you'll maybe you're at lunch with some Christian Mantalok, so what is God toling you right now in your life? And I'm supposed to be like, well, I'm reading this and somehow it's about me. It's about me, It's everything supposedly is about me. No it's not, but that we won't get into that right now. So there's Act one Pilgrim's Progress. It changes, it now gives everyone this lens.

21:26 The Bible is about me. It's about my journey. It's Goliath represents my my giant that's facing that I'm facing Jericho. What walls need to come down in my life? The storms, that's the storms of my Everything becomes an allegory metaphor for your life. But let's go to Act two. If Act one is the allegory, Act two becomes the letter, Act one is the allegory. Act two becomes the liturgy.

22:08 Morning and Evening by Charles hadden Spurgeon. I've had, if I've had Pilgrim's Progress recommended to me my entire life, and Morning and Evening has been recommending recommended to me. So I've lost the number of times Morning and Evening it's the greatest devotional. It's the greatest devotional. You've got to have Morning and Evening. You've gotta have, You've got And I've heard now so many times I think people recommending that they've never even read it themselves, because you start asking questions like, I don't think you've ever even been through the book. But if you again, if you go to the UH Sermon Audio app or the Sermon Audio website and click on devotionals, guess what it's going to take you to Morning and Evening by Charles hadden Spurgeon.

22:54 If you listen to Sermonadio Radio twenty four to seven, guess which devotional is gonna be there? Morning and Evening by Charles hadden Spurgeon. You listen to Christian radio over for many of them, especially conservative Christian radio, they will air the audio devotional four Morning and Evening by Charles hadden Spurgeon. It's literally everywhere. But to tell the story of Morning and Evening we have to fast forward now nearly two centuries. It's now eighteen sixty five. A young preacher named Charles hadden Spurgeon, already known as the Prince of Preachers, releases a small devotional book titled Morning and Evening.

23:36 Its format is simple, it's elegant in some ways, it's revolutionary. One verse, one meditation twice a day, one verse one meditation twice a day, every day of the year. One verse, one meditation twice the day, every day of the year. No deep exposition, no historical context, just a single line of scripture followed by a reflection aimed straight at the heart. Now, to be fair, that maybe a little oversimplification. There are times, as someone who's been through Morning and evening. Numerous times Spurgeon sometimes will, to his credit, offer some historical context, offer some but it's going to immediately go become right about you. It's going to become about us, almost instantaneously.

24:39 Spurgeon's pastoral warmth, his poetic language, and his rich spiritual insight gave readers a daily sense that God was speaking directly to them through that one verse, and with it, a new model of devotional life was born. One verse a day, a thought for my soul and a God who always meets me exactly where I am. It was personal, it was beautiful, it was comforting. But slowly and subtly it reinforced a new habit reading scripture as though every line was about me. And even if it wasn't, Spurgeon would find a way to make it so, somehow it would become about me. Now, Bunyan already turns the whole Bible into kind of an allegory about my life and my story. Right, so we already start thinking that way. And then Spurgeon gives us the daily liturgy using this concept and bring it into end of play. And we cannot. And if you know history, you know, if you know anything about church history. Who was one of the greatest influences on Charles Han's John Bunyan. He told everyone, I cannot remember the exact quote, but basically you should read Pilgrim's Progress like once a month or once a year. I can't remember the exact timeline he gave, but Spurgeon promoted everyone

26:13 should read Pilgrim's Progress all the time. Interesting, So the one influenced by Bunyan now takes Bunyan's kind of concept and now turns into this revolutionary concept. The revolutionary concept one verse a day, a thought for your soul, and a God who meets you exactly where you are. It's personal, it's beautiful, it's comforting. But it gives this new habit where you simply read scripture as though every line is about you. Every line is saying something to you. Every line speaks to you. And you'll hear people say that if you'll be like around church people sometimes now most of the time they're talking about something else. But if they do talk, So, what is God saying to you today? Well, today am I devotions? I was reading in Jeremiah eighteen, verse fifteen, and it says, because my people have forgotten me, and it was as God was telling me that I have forgotten him. What are you doing, JEREMIAHS that's not about you, what are you doing? But it becomes about us, about us, about us, about us. That's how you get the plans I have for you, the plans to prosper you.

27:28 How does that end up being read at high school graduations? Because this mindset has so infiltrated everything. No, no, no, no. That passage in Jeremiah about the plans I have for you, that's for those coming out of Babylonian captivity. Oh it drives me crazy. So we've got Act one, the Allegory, Act two, the lettergy How about Act three? Now? Act one and two let me be I'm gonna be completely honest with you. Act one and two had massive influence on me and my early preaching, because everyone told me Pilgrim's progress morning and Evening by Charles hadn't spurgeon. Morning and Evening by Charles hadn't Spurgeon. So I would do the same thing other people. I've got notebooks filled with that kind of approach, just reading my Bible going ooh okay, and make it all about me or make it into a sermon. I made everything into a sermon, everything into a Bible study, making it applicable to us. I did that over and over and over. Now the third one, the third act here, Well, I never bought into this one.

28:43 I remember purchasing book number three at a bookstore in Bellevue, Nebraska, trying it for about a week, and like, what is this? Okay? I the third one did not have any influence over me. The first two had massive influence over me. So don't anyone say you just don't know what you're talking about. Oh, I promoted the Pilgrim's Progress and Morning and evening a million times in my Christian life a million times. Okay, But number three, here we go. Act three, I should say. Act one's the allegory. Act two is the liturgy. Act three the inner Voice, My Utmost for His Highest. Now we jump to nineteen twenty seven, nineteen twenty seven, okay, nineteen hundred. That do you really get the birth of the modern day charismatic movement? Right? Okay? Now, I know a lot of people don't think I'm fair with this book.

29:46 My Utmost for His Highest, I think my Utmost for His Highest begins to reflect this charismatic way of approaching scripture. I know that some people would argue that's not completely accurate, but I mean, nineteen twenty seven. I mean, you're right there at the beginning of this. So I'm still gonna say that the charismatic movement has an influence here. But it's nineteen twenty seven, five years after the death of Oswald Chambers. His wife, Bitty Chambers, compiled his notes and lectures into a new devotional My Utmost for his Highest. Now, this book wasn't allegorical like Bunyans, it wasn't very lyrical or poetical like Spurgeons, but it was intense, it was inward, and it was mystical. I think I would like to say charismatic, but I won't just try, and because I'm trying to be historically accurate. Not everyone agrees with my connecting it to the charismatic movement. I believe it's all over it, but that's my opinion. Each entry calls the reader to full surrender, radical obedience, and deep internal change.

31:00 Radical obedience, deep internal change. Now we could say this one destroys proper distinction between law and gospel. This just annihilates it. There's almost this idea that you basically can be almost perfect, you can basically obey perfectly. It may not be that clear, but it's clearly implied. It's clearly implied. The Chambers doesn't explore the biblical context, of course, not no, no, no, of course not. He doesn't trace the passage's original intent, of course not. Instead, he uses the verses as a spiritual launching pad, a door into the inner synctom of the soul. Am I yielding fully? Is God speaking to me about something hidden? Is my life? Utterly and completely?

31:50 His millions were drawn to his searching tone. It became the quiet voice of God for the modern believer. But once again, the Bible became a mirror for internal transformation rather than a record of God's external redemptive act. So Act one, the Allegory, Act two, the Liturgy, Act three the inner Voice. Those three books changed Christianity forever. So for Act four, the result, the result of these three books, we find ourselves with a brand new way of reading the Bible. Together, these three books do not reject scripture.

32:54 They loved scripture. And this what makes this so subtle. See, we always want to look at oh, that false teaching or that false teaching or that false teaching. But the dangers always arise from within. It's like when Christians are yelling and screaming about oh, the occult bookstore or this or that or Netflix. The danger usually is inside the Christian bookstore. The dangers usually inside the church. See these three books, they don't reject scripture. They love it, but they help each one help rewrite how Christians interact with it. Or maybe I should say I said rewrite how each one of these books they help rewire how Christians interact with scripture. I like that it rewires it. I think that's the way we should put it. It rewrites the way we read scripture, but it rewires our minds and how we interact with scripture. Maybe that's it rewrites and it rewires. It rewrites how we read, and it rewires our mind and how we approach. See it goes like this.

34:02 We go from redemptive history, the Bible's redemptive history, to your own personal journey. It goes from an objective meaning to a subjective experience. It goes from what God has done to what I feel today today. You hear sermons filled with phrases like what's your storm? What is your goliath? Are you wondering in your wilderness? All of this, see, all of this comes straight from Bunyan, Spurgeon, and Chambers.

34:45 Sermon after sermon, does that? What is your giant? What is your storm? What is your wilderness? What is your jericho? What is this? What is that? What? You? You? You? You? You you you you you you. This is an exegesus, ladies and gentlemen. It's Bunyan, It's Spurgeon, It's Chambers, echoing throughout pulpits and devotionals and small groups and worship songs. This stuff is everywhere. These three books help make application the starting point, context optional, and personal connection. King, So what do we do? So? What do we do? Well, I'm just gonna be honest with you. We don't do anything because we're never going to win this war. The war is over right. I mean, I've got a better chance of teaching a dog how to do advanced mathematics than I have of convincing Christians to think about how they read scripture and approach it differently. I'm not going to convince anyone. I'm not going to change any minds.

35:54 Nothing's going to change the Church is going to continue to march on this way, and nobody's going to change it. Nobody. This is what people want. And because to me, you say, what do we do well? The first thing we do when we blow up the sermon, The whole sermon idea just needs to be torn down and thrown in the trash. Stop preaching sermons and approach, enter the pulpit with a Bible and notes, ready to teach the scriptures, to question, challenge, struggle, what about this? What does this mean? What not worried about a nice little three points sermon where everybody gets out at noon and you got a little application and you feel encourage and you got a little you got a little dose, You got your little hit. You know, everyone rolls up their sleeve, comes into church, tops on the vein, and give me, give me my hit of a little spirituality so I feel good. Nobody really knows the Bible, Nobody really understands the Bible, nobody understands theology, nobody understands church history. But hey, I got a little bit of spirituality. Now I can run off to the buffet.

36:58 Nothing is going to change now. I could I can give you just I could, I could just you know theorize. Now some would say, well, do we need to cancel Bunyan, abandon Spurgeon or silence Chambers. I don't ever want to cancel or silence or abandon anything. Those books are to those three books. Anyone who wants to know church history, modern day church history, you better know those three books. You can't understand the modern day church without understanding Bunyan, Spurgeon and Chambers. So everyone should know them. Everyone should read them, but you should be thinking about what you're reading, analyzing it, critique it. We have to recognize their influence for what it is. Some may say, well, these books are great gifts, but they're gifts that came with a cost, a high cost. They may have given us warmth, but they but it was with but it came with weights.

37:59 They may gave us access, but they've compromised accuracy. They may have taught us to fill the word, but they definitely did not teach us how to understand it. We need to return to things like context, grounded in theology, centered in Christ. We need to get back to understanding scripture based on what it says. Stop making it about us when it's not about us. Thinking observation before interpretation. Observation, interpretation and application must be firmly rooted in what the text actually says. And we don't make the text about us.

38:44 We're like, hey, this is what happened here, How could this be applicable to me in any way, shape or form without making the text about me, avoiding turning text into allegory and metaphor stop finding the church when the passage is clearly about the nation of Israel. Stop that not says he said, well, you're dispensational. Stop where we're putting people in camps, dispensational. Stop all of that nonsense. It's not about dispensational, non dispensational. It's about reading comprehension. The text is about Israel, for crying out loud, Stop making it about the church, because it's not mentioning the Church.

39:25 The Pilgrim's progress morning and evening and my utmost for his Highest changed Christianity forever, and it changed it for the worst. When it comes to hermeneutics and my sermon reviews have brought this to light over and over again. We've reviewed two sermons on Acts twenty seven. What did they do? The storms in your life? The storms the acts twenty seven is not a thing to do with the storms in your life. It's it's not prescriptive, it's descriptive. It's not giving you principles. Has not a thing to do with you. Isaiah forty through forty five through fifty five, all of a sudden's about us us. No, it has nothing to do with us. Those words of comfort are for them and their historical situation. And then it is that Isaiah forty three, which we're getting ready to begin, Isaiah forty three, probably next not this coming Sunday, but next week. Oh yes, And and John Bunyan, John Bunyan is one of the ones that really begin to do this Isaiah forty three. Two. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with THEE. And through the rivers they shall not overflow THEE. And when thou walk us through the fires, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon THEE. Has nothing to do with you.

40:50 Look at the very next verse. For I am the Lord, thy God, the Holy One of Israel. Oh wait, you don't know if that's who it's about. Go to Isaiah forty three, verse one. But now thus Saith, the lord that created the Oh Jacob and he Hath formed the Oh is ray L. It's about Israel. It's not about you either. Learn to read the Bible and stop allowing Bunyan, Spurgeon and Chambers to continue this absolute rewriting of the Bible to continue. Is it gonna Am I going to change anything? No, there are already people here going I disagree.

41:34 I disagree. I think it's a great I think they're the greatest devotion he's ever written. I don't care what he says. I'm gonna go get the book right now and read it right now, and I'm gonna follow it the way they tell me to follow it. Well, go ahead and do that. I mean, I mean, you're in good company. That's where the majority of Christianity does that. But just stop telling me you care about Exegesus. Stop telling me you care about what the Bible actually says, because you don't. There we have it. That's the story of the three books that changed Christianity forever, the story of three books that rewrote the Bible. And no, I didn't go pull out books from heretics or false religion.

42:18 Three books and where did these books originate from within the church. Within the church, within the church, we always like to look at the external. We have to look inside. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm not sitting there like, well, you know, are you claiming you're smarter than anyone else? No, Pilgrim's Progress and Morning and Evening by Spurgeon had massive influence on me, and I followed that way of thinking over and over in my Christian life. As I said, I could pull up probably five hundred notebooks right now somewhere in the garage filled with notes that would look like I'm following that very same template and my approach, my devotional approach, and that devotional approach would show up in my preaching. Nobody's like, oh, there's such a And then when I started moving away from that, what did I get? Oh? I wish you would go back to the way you used to preach. I wish you would go back to the way you used to preach. We don't like this. We wanted to feel more like a sermon.

43:14 We want whatever, because nobody really cares about the text. They want a sermon. They want a sermon, they want a speech, they want a play, they want a presentation. They want a performance because you get into the text. It's academic. It may be tedious. You may leave with going I don't understand. All right, We'll stop there and we'll talk more about these three books, maybe in greater detail. But I wanted you to at least know the story now today. Go, I mean right now, if you open up the uh, let me do it really quick. I'm gonna go to the sermons Sermonadio app really quick. Going to sermonadio app. Okay, hang on, going to sermonadio app.

44:09 Where is the I'll go to discover where is the Uh? Hang on, maybe I'm not currently finding it. Where is it? Oh? Here's more more? Okay. If you go to the more tab down at the bottom, you'll see daily devotional. It'll take you to the Sermonadio website. March the twenty first, twenty twenty five. Start each day, right, enjoy Spurgeon's daily devotionals, and enjoy God's Word with a daily reading plan. All right, here's Spurgeon's morning. You shall be scattered every man to his own. You shall leave me alone, John sixteen thirty two.

44:53 All right, uh, And then Spurgeon's Evening for tonight is Cat's sty will bind the sweet influence and lose the bands of or Ryan. And then it goes, well, he's going to take that verse way out of a context and do who knows what with it. But there you go. You can go check them out today. There you go, so check them out. And also you've got Daily Checkbook here, you got Daily Checkbook there. Daily Checkbook may be better than Morning and Evening. You can draw your own conclusions.

45:36 I had a copy of Daily Checkbook. I still have a copy of Morning and Evening in a hardback somewhere because I've boughten multiple copies and said I'm going to spend all year going through it, and every time I'm like, what is happening? Now? Sometimes let's be fair. Sometimes you'll be like, that's actually pretty good. And it's true. We're not seeing every entry of every We're not going to see every entry is wrong. We're saying that overall, it carries this idea and it takes these verses and rips them out of context, and we could talk about that's the whole danger of devotionals in the first place. Right, all right, thanks for listening. This should make me very very very very very very popular. I'm like, I bet you, I'm going to get so many downloads today, and I bet you I'm going to get emails with people going how can I support what you do? But no, I'm probably I'm going to get less support and some angry emails.

46:26 But that's okay. It's got to be challenged, all right. Thanks for listening everyone, have a great day. God bless