Daily EncouragementSample

This incident occurred during the repairing of the temple, which was part of the reformation instituted by Josiah, king of Judah. “The suggestive and searching fact of the story is that the Book of the Law was lost in the Temple of God,” remarks G. Campbell Morgan. This danger is apparent in the Church today. The word of God is lost in the church when the preacher is no longer a man of the book but merely a hawker of the latest philosophy or a commentator on current affairs. Again, the word of God is lost in the church when the people no longer read and study the Scriptures at home. The fact that fewer people bring their Bibles to church is surely a symptom of a serious state of things, even if we accept the multiplicity of versions as an excuse. “The decay in preaching coincides with the decay among our churches of the personal use of the Bible,” comments P. T. Forsyth. “Preaching can only flourish where there is more than a formal respect for the Bible as distinct from the church, namely, an active respect, an assiduous personal use of it, especially by the preacher.”