Sinclair Ferguson

You remember how he says in his confessions that our hearts are restless.

God has made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.

I was brought up as a teenager on the Rolling Stones' words, an anthem of the 60s.

I can't get no satisfaction, and I've tried and I've tried and I've tried.

And where there is no satisfaction, there can be no peace.

But here, for the simplest and newest believer, is the privilege and blessing of the gospel that the Lord Jesus says to you.

My peace is now yours.

Yesterday we were talking about one of the best ways to think about the Bible in terms of the words that Moses used and the Lord Jesus used.

It is the mouth of God.

Paul thought about it that way too.

He said that it was the God-breathed word.

And, you know, when Paul speaks that way, he's really saying to us not that the Bible is inspiring, although in many parts it is inspiring, but rather that God has spoken to us, that his words are carried to us by the Holy Spirit.

And as God says to Jeremiah, he has put his words into the mouths of those who wrote the Scriptures in order that we may hear God's voice.

So, although the Bible was written by different men at different times, they were carried along, as Peter says, by the Holy Spirit.

And that's why John Calvin says in his Institutes that actually we should give the Scriptures the same reverence we give to God, not because the Scriptures are God, but because the Scriptures are the mouth of God, the Word of God.

And as God's Word, it's full of God's promises, it directs us in God's will, and most of all, it shows us God's Son.

It's given to us chiefly in order to make us like Jesus.

I've spoken before about the way in which Isaiah says, morning by morning, he listened to the voice of his heavenly Father and treasured up his Father's words.

And if you read the Gospels, it's very striking that although Jesus never had a Bible of his own, it's very clear that he had treasured up Scripture.

And my own conviction is that he probably knew the whole of the Old Testament off by heart.