Digging for gold

I’m probably just speaking to a select few in my devotion this week, but I want you to know that the Bible is real, it’s a part of history, world history.

Yet, the Bible is true, in all its ventures.

Whatever it says about history, whatever it says about life, whatever it says about world events, is true.

Oh, it has parables, stories told to make a point, and there are a few fables, only one or two, and there are illustrations throughout the pages, but all of them are told in order to make a point or two, and those “points” are usually about life itself.

We know that the Bible is generally not allowed to be taught in public schools, which is somewhat of a paradox because in the early days of education here in America, the Bible was actually a textbook, mainly used to teach the English language.

And there are a few schools in which the Bible is allowed to be taught because it is a book about history. And that is true.

Primarily it is a book of history of the Jewish people, but there are a lot more people in there than just the Jewish nation.

There are all kinds of nations found running around through the pages of that Book.

However, there is one particular nation that is found in every book of the Bible, and that is the nation of mankind.

Why, you can find the story of mankind in both the Old and the New Testaments because you see, the Bible is all about you and all about me.

It’s about your story and my story, as we walk through the pages of life.

Did you know that in the days in which Pony Express riders used to ride across the vast stretches of land in this country carrying news from one family to another, each family being allowed only one sheet of paper, that the one piece of equipment that the Pony Express riders had to have was a Bible?

I’m not talking about just the New Testament, but the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments together in one book?

Over a stretch of 1,900 miles from St. Joseph, Mosouri to Sacramento, California, a trip that took 10 days by 40 men, each riding 50 miles a day, sitting on top of 500 of the best horses that could be found, and on saddles that were extremely small and thin, with no weapons attached to the saddle, only the weapon that one man can could wear about his waist.

Yet, considered as standard equipment was the Bible!

That’s how important our U.S. Mail system considered the Bible was. Oh, that they would do that today!

But do you know what? This is the one book that affects life more than any other book today.

Jesus was speaking to a group of people, most of whom were skeptical religious leaders, when He said, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39, 40).

Years ago a traveler was making his way across the country, and when he passed through Colorado, he saw a small group of men and women who were engaged in picking minute nuggets of gold out of the sand of a small stream. These people were entirely unaware of the fact that a little more effort would have enabled them to uncover a rich vein of the precious metal in a nearby mountainside.

You see, the Bible is the richest of all writings, yet we approach it so haphazardly. But if we will just take a little more effort, if we will spend a little more time, if we will “diligently study” as we are told, then the riches of God’s Word will become ours.

Let me ask you, “When is the last time you have gone digging for gold in the pages of the Bible?”