Dead Men Reading

You can memorize your verses, know your doctrine, and still walk out of church as lost as the day you walked in.

That's what happened to the Pharisees in John 5. Jesus stood right in front of them, and He told them plainly: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me" (John 5:39). They had the scrolls. They had the pedigree. They had the letter of the law memorized cold. And they missed the Author standing in their own synagogue.

That's not Bible ignorance. That's something worse. Dead religion produces dead men reading.

I've watched it happen in church culture too. Folks who can quote chapter and verse but never let the chapter and verse quote them back. They fall in love with the book and never fall in love with the One the book is about. They study the map and never take the trip.

Ask yourself something. Does your Bible reading change how you talk to your wife on a bad Tuesday? Does it change how you handle money, or discipline your kids, or treat the waitress? If the answer is no, you might be searching scripture the same way the Pharisees did. Thoroughly. Religiously. Dead.

Jesus didn't tell them to study harder. He told them, "ye will not come to me, that ye might have life" (John 5:40). The problem was never their information. It was their will.

Don't just read your Bible this week. Let it read you.

You can search this passage for yourself, or you can hear the whole thing preached. Listen to the full message below — don't just read about it. Let it read you.

Pastor Fortunato
Founding Pastor & Preacher of the Word.
Pilgrim Baptist Church — Cookeville, Tennessee

https://pilgrimbaptist.church/
https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/pilgrimbaptist/