References to "Books" in the Bible (Version 2)

(Transcript of Bible study taught at Landmark Baptist Church, Locust Grove, GA in August 2013; landmarkbaptistga.com)

[This version corrected numerous typos and added a link to the Spurgeon quote missing from Version 1.  Enjoy!]

                                 Books in the Bible
                                     Eccl. 12:8-14

• The title of this message is not “Books of the Bible,” but "Books in the Bible," since we’re going to survey the Biblical references to “books” in the plural, and see what we learn.

• There are far more references to “book” in the singular than “books” in the plural, but the study of the references to “books” was rewarding to me on its own.

• We find this word used eight times in scripture, in seven different verses. I’d like to look at all of these, beginning with our text. Perhaps, since books appear in seven different places, this will show us the scope of God’s view on books.

• The verses we’ll survey are ordered by subject and not by order of appearance in scripture, since there’s some practical truth we’ll see by the groupings.

Eccl. 12:12: world’s books

• Job 19:23; 31:35. Job is the oldest book in the Bible, but from these verses it’s apparent that books were already being written when inspired scripture first appears.

• It may be that there were already “many books” in circulation when the book of Job is first penned. Personally, I think there were, and I’ll tell you why.

• The world is seeking wisdom apart from God, as Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 1:21, “the world by wisdom knew not God…”

• Rather than listening to the words of the truly wise (i.e. the scriptures) and finding wisdom there, they’re pumping out an endless stream of books to try to find wisdom. Who do you think inspired that? We’ll talk more about him later.

• The stream never ends because the world is not sincere: they’re trying to exalt self, not God (Prov. 18:1-2).

• “…and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” This goes with v. 8. It’s vain trying to study all of the books being printed: you will wear yourself out! Good news…you don’t have to go to all that trouble, if you’re seeking the words of truth (v. 10) and being admonished by them.

• God’s final commentary on the Library of Alexandria, the Library of Congress, Books-A-Million, and the rest is 2 Tim. 3:7, “Ever learning, and never able to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” The world may produce an endless stream of books to dispel the knowledge of God, but eventually they’ll meet him in judgment, according to v. 14.

Acts 19:18-19: devilish books

• Some of the world’s books are evil and worthy of burning. They need to be burnt so that no one else is harmed by them, and it’s a picture of where their source, Satan, will end up…in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10). “And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds”(v. 18) because these books were overtly sinful and evil.

• So the “curious arts” are another attempt to find wisdom, albeit from Satanic sources, since the devil has wisdom as well as God. He’s said to be “wiser than Daniel” in Ezek. 28:3, and James mentions “devilish” wisdom in Jas. 3:15.

• We don’t call them “curious arts” today, but things like “magic” and the “black arts”; “curious” is a good word in two ways: (1) sense is “strange” or “different”—these books are not normal; and (2) curious, as in curiosity, which as we know, kills the cat…and Eve. Why? “it was a tree to be desired to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6);

• So from the beginning, men have been seeking wisdom from among themselves, and some, like these Ephesians, actually go beyond that and seek it from devilish sources.

• Wisdom is one of man’s basic needs, but seldom does he seek it from the right source, the holy scriptures. “When all else fails, read the instruction book”? NO!! Read the instructions first, and don’t depend on your own wisdom, the world’s, or the devil’s.

• Last point: who do you think counted the price of them? Christians weren’t the only ones on the scene. Notice, they “burned them before all men” (v. 19). I think it was the worldly bystanders who calculated the value. Why would the Christians care? That junk didn’t mean anything to them any more. Isn’t that like the world? “They’re throwing away a fortune in books!” Yeah, but those books were destroying their souls. Furthermore, on a positive side, they were now rich in Christ, and what was fifty thousand pieces of silver compared to him? It’s a great irony that the world will charge you heavily for wisdom that will eventually carry you to hell, while God offers salvation freely that will give you instant, everlasting life.

Books of the Bible (Dan. 9:2)

• As we saw from the first point, the world and devil have been putting out there books from the dawn of time, at least after the flood, but with the inspiration and writing of the book of Job, God begins to quietly produce his own books, which are ultimately number 66 and are gathered together under one cover in the Holy Bible.

• The books referred to in this passage, I believe, are inspired ones, at least in part.

• Daniel “understood by books” that the Jewish captivity would last 70 years. Jeremiah foretold this in Jer. 25:12 and 29:10-14. 2 Chronicles and Ezra, which also discuss the captivity, are written after this point, since Cyrus, who makes the decree to rebuild the temple at the end and beginning of those books, respectively, comes after Darius.

• It could be that he also read other portions of scripture that threw light on the length of the captivity, or even some non-canonical books that discussed Jeremiah’s words, and God used it all to reveal the length of the captivity to him. Either way, God primarily uses scripture to reveal this to Daniel, since Jeremiah is the only prophet I know of who expressly states the length of the captivity.

• I love the phrase “I…understood by books.” There is so much understanding you will never have if you refuse to read. The devil knows this, and he’s trying everything he can to get people away from books.

• Video and audio must be used moderately, or you’re going to find yourself loathing the printed page and destitute of spiritual knowledge which can only come from reading the scriptures and other wholesome literature.

• “Well I read the Bible on the internet.” That’s fine as a supplement. I check Strong’s Concordance on my phone all the time. But that can never replace me sitting down in a room by myself with a book and listening to God’s voice thereby.

• Don’t rely too heavily on electricity. God only allowed it to be discovered in the last days, and it’s connected with Satan (Luke 10:18; Eph. 2:2). Furthermore, there is no indication that it will be used in the millienial kingdom, where agriculture is manual, not electric (see Is. 2:4; Amos 9:13).

• Don’t let anything draw you away from books, especially the 66 inspired ones which comprise the Bible. If you don’t like to read a variety of books, that’s fine, but you must still give yourself to at least one, the Bible.

Books about the Lord (John 21:24-25)

• This verse concludes the gospel of John. It hearkens back to 20:30-31 which more expressly states the purpose of John’s gospel. Both passages note that there are other things Jesus did that John didn’t write about. Some of these things may be recorded in the other gospels, but even if they weren’t, it doesn’t matter. We have all that we need to know in the AV 1611.

• But what about the book of the wars of the LORD, the book of Jasher, and the epistle from Laodicea? All of those are books that Israel or the church had access to at one time. Are we missing out on any “hidden knowledge”?

• By no means. If you got a hold of that stuff, and all of Paul’s sermons beside the half-dozen recorded, it would say the same thing, in essence, as what you have in your King James Bible.

• So no worries about what’s not recorded. What is recorded is quite enough, as we see in this remarkable verse. If you wrote down everything thing that Christ did, even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.

• Let’s talk for a minute about books about the Lord.  The first two passages in this survey dealt with books men use to ignore God, the third passage dealt with books produced by God, and here we find a reference to books about the Lord.

• This verse anticipates that people would write about the Lord. See Luke 1:1: “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand…” to write about the earthly ministry of Christ. An awesome thought is that even though many had already written about this, God moved Luke to write just one more account for Theophilus, and it was inspired. Glory! Out of those many accounts, God directly inspired four of them, and we have them in our KJB today.

• Scripture doesn’t say that it’s a bad thing that many did this. My father-in-law put it this way: "The Word produces words." Jesus Christ has been the inspiration for more books, songs, movies, and other media than any other figure in the history of mankind.

• I see these media as the overflow of knowing Christ, and a counter, along with scripture, if you will, to what the world is putting out to ignore Christ.

• Now the number of deeds that Christ did were finite, and what you have in hand is the summary of it all, but you could keep writing about it forever.

• Why? Because the Word is infinite. If you wrote one account, well, you missed something… write another. You wrote another, well here’s something else to add…write another.

• One day, a friend and I were driving through the Georgia Tech campus and talking about the wonder of cross-referencing in scripture, or “comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Cor. 2:13). Suddenly, this brother said to me, “We’re going to be cross-referencing for all eternity.”

• If you’re carnal, you’re thinking “Whoop de do. Heaven’s really going to be boring.” Let me tell you something, Demas. You’ll love the word of God up there, even if you didn’t down here, but it will be too late to love it like you should’ve in time and earn the rewards you could’ve earned if you had loved it.

• So the world has its books, the devil has his, both of which are designed to keep a man from Christ, but thank God has given us his books (scriptures), and many books have also been written about the Lord to help us understand his books better.

General reading (2 Tim. 4:13)

• It’s the closing hours of Paul’s life. He knows that he’s about to die (v. 6), and what does he ask for? Ice cream? That’s what Timothy McVeigh asked for as his last meal (two pints of mint chocolate chip, per Wikipedia). But food was the last thing on Paul’s mind. He asks for a cloke (winter is approaching), books, and parchments, all of which he left in Troas, where apparently he was apprehended and shipped to Rome.

• One can speculate as to which books he wanted. No doubt he’d want the scriptures, considering his proximity to death. But he just says books, and also parchments, which I believe he wanted to write to others with. Men of letters like Paul don’t just read; they write. The thing is, the more of that Book you take in, the more you feel constrained to give it out; and that’s why I think he asked for parchments. He couldn’t go anywhere, but he could write. Obviously he could, since 2 Timothy was an epistle that he sent to Timothy, probably by Tychichus (v. 12). So to his last breath, Paul wants to learn and minister.

• Erasmus said, “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes." For me, it’s more like, “When I have a little money, I buy Gerber and Huggies, and if I have any left, I must have miscalculated.”

• Spurgeon also had a famous quote about Paul's books...[not posted here for brevity; see http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0542.htm]

• I think that the Lord may have left it general to encourage us toward general reading: the Bible first, whatever helps you can lay your hands on, and other wholesome books that enlighten and edify. In my opinion, the ultimate value of a book is how much it helps you know God and his word and bear the fruit that comes from such knowledge.

• One other thought: note the judgment seat of Christ in the near context (v. 8). Two good ways to prepare for it: read and write. Take in the word and wholesome literature and minister the truth to others, through writing and speaking (v. 2, “Preach the word…”).

Judgment Day Books (Dan. 7:10; Rev. 20:12)

• Daniel has been called the Revelation of the old testament.  The great white throne judgment is NOT covered for the first time in Revelation. It also appears in Daniel 7.

• One might think that this scene describes the judgment of nations at the second advent (Mt. 25:31-46), with a thousand thousands of his mighty angels ministering to him, and millions standing before him.

• One problem with that view:  there are no books at the judgment of nations, but there are at the white throne judgment in Rev. 20.

• So we get our first glimpse of the last (white throne) judgment, sometimes called Doomsday, in the old testament, with Revelation providing supplementary details, since it’s the consummation of all the prophecies concerning Israel.

• These books record deeds, including ones no one ever saw but God, and words, secret and open, intentional and idle. “…the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (v. 12). I’m not sure if motives will be judged, but God may write “murder” or “adultery” in the book where he saw it in someone’s heart (1 John 3:15; Mt. 5:28), though they may not have carried it out.

• The Domesday Book is a manuscript that records the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086. The survey was executed for William I of England (the Conqueror) to determine who held what and what taxes had been liable under his predecessor, Edward the Confessor.The judgment of the Domesday assessors was final—whatever the book said about who held the material wealth or what it was worth was the law, and there was no appeal.

• The book was known by the English as "Domesday," that is the Day of Judgment: “for as the sentence of that strict and terrible last account cannot be evaded by any skilful subterfuge, so when this book is appealed to ... its sentence cannot be put quashed or set aside with impunity. That is why we have called the book 'the Book of Judgment' ... because its decisions, like those of the Last Judgment, are unalterable” (Wikipedia).

• Putting something in a book, in general, gives it a sense of finality, something to be preserved for ever, as we saw in Job 19, and the judgments meted out for what’s recorded in these books are everlasting.

• What’s in the Domesdaybook was final, and what’s in the real “Doomsday” books at the white throne judgment is final. Men may lie and deny, but the books stand.

Summary Points

• One thing you may have noticed, but which I’ll reiterate in closing, is that all the passages dealing with books in the plural have judgment in the context:

o Eccl. 12:14—temporally and at the white throne judgment (Rev. 20:11-15)

o Acts 19:19—self-judgment

o John 21:24—testimony

o Dan. 9:2—captivity of Israel

o 2 Tim. 4:13 (cf. v. 8—judgment seat of Christ)

o Dan. 7:10/Rev. 20:12 (white throne judgment)

• Note the seven references to books in the plural. Since seven is the number of perfection in scripture, this would imply (devotionally) that a saint can’t be perfected without books, namely the Book of books, the Bible.

• You have everything you need for spiritual perfection in the KJB (2 Tim. 3:16-17), which is what will prepare you for judgment to come.

• When Paul stood before Felix, and reasoned of “…judgment to come,” Felix trembled, because he wasn’t ready to be judged.

• The judgment seat of Christ will be a fearful scene (2 Cor. 5:10-11), but you can certainly prepare for it by giving yourself to books, first of all those of scripture, and other books that can help you mature and “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Col. 4:12).

Soli Deo Gloria