"The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple." - Psalm 19:7b

Just the first characteristic of scripture and its benefit shows us why the Word has been Satan's battleground since the garden of Eden.  His desire is to keep us from God's instruction, that which transforms wretched sinners and puts them on the right path, a God-glorifying path. With Eve in the garden, he was trying to draw her away from God's counsel.  He basically told Eve that God had lied, she wouldn't die if she ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she would also be wise without God's counsel.  Eve believed the counsel of Satan.  Even before sin entered the world, we were created to be dependent on the counsel of God's Word.  It's His testimony that makes us wise. 

A testimony is a personal witness to one's own experience.  When you are summoned to court, you give a testimony, your experience to a certain situation.  The guys in our church meet once a month.  They are taking turns giving their testimonies.  They are giving their personal experience regarding God.

Scripture is God's testimony about Himself.  It is His own revelation, His own self-disclosure.  What a grand way God has revealed Himself!  In sixty-six books, thirty-nine in the Old Testament, twenty-seven in the New Testament.  It all reveals truth about God so that we may know about God and rest securely in His self revelation as truth.

The characteristic of God's testimony is that it is sure...that means it is reliable, it is trustworthy.  Scripture is the one book you can fully and completely trust.  And the benefit that God's testimony is trustworthy is that it makes wise the simple. 

Simple is a word in the Hebrew that basically means ignorance.  It means one without understanding, one who does not know.  It basically comes from a root which means open door.  A friend of mine's favorite quote goes like this - "The problem with having an open mind is that your brains fall out." Makes you smile, doesn't it? The idea of being simple-minded is the idea of an open door.  It means everything goes in and everything goes out, including your brains, or right thinking or correct understanding and therefore skilled living.  What is the purpose of a door?  It keeps certain things in and certain things out.  It's a point of discrimination, right?  Scripture puts a door on our minds!

We were created to be dependent on God's counsel.  It is His counsel that makes us wise.  We are foolish and sinful when we reject it.  It is His counsel that makes us skilled in all manner of living.  And His counsel is reliable and trustworthy because He is reliable and trustworthy.  The Word of God takes the naive, the inexperienced, the undiscerning, the uninformed and makes us skilled in the art of living.  We then live life to its fullest and best, a life which gives glory to God.