Talking to Eric yesterday, I did not want to misquote him, so I was hoping he would be here to correct me if I did. Eric, did you not tell me that this past year or so, the Scriptures have been more open and alive to you than at any time you can remember in your life?
That was a yes. He told me that yesterday.
That is encouraging. That lights my fire. That is encouraging.
You know, the natural progression of things in this realm is that, as things get older, they get hard. They get brittle. They cease to function properly. Not so in the spiritual realm. It does not have to be so. The Lord comes to us, and He renews. He revives. He restores us.
My own testimony is similar. I would have to say that this past year, one of the gifts the Lord has given me throughout the year has been a renewed thirst and hunger for His Word, a renewed appreciation of His Word, a delight in His Word.
I cannot say, “Like no other time in my life,” but I can say it has not been like this in several years. I have been very grateful for that gracious work of the Lord in my heart.
The Lord has been speaking to us quite a bit these last couple of months about the value of His Word. As far as I can perceive, it has been largely in brothers’ meetings, but it has spilled over into these meetings and into private conversations.
Jim spoke to us a month or so ago about the Scriptures and made available to us these Bibles that make it simpler to systematically read through the whole Bible in a year. The Lord has been stirring us up to the importance, especially in these days, of being in His Word.
The last couple of months, I have personally been stirred up to consider the Scriptures: the authority of the Scriptures, how to interpret the Scriptures, and how precious the Scriptures are. As we sat together before the Lord Wednesday night, talking and praying, I sensed that some of what the Lord has been speaking to me is for us.
That is what I want to share this morning: the authority of the Scriptures, some helps, hopefully, to interpreting the Scriptures, and some reminder of the preciousness of the Scriptures.
Like everything that we share amongst ourselves, most of what we share on any given week is not new to most of us. But it is good and right and proper that we stir one another up by way of reminder to the things we know.
The world system—every aspect of the world system, whether from the scientific angle, the religious angle, or any other angle—is continually eroding at the foundations of the truth of God in our hearts. It seeks to undermine, undercut, and wear away that which we know. So it is absolutely good that we remind ourselves of what we already know.
When I think of the authority of the Scriptures, I think first and foremost of the verse we have talked about a number of times, probably over the past year: 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness:
That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.
All Scripture. Start there. All Scripture.
The Lord clearly says that all of this Book is inspired by God—all Scripture. Not some of it; not merely the New Testament; not merely the New Testament parts of the Old Testament; not anything less than all. All Scripture is inspired by God.
“Inspired” in English is kind of Scripture-centric. It is looking from the perspective of the Scripture: the Scripture has been breathed into. But in the Greek, it is God-centric: God-breathed. It focuses on the Breather.
So all Scripture is God-breathed. All Scripture is breathed out from Himself, from His being. That, to me, is the clearest foundation of what Scripture is, how we come to it, why we come to it, and why it is what it is. It is because it is His life breathed out.
God does not breathe for respiration. He does not breathe for life the way we breathe. I take this other substance called air, take it into myself, use some of it, put other stuff into it, and breathe it back out. God does not breathe that way. When God breathes out, He breathes out His very life.
It comes out as either judgment or life, depending on the material that comes in contact with it, basically. Scripture is inspired; it is breathed out. God has breathed it out. Therefore, it bears His character. It bears His life, His image. It is like Him.
That is the foundation of Scripture and of how we understand it, how we come to it, and why we come to it the way we do. It is breathed out from Him. It has His character, His likeness, and His very life in it.
All Scripture is inspired by God, breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching. Again, all Scripture is profitable—not some of it, not merely the part I like. All Scripture is profitable because of what it is, because it is breathed out from Him, because it is His life breathed out. It bears His image, His character, and His likeness.
The Greek word translated “adequate” simply means complete, fit for its intended purpose. For us to be adequate means that we have been grown up to be fit for our intended purpose—for that which we were created. Scripture is profitable for that: equipped for every good work.
Matthew 4 records Satan coming personally to the Lord Jesus and tempting Him. The temptation is basically the same as how he tempts every man down through the ages. It is the same as the temptation of Eve: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Satan’s tactics have proven very successful through the ages.
Among other things, Satan took the Lord’s Word in part and out of context and tried to use it to support his agenda. I do not know about you, but I am convicted by that, because I have done that before. I sometimes approach the Scriptures to prove my point, to win the argument, or to support my theory or theology.
The Lord Jesus’ response was, in Matthew 4:4:
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Every word. It is all life. It is all good. It is all profitable. It is all Him. It is all His life breathed out. Every word: man shall live. It is life. Man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus said:
Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
When a Jew used the term “the Law and the Prophets,” that meant the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus said, “I did not come to abolish it. I came to fulfill it. I am the fulfillment of it. I am the reality of it.”
In 2 Peter 1:20-21, Peter says:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation.
For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
We have a double emphasis there. No prophecy of Scripture was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
This is Scripture from start to finish. Yes, there is human agency involved. Men, with all their limitations, cultural background, human weakness, and everything else, had this pass through them. Yet, by the Holy Spirit, Peter could say that not one word of prophecy was ever made by an act of human will. Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
It is all His Word.
In 2 Peter 3:14-16, Peter speaks of Paul’s writings:
Therefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in His sight.
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
We all know that the apostles were clear that the Old Testament was Scripture. But it is interesting to me that Peter understood, by the Spirit, that Paul’s writings were Scripture, because he says that people distort them “as they do also the other Scriptures.”
Church councils in the third and fourth centuries collectively came to agreement about which books would make it into the canon of the New Testament—which books were inspired by God in the same sense as the Old Testament. Yet Peter, by the Spirit, could say of Paul’s writings, “People distort them just as they do the rest of the Scriptures.”
The Law, the Prophets, and the writings of the New Testament: they are the Word of God.
Isaiah 40:8 is a very familiar verse:
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.
God’s Word is eternal because He is eternal. If we understand that first passage in 2 Timothy 3, then everything about the Scriptures becomes clear. It is simply His nature.
The Lord’s Word is true because He is the truth. The Lord’s Word is faithful and dependable because He is faithful. The Lord’s Word is good because He is good. The Lord’s Word is eternal because He is eternal. The Word of our God stands forever.
Joshua, at the end of his life, called all the Israelites together and said that not one word of all the good words which the Lord their God had spoken concerning them had failed. Not one word.
That is going to be every one of our testimonies when we stand in heaven and look back in full light at the path of our lives. We will say with Joshua, “Not one word of all the good words”—and they are all good because He is good, and they come out from Him—“that the Lord has spoken concerning us has failed.” Everything has been fulfilled concerning us. Not one of them has failed.
In 1 Peter 1:23-25, Peter says:
Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth.
For, All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth:
But the word of the Lord abideth forever. And this is the word of good tidings which was preached unto you.
Those two terms recur throughout Scripture to describe the Word of God: living and abiding.
God is life. He is the source of all life. Of course His Word is living. He is eternal; He is eternal life. He is the One who has been from the beginning and always will be. There is no beginning or end with Him. Of course His Word is eternal. It is abiding.
Now, if your gospel is just a Roman road or a few verses from the New Testament, your gospel is too small.
Philip, when he encountered the Ethiopian eunuch, found him reading in Isaiah 53. Scripture says Philip, beginning with that passage, preached Jesus to him.
Jesus, when He appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, said they were foolish and slow of heart to understand what the Scriptures said. Beginning with Moses and the Prophets, He opened their eyes to understand everything the Scriptures said about Him.
The gospel is the good news of God. It is the Word of God from beginning to end. It is living. It is abiding. It is seed. It can cause us to be born again. It can cause life to grow up inside of us and bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.
This is the Word that was preached to you.
His Word is authoritative, not because somebody said it was, but because it is breathed out from Him. It bears His authority by its nature. That is simply what it is. That is spiritual reality.
We do not come to the Lord’s Word to judge it; we come to be judged by it. We submit ourselves to it, not the other way around.
From what little I know, there has been an amazing variety over the last two thousand years of understandings, frameworks, and theologies concerning how Christians interpret the Bible. Probably every framework ever held somewhere in those two thousand years is still being held by somebody on the earth today.
How do you know what is right and what is wrong? How do you come to this Book? How do you interpret that which seems, at times, so mysterious? There is so much confusion in the Christian realm about how to interpret Scripture.
John begins his Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Rule number one in interpreting Scripture is this: the Word of God is Jesus Christ. He is the eternal, living Word of God.
He is, as someone said, the language of God. He is the message of God. He is the communication of God. He is the good news of God. The Lord Jesus is the Word of God.
They say in real estate—or retail—that the first three rules are location, location, location. The first three rules of scriptural interpretation are Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He is the Word of God. Do not come to this Book without coming to Him, or you will miss the whole point.
This is the Word of God, but it is a revelation of the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
John begins his first epistle in the same way. In 1 John 1:1-3, he says:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life—
And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us—
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also.
Jesus is the Word of life. He is the One who has been from the beginning as the Word.
Hebrews begins the same way. Hebrews 1:1-3 says:
God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,
Hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power.
The Lord Jesus is the Word of God, and the Scriptures are a revelation of Him. From beginning to end, the Scriptures are a revelation of Him. We cannot understand Scripture if we are not coming to the Lord Jesus as we come to Scripture.
In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul speaks about the deep, mysterious things of God—things which the natural mind cannot know. In 1 Corinthians 2:12-14, he says:
But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words.
Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.
Scripture cannot be understood apart from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Author of the entire Book, from start to finish. He lives inside of us to reveal what God has given, what God has done, and the very heart and nature of God.
The Holy Spirit lives inside of us to interpret to us the Word of God. We cannot understand it apart from His interpretation, apart from His revelation of the Lord Jesus.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
We have been given the Holy Spirit. We have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. We have the mind of Christ.
But we cannot come to this with a natural mind. All the above notwithstanding, we cannot come to this with a natural mind and understand the things of the Spirit. We must appraise the things of the Spirit spiritually. We must let the Holy Spirit Himself reveal spiritual things to us.
If we are going to understand the Scriptures correctly, it has to be by coming to the Lord Jesus Himself through the Scriptures. It has to be by letting the Holy Spirit interpret spiritually that which, by its nature, is spirit and is breathed out from God. God is Spirit.
That which comes out from Him cannot be anything other than spirit. It has to be spiritually understood, spiritually examined, and spiritually laid hold of.
It seems to me that the Old Testament causes us the most trouble in knowing how to interpret it. There are a million variations, but it seems that the main two things we do with the Old Testament are either to set it aside as having nothing to do with us or to pick and choose which parts we want to put ourselves under still.
We may say, “That is nice. There is some Jewish history. I guess it is left in there to show us what we have been saved from in the new covenant, so that we can count our blessings.” But we think it does not really apply to us—that it was for another people, another time, another era of God’s work.
Or we pick and choose. We say, “There are dietary laws. I think we probably ought still to be under those. Science has proven the health benefits of all that stuff. The Lord meant that for me. If you eat that Big Mac, you are a sinner.” Or we put ourselves under the Sabbath, tithing, Jewish holidays, or festivals.
We pick and choose. It does not make much sense, really. If we are still under the old covenant, then we ought to be under the old covenant. Hallelujah, we are not under the old covenant. Why would I want to put myself under some aspects of it?
Romans 15:4 says:
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope.
There is the apostle of faith and grace, the apostle to the Gentiles—the one who, from our view, probably understood more clearly the eternal purpose of God and how it was worked out in the church than anybody alive in his day. He says everything written before, that whole Old Testament, was written for our instruction, that through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
First Corinthians 10:6 and 11 speak specifically of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for forty years:
Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
Now these things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.
The Greek word is types. These things happened as types for us. A type is a foreshadowing. It is a picture. It looks ahead to something.
If any Christians could ever say the Old Testament did not apply to them—and no Christians could—Paul said it in the first century: these things were written for our instruction. It seems to me that, if anything, it becomes more applicable the closer we get to the end of the ages.
They were types. They were pictures. They were foreshadowings.
I have never yet seen a groom at his wedding kiss his bride’s shadow. I have never yet seen a photographer struggling to get good pictures of the bride and groom’s shadows. I have never seen someone walking down the sidewalk in the late afternoon, ten feet ahead of his honey, holding his honey’s shadow’s hand.
The shadow is a shadow. The shadow is a foreshadowing. The shadow lets us know that the reality is right at the door, right there.
If I am digging in the dirt beside the sidewalk, planting a flower with a trowel, and a shadow passes over me, I do not begin a conversation with the shadow. I look up to see whose shadow it is. I look up to see who is there.
The whole Old Testament was written for our instruction, encouragement, hope, and help. It is a shadow. It is a foreshadowing.
The Lord Jesus could say, “I did not come to abolish; I came to fulfill. I am the reality of all that you have been reading of, all that you have been involved in. I am the reality. Embrace Me.”
The new is in the old concealed; the old is by the new revealed. They are a unit. But one is shadowing, one is a type, and the other is the reality. We cannot understand the type without seeing the reality.
Even then, looking back, we gain instruction from the type. There is much clear instruction given about the Lord’s character, His nature, His purpose, His ways, and His house. But it is a type. It is a picture. It is not to be taken merely at face value. We are not Jews living under the old covenant.
Yet it was all happening to them and being written down for our instruction, so that we would understand the reality we have been brought into in Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17 says:
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day:
Which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.
Paul has summed up the dietary laws and the religious calendar of the Old Testament: food, drink, festival, new moon, Sabbath day. Do not let anyone judge you concerning those things. Why? Because these things are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance, the fullness, the reality belongs to Christ.
Hebrews 8:4-5 says that those who offered gifts according to the law:
Serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount.
Moses was taken up to the mountain, and he saw the spiritual reality of the dwelling place of God in heaven. The Lord said, “Now go down and make something according to that pattern. Make something that is a copy of it on the earth.”
Hebrews 9:23-24 says:
It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us.
All that was on the earth was given for our instruction. It was also given as a tutor, a child-conductor, to lead us to Christ. It revealed something of His nature, His character, the heart of man, and our great need for a Savior.
Jesus was dealing with the reality of things. His blood is that eternal blood. It speaks better things than the blood of bulls, goats, and rams. It is more precious than gold and silver. He entered into the holy place as High Priest, offering Himself as a sacrifice to pay once and for all for our sins.
Hebrews 10:1 says:
For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw near.
Again and again, every aspect of Jewish law is covered in these verses: the sacrificial system, the priesthood, the temple itself, the religious calendar, the dietary laws—everything the Lord gave for the purpose of revealing His Son in type, picture, and shadow.
It was just that. The reality has come. The substance belongs to Christ, and we are in Him.
If you come to any part of Scripture and are not looking for Jesus and not in fellowship with Jesus, you are missing the boat. If you come to any part of Scripture and are not, by the Holy Spirit, having the Scriptures opened to your spiritual eyes, you are going to fall short.
There is history there. We can compare it to history books, check it off, and memorize dates, times, places, and kings. There are moral, ethical, and even spiritual principles that a natural mind can identify, outline, and write books about.
But if you want a real understanding of Scripture, it has to be spiritually appraised by the Spirit of God who is in you, who searches the deep things of God, and who longs to reveal to you those things that He has so freely given.
If you come to the Old Testament and either discard it as not applicable or decide to pick and choose which parts you want to put yourself under, I think you are missing the boat. It is all applicable, but it is applicable as it shows us Christ, as it points to Him who is the substance and reality.
I want to fly through a number of Scriptures, pointing to some of the ways in which Scripture is precious to us—the ways in which we are blessed by the Word of God, by hearing it and doing it.
Revelation 1:3 says:
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
If the blessing came merely from reading or hearing the Scriptures, man, oh man, let us talk to Willie and get tape recorders blaring from all those speakers that do the emergency signal at three o’clock every Wednesday. Let us get the Scriptures being read, and the whole city will be blessed.
But there is that little, important mixing of faith in the heart with what you hear. It always results in obedience. It always results in bowing your knee. Blessed is he who reads, those who hear, and those who heed the things written in it.
The Gospels are full of such reminders. Not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of the Father. The Lord’s brothers, sisters, and mother are those who do the will of God. Scripture after Scripture tells us that real hearing and apprehension of Scripture results in a changed life, a changed path, and bowing the knee to follow the One who is speaking.
The parable of the soils tells me that the seed is good. It can be sown by the right Sower, the Holy Spirit, and yet Satan can steal it away. Or it can germinate, but my heart can be so shallow and rocky that it withers away as soon as there is the slightest affliction or persecution on account of the Word.
Or it can begin to grow, and my heart can be so full of the cares of the age, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things that it gets choked out and does not bear fruit.
But that same seed, that same good seed, sown by the faithful Sower, can bear fruit—hundredfold fruit. Boy, that is what we all want.
Psalm 1 speaks of the blessedness of those who cherish the Word of God:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord;
And on His law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water,
That bringeth forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also doth not wither;
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
This is not some religious observance. This is not, “Oh, I am going to read my Bible today—one of those Christian duties. I hate it. It is dry. It is boring. But I have got to do it.”
No. His delight is in the law of the Lord, in the Lord’s Word. In His law he meditates day and night. That is security. That is stability. That is health. That is strength. That is fruitfulness. That is victory.
I want to be one who delights in the Lord’s Word, meditates on it, feeds on it, and lets it do its work in me.
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, singing the praises of the Lord’s Word. If you understand it spiritually, it is not just poetry, history, and moral or ethical standards. It is the breathed-out Word of God, the living and abiding Word of God.
Psalm 119:9 and 11 say:
Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word.
Thy word have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.
The Holy Spirit inside us is always drawing us toward holiness, always drawing us toward purity—always, to say it another way, conforming us to the image of the Son, who is holy and pure.
Psalm 119:105 says:
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and light unto my path.
We live in a dark world. The hearts and minds of men all around us are darkened in their understanding. You will not rise above that in your natural thought process or your natural anything. If you want to walk on a lighted path that is going in the right direction, you need the Lord’s Word.
The Lord Jesus is the Word of God. The Scriptures are what He has breathed out for our benefit. His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
When Paul called together the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 to say goodbye to them, he said in Acts 20:32:
And now I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you the inheritance among all them that are sanctified.
There is growth—spiritual growth, building up. There is inheritance, coming into inheritance with all those who are sanctified.
Romans 10:17 says:
So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
I want my heart to be full of faith. We need to be men and women of faith. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.
Do you feel faithless? Do you feel like there is a lack there? Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you. The Word of Christ, when heard, germinates faith. It brings up faith.
Ephesians 6:17 says:
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Are we in a battle? We are in a battle. Is it real? Is it for keeps? For real? We have an enemy who is out to destroy your soul, who is out to steal, kill, and destroy your life, your marriage, your children, your family—everything.
We are in a battle. We have armor. We have weapons. Scripture speaks of weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left. David spoke about the Lord training his hands for war and his fingers for battle. We have weapons.
The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. We need to be those who are strengthened, practiced, and skilled in using the Word of God in the matters we are in.
Colossians 3:16 says:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God.
I want a heart of thankfulness. I often lack a heart of thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you. What thankfulness.
I want wisdom. I need wisdom for myself. I need wisdom for my own family. I need wisdom for you. You need wisdom for me. We have so much need among us and around us. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.
Second Timothy 3:15 says:
From a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Scripture, the Bible, does not give salvation. But the sacred writings give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
The Scriptures can engender in us that proper, clean fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. The Scriptures can be that child-conductor that leads us to Christ, showing us the character of God and the just requirements of God, exposing to us our own black, wicked hearts apart from Christ, and driving us in desperation and repentance to the One who has already paid the price.
We need to be traveling those paths—not salvation merely in an initial sense, but deliverance in every area where we are bound and hindered. The sacred writings give us the wisdom that leads to deliverance through faith in Christ Jesus.
Jesus spoke to the Jewish leaders of His day and said:
Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of Me;
And ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life.
The Lord Jesus Himself is life. But the Scriptures reveal the Lord Jesus. They are meant to show us Him and bring us to Him.
Hebrews 4:12 says:
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
That is a blessing. That is part of why Scripture is precious. It may sound kind of hard, but I want the Lord dealing with the wood, hay, and stubble in my life right now.
I want Him dividing between soul and spirit right now and doing away with the fleshliness. I want my heart to be circumcised now. I do not want to stand before Him and see only loss, missed opportunities, and myself asserting my fleshly soulishness.
I want Him dealing with my heart now. The Word of God is that two-edged sword that can do what I cannot do. I can get as inward as I want to get. I can cloister myself, fast, pray, and do whatever I want to do to look inward and try to make myself more spiritual, and I will only make things worse. I wind up with spiritual pride on top of everything else and increase the blindness of my own eyes.
But the Word of God is living. It is alive. It is active. He sees with eyes like a flame of fire, into the very heart, into the very intentions of the heart. He divides where I cannot divide.
I want that now. You want that now.
James 1:21 says:
Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
I prayed this just a few minutes ago: in humility, receive the implanted Word. The Word is good seed. The Sower is the right Sower. We must have hearts of humility to receive that implanted Word, which is able to save our souls.
Humanly speaking, we all have a tendency toward pride as opposed to humility. We tend to want to stay in control, deciding how much change we are going to allow in our lives and how much speaking we want the Lord to do. We want to have selective hearing.
“Only by grace can you enter.” I am all ears, Lord. “If any man would come after Me—” What, Lord? I cannot hear You.
We want to hear what we want to hear. We want to hear what soothes our ruffled feathers and comforts our souls. But every Word of God is pure. Every Word of God is good. Every Word of God is life. Every Word of God is sure and eternal—for your benefit, for your salvation.
Receive it.
First Thessalonians 2:13 says:
And for this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when ye received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, ye accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you that believe.
That is a very encouraging reminder to me. God’s Word performs its work in me if I will simply be one who believes—who takes God at His Word, believes what He says, and believes Him who speaks.
Hebrews 11:3 says that by faith we understand that the worlds were created by the Word of God, so that what is seen came out of that which was not seen. In other words, the Lord’s Word is creative. His Word brings into existence that which was not there before. He spoke, and it existed. Before He spoke, it did not exist.
His Word is creative in us. His Word can bring to life things that were dead. It can germinate something that was not there, grow it, and bring it to fruition.
We want His Word richly dwelling in us. We want to humbly receive an implanted Word that He is sowing into our hearts continually through fellowship with one another, through the Scriptures, by the speaking of the Holy Spirit, through nature—a hundred ways that the Lord speaks and sows His good seed Word in us.
We want it to bring forth life out of death, creating that which did not exist before.
Psalm 33:6 says:
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
His Word is creative. He spoke, and it existed.
Jeremiah 23:29 says:
Is not My word like fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?
I am sometimes aware of wood, hay, and stubble in my life. The Lord’s Word is fire. I want it burned up now, because now there is time for repentance. There is time for restoration. There is time on earth for me to yield myself to the Lord and let Him do some real stuff.
Sometimes I am aware of a very hard heart within my breast. The Lord’s Word is like a hammer which shatters a rock.
Sometimes we are aware of a very hard heart in one another, and we get so discouraged. Beth and I were talking yesterday. We were laughing at ourselves and at each other for how faithless we sometimes are.
There was a situation that we had both been burdened about and kind of depressed about, because we said, “Oh, we know how this is going to go.” Then we woke up and said, “The Lord—oh, yes. Commit this to the Lord. Ask Him to rescue us from the sure faith that we know is going to happen.”
Of course His Word shatters rock, whether it is in my heart or yours. There is no reason for me to be discouraged. I cast myself upon the Lord, and I expose myself to His Word: the written Word breathed out from Him, the living Word, the Word Jesus.
His Word is a fire and a hammer.
Isaiah 55:10-11 says:
For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Hallelujah.
Lord, speak Your Word. Lord, sow Your Word in my heart. Send forth Your Word from heaven like the rain, like the snow—whether it is that thing which my heart instantly soaks up and benefits from, and I see the burst of spring come forth, or whether it seems cold and white and dead and blanketing.
There is coming a day when He will melt it. There is coming a day when it will soak the earth and spring will burst forth. I want His Word, however He chooses to send it—rain or snow, for now or for later.
I want my heart to be storing up and soaking in that Word which will not return to Him empty. It will accomplish that for which He sent it out. It is His power, His grace. He is the Author. He is the Finisher. He is the beginning, the end, and everything in between.
I am very thankful for the living and embodied Word of God, the Word Jesus, the eternal Word. Very thankful. But in the wisdom of God, He breathed forth words, written down by men who were moved by the Holy Spirit and spoke from Him. They were written for our instruction, encouragement, help, profit, edification, and transformation.
This is not a New Year’s resolution. This is a real prayer of mine—a real prayer that I hope is ours.
This coming year, this coming season of life for us, will be a time unlike any time in the past for us to be receiving the implanted Word; for us to be hungering and thirsting after His Word; for us to be delighting in His Word; for us to be hiding it in our hearts, meditating on it, yielding ourselves to it, and obeying it.
May it bear fruit in us and bear fruit through us.
He wants this. He has made every provision for it. Let us cry out to Him for that which He longs to give us and that which we want.
Praise the Lord.