God’s Word and Our Responsibility to It

Transcript

GRM 817
11/10/2002
God’s Word and Our Responsibility to It
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

A couple of weeks ago the local paper, I believe it was on its weekend edition, the Saturday edition when they do articles on religion, had an article on the search for truth and how elusive truth is, the changing views of truth. One thing that we as believers are privileged to know and to have in our possession is the truth of the Word of God. That’s why it’s so important that it be handled properly and accurately. I just want to walk through some basic matters with you regarding the character of the Word of God, the responsibility of those who would proclaim that Word, the responsibility of those who would hear the Word, the ministry of the Spirit who makes the Word understandable and applies it to hearts and lives. Foundational to everything for us as believers is the authority of the Word of God. Everything we know about Jesus Christ has come to us through the revelation of the scriptures, and so the fact that the scriptures are the Word of God, are absolute truth, unchanging truth, is foundational to everything.

And rather than trying to look and see if we can marshall truths and evidences that would support the fact that the Word of God is true, for example prophetic portions that have been fulfilled, I just want to look at some passages where the Word of God itself declares that it is true. For us that does establish it, for those looking from the outside they’d say, well, that’s circular reasoning. I mean, you can’t use the scripture to prove its truths, because just because it says it’s true doesn’t mean it is true. For those of us who have had our eyes opened in the salvation that God has brought to our hearts, that does settle the matter.

Look in Psalm 119, back in the Old Testament, the longest chapter in the Bible and it’s devoted completely to the Word of God. Psalm 119 and look at verse 142, “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.” The law: particularly referring to the first 5 books of Moses which David would have had as his prime scripture. Often ‘the law’ is referring to the first 5 books of the Bible, although at other times it may refer more broadly. David’s point is the Word of God is truth. He didn’t have it all complete yet, but he recognized that portion which he did have was truth. Your word is truth. Look at verse 151, “You are near, O Lord, and all Your commandments are truth,” not some of them, not many of them, or most of them, but “all Your commandments are truth.” God in His very nature and character and being is truth. It is not possible for God to lie. So everything He has said, all the commandments He has given, are truth. Verse 160, “The sum of Your Word is truth.” We call this the Bible, it’s ‘the book.’ We could call it ‘the truth,’ I mean, that’s the sum of His Word -- truth. I could say, turn into truth to Psalm 119, because that is the sum of God’s Word, it is truth, this is the truth.

You don’t need to turn there, but in John 17:17 Jesus in His high priestly prayer to His Father prayed for His disciples, “Sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth.” So it has a sanctifying character about it. It brings the salvation of God to cleanse the soul, it is the Word of God that continues its work in the molding and shaping us into the people that God would have us be.

You’re still in Psalm 119, back up to verse 89. This gets to matters on the relevance of the Word of God for us today. This is an old book, written somewhere between 3500 and 2000 years ago. And yet its truth is unchanging and everlasting. In Psalm 119:89, “Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.” The Word of God is finalized, it is settled, it is sure. That’s why it is unchanging. You’re still in Psalm 119, look in verse 152, “Of old I have known from your testimonies. That You have founded them forever.” And the verse we just read, “The sum of your Word is truth,” and the last part of that verse, “every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”

Turn over to Isaiah chapter 40, a verse that many of you can quote, but we’ll turn there to see it. We’re going back from Psalms to Isaiah, the first big prophet you come to, so turn a few pages over. Isaiah chapter 40 is where we are going. We’re going to look at verse 8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” In a changing world things come and go, things that seem so sure at one time now are unsure or totally cast aside. But you know what stands firm and unchanging? The Word of our God, it stands forever and is eternally true. Now that does not mean that we don’t have to read it and study it and understand it, I’ll say more about that in a moment, but we know that we have unchanging truth.

Turn over to Matthew 5. Basically we’re just going to be reading verses this evening. Matthew 5:18, Jesus is speaking, “For truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law until all is accomplished.” Not the smallest letter, jot, or tittle. In our English we may talk about the dotting of an “i” or the crossing of a “t”. None of that, nothing, not the smallest part of the Word of God can just go away. You say, well, the general portion of it has been fulfilled, most of it has come true, the part of it that has failed isn’t enough to really bother with. No, that’s not so. There is no such thing as a portion of the Word of God that has failed, not even one small dot over an “i”, if you will. All that’s in the Word of God will be fulfilled.

In Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” You see, there is a finality about scripture. It is eternal. One more passage on this, and he quotes from where we just were in Isaiah, I Peter 1, all the way toward the back of your New Testament, almost to the book of Revelation. The first letter of Peter 1:23, we are “born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable.” What is the imperishable seed that has brought about our new birth? It is “the living and abiding word of God.” Then he quotes from Isaiah 40, “ ‘All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.’ And this is the word which was preached to you.” Note, it is not just the Old Testament scriptures. Peter recognizes that the message preached to them is part of the eternal Word of God now. We’ve seen at the end of his second letter [2 Peter 3:15, 16] he makes reference to the fact that Paul’s writings are scripture and you twist those you do it to your own destruction. I mean, this is an anchor for us as the people of God today and an unshakable foundation for our lives and our ministry. We have absolute truth, as Francis Schaeffer used to call it, true truth, to distinguish it from the false truth of the world. This is eternal, unchanging truth and I don’t have to worry, well, what if I get up tomorrow and something has happened and now the Bible is not true, or a major portion of it is not true. And yet those of us who know the scripture, what? We get up in the morning and turn on the news and it’s just the opposite. We see more and more the events of the world moving toward more fulfillment and completion of the Word of God. And any appearance that might come that would seem to indicate the Word of God could fail. For example, in World War II when there was such a major move to annihilate the Jews. Say, boy, if the Jews are annihilated what does that have to do with all the promises regarding the future of Israel? Well, you understand that can’t happen. You can get a lot of the Jews annihilated, you could get the vast majority of the Jews annihilated, but one thing you know from the scripture you will never annihilate every Jew because when all is said and done the nation will stand and exist. So certain things are settled and sure. We are not shaken, I don’t get thrown into turmoil. I have unchanging truth to guide my life.

Move on into the responsibility then that those have who proclaim this message. It’s very simple, but it is being thrown away in a wholesale fashion today in the evangelical church. I gave you an example of that earlier. Our responsibility is to take the truth and pass it on. Nothing’s changed. Now I’m not getting the truth directly from God as those who wrote the scripture did, the prophets of the Old Testament, apostles in the New Testament like Paul and Peter. But I have that same message from God to pass on. And that is my responsibility, that is our responsibility.

Look at Jeremiah, back in Jeremiah 1. Isaiah, Jeremiah, just after the book of Isaiah, the prophet Jeremiah and the first chapter. God is calling Jeremiah and the record of the call and appointment of Jeremiah to the office of prophet, if you will, is contained in Jeremiah 1. And look at verse 7. Jeremiah has all kind of reasons why he oughtn’t to be the one to go to proclaim the message to the nation Israel. And one of his arguments was I’m too young, as though God didn’t know how old he was. Jeremiah has to tell Him, I’m just a youth. The Lord says to him in verse 7, “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ because everywhere I send you, you shall go,” and note this, “all that I command you, you shall speak.” Verse 9, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.” That says it simply. Jeremiah is not to be creative, Jeremiah is not to go to the nation and take a poll and find out what they’re looking for. Jeremiah is to take the Word of God and pass it on to them, “My words in your mouth.” Jeremiah got it directly from God. My responsibility as one who teaches you the Word is basically the same. I don’t get it directly from God, I get it from God through Jeremiah, from God through Matthew, from God through Paul. But my responsibility is the same, it’s to be God’s Word in my mouth. That’s our responsibility as we communicate the Word of God and pass on the truths of God.

Look in, just after Jeremiah, the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel, and you have the call and appointment of Ezekiel as a prophet of God in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 2 of Ezekiel God says to Ezekiel, “ ‘Son of man, stand on your feet that I may speak with you!’ And as He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet. I heard Him speaking to me. Then He said to me, ‘Son of man I am sending you to the sons of Israel, to a rebellious people who have rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. I am sending you to them who are stubborn and obstinate children, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ “ It doesn’t say you go there and find out why they are so stubborn and obstinate, you go there and find out if they’d like me to change some things. You go there and tell them what I’ve said. “ ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ As for them, whether they listen or not -- for they are a rebellious house -- then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” You know, the issue is not their response, as far as Ezekiel is concerned. The issue is his responsibility to pass on the Word.

I answered an e-mail that I had received in the last few weeks, I answered it the end of this week. It was from a pastor in another state and he has been having some difficulties in the ministry. I’ve never met the man, but he is familiar with our ministry and using some of my material for a series he’s doing. And he said he’s come to understand the Biblical doctrine of grace, been preaching that, and been using some of my material from the book of Hebrews from years ago. And one of his key families, and he has a small church, came in and told him, we can’t take these doctrines, this kind of preaching, any longer, we’re leaving. And he says, you know it’s discouraging that as you preach the truth and you have someone you’ve counted on to be key in your ministry and they pack up and go. And I shared with him from Ezekiel chapter 2 and 3 to encourage him.

You know, the role of God’s spokesman is to be faithful with the Word of God, and verse 6, “you, son of man, neither fear them nor fear their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions; neither fear their words nor be dismayed at their presence, for they are a rebellious house. But you shall speak My words to them whether they listen or not. I can’t tell you what a blessing this passage is to those who teach the Word of God, what a blessing it’s been in my life. If I get confused, if I begin to wonder, I come back to Ezekiel, and I am blessed to preach the Word of God to a people who submit and respond. It’s a great encouragement, I’m thankful for that. I have opportunity to encourage some men who are in much more difficult ministries, and they are trying to teach the truth to people who are unwilling to listen to the truth. That’s a much more difficult task. But I have to tell them their task is the same as mine. I have to admit you have a harder ministry than I have, but your responsibility is no different. Ezekiel can’t alter his ministry because God’s already told him ahead of time they’re not going to listen. Doesn’t matter, your responsibility is not whether they listen, your responsibility is to tell them what I told you.

“Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I’m giving you.” And then he’s given a scroll and he’s to eat this and devour it. It’s the Word of God and what’s Ezekiel to do? Take it into his life, it becomes like food for him, it becomes part of his life. And then he is to go and give it out to others. And it’s not always a message people want to hear. You’ll note verse 10. This scroll that he’s going to eat, on it were written “lamentations, mourning and woe.” Ezekiel was not free to pick out the things that might be more popular, let’s talk about the good things, the positive things, the upbeat things. And here you take this message of mourning, lamentation, woe, judgment and you go tell them. And you’re already going to a people whose heart is hardened, they’re rebellious.

“Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel,” chapter 3. So he does it and verse 4, “Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, go to the house of Israel, speak My words to them.’ “ You’re not sent to a people of unintelligible, difficult language, you’re going to people who ought to listen to you. They can understand, they speak the same language. At the end of verse 6, “I have sent you to those who should listen to you.” Breaks my heart, these men who are trying to minister the truth of God in so-called evangelical churches and they won’t listen, have a family say we’re leaving because you’re preaching these doctrines of grace. I think, what in the world, these are people who should listen to you.

“Yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you,” verse 7, “they are not willing to listen to Me.” And woe be if I have people who listen to me that won’t listen to God. You know what that means? I’m not giving them God’s truth. I hope that the character of my ministry will be nobody who wants to hear from God wants to hear from me. Ought to be that any teacher teaches the Word in any Bible study, any kind of setting, has the same kind of situation. Anybody who doesn’t want to hear from God ought not to want to hear from you. And what a judgment awaits those teachers who adjust the message to say what the people want to hear rather than what God has given them. So now we’re in a situation I’m dealing with people who don’t want to hear from God but they’ll listen to me. Which says what? I am no longer speaking on God’s behalf. So now what am I? I have the lips of a false teacher.

The house of Israel will not listen to you, they won’t listen to Me [God]. The whole house of Israel is stubborn. You know what God graciously does though? He makes you hard-headed just like them. “I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.” You know what He’s saying? You’re going to butt heads, but cheer up Ezekiel, I’ve given you a hard head. Well, I guess thats its own kind of encouragement. “Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead,” [verse 9]. You know what we ought to be with the Word of God? We ought to be hard heads. You don’t want to butt heads with a teacher of the Word of God. You know why? He’ll crack your skull, he’s got a head like flint. You may not say I’m very smart, but you ought to say I’m hard-headed when it comes to the Word of God. “Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead.” There ought to be no giving on this point for those entrusted with the Word of God. “Do not be afraid of them, or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house… Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely. Go… tell them” to the people “whether they listen or not, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ “ I mean, do you get the idea of the repetition that goes on here? God doesn’t repeat things to no purpose. He said it clearly enough, it is multiplied through the scripture. How are those entrusted with the Word of God right down to our day and the precious scripture, ever going to give an account for God that we were satisfied to deal lightly with it. Well, Lord, people didn’t want to hear the Word today so we had to make adjustments. There is no freedom there.
Go to Deuteronomy 4. I always believe there’s an impact when you see the scripture. There’s impact in hearing it, but I always like it when we turn and you see it on the page. Deuteronomy 4:2, this is God’s attitude to His Word from the beginning to the end. The first five books of Moses are the beginning of our scripture and you have the same emphasis there as you have at the very end of the book of Revelation. Deuteronomy 4:2, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding your, nor take away from it.” Very simple. Don’t add anything, don’t take away anything. It’s God’s Word. I am stuck. We as a church, “the pillar and support of the truth,” as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 3:15, we don’t have any leeway here, we are not free to play with the Word of God. We’re not called to dabble in the scriptures, and we can’t make adjustments to please people. That’s why Paul had to tell Timothy, you preach the Word in season and out of season. The one constant is you preach the Word, when it’s popular and when it’s not, when people want to hear it and when they don’t want to hear it. Simplifies our lives. Don’t you add anything or take away anything.

As the book of Revelation closes, Jesus Christ will say that He’ll add the curses of the book of Revelation to anyone who adds to or takes away. That causes me to think that those who play fast and loose with scripture are really revealing their genuine character. They are under the curse of an eternal hell because they feel free. I was reading some of the commentaries I use just to follow some of these men. They happen to say, well, you know, this portion was probably added as a mistake, it wasn’t really part of it. Men that handle the Word of God like that, can they be called evangelicals? They’re adding to and taking away from the Word of God like that. Then they’re under the curse and curses that God pronounces in doom on unregenerate men. We are far too liberal and loose, we get so concerned that we’re not too narrow, don’t be viewed too hard. Conservative scripture is just the opposite. We’ve become too loose, too accommodating in our handling of God’s precious truth.

Chapter 12 of Deuteronomy verse 32 says the same thing, “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.” Think about it. Most of you come and you can carry a Bible as your own possession. I say turn [to a verse], and you turn and look at it. It’s yours to take home; to open up on Monday and Thursday and Friday and whenever you want; to underline, to mark, to put notes in. What a precious possession we have in the scripture. What a solemn and awesome responsibility. We of all people have no account. You know, for much of Biblical times, Old and New Testament alike, those people just had to hear it read. How would you like to come and sit down and I would read the book of Ephesians to you and you’d be scratching notes like crazy. Then go out and you’re responsible for that truth. What did he say there? Did you get good notes on that? They didn’t have their own copy to take with them. Here we have it. What excuse will we have? I mean, if we forgot what the teacher said we can go home and open up and say, oh yeah, remember that was in that passage, I’ve got it. We can refresh our mind multiple times through the day and we even have concordances. We can’t remember where the verse is we can go look up the word and find it and be sure and clarify our thinking. Think! How responsible are we before the living God with the truth He entrusted to us?

New Testament, turn to 2 Timothy 1. And obviously there are multiple passages we could go to. I’ve just wanted to pick out some samplings. You see, nothing changes for the messengers of God, the servants of God, Old or New Testament. In
2 Timothy, Paul’s last letter, chapter 1 verse 13 he says to Timothy, “Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me.” So you see Timothy is not going to get it directly from the Lord as Paul did as an apostle. But Timothy has the same solid responsibility with the truth that came to him through Paul. You retain, you hold onto that standard of sound words. We’ve taken the title for our tape ministry and so on, ‘Sound Words,’ standard for living. You hold onto that standard of sound words, healthy teaching that you received from me. Verse 14, “Guard through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.” Not only have a firm grasp on it, you guard it and protect it. You entrust it, down in chapter 2 verse 2, “to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” And that’s why 2000 years later here we are what? Passing on the truth that’s been passed on, passed on, passed on. It becomes commonplace. You know, we all have a Bible, we just take for granted this great blessing and privilege of having the Word of God.

Chapter 4 verse 2 I’ve referred to, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season… the time will come when they won’t endure sound teaching.” Sad thing. Keep teaching it, Timothy, and the time’s going to come when they won’t listen to it anymore. They don’t want to hear it, they’re tired of it, it’s old hat. Yeah, I know it, I’ve heard it many times, I just don’t have the interest. Sad state of affairs. So our responsibility with the truth, the eternal truth of God, is to pass it on, pass it on. I have to be careful I don’t take away from it or I don’t add to it, but I just want to pass it on and give it as it is. That’s a responsibility of those who communicate the Word of God. In my role as I teach you week after week is a great responsibility of mine. You pray for me, you need to pray for my study and preparation, that I will be faithful to the Word of God, I will be careful in my study of it to be accurate, to be diligent, to handle properly the Word of God, that I will communicate it clearly, boldly and the Spirit will use His truth as it goes forth.

There is a responsibility on the part of the hearers. You sit and listen to the Word of God, as well as some of you teach the Word of God. Not only do I have to be prepared, using myself as an example, and realizing when I do that there are multiplicity of teachers that we are blessed with in this ministry. For example… I am not the only one teaching the Word, I simply use myself as an example because I’m doing it now. And I have that responsibility with the Word entrusted to me.

But those who come and hear, as you are sitting and hearing, you have a responsibility to be prepared. In Matthew 13 Jesus gave a parable of the soils. And you’ll note, Jesus Christ is the sower in these, and the seed is the Word of God. And you know what makes the difference in the impact of the Word? Not the one sowing, not the seed sown, but the condition of the heart upon which the Word of God falls. Verse 18 of chapter 13, “Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one in whom seed was sown beside the road.” I saw in the paper in the last week or so the name of a person who in the early years of my ministry was here. I sat in small Bible studies with that person over extended time and taught the Word of God. Now 30 years later to the best of my knowledge that person still does not know the Lord. That seed fell on hard ground, that is his responsibility, not mine. The desire of my heart yet is that this person would come to know the Lord, but what we have here is the seed fell on hard ground. The devil comes and snatches it away, it makes no impact. Is that the fault of the teacher? Is that a problem with the Word? No. It’s the condition of the heart, it’s not receptive to the truth.

Then there is seed thrown on rocky places and all those people they get a quick, emotional rush and this is what I’ve been looking for, this is what I want. But the pressure comes, there’s no root there. They’re on to something else. I can think of people that for a time were part of this ministry, now they are in things that are pagan. I could name them. We say, what happened? Well, they got an emotional charge out of this for a while, then the pressure came and things didn’t work out and they’re on to something else. Problem with the sower? No. Problem with the seed? No. Problem with what? Condition of the heart, the Word never really took root in that heart.

Then there are those who hear it on thorny soil, down in verse 22, and the worry of the world, the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful. What happens? They just have their life too full, too busy, they have so much going on they just don’t have time for the Word. And the Word never takes root in their heart. It’s lost in everything. They may not be overly hostile to it, they just have so many things going on in their life and so many concerns and so many things that absorb them, they just don’t have time for the Word of God. And the Word of God gets choked out, nothing happens.

But there is good ground, prepared soil, and it bears fruit. And you’ll note the responsibility ultimately here is with the Word of God. Let me read you from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, great preacher from the 1800s. “We are told men ought not to preach without preparation, granted. But we add, men ought not to hear without preparation. Which do you think needs the most preparation, the sower or the ground? I would have the sower come with clean hands, but I would have the ground well plowed and harrowed, well turned over, the clods broken before the seed comes in. It seems to me that there is more preparation needed by the ground than by the sower, or by the hearers than by the preacher.” If the Word of God is going to make an impact that will be determined by the condition of our hearts as we hear the Word of God. That’s the emphasis of the sower.

Look over in James 1, toward the back of your New Testament again, James 1: 22, “prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” Don’t be like someone who looks in the mirror and then turns and goes away and forgets what he’s seen. That’s a picture of being responsive to the Word, the mirror of the Word, as the Word has revealed your condition before the Lord and so on. A person just goes away, it’s like nothing, its nothing, they’ve just forgotten. Its like me, I look in the mirror, I ought to shave, good idea, go away and forget about it and this is the result. Looking in the mirror and thinking I ought to shave doesn’t make any difference, does it? Because you don’t act on it. That’s what he’s talking about. Here people come and sit and hear the Word and they go out and the day goes on, the week goes on.

Hebrews, just before James, Hebrews 4:2, “For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also,” the “us,” these present Hebrews. Just like the Jews in the Old Testament, but the Word they heard did not profit them. Why? Because it was not united by faith in those who heard. They heard the Word of God but it didn’t do them any good. The problem in the Word of God? No. Even poor preaching and poor teaching when it is communicating the Word of God has the potential to do something. But you know if it’s not met with the response of faith in the heart of the hearers, it doesn’t profit anything. So you see, the all powerful Word of God can be rendered powerless in a life that refuses to respond in faith toward it. The Word of God is the power of God for salvation to everyone who hears, to everyone who believes, Romans 1 [verse 16] says.

You have the awesome power of God. You say, how can they listen to that, how can they hear that, you share the gospel with someone, you say, how can they not believe? They don’t and nothing happens. For us as God’s people, you know, we have to be careful to maintain the passion of our hearts. We won’t take the time to go back to the Psalms again, but for example in Psalm 42:1, Psalm 63:1, David talks about his intense passion and love for God, for His truth. I went through Psalm 119 and just noted all the verses there where David says he delights in God’s Word. Then I went back and listed all the times David says he loves God’s Word. Those together I had over 20 verses (we won’t take time to go through). I went through them again this afternoon, what a blessing. Do I have the same passion, thirst, craving for the Word of God? You know, even as believers I have to be careful that I don’t become dull, that my heart doesn’t become a little more unreceptive. Am I less passionate about God and His truth than I was early in my Christian walk? Why? Why should I be in love with God less with the passing of time? Why should I hunger and thirst for His Word less because I’ve been a believer for many years? Why should I look at new Christians and see their insatiable appetite for the Word and think that they are more hungry for the Word than I am? Have I lost my first love, as the Ephesian church is rebuked for in Revelation 2?

So, you know, I have to work, I have to keep, if you will, the ground of my heart turned over, plowed. I have to be careful, I have to be sensitive. Lord, something is wrong, I’m losing my interest in You and Your Word and developing a coolness, a disinterest in Your Word and thus in You. I just can’t say, well, that’s just what happens as you are a Christian a long time. I need to go back and plow the heart a little bit, and the best thing I find to do that is just to come back to the Word and say, Lord, I just want to read Your Word. I just need without any agenda to come back to the Word and let the Word speak to me and, Lord, I need to have a soft heart, I need to have a heart that is open. I have to be careful as a teacher of the Word, it’s just become a job that I prepare to do because it’s what I do. Everybody does something for a living and I preach the truth. And I say, did this truth get ahold of my heart, Lord, has this passage gripped me, am I passionate about this truth that it thrills my soul?

So we need to be careful and for many of you you’ve been part of this ministry for a long time and you know there are challenges and dangers at every stage of life, just like in the physical development. Just because you’ve become a teenager doesn’t mean now there’s nothing to be concerned about. Aren’t you glad they become teenagers so you don’t have to worry about them like when they were little? You say, oh, did you ever have teenagers? We just got a different set of problems, and I’m not sure they’re less, and on it goes. That’s the way it is spiritually. I have to keep working, keep at it, be sure that my heart is just as tender and just as soft to the Word and just as receptive, and when the seeds of the Word fall on my heart it blossoms. I don’t sit here remembering when it used to blossom like it is in that new Christian’s life. It’s flourishing in my life in ways, in even greater ways, than ever before. And we need even as God’s people to be sure we maintain that kind of heart.

One other note, you know we have the truth of God which is eternal and unchanging. That is the heart of everything we are and everything we do as God’s people. We have the messengers entrusted with the responsibility to teach and communicate the Word of God. And James warns us under the inspiration of the Scripture, not many of you ought to be teachers because you’re going to incur a greater judgment. That will hold us who teach the Word to strict standards, to how faithful we were in handling the Word, in teaching it accurately, not adding to it, not taking away. Those who hear the Word have a responsibility to have prepared hearts, to be ready. You know so often we go to where the Word’s going to be taught and we’ve been so busy about every other thing we’re halfway through the study before we can even get our minds focused where it ought to be. What is so important that it would take precedence over the Word of God, that I would think it not important to prepare myself for the truth? That I run here and there and everything else and I’ve got so much on my mind when I sit down whether it’s in a service or in a Bible study, they’re halfway done and I’m just getting my mind together where now I can listen. Why didn’t I start an hour before I came to prepare my heart? Is there anything more important than the truth of God being taken into my life? Anything going on in my world that’s more important than God’s Word that I can’t plan and prepare myself, just take the Word in and be receptive?

There’s one other dimension, apart from the work of the Spirit, the Word of God does not penetrate a heart, does not do a work. In 1 Corinthians 2, this explains why men of great intellect, scholarly abilities, one of which I read as an example in an earlier part of the service, can labor and toil in the Word and come away not understanding, twisting and distorting the scripture. In 1 Corinthians 2 the apostle Paul says in verse 9 -- a verse that is often used at funeral services, but that’s not really what Paul is talking about. He’s talking about the experience of those who are alive – “ ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.’ For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.” So the things you cannot learn and find out by merely human means. Those things are a matter of revelation to the heart by the Spirit. So it’s not God communicating new truth, in that sense, but the truth of the Word of God, the truth of what God has provided and promised in His salvation, eternal glory for those who become His, you don’t find those things out by natural means. So we oughtn’t to be surprised that the vast majority of scientists in the world are not talking about the creation of an almighty God and don’t see the hand of God displayed as the heavens declare the glory of God, they display His handiwork.

This is a matter of revelation, and to us, to those who have experienced the wonder of His salvation, “God reveal[ed] them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things freely given to us from God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit. But a natural man,” the ‘puchikos,’ the soulish man, the man apart from the Spirit of God, the man without the Spirit of God, he “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” or discerned. Understand that. That’s why it is of no value to try to argue with an unregenerate person and prove to him certain things. He doesn’t want to give in to the gospel. You know what the scripture says, he doesn’t accept the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him, you look like an idiot. We think we get scholarly men to present the Biblical position the world will be impressed. They will not, they just think we’re fools. They can’t understand what we’re talking about, just seems like stupidity to them, it’s moronic, foolish. They are spiritually discerned things. “But he who is spiritual appraises” or discerns “all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord?... But we have the mind of Christ.”

Understand what we have when by God’s grace we came to believe the truth and that’s why no one believes the truth apart from the active work of God’s grace. And the Spirit of God has now come to take up residence in our lives. Then it’s a matter, as we hear the Word of God, it’s a matter of being receptive to the Spirit. Lord, prepare me to hear the truth today, Lord, I want to be submissive to You, to the work of Your Spirit in my heart, to take Your truths and pierce the innermost part of my being with it. Lord, I want to be receptive to what You want to do with Your truth in my life. That’s a work of the Spirit. So an unregenerate person can come, maybe much more intelligent than the believer sitting next to them. The believer sitting next to them is taught the Word of God, it’s alive, it’s real, it’s precious. Yet perhaps a very scholarly, unsaved person sitting next to them, ho hum, when will we be done. They don’t see anything. It’s a work of the Spirit of God.

You’re in Corinthians, we’ll close with 2 Corinthians 3:18. You see the supernatural process that is going on. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.” Remember James said in James 1, don’t be like a man who looks in the mirror and then goes away and forgets the mirror of the Word. So here Paul says that we who have believed in Christ have unveiled faces because when you have come to believe in Christ the veil has lifted. He has already dealt with this in the preceding verses. We are now able to behold the glory of the Lord as revealed in the Word. What I didn’t see before, now I see. We “are being transformed,” we’re undergoing a metamorphosis “into the same image from glory to glory, just from the Lord, the Spirit.” You see now we’ve been born into God’s family and it’s a matter of development, and it’s here we are studying the Word, being taught the Word. The truth of the Word is being used of the Spirit of God to do that work of transformation, to conform us more and more into the image of His glory, to be more and more like our Savior. His character is being developed in us. It’s what the Word of God is doing, and, you know, we’re never done with that. I can never think I’ve studied the Word, I know it, well familiar with it. But you know, I’m still not as mature as Christ, I’m still not perfectly like Him. That ought to be a driving motivation in my heart.

I’ve been a Christian a long time, but I still am not perfectly conformed to Him. I can never tire of the Word, delight to take it in, it’s precious to me, I want it to be more precious. I want to become more like Him. That ought to be our desire every time we’re in the Word, every time we’re being taught the Word. I want this to be a time of further development, further progress. The Word I learned today, that will become part of my life and affect the way I live from here on. That process continues until we are brought into His presence and He brings that conformity to completion.

Let’s pray together in prayer. Lord, thank You for Your precious truths, the treasure that has been entrusted to us. Lord, thank You for the salvation we have in Christ and the presence of Your Spirit in our lives who now makes this truth precious in every way. Lord, may we never tire of this, may it never grow old. May we who have had the privilege of knowing You over many years demonstrate before new believers an insatiable appetite for Your truth, a burning passion to be conformed more to the image of Your glory. Lord, what a blessing it is to belong to You. Thank You for calling us together as Your people in this place. May we grow to maturity together that You might receive the praise for the work of Your grace in our lives. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.