The Living Word of God - 15

Well, it's time to return to the book of Hebrews after a 10-week furlough to consider other matters. And today we come to one of the best known texts in the entire book. The Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

This verse is instructive, this verse is encouraging, but this verse is also sobering, as we shall see this morning. It is quite common to say that the Bible is God's written Word and Christ is the living Word, for the Bible itself calls Christ the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And so it's understandable that we might use that terminology, Jesus Christ, the living Word, the Bible is the written Word. And yet this text would teach us to say that the written Word is the living Word.

The Word of God, speaking of the Scriptures, is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. And so this text deserves careful consideration, and we will look at it today in four parts. Number one, we will consider the text. Number two, we will consider the context. Third, we will consider the primary application.

And then number four, we will consider two additional applications. Here we go, consider the text. We begin by focusing upon the main subject, which is indeed the Word of God. For the Word of God is living and powerful. That's what the text is talking about, the Word of God. Now because we read in Scripture, in fact one of the Scriptures I just quoted, that Jesus Christ himself is also sometimes called the Word, there have been those who have presumed that this text is talking not about the Scriptures, but about Jesus Christ, who is living and powerful.

But that's not what the text is saying. This particular phrase, Word of God, is found 39 times in the New Testament and never of Jesus Christ. Yes, he's called the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. But this exact phrase, the Word of God, is never used of Jesus Christ. But if you will study those 39 times, you will find that it almost always refers to either the proclaimed Word or the written Word of God. In other words, the Scriptures, the Bible. The main text, the main point of this text is the Bible, God's written Word, God's proclaimed Word, closely linked with Jesus Christ, the eternal Word. That's the main subject, the Word of God. And of this main subject, there is a very informative description found in verse 12.

What do we learn about the Word of God? Number one, that it is living. It is alive. And that's even more clearly emphasized in the original Greek, where the word living is the first word in the sentence emphasizing or indicating that this is the main emphasis. That's what the writer of Hebrews, guided by the Holy Spirit, wanted us to take away from this text more than anything else. God's Word is alive. God's Word is living.

No other book in all the world can be described accurately in this way. No other text can be said to be alive, but the Bible is alive. Furthermore, it is active. The Word of God is living and powerful, or various other words are used to translate that next Greek word, which is, in the Greek, energae, from which we get the word energy. You might imagine that.

It's very close. So the Word of God is living and it is energetic. The Word of God is alive and it is actively working. It is energetically working. It is not alive and sluggish. It is alive and active, working powerfully in many, many places all over the world. And so it is living, it is active, and it is penetrating. And there are several ways that we are told that the Word of God has a strong penetrating activity.

And what is that? Well, we are told, first of all, that it is sharper than a double-edged sword. Most of you have seen photos or artist descriptions of a Roman soldier with his double-edged sword. A sword with two edges and a sharp point on the end. And I'm told that that was the most, the sharpest instrument that was known in that particular time, in the first century. It was a very, very effective weapon. No matter how you swung it, whatever you hit got cut.

Swipe, slash, poke. It was a very effective weapon used by the Roman army. A two-edged sword. This, of course, is a metaphor.

It's a comparison. It's not telling us that the Bible is literally a sword. It is telling us that the Bible is in some respects like a sword. It is sharp like a sword is sharp. It is cutting like a sword is cutting. It is able to penetrate like a sharp sword is able to penetrate. In fact, we are told it pierces to the division of soul and spirit, and we'll say more about that in a moment, and of joints and marrow.

Now all of this is clearly figurative language. The two-edged sword is a figure to describe the effective power of God's word. The ability to pierce to the division of soul and spirit is also, I think, part of this description, part of this word picture, this word figure. In other words, I don't believe that we can take from this a description of man's parts, the parts of man's nature. Is he, and some of you are aware of this debate that goes on, is man essentially a two-part being or a three-part being?

Bipart or tripart? Is he body, one part? Spiritual, the other part? Or is he body, one part? Soul, one part? Spirit, a third part? That's not as easy a question to answer as you might think, but I do think the weight of scripture would indicate that man is essentially a two-part being. He has a physical part. He has a spiritual part. But I think it's also clear that that spiritual part has many complex features to it, and maybe that spiritual part can be further subdivided into soul and spirit. Just like man is a body, the body has many parts. In fact, some of them are referred to here in this text, joints and marrow, parts of the body. And a Roman sword is able to cut up bones and expose the marrow in the bones.

It's sharp and it's able to do that. The Word of God is capable of penetrating into the spiritual parts of man, not literally cutting up his physical body, but is able to cut up the spiritual part of man to expose what is there, to divide what needs to be divided. And the Word of God has that ability. This is an informative description of what the Word of God is like. It discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart and is, and I'm going to give you an extended quotation here from Zane Hodges, who often has some good things to say. I don't trust him in every area of what he has to say, but I'll leave that for another day.

But I think he's very insightful at this point. He said that the Word of God is able to discriminate between what is spiritual and what is soul-ish. What is spiritual and what is natural. The natural man who has not been born again has a spiritual side to him, doesn't he? He has a soul.

We'll call that his soul-ish side. There's a spiritual dimension to those who have not been constituted a spiritual person as the Bible speaks of it, who have not been born again. And so it's able to discriminate between what is spiritual and what is soul-ish. Even when these often contradictory inner elements are interwoven as closely as joints and marrow. Inner motives are often a mixture of genuinely spiritual and human elements. It takes the Word of God to sort out and expose what is flesh.

What we think is spiritual may be soul-ish. End quote. Now that is a lot said in that statement.

That's why I took the time to read it. To help you understand what he's saying. In fact, to help you understand what he's saying, even though it's a long quotation, I'm going to read it again. I want you to catch this. So here we go.

Listen. The Word of God is able to discriminate between what is spiritual and what is soul-ish. Even when these often contradictory inner elements are interwoven as closely as joints and marrow.

Inner motives are often a mixture of genuinely spiritual and human elements. It takes the Word of God to sort out and expose what is flesh, not what is body. When the Bible talks about what is flesh, it's talking about the natural man apart from the new birth. Body and soul. And it takes the Word of God to sort out and expose what is flesh, that is what is merely spiritual, has spiritual elements but belongs to the natural man.

And it takes the Word of God to sort out and expose what is flesh. What we think is spiritual may be soul-ish. Have you heard people say, well, I'm not religious but I'm spiritual.

What does that mean exactly? That's nonsense as far as what the Bible has to say. But that does mean that people recognize that there's something within us besides our physical body. There's a spiritual dimension to every person. And what they are saying is, I have gotten in touch with my human soul and I find a lot of help there and I focus on that and I get direction and guidance from this inner person, this spiritual part which is not really spiritual.

It is soul-ish, it is natural but it seems spiritual to many people who are unconverted. It can even be confused with what is truly spiritual in the minds of God's true children. And so the Word of God is living. The Word of God is active. The Word of God is penetrating.

The Word of God is finally all-encompassing. Nothing is hidden, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Nothing is hidden, inner motives are detected. No one is hidden, verse 13, and there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Nothing is hidden from this powerful living Word of God. No one can hide from this powerful living Word of God.

All are fully exposed. Everyone is naked and open, that means face to face, with the Word of God, truth, with God himself, we must all face him someday, with ourselves. We don't really understand ourselves fully. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? But we will confront face to face the truth of God's Word, the truth and reality and presence of God himself, and our true inner man will be fully exposed to us as it is to God someday.

Everything is naked and open in his sight. And so we are going to stand before God and we are going to stand before him face to face. I read in one of the commentaries that it was a custom, at least in some places in the ancient world, when a person was a defendant in a court trial and having to face his accusers and face the judge, a dagger was fastened to his neck, pointed to his chin, so that he could not drop his head and avert his gaze from the judge, from the prosecuting attorney, from witnesses against him. He had to face them all face to face.

He couldn't even hide his eyes in court from these elements. And that may be what is referred to here. All things are naked and open to the eyes of him whom we must give, to whom we must give an account.

We are going to face God and there will be no hiding in that day. But now having considered the text, let's consider the context. And I want us to look first at the immediate context and then at the larger context. The immediate context is the verse immediately preceding, verse 11. And in many Bibles, depending on how your Bible is laid out, verses 11, 12, and 13 are one paragraph.

They go together. It constitutes one section. And verse 11 says, Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, which we've learned by previous studies refers ultimately to the heavenly rest. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience, that is the example of the Israelites in the wilderness who did not believe. For, connected to this, connected to the statement of verse 11, diligence in entering that rest, warning against falling short of that rest by unbelief, for the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, et cetera. In the immediate context, we are reminded that diligence is required to attain eternal rest. That goes contrary to many modern concepts. In fact, I've often heard people say, All you have to do is believe.

Well, that's true, but when you say it like that, you miss the point. La, la, la, la, la. All you've got to do is believe. Let's pull that into context. All you are able to do is believe, and you can't even do that without God's help.

This isn't a simple little matter. Tra, la, la, la, la. Believe, believe, believe. Tra, la, la, la, la. I'll ask Jesus into my heart. Tra, la, la, la, la.

Everything is fixed. No, this text, as many others in the Bible tell us, that diligence is required to enter that eternal rest because all you can possibly do for your soul's salvation is to trust in Christ, and faith is given to us by God, so you don't even have the faith to believe until God gives it to you. Now, that puts it in a different context, doesn't it? In other words, saving faith is not an easy exercise, as we are often led to believe. It's all up to you.

Just make that decision. Believe, believe, believe, and you're eternally secure. And yet there are warnings like this again and again and again through all the scriptures. Watch out. Be careful.

Be sure. Be diligent. Diligence is required to attain eternal rest. We are easily deceived about our own state before God. We're easily deceived about faith, whether what we have claimed as faith is true saving faith or not. We are easily deceived about whether or not we have, by a work of the Holy Spirit, truly by faith laid hold upon Christ. And we need to give diligence to make sure that what we are counting on for salvation is, in fact, true Holy Spirit-granted faith because of his work of regeneration in our souls, rather than a trite little decision that we are misled to believe is as simple as just saying, Hey, now I believe. Now I'm saved.

The danger of falling short. Verse 11, Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. That's the immediate context of verse 12.

And then if we look at the larger context, it really just expands upon what we see compressed into verse 11. Going clear back to chapter three, verse six, we learn of the necessity of persevering faith. But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, listen to this, we are in Christ's house if we hold fast the confidence of the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. Or verse 14, For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.

Now, anyone who has ears to hear realizes that this is a solemn and serious matter. Those whose Christian walk is noticeably wobbly ought to be concerned about whether or not they have ever truly been born again. In the larger context, we see the necessity of persevering faith.

In the larger context, we see the failure of Israel. A good section of Psalm 95 is quoted in chapter three, verses seven through 11. And then that portion is referred to again and again throughout chapters three and four. And that's the account of this entire generation of Israelites who were redeemed by God out of Egypt and then died in unbelief in the wilderness and never entered God's rest, except for Joshua and Caleb and Moses, who was saved, though he didn't enter that rest either because of disobedience, but not because of lack of saving faith. But imagine a whole generation, hundreds of thousands of people, who saw the miracles of God in Egypt, who heard the voice of God from Mount Sinai, who saw evidences of God all around them, who were fed daily by the miracle of manna from heaven.

And on and on and on we could go about the evidences of God's presence. Yet they did not believe and they died in unbelief in the wilderness. And that is set before us here in Hebrews three and four as a warning to professing believers in our day.

The failure of Old Testament Israel is the larger context. The danger of hidden unbelief is in the context. Chapter three, verse 12, beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Or verse 19, so we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Although I could go on, I'm not going to spend any more time with the larger context where we've already worked through that larger context in previous sermons. But the point is that we dare not trifle with the state of our soul. We dare not trifle with our claim to faith in Jesus Christ. We dare not delay to apply the word of God to our hearts daily.

To fail to do so is a dangerous thing, and the context warns us of that. This is a strong warning to professed believers. Who are professed believers? Anyone who professes to be a Christian.

Anyone who professes to be saved, some of whom truly are, some of whom are not. This is a warning to profess believers. Do not be presumptuous. Do not ignore God's warnings. Do not forget the penetrating power of God's word to expose hidden unbelief in your heart.

Which introduces this number three to the primary application of this text. And that is that there is a future day of judgment, verse 13. And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we, the writer of Hebrews includes himself in this statement, to whom we must give account. There is a future day of judgment, a day of accountability for all of us. That day of judgment requires accountability of unbelievers. It requires accountability of believers. It requires accountability of professed believers, those who think themselves to be true believers who actually are not. We must all, Paul tells us in second Corinthians chapter five, we must all give an account before God.

So number one, there's a future day of judgment. This is the primary application of verse 12. The word of God is alive and powerful. Verse, yes, verse 12. The word of God is alive and powerful. We often use it in a different context and a different application, which I don't think is illegitimate. God's word is powerful enough to bring life to a dead soul, to separate the soul from the spirit and so forth.

All of that is true. But in its context, the most immediate application and the primary application is in regard to the future day of judgment. There is a future day of judgment where all must give an account and no one can escape this appointment. No creature is hidden from his sight. No creature. None are exempt from this appointment. No unbeliever, no believer, no pseudo-believer.

All must give an account. And what this text is telling us is that no one can conceal the true condition of his heart. God's word penetrates to the deepest recesses of the human heart. God's word distinguishes the most difficult thoughts and motives. God's word is able to distinguish between soul and spirit, that is, of the most complex and interwoven parts of the inner man.

Parts of our own heart that we struggle to distinguish. If we're honest before ourselves and God, we recognize that many times we can't fully distinguish between what is soulish and what is spiritual. We do something with a desire to please God, to serve him, and yet many times when we take the time to examine carefully, we find there are elements of soulishness in that. There are elements of human pride in that. There are elements of wanting some reward for ourselves in that.

There's elements of wanting some kind of applause for ourselves in that. It was this strange mixture of serving and pleasing God on the one hand because of the life of God that has been granted in us in the work of the Holy Spirit, intermixed with selfishness and pride and self-advancement in these things that we are doing that on the one hand look like we're doing them for the Lord, but they have this mixture of the soulish and the spiritual all together. But the Word of God is able to distinguish those things and it is the only thing that is able to distinguish those elements. We struggle to distinguish them, but the Word of God is alive and energetically active and able to divide between the soulish and the spiritual and to discern the thoughts and intents of our heart. Though what we think is spiritual may in fact be soulish, God's Word is able to tell for sure.

And it will tell us at that day of accountability. So the primary application is that the Word of God reveals everything. What verse 12 about the Word of God being alive and powerful is all about is that it describes the judicial power of God's Word, its ability to judge perfectly and utterly. What is hidden from men is not hidden from God. God's Word will bring everything to light. God's Word will rightly reveal the truth about every inner thought and motive. Hidden unbelief cannot escape detection from this powerful living Word of God. You may fool others as to your spiritual condition, but you'll never fool God who has the use of this powerful Word. You may deceive yourself.

We all do. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know his own heart?

He can't fully. But the Word of God is able to discern accurately what is in our hearts. We may fool others, we may fool ourselves, but we will never, ever, ever, ever fool God.

Everyone must give an account. Those who are in Christ will hear the Word acquitted, but after we have given account. Martin Luther had the right idea. We sing it. From depths of woe I cry to thee. Lord, hear me, I implore thee. Bend down thy gracious ear to me, my prayer let come before thee. Lord, since thy searching, I doth see our sin and our iniquity. Lord, who can stand before thee?

No one apart from Christ. Of course, that's the good news, but the text doesn't get to that until we move beyond the verses we are considering today. So that's the primary application. The primary application has to do with the judgment that we must all face before God.

But consider also two additional applications. The first one is the personal utilization of God's Word, and the second one is the public utilization of God's Word. This encourages us to a serious personal utilization of God's Word. If it has this kind of power, then we better acquire that for our own good, our own spiritual well-being.

To rightly understand our own hearts, to properly prepare for the coming day of judgment to which we must all stand and give an account. The personal utilization of God's Word requires, number one, that God's Word must be solemnly regarded. The Bible, as this verse tells us so clearly, is not a dead letter written hundreds of years ago that are interesting and applicable to the people to whom it was originally written, but have nothing of particular import for us today.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Not the Word of God was living and powerful in that day. The Word of God is living and powerful in our day.

It is not a dead letter. Nor is it a mere collection of religious writings from the past. We study the Word of God to find out what those people thought about God. We study the Bible to find out what we can about the religious thoughts of people in centuries gone by. Wrong again.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. The Word of God is alive and powerful today. Therefore, considering its unique nature, therefore considering its connection with God Almighty Himself, close connection, the Word of God, the Bible, must be reverently esteemed and highly valued. John Calvin said, whenever His Word is set before us, we must tremble because nothing is hidden from Him. Whenever God's Word is set before us, we must tremble because nothing is hidden from Him. God's Word must be solemnly regarded. Number two, God's Word must be humbly received. Submissively received. Which is why we need to develop the discipline of Bible reading.

Get a schedule if you're not already doing it. Which is why we need to develop the discipline of hearing God's Word expounded. Which is why we need to develop the discipline of preparing our hearts to come to read the Word of God, to prepare our hearts to come to hear the Word of God expounded. God's Word needs to be humbly received. We need to develop the discipline of uncritical reception.

Things that we are familiar with because we are accustomed to them, we've grown accustomed to them over exposure over a long period of time. We are very prone in our soul-ish nature to regard as common. We must fight against that. We must give ourselves to regarding the Word of God highly. We must give ourselves to receiving it humbly whenever it is set before us. Regardless of who it is that is setting before us, if it is someone who is honorably and honestly setting God's Word before us in truth, then we need to have a humble, reverent, receptive, appreciative attitude. It's so easy for us to become critics.

It's so easy for us to think we're here to evaluate. Well, that was a good sermon. Well, that was a so-so sermon. Well, that wasn't a very good sermon at all. I'm here to judge the sermon.

No, no, no, no, no, no. This is not seminary class work. We're not delivering sermons to the professor to receive a grade. Everyone is here to hear the Word of the living God.

You need to come to it with the most humble, reverent, respective, appreciative attitude or you are going to do your own soul great harm. And furthermore, we need to develop the discipline of meditation. The Bible talks about that quite a bit, doesn't it? Joshua 1.8, do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.

Then you will be prosperous and successful. Psalm 1, verse 2, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night. That's the godly man, the righteous man. Or Psalm 100, 1997, oh how I love your law, I meditate on it all the day long. I'm afraid we have lost the art for the most part of meditation in our day.

Quick, quick, quick, hurry, hurry, hurry. Filling our environment with other things, distractions all the time. You can't even get away from the cell phone ringing when you come to church sometimes, can you? We have to make it a real effort to get alone with God and his word and to think about it, to meditate on it, to ask God to help us to apply it honestly to our own souls, which is what we must do. The word of God must be solemnly regarded.

The word of God must be humbly received. The word of God must be eagerly sought because it's the only thing that can reveal to us the true condition of our hearts. Apart from the word of God, you don't know your own heart.

And if you are evaluating your heart apart from the word of God, you are simply furthering your own deceit. God's word alone can reveal the true condition of your heart. God's word alone can enable you to stand in that day of judgment prepared to face God and to enter into his presence after that day of accountability. But another application, and the final one, has to do with the public utilization of God's word.

If this is true, if God's word has this kind of power, then it needs to be publicly proclaimed near and far, neither neglected nor replaced. There is no substitute for the Bible. There's no substitute for God's word. God's word does not tell us to entertain people into salvation. God's word tells us to preach the word of God.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It must be faithfully proclaimed, and it must be confidently trusted, because it alone is able to produce salvation. It alone is able to accomplish eternal good. What it cannot achieve cannot be achieved. What the word of God cannot achieve, if there's anything it cannot achieve spiritually, but what cannot be accomplished by the utilization of the word of God cannot be achieved at all. There is no other method. There is no other weapon.

There is no other tool. There is no substitute for the word of God. If we are going to have ministries, churches that are pleasing to God, we must concentrate upon the proclamation of God's word, and we must trust that and that alone to get God's work done. And we must rest in that and be satisfied with that, because we trust what the Bible says about itself.

When I was all done with this and working on introduction and conclusion, which always comes last, I thought, what an appropriate text for the first Sunday of the new year. It ought to cause every one of us, right on this first Sunday of 2024, to renew our commitment to scripture reading. It ought to cause every one of us to renew our commitment to church attendance.

It ought to cause every one of us to renew the priority we give to God's word. Well, I can't make it to church because my child is playing in a ball game, for one example. I understand the desire, the utility, the value of parents attending their children's ball games. But if you attend every ball game that your child is involved in or dance class or whatever it may be, but don't present to your children the assurance that their parents esteem the word of God highly and of greatest importance and of highest priority, then what have you given your children? Well, they came to all my ball games, but they didn't convince me that the word of God is all that important.

Is that what you want to leave your children? This is the time to renew your commitment to church attendance. This is the time to renew your commitment to meditation upon God's word. This is the time to renew your commitment to self-examination.

We've got to take time to do that. So easy to hear a sermon and slough it off. So easy to hear a sermon and say, well, that was interesting and go our way.

Or to read a passage of scripture and do the same thing. Well, got that done. I got my reading done for today.

Cross it off, check it off. Yes, but did you receive the truth? Did you apply it to your soul? Did you allow it to teach you anything?

Did you allow it to show you anything about your own spiritual condition? Let's renew our commitment to self-examination. Another songwriter hit the nail on the head when he wrote, Search me, O God, and know my heart today. Try me, O Savior, and know my thoughts, I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me. Cleanse me from every sin and set me free. Let's pray. Father, let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.