This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Thanks for joining us for today's program. At Connect with Skip, we're all about helping you connect with God's Word in a deeper way. That's why we make messages like Todays available to you and others across the globe. And right now, when you sign up for Skip's weekly devotional emails, you'll receive a free download of chapter 1 from Skip's book, The Biography of God.
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Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. It is estimated that Billy Graham has given out the gospel to some 215 million people in 1850. Countries. He's been called America's pastor. He's been called God's ambassador.
He's been called pastor to presidents, etc., etc. And of course the famous line, From all of Billy Graham's many years of preaching and every message that he ever preached is him holding the Bible saying, The Bible says The Bible says The Bible says he did that his entire life. But did you know that Billy Graham had a crisis? with the Bible. Back in 1949, he was at a conference center in Southern California in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The conference center is called Forest Home. And while he was there, some of his buddies Challenged his belief in the scripture, saying the Bible is outdated, nobody believes that anymore, nobody can trust that book anymore. And that really bothered him, and it sent him into an intense Study of the reliability of the scripture. And as he was studying on that theme, the reliability of the scripture. One night he was restless.
He was tossing and turning. He couldn't get any sleep all night. And he got up. And he Took a walk and he thought to himself, well. If the Bible can't be trusted, then I'm going to quit preaching.
I'm going to stop evangelizing. And so, as he took a walk, he was walking through the forest. It was a pretty well-lit evening, and he noticed a stump. Along his path, and he put his Bible on top of the stump. And there in the moonlight, he said, Lord, I don't understand everything in this book.
But today I accept it by faith. That it's your word. That was nineteen forty-nine. And I'm so glad he had a crisis of faith in 1949 because just 24 years later, He would preach the gospel to me. And I would give my life to Jesus Christ.
And I don't think I would be here today were it not for a man who had a crisis of faith that God answered. When he said, I don't understand it all, but I accept it all by faith. That's the premise of this study in Today's set of texts in the book of James. The Word of God. Does the work of God.
In the hearts of the people of God. to the glory of God.
Now James Has been telling us up to this point that God is not the author of evil. He is not the author of Temptation. Temptation doesn't come from God. But rather, God is the giver of good gifts because that is His nature. God is a good God.
And all of the good gifts that God gives. are promised and provided In his word.
So the word of God and our response to the word of God is the subject of the next set of verses in the book of James, chapter 1. It all revolves around the idea of the Word of God. It is referred to five times in the next several verses. I draw your attention to verse 18, where we are going to begin in just a minute, but notice the little phrase: the word of truth. The word of truth.
Then go down to verse 21, where it is called the implanted word. And then in verse 22 and 23, simply and generically, the word. Then into verse 25, he refers to the word of God, but under a different title, the perfect law. And also, the law of liberty. All of this is speaking of this subject of the Word of God.
What it does. and how we should respond to it. And that is always the issue, isn't it? How we respond to it. What do you do with your Bible?
In fact, I know you've had people in your life tell you, what's up with you in the Bible? You're always carrying that Bible around. You're always quoting the Bible. What's with the Bible? And they ask that because they don't have the same view.
of the Bible As the word of God, as you do.
Some thoughts that people have is: well, the Bible's a good book. I think everybody should have one. It sort of brings you good luck. It's nice to have in your house to record births and deaths. Maybe even press a few flowers.
Every family should have one. Other people will say, yeah, the Bible, the Bible is a good piece of literature. It shows the high level of human achievement. But it's just the word of men. Or people will say, Yeah, the Bible.
I believe the Bible is inspired, it's an inspired book, but. Then again, so is Shakespeare. And so is my sixth grade Um Students Our project, so inspiring.
Now, if you hold any of these positions. You are not following Jesus Christ. I can flat out say that. If you hold any of these positions, you are not a follower of Christ because you don't hold the same view of the person you say you follow. 64 times Jesus referred to the Bible, the Word of God, the Old Testament in that case, 64 times always as.
The word of the living God. In fact, Jesus said, it cannot be broken. It cannot be broken.
So if Jesus is wrong in this, then why would you ever accept anything else he said? Which leads me to say this. Find out. What a person thinks about the Bible, and you will find out what a person thinks about Jesus. Oh, they can say Jesus' name all day long.
I believe in Jesus. I follow Jesus. I love Jesus. Find out what a person thinks about the Bible. And you'll find out what a person thinks.
about Jesus. I've always loved the story of Sir Walter Scott. He was the Scottish Poet, writer, historian. Very famous and when he was dying he said to one of his aides bring me the book And one of his aides said, The book. You have like thousands of volumes.
Which book? He said, The book. The Bible. The book. The only book.
For a dying man. It is the only book for a dying man. It's the only book for a living man. and a living woman. This is The Book.
This is God's book. This is God's voice. This is God's word.
Now what I want to do in these verses In verse eighteen down to verse twenty-one, is show you three. Benefits of the word, three powerful accomplishments. Pretty straightforward. First. It produces spiritual birth.
It produces spiritual birth. Verse 18: Of his own will. That is God, God's own sovereign will, of his own will. He Brought us forth. By the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits.
of his creatures. The word brought forth means birth. He has birthed us, to give birth to. It's the same exact word in the original language as verse 15 that we read last week, where it says, Desire gives birth to sin, sin when it is full grown. brings forth death.
So since gives birth to death. God gives life. People become born again. By the word of God, by hearing the word of God. In 1 Peter chapter 1, the book right after James, Peter said, This: having been born again.
Not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever.
Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached unto you.
So the word of God is like a seed that that sprouts new life. When I became a believer in Jesus Christ, I became a believer, as you know, by hearing Dr. Billy Graham. I heard a sermon he was giving. This is back in 1973.
And I remember listening to this message. I wasn't even there. Um Personally, I was just watching this on television. But I remember. Hearing the word of God preached brought conviction to my heart.
And it was like a seed breaking through. Hard ground. And for me, as I'm listening to the Word of God preach, it was like an explosion of understanding. happened in my heart. It's like, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it, I want it.
And I believed. I was born again. And that's all of our story.
Somebody spoke the gospel to you, and you believed it. You were transformed. You were born again. Romans chapter 10. How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Then it keeps following the thought, and finally, in verse 17, so then, writes Paul, faith. comes by hearing. And hearing by the word of God.
Same idea. A message was spoken, proclaimed, preached. Based on the truth of the scripture, and people believe it. When they do, their spiritual birth.
So, of his own will. He brought us forth, or made us born again, or gave us birth. by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
Now I find it interesting that James refers to scripture as The word of truth. This is in James. The word of truth. And I say, I'm interested in that because that's sort of a Pauline expression. Paul, on a few different occasions, Speaking about the scripture, calls it the word of truth, or maybe a better translation, the message of truth.
The true message. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heidsek. Before we return to today's message, what does real spiritual maturity actually look like and how can you achieve it? In his new series, Adulting, A Study Through the Book of James, Pastor Skip gives straight talk from scripture on how to grow up in your faith through trials, temptations, and daily life. This eye-opening 21 message series is our thanks for your generous gift of $50 or more to help reach more people with God's Word through Connect with Skip.
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Now let's get back to today's teaching from Pastor Skip.
Now, when he speaks about the word of truth, He's not speaking about this in a subjective sense. But in an objective sense. It's not like the word of truth. This is my truth. I don't know if it's your truth, but my truth tells me this, and this is what I experienced, so therefore it is my truth.
But you have to follow your own truth. That's not what he means. That is what many people mean today. That's very popular to say the idea that truth is fluid, not fixed. And everybody is inherently good, and therefore you have your own truth, like I have my own truth.
No, he's not speaking about that subjectively, but objectively, the truth. the universal absolute truth And it's true in every language, on every continent, and for every single person. Primarily We are people of the truth. And we follow the one Who said that he was the embodiment of truth? I am the way, the truth, and the life.
In Daniel chapter 10, Daniel referred to the Bible as the scripture of truth. All these claims to be the truth. That is This book will always tell you the truth. The truth about God, the truth about you, the truth about your condition, the truth about your need, the truth about the rest of the world. Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, if you hold to my teaching, then you are really my disciples, for you will know the truth, and the truth will finish it for me.
Set you free. The truth will set you free. It's funny that that little phrase has been used on a number of universities and colleges around our country. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And when they quote that, they forget, of course, that it is specifically referring to the truth about Jesus Christ, which saves people.
They just think it's this generic truth. Um I'm giving this as an example, Harvard in 1636. had for their crest their motto, The words veritas. Crystal. At Ecclesiae.
which is Latin for truth for Christ. And the church. And the crest of Harvard University originally had three books that were opened on the crest. Two of them that were opened upward, speaking of the Old Testament and the New Testament, one of them facing downward, inferring the limitation of human knowledge and its dependence upon scripture.
Well, as time went on, the logo for Harvard University changed, and instead of truth for Christ and his church, now the motto is simply veritas, truth. Veritas. And the book, instead of being closed that spoke of the limitation of human knowledge, is now opened to show the unlimited capacity of the human mind.
So, at one time, you have a university like many of them who said. The truth is based upon the Christ of the Bible and his claims, and we should prepare people with that truth to just simply generic truth. But the truth is It is the Word of God that gave us birth. It is what gave us life. And though there are many evidences for the Bible, I would say you are exhibit A.
Your changed life. You can always pull that out when people say, Well, show me an evidence of the Bible.
Well, I'm one. If you knew me before, you would say, yep, whatever you're into works. You've been changed.
So it produces spiritual birth. That's the first benefit of the word. It produces spiritual birth. Second benefit. It provides spiritual truth.
Now look at verse 19.
So then, my beloved brethren, Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak. Slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of the man. of God.
Now, these two verses are some of the best examples of verses that are taken out of context by people. I've heard this quoted on a number of times, completely out of context, sort of as isolated verse of scripture, basically interpreted by people saying, you know, shut up and listen up. That's kind of what this means, but that is not the context here. Notice how verse 19 begins. What are the first two words in it?
So then.
So then, it's sort of like therefore, right?
So then, he's pointing backwards to what he has just written about. And what has he just written about? He has just written about the word of truth.
So when he says, be swift to hear, Swift to hear what? The word of truth. Be slow to speak against what? The word of truth. Be slow to get angry at what?
The word of truth. This is James telling us. Here's your response. God's word. This is our response to God's word.
Be swift to hear, be slow to speak, be slow to wrath.
Now let's go through those. Let every man be swift to hear. Literally be swift. To the hearing. We might say, be swift to the sermon.
Be swift to the exposition of The Bible of Scripture. That is, be a careful listener whenever the Bible is taught. Pay careful attention so that you get the message right. A couple of weeks ago, after a Saturday night service here, a couple women came up to me afterwards and thanked me for the message, and they said, I have to go home and listen to that all over again. And I said, well, why is that?
She goes, well, there was a gal in front of us on her phone the whole night shopping.
So I I couldn't pay attention because I'm watching her on her phone shopping during the whole service.
So that is not being swift to hear. The hearing ear becomes the conveyor of truth to the believing heart. You have to have a believing heart first. If you have a believing heart, It would only follow that you would want to be swift to hear truth. Jesus said, He that has an ear, let him hear.
In any field of knowledge, we learn by listening. You go to school, you sit in a classroom, you listen to the professor gives you lectures, you take the test to see if you were really. paying attention. Any field of knowledge requires that you listen. Yes, there's a time for asking questions, but only after you have intently listened to the information.
And the better the teacher is, the more that teacher will try to address questions so you don't have so many.
So be swift to hear.
Now I can think of a few examples of This, the best in my view, is a group called the Bereans. The Bereans, that was a place that Paul visited after Thessalonica. He went to the town of Berea, and in Acts chapter 17, verse 11, it says: Those in Berea were more noble or fair-minded than those in Thessalonica. because they received the word with all readiness. Readiness means eagerness.
They were eager to receive it. They had enthusiasm when the Bible was taught. There was a fervor. They were swift to the sermon. That's a mature Christian.
A mature Christian is quick to find Resources from the Bible for life. When he is blessed, he looks for passages of thanksgiving and praise. When he is troubled, he looks for words of comfort and strength. When confused, he looks for passages that give guidance and wisdom. When he is tempted, he searches for truths on purity and the power to resist temptation.
That is what it means to be swift to hear. Another example isn't a church, but a person. A woman named Mary. who, while Martha her sister, was busy being cumbered about with much serving, Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to his word. And when Martha said, Tell her to get up and help me, Jesus said, your sister has chosen the better part.
Not that it's wrong to serve, but it's better to be swift. to hear. What As good as This is, and as much as we might agree with James, We have a problem. We live in a culture that has produced poor listeners. We live in a culture, we live in a world where we have a media that has.
uh served to trim down our attention spans. Did you know that? Did you know that the human attention span is far less today than it ever was? A study was done, several actually, but one that I'm quoting from, that said the average attention span has decreased over the past two decades from 2.5 minutes. to 45 seconds.
That is a sixty-six percent decrease. in attention span.
So we're up against a monumental impediment. People don't listen like they used to. And why is that?
Well, there's a number of things that would add to that. Articles, written articles, are much shorter than they used to be. Articles used to be written with far more information. And require far more time to read. But now, articles are shorter.
In fact, many articles will tell you when you start how long it will take you to read them. And then you can decide, do I even want to bother? It's over a minute. That's one problem. The other problem is multiple devices.
Some people will hold up a phone while they're watching a show on television. That's how distracted we have become. We have to be on two separate screens. We can't take our eyes off of it. Then there's social media, which offers us an endless stream of short clips.
Short clips. What all that means is simply this: the written word and the spoken word is very rare. Very rare. And rarer still are those who will slow down enough to. Listen to it.
But it can happen. I've always loved the two disciples on the road to Emmaus after Jesus appeared to them and they said to one another, did not our hearts burn within us while he spoke to us? That can happen. It still happens today. But only if we Choose to make that happen.
We have to be swift to hear. And so, from time to time, it's good for you and I to take inventory of our spiritual appetite. How hungry are you for the Word of God? I mean, really, only you can answer that. Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Not blessed are those who casually snack in righteousness, but hunger and thirst. Are you swift to hear? Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, don't forget to request this month's featured resource, Adulting, a study through the book of James, Pastor Skip's 21 Message Series that gives you straight talk from Scripture about how to grow in spiritual maturity and live out your faith in the real world. Adulting is our thanks for your generous gift of $50 or more to help share God's word with more people.
Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. And while you're there, sign up for Skip's weekly devotional emails and get a free download of a chapter of Skip's The Biography of God. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection never fully. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of connection communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
