The Power of the Word in the Believer's Life, Part 2 A

As a Christian, it is the capturing of biblical truth in your conscious mind that gives you the capacity to defeat Satan.

You can't do it on your own. Jesus literally triumphed over the devil through the Word of God. It is the source of victory. For over 55 years, John MacArthur has been studying the Bible verse by verse, detail by detail, sorting through the historical background, subtleties in the original language, and various interpretive challenges.

Ever wondered if that's something you could do? Today on Grace to You, John pulls back the curtain a bit, showing you his process for understanding and applying scripture, and it's a method that is within your reach. Useful not only for pastors and Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, this series is basic training for every Christian, men and women alike.

So, to learn how to interpret the Bible and even figure out difficult passages on your own, here is John to continue his series, How to Study the Bible. First of all, we said that we should study the Bible because it is the source of truth. Jesus said in John 17, 17, Thy word is truth.

Great statement. And we talked about the cynicism of Pilate who said, What is truth? Secondly, we suggested to you that we should study the Bible because the Bible is not only the source of truth, but it's the source of happiness. It's the source of joy. In fact, we quoted from the words of Jesus that if you hear my words and keep them, my joy will remain in you. The words of John, These things I write unto you that your joy may be full. The words of the Proverbs, Happy is the man who hears me. The words of Luke 11, 28, Happy are they who hear the word of God and obey it. That's the source of joy. You study the word, you hear what it says, you draw its principles, you obey those principles because it's in your heart to obey them and God pours out the blessing and the joy.

You want to know something? On the other hand, let me tell you this. You could crank out obedience in every legalistic manner you wanted, but if in your heart you didn't want to do it and you were fighting against it, he'd never give you the joy.

Because you see, to do good deeds without a right heart doesn't count. Let me show you what I mean. The Bible talks about fruit. It talks about different kinds of fruit. And it talks about the fruit of the Spirit and that's attitude stuff. And before there is ever the fruit in your life, such as winning people to Christ or studying the word of God or whatever else the Bible talks about as fruit, praise, giving, all the good works, but before the fruit on the outside means anything, it's got to come from the fruit of the Spirit on the inside.

Now listen to this. Action fruit, things you do without attitude fruit, what you feel, that's pure legalism. That's a Phariseeism.

You can crank out all the stuff you want on the outside. You can be a legalist to the teeth, like the Pharisees, and you'll never know joy. On the other hand, if your heart is a heart of obedience and a heart of attitude, you can fail on the outside and God will give you the joy because he reads the gracious obedience Spirit in your heart. That's what he's after. So the promise is this. Study the Bible.

Why? Number one, it's the source of truth. Number two, it's the source of rejoicing.

You say, hey, MacArthur, I really appreciate what you're saying. I got news for you. I study the Bible all the time and I got lots of pain.

I got lots of problems. Well, I got a verse for you, fortunately. I don't leave you hanging with that thought. God doesn't tell you just exactly when you're going to get the joy, right?

You might have to wait a little while. So in John 16, he's looking at the disciples and he says to them, I'm leaving and they're all sitting there moping, you know, they put all their proverbial eggs in one basket. Everybody left his trade. They've all been following Jesus for three years and Jesus up and says one day, I'm gone now, guys.

I'm going to leave you and I'm going to have to go away. That's the way it is. And they're all going, whoa, wait a minute here, man. We joined this baby thinking the kingdom was going to come. What's wrong? Something's happened. And they were very sorrowful and they were very sad. And Jesus said in John 16, verse 20, Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice and you shall be sorrowful, now listen, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. In other words, you've got to realize sometimes that there's going to be sorrow before there's ever going to be joy. In fact, you want to hear something interesting? If you didn't know sorrow, you wouldn't understand joy when it came.

That's right. If you didn't know pain, you wouldn't know pleasure. I was reading recently an interesting little article that was saying the difference between an itch and a tickle cannot be defined medically. And yet a tickle is something that makes you happy and an itch is something that irritates.

Very fine line. Did you know that the difference between pleasure and pain is a very fine line? For example, sometimes there's nothing more wonderful than a really hot shower. And you get it really hot and you just stick one elbow and you sort of ease in it and it's pain and pain and all of a sudden it's pleasure. The thin line between pain and pleasure. You know, I played football when I was in college and all through college I faced that thin line of pain and pleasure.

You torture your body like some kind of maniac. And it's pain and it's pain but all the time you're loving it with some kind of horrendous kind of pleasure. The thin line between pain and pleasure. And I guess if we didn't know pain, we wouldn't know pleasure. If we didn't know pain, we wouldn't know the joy that pleasure can bring. I think one of the reasons that God allows sorrow in our lives is so that we will understand joy when it comes.

And so he says you're going to have sorrow for a little while, be patient. Listen, if you obey the word of God, he'll give you that joy, maybe not instantaneously when you want it, but always when you need it. So, why should I study the Bible? What should motivate me to Bible study? Number one, the Bible is the source of truth. Number two, the Bible is the source of joy. And I'll tell you, no matter what happens in my life externally and circumstantially, when I study the word of God, there is an exhilaration and a joy that is untouched by any circumstance.

Third thing, a third motivating force, a third reason to study the Bible is that the word is the source of victory. I don't know about all of you, but I like to win. I don't like to lose. I lose a lot, but I don't like it, you know.

I like to win. I figure if you're going to do something, do it all the way. My dad used to say that to me from the time I was a little kid. Listen, Johnny, he'd say, if you're going to do it, do it to the best of your ability or it isn't worth doing it. So I grew up with that.

The striving for excellence. I like to win. I don't like to be under it.

I like to be on top of it. And I see that in my own Christian life. I don't like to give an occasion to the adversary. I don't like to get him an advantage over me, as it says in Corinthians. I don't like to see Satan victorious. I don't like to see the world master me.

I don't like to see the flesh override the spirit. I want to win. I have a desire to win.

I remember my football coach used to give us the typical Newt Rockne lecture about, you can't be beat if you won't be beat. And I guess we ought to be like that as Christian. There's no reason to give in to the enemy. And as you study the Bible, you find out that the word of God becomes the source of victory. David said this, and you remember it as well as I do, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. The word then is the source of victory over sin. As the word of God is taken in, it becomes the resource which the Holy Spirit uses to direct us.

It gives handles to the Holy Spirit. You have no way of preventing yourself being led into sin unless the word of God is there so that the Holy Spirit can kick it into your conscious mind. I'll tell you something simple. As a Christian, you'll never function on what you don't know.

It'll never happen. You'll never be able to operate on the principle you never knew. You'll never be able to apply the truth you haven't discovered. So as you feed into your mind the word of God, it becomes a handle by which the Spirit of God directs and guides. Now let's see, for an example, the fourth chapter of Matthew, the classic illustration of facing Satan with the word of God. Here we meet Jesus Christ, and it says in verse 1, Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested or tempted by the devil.

As far as God was concerned, it was a test because he wouldn't fail. As far as Satan was concerned, it was a temptation because he hoped he would. The word can mean either one. Parismas can mean a testing or a temptation.

It's a neutral word. It can mean good or bad. From Satan's angle, he wanted it bad. From God's angle, he knew it would be good. So the Spirit led him into the wilderness knowing he'd passed the test. Satan was there waiting for him hoping he'd fail. And after he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward hungry, not surprising.

But it's interesting to me that because Jesus was such a perfect human being, without sin, his body must have had powers beyond anything we would ever experience. He must have been so strong and so virile and so much of whatever humanness could be in its untapped potential, at least as we know it, that he was not hungry appreciably for all those 40 days until afterward when he really knew the gnawing pangs of hunger. Finally, after 40 days, the tempter came to him and said, and then he gives him three temptations, and you remember them, but in each case, Jesus answered with the word of God.

First he said, If thou be the Son of God, command these stones be made bread. And what he's really saying to him is, Listen, you're the Son of God. You're God in human flesh. You're the Messiah.

You deserve better than this. What are you doing out here in the devastation? What are you doing out here in the boondocks up from Jericho? What are you doing out here in this wretched wilderness inhabited by wild beasts and creeping things? What are you doing out here starving to death? You are the Son of God. Grab some satisfaction.

Make some bread. Man, you deserve it. And he was really tempting him to go against God's plan to grab his own satisfaction.

He was saying, Do your own thing. Don't depend on God. God hasn't met your need yet.

Here you've been 40 days. You're hungry. You're worthy of more than this. He was really tempting him to distrust the care of God. He answered and said, It is written, and he quoted Deuteronomy, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What he was saying is, Look, God promised he'd care for me. I'll keep my trust in his promise.

I'll never use my own powers to violate the promise of God. He countered the temptation with the word of God. Then the devil takes him into the holy city. Jerusalem elevates him up to the pinnacle of the temple. Probably that protruding strut that stuck out of the temple over the valley of Hinnom, which would be as much as 300 feet straight drop, set him up there, and he said, Why don't you dive off?

Just dive off. Cast yourself down, after all. And the devil says, You want to quote scripture?

I'll quote it too. He shall give his angels charge concerning thee in their hands. They shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against the stone. You want to trust God? You're going to hang on to God?

You're not going to make bread? You're going to believe God? Why don't you really believe God? Take a swan dive off here and see if he fulfills his word.

Sounds good. Satan's clever. You want to tell me how much you trust God's word?

Here's a good way to prove it. Dive off. Let him catch you. Jesus said, it's written again, Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test. You trust God, said Jesus. You don't presume on God. You believe him to care for you in the trip.

You don't lay in the freeway. See, there's a difference. Satan then shows him from a high mountain the kingdoms of the world.

He says, Look, I'll give you all that stuff if you fall down and worship me. Jesus said unto him, Get out of here, Satan. One was bad enough. Two was intolerable.

Three is absolutely enough. Leave. For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. And then the devil left him and the angels came and ministered and God fulfilled all his promise.

The point is this. Jesus answered the temptation of Satan three times and every time he quoted directly right out of the Old Testament. Listen, as a Christian, it is the capturing of biblical truth in your conscious mind that gives you the capacity to defeat Satan. You can't do it on your own. Jesus literally triumphed over the devil through the word of God.

It is the source of victory. You can't reason. You can't just try to hassle Satan. You know, it's incredible. People would imagine that they could just argue Satan out of his temptation on their own logic.

Can't be done. Another interesting illustration is Luke 4, verse 33. In the synagogue, there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon and he cried out with a loud voice. He was a demon possessed guy in the synagogue, which must have been rather disruptive for the services there.

We've had a few in our church from time to time, so I guess I know the feeling. And he kept saying, Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? The guy's full of these demons and they're all hollering.

I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst, he came out of him and hurt him not.

And they were all amazed and spoke among themselves, saying, What a word is this! For with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits and they come out. You know what Jesus did? Right there, he established his authority and his power over Satan with his word. With one word, he could vanquish the demons. With one word, he said, Begone, Satan. With one word, he chased the legion of demons out of the maniac of Gadara.

And they said of him, Never a man spake like this man. He speaks as a man of authority, not like the scribes and the Pharisees. Listen, the word of Jesus Christ is absolutely authoritative. Now, when you know the word of God, you'll know victory.

Let me show you one other illustration. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 17. In Paul's discussion of the armor of the Christian, we find that it wraps up with this great piece of armor. Verse 17, Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

This is a tremendous text. Now, he says this, The final piece of armor is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Now, when you think of a sword, a Roman soldier is thinking of some five foot long thing that he flailed around.

That is not what this is. That is the Greek word, ramphaya. This word here, the Greek word for sword is makaira, and makaira was a Greek word referring to a short, small dagger. The sword of the Spirit is not a great, huge, broad sword that you just flail around hoping you'll whack off the head of a demon sooner or later. It is not something used indiscriminately and wildly. It is not buying a great, big, fat, hard-covered, new American standard and beating demons in the head with it.

It isn't that at all. The sword of the Spirit is a makaira. It is a dagger. It is short. It is incisive.

It must hit a vulnerable spot or it doesn't do any damage. The sword of the Spirit, then, is not something general but specific. Now, notice further. The word word here is not the word lagos. The normal Greek word lagos would be used as a general word. The Bible is the lagos. Christ is the lagos.

A general word is the lagos. But when the Bible wants to speak of a specific, it uses the word hrema, H-R-E-M-A, transliterated. Hrema or hrema-ta.

Now, here is the word hrema-ta. Now, watch. This means a specific statement. Are you ready for this? The sword of the Spirit is the specific statement of the word of God that meets the specific point of temptation.

You see? People say, well, I have the sword of the Spirit, I own a Bible. Listen, you could own a Bible warehouse and not have the sword of the Spirit. Having the sword of the Spirit is not owning a Bible, but it's knowing the specific principle in the Bible that applies at the specific point of temptation. And the only way you ever know victory in the Christian life is to know the principle of the word of God to make that application at the specific point where Satan attacks, where the flesh attacks, where the world attacks. As you fill up yourself with the word of God, it becomes the source of victory. Now, you see, you can't even approach the Christian life without Bible study. It's the source of truth, it's the source of joy, it's the source of victory.

Let me give you a fourth one. The word of God is also the source of growth. Everybody wants to grow, but you know something that's sad? See Christians that don't grow. Retarded, stunted, stultified, never grow. And the reason they don't grow is because they don't get in the word. They may go to church and sit there, you know, and they just take a thimble to church, you know, and it gets filled up and they spill it on the steps leaving.

Nothing ever happens. That's sad. Peter says this, and this is a great text, 1 Peter 2, 2, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow by it. In other words, the word is the source of growth.

You know, everybody wants to grow. You know, I'll tell you, when I was younger as a Christian, I remember when I was in seminary. In college, you know, you just kind of, I was just involved in all kinds of stuff and goofing around and I didn't grow much at all. I got the seminary man and I got a taste of the word of God and I just wanted so, I wanted so much of the word that I could hardly stand in. I wanted to grow and grow and grow and I got this tremendous desire to grow and I realized there was only one way that was going to happen and that was if I got into the study of the word of God. And so during my seminary days, I determined to really systematically begin to study the word of God. And that's when I began to grow. My growth, and I'll tell you frankly, my growth is directly proportionate to the amount of time and effort I spend in the study of the word of God. When I have a time period, when I may not study the word of God, I flatten out and when I begin to study, I accelerate.

I guess maybe the worst times in my life in terms of growth are my vacation times when I just kind of flake out and don't do much and I kind of flatten out. That's good though because I get to meditate a little bit but the growth pattern isn't nearly what it is when I'm really into the word. Interestingly enough, verse one kind of lays the groundwork. It says that first of all we have to lay aside all malice, that's a Greek word kakia which means general evil.

You've got to set aside sin, guile, guile means deceit, it's a Greek word for fish hook, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking. In other words, you set aside all the evil things, confess your sin, get your life straightened out, get your act cleaned up, then you hit the word with a tremendous desire and then you really begin to grow. That's what the word can do in your life, make you grow.

And you know the more you grow, the more exciting it becomes. The word is a source of life, you mature, you're enriched, you grow stronger. And as you grow stronger, you're able to defeat Satan. As you grow stronger, you know more about God and his character.

You're enriched in every possible way. In John 663, Jesus said this, The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Jeremiah said, Thy words were found and I did eat them, feeding on the word of God. And again in James chapter 1, in verse 18, it says, Of his own will begot he us with the word of truth. The word is a life giver, the word is a life sustainer, the word is a life builder. It is tremendous nourishment. I think it's 1 Timothy 4 that adds to our understanding of this.

In verse 6, he says, If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ. Listen to this great line, nourished up in the words of faith. The word nourishes us, it feeds us, it builds us, it causes us to grow.

The end of 2 Peter, after he's given the tremendous statements about the collapse of the universe, and he's talked about the elements melding with fervent heat and all those other things, and how it's all going to come down in a crash, he says, What should we do? We should grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. To grow, to grow, and we grow as we feed on the word of God. God wants us mature. He wants us built up.

He wants us strong. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, showing you how to wield the sword of the Spirit with precision. Today on Grace to You, John continued his series, How to Study the Bible. Now, this series is answering one of the most important how-to questions of all. How do you study the Bible?

Of course, John, before dealing with the how-to, it makes sense to consider a why question. Why is the Bible uniquely worthy of our attention? Why can we and why should we trust it? Well, because it is the word of God. It's the only divine revelation. I mean, the religions of the world are built on supposedly some supernatural, transcendent, divinely authored set of principles or truths or books. But that's all deception. There's only one revelation from God.

And that's why the Bible ends by saying, If you add anything to this book or take anything away from it, it shall be added to you the plagues that are written in it. The Bible alone is God's sufficient word. Does it hold up to scrutiny? It certainly does, and it has through the centuries. Is it without error, unfailing, complete, authoritative, sufficient for salvation, hope, happiness and instruction?

And the answer to all those questions is absolutely, and it's been proven to be so. So let me say again, we have a booklet available titled God's Sufficient Word, and it will help you to understand what I've just declared to be true by showing you how the Bible claims these very realities. Spiritual growth, sanctification, becoming more like Christ, of course, is directly tied to the desire for and the intake of biblical truth. Again, we live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

This is our life food spiritually. So this booklet, God's Sufficient Word, will help you build your hunger for the word of God and spur you to greater growth in Christ as you apply the principles in your own study of scripture. You don't need to have nagging doubts about why you should trust the Bible or nagging confusion about what the Bible actually means. This booklet, God's Sufficient Word, will equip you to trust the scripture and understand it.

This is a limited time offer, but we're going to give it to you free of charge if you contact us right away. Yes, friend, if you have doubts about the trustworthiness of the Bible, this booklet can help settle those doubts and show you how scripture can more than meet all of your spiritual needs. To get your free copy of God's Sufficient Word, contact us today. Call us here at 855-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. God's Sufficient Word would be a great resource to go through with a new believer that you might be discipling or as a part of your family devotions. Again, God's Sufficient Word is our gift to you. Just call us at 855-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And remember, Grace To You has thousands of free resources online to help you understand and apply God's Word. So whether you're looking for insight or understanding on a particular Bible passage or what scripture says about the spiritual gifts or how you can know if you're called to ministry, visit us at gty.org and there you'll find blog articles, sermons, and other Bible study tools that will help you grasp the life-changing truth of God's Word and see how it applies to your daily life. Our website again, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DIRECTV channel 378 and tune in tomorrow as John shows you how to stay well-nourished by your most important source of nutrition, God's Word. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace To You.