The Word of God

Put your Bibles with you.

Turn with me if you would to Hebrews chapter 4 and we're looking at verses 12 and 13. We lift up our sick to you this morning. Continued prayer for Ralph Ingram and Diane Joyner. Molly Rowden, who have recently had surgery. We pray for upcoming surgeries for Cindy Agnew and Lisa Menzel. Pray for continued healing for Jeremy Karriker and Jim Belk and Brenda Torrance and Kim Oudy. Pray for Nicole Lowes and all those that are suffering our church with COVID. Pray for Mae Rainey with her bone marrow transplant and for Tracy Swisegood as she has been dealing with a problem with her pancreas.

I pray, Lord, for Kim Beauchamp as she ministers in the Dominican Republic this week that you would empower her and that it might be a blessed week. Heavenly Father, I'm excited about the scripture that's before us today. The subject is the Word of God. You are telling us in this passage that we are not left to our own devices. You do not save us to wander in the wilderness. You saved us to make us more like Jesus. And you do that through the power of the Word of God. When we can't trust people or organizations or clubs or businesses, we can trust the Word of God. These verses reinforce that truth in our hearts. Please anoint me this morning to preach. Keep my lips from error. Help me to get Doug out of the way that we might hear your truth and be conformed into your image by it. For it is in the precious holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. One of my favorite men in the Old Testament was a king in Judah. He became a king when he was only eight years old.

His name was Josiah. I enjoy going back to the first and second kings and looking at all the of the evaluations and the descriptions of the different kings. And to be honest with you, most of them are not very good.

Most of them sound something like this. This king did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. And he did not depart from the sins of his fathers. Most of the kings of Israel and of Judah had that kind of awful testimony. Not so with Josiah. Let me read you what the scripture says about him in 2 Kings chapter 22 verse 2. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, walked in the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left. Josiah at age 26 looked out at the temple of the Lord and he became very discouraged.

For over the years the priest had allowed the temple to deteriorate. And so Josiah said to Hilkiah who was the high priest, I want you to go out and I want you to to refurbish the temple and repair what it needs to be repaired. And so Hilkiah obeyed him. He got his men together and he went out to start repairing the temple. But as he did that, he was shocked because he found something that was going to turn Judah upside down. And he went running back to King Josiah and he said, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.

And you might think that was an accident. It was not an accident. It was the providence of God. Josiah was trying to bless God by refurbishing the temple, but actually God blessed him by putting into his hand something that would turn Judah absolutely upside down.

And what was it? It was the greatest tool in the world for reformation and revival, for hope and joy, for peace and salvation. What did he put in his hands? He put in his hands the word of God. Josiah trembled as Hilkiah read the word of God to him.

He got so concerned about the fact that Israel had not been a bay in the word that he ripped his garments. Listen to what it says in 2 Kings 22 13. Go inquire the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us. And the Lord brought great revival to Judah.

They broke down all the idols and just tore them to pieces. They restored the Passover. Listen to what is said in 2 Kings 23 3. And the king stood by the pillar and he made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book and all the people joined in the covenant. I tell you that excites my soul to see God take his word and use it to convict, to challenge, to comfort, and to change the people of God and even change the lost people to people of God.

What is my purpose in this message this message this morning? I want to encourage you this morning to love the word of God more than you've ever loved it before. To understand that God cannot be separated from his precious word. I love what Dave, what Peter said in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 25.

He said this, that's 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1 25. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

Got four points that I want to share with you this morning. Number one is God's word is living. Let's go back to verse 12.

For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit of the joints of the marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. As we've been working our way through the first four chapters of the book of Hebrews, we have seen that there's great persecution that is just getting stronger and more and more powerful in the lives of these Hebrew Christians. Some of them have lost jobs. Some of them have lost property.

Some of them have lost freedom. Some of them have even lost lives as they have been martyred for their faith and their faith in Christ. So the writer of Hebrews is saying, why should you make these huge sacrifices? And he starts telling them to, if you turn away from Jesus, if you recant your faith, then you're not going to go through this persecution. He says, but don't do that. And then he begins to tell them why they should not do that. He goes right to the Old Testament scriptures and he starts quoting from the Psalms and he quotes the words of David and he calls them the words of God. And in chapter three of the book of Hebrews, in that chapter, David is quoted from Psalm 95 and listen to what he says. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, whether your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years. What we are seeing here, folks, is the relevance of the word of God.

We are being told in Psalm 95 that God's word is powerful and we are being told of the danger of rebellion against God. And he's saying this is for all time. This is truth, not just for now, because he goes all the way back to Moses. He said in Moses' time this was true. Then he goes back to the time of David. He says in David's time that was true. Then he goes back to the time of the Hebrew Christians and said 2,000 years ago this was true.

And now he's saying it is true for us. The word of God is living, but it is also extremely relevant. But now, if David wrote those words, how can we say that it's the word of God? Well, I think we need to be very careful never to deny the human authorship of the scriptures. Richard Phillips said this, here we need to be very careful not to de-emphasize or even deny the human authorship of the Bible.

The Bible is composed by some 40 different human authors. They were real men. These were their real thoughts.

These books deal with their actual circumstances and are colored by their own experiences and interest. To lose sight of this would be to lose much of their value. I know when I'm witnessing to people so often a person will say to me, well, I believe that the Bible is written by a bunch of old men who are dead. And they're dead and gone. And those men, those old men, they didn't have access to all the great information that we have access to today.

They didn't have the wisdom that we have in our world and all the technology that we have today. So we can't really believe that the Bible is the word of God. What does the Bible say about itself? 2 Timothy 3 verse 16 and 17, the scripture says, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God might be competent, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Folks, the words of scripture were protected from error by God himself because God breathed those words out of the human authors of scripture. Martin Luther said, let the man who wants to hear God speak read holy scripture.

Thomas Watson said, by reading other books, the heart may be warmed, but by reading this book, he's talking about the Bible, the heart is transformed. Now Paul tells us that the word of God is breathed out by God, but he doesn't tell us how. But Peter does tell us how. In 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 20 and 21, Peter said this, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old times by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. By prophecy, Peter here is not just referring to future predictions that we see in the Bible. By prophecy, he's talking about the entire general revelation of God. He's talking about the Bible from Genesis 1, 1 to Revelation chapter 22 verse 21, all of the word of God. Listen, the Bible does not just reflect the prophet's own ideas. These thoughts and these statements that we read in the scripture did not originate with the prophets.

They originated in the mind of God. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. That is why we can say that the word of God is living and it is active. We live in a different time.

We live in a different day. We live in a different cultural setting and a different social setting, but yet the word of God has not changed. It is just as relevant now as it was when it came off the pen of those that wrote it down. Folks, the word of God is relevant, but it is not just relevant.

It is also authoritative and it is binding. Two weeks ago in Dallas, Texas, a so-called church called the Cathedral of Hope that's associated and involved and belongs to the denomination called the United Church of Christ. They had what was called a drag day, a drag Sunday, and they invited drag queens to come up dressed flamboyantly and they lined up all the way across the front of the church and then they sang songs to them and then they quoted creeds to them and what were they doing that for? They were doing it to exalt the perversion. I watched a minute of this on video and I had to ask myself, how can this so-called church that claims the name of Jesus, how can they do this?

And here's how they do it. Folks, they reject the authority of God's word. They say embracing perversion and accepting that which God calls an abomination is the loving thing to do.

Folks, I want you to know it is not the loving thing to do. It is a slap in the face of a holy God. In 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 19, Peter says the following about the Bible. He says, you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

All right, point two. God's word is life imparting. Verse 12, for the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the divineness under the soul and spirit of the joints of the marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

I want you to think back to John chapter 11 for just a moment. This is when Jesus went up to the tomb of Lazarus. He went to the tomb of Lazarus and there were several people that were there and they had followed him down. And he told the men, he said, I want you to take the stone in the door of the tomb. He said, I want you to move it out of the way.

And they want to argue with him. They said, no, Jesus, that's not a good idea. He's been in the tomb for four days.

It'll be a terrible, horrible stench. Jesus said, move it away. They moved it out of the way. Jesus looked into the darkness of that tomb and Jesus cried out three words in a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And all of a sudden life entered into Lazarus's dead body. And he stood up and he walked out of the tomb covered with grave clothes from head to foot. And he walked out and Jesus said to the people, loose him and let him, let him go. Folks, this was Jesus. Jesus spoke and the words came off his lips and brought life to a dead man. And I want you to know that that same thing is true about spiritual life. It is the word of God spoken that brings life, spiritual life to a person who is spiritually dead. In Romans chapter 10, verse 17, the scripture says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. How many new churches are popping up now and they believe that they're going to reach people and they're going to reach people through gadgets and gimmicks and worldly oriented programs.

No, it doesn't work that way. It's through Holy scripture that God brings to life people who are dead in their trespasses and sins. A pastor from India and a pastor that was an evangelist from Lebanon were going to try to do an evangelistic crusade in Syria. They had a van and it was filled from top to bottom with Gideon Bibles. And they rode up to the border and the Syrian border guard came over and put his rifle right into the wind and said, what's in this van? And the Lebanese evangelist said, nothing but dynamite.

And the guy's eyes got about that big and he reached back and he grabbed the Gideon Bible and he took it out and he handed it to him. He said, here, you read this and God will explode truth in your life and you will never be the same again. Folks, the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The word of God brings life to the spiritually dead, but let me tell you what else it does. It also helps us as we have come to know Christ, to know how to live, to know what to do. It matures us. It grows us. It helps us to walk with Him.

I want to share two quick examples, one from my own life. I was called a pastor Southside Baptist Church back in November of 1979 and I stood before a pulpit committee and they were asking me questions. One of the first questions they asked is, Doug, what do you believe about the Bible? I said, I believe that the Bible is the plenary, verbal, inspired word of God. I believe that the Bible is all truth, not just the thoughts that were in the hearts of the people who wrote the Bible, but all the Bible.

Every book, every book, every chapter, every verse, every word, every jot, every tittle, I believe the Bible is the infallible word of God. This was a time when the Southern Baptist Convention was divided on the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. There was an editor for the Baptist paper called the Biblical Recorder, a state paper in North Carolina, and he was a liberal and he would write articles putting the conservative pastors down and calling them radical fundamentalists. Well, the church did call me to pastor the church and I went. I'd been there about three weeks or a month and the music minister was also the associate pastor and a man that was about twice my age came into my office and he said, I want you to know I do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and he said, I think what you're doing by believing that and by teaching that is you're going to divide this congregation. He said, I think you should not do that and I found out that he was going to other people in the church and telling them that my views were going to split the church wide open. Now, I was only 29 at that time and so he was aggravating me and making me mad and I remember my flesh telling me, why don't you just pop him in the nose and get it over with and I said, well, I don't believe that's what the Lord would have me to do.

So, I began to pray and I prayed and I prayed hard. I began my devotional, my reading the Scripture a couple mornings after that and I got to Exodus chapter 14 and I got to verse 14 and it hit me like a ton of bricks and this was a time where Moses was being attacked by the Egyptian army. It looked like they were going to be wiped off the face of the earth and Moses cried out, Lord, what are we going to do? And God gave him Exodus 14, 14, the Lord will fight for you while you keep your mouth shut and I remember just reading that and I thought, man, that's right. This is not my battle. This is the Lord's battle.

I don't have to fight this and so I waited. About two hours later, a music minister came into my office. He had a biblical recorder in his hand. He plopped it down and he said, here, look at this article right here. There's an article that was putting down conservative pastors and I said, uh-huh, yep, I see it.

Thank you. He said, you're not going to get mad and I said, no, I'm not going to get mad. He said, why not? I said, God gave me a verse. He said, what verse?

I said, Exodus 14, 14. He reached over to my desk and grabbed my Bible and he picked it up and he looked at it. His face turned just white as a sheet and he turned around. He walked out of my office. I saw him getting his car out the window and he got in his car and he left. About three hours later, he came back and he put a letter of resignation in the hand of my secretary.

He said, I quit. You know, tension immediately left our church. The tension was just gone and God began to grow that church in some very beautiful and special ways.

It was not because of me. It was because the church had the right attitude about the Word of God. I want you to listen to the Word of God because it's life for those who don't know Christ. It brings life to the unsaved, but it's also for life for the children of God. I want to share an illustration with you. I've shared this with you before, but I love the illustration and it means a great deal to me, but it was about a man who, by the Word of God, began to understand what God wanted us to know about the temptation of lust.

Very powerful, powerful illustration to me. This is a testimony from a Christian pastor. His name is Grant Castleberry as he tells us about his daddy. Grant said, my dad, Charles Kelly Castleberry Jr., was a Marine Corps fighter pilot and a Christian. One night, my dad's squadron took a mandatory trip to a beach house somewhere along the Atlantic coast.

No wives or children were allowed to come. This was a special night in which many of the young pilots would receive their call signs. Shortly after my father arrived at the beach house, he realized why family members were not invited.

Someone invited strippers as entertainment for the evening. Later that night, when he confided this event to my mom, she asked how he responded. He said that he'd stayed in the corner of the beach house with his hands over his eyes. A few months later, my father was killed in a mid-air collision of the Atlantic Ocean. After my father's crash, a pilot in the squadron gave my mom a picture that someone had taken inside the beach house that night.

He told my mom that deep down, everyone respected Kelly for it, but no one had the guts to follow him. Sure enough, in the photo was my father in the corner, hand covering his eyes. When I was a young boy, my mom showed me that picture and explained the integrity and the courage my dad had displayed in that moment. Integrity and courage that had characterized his life in Christ. Mom framed the picture, put it in my room as a constant reminder of his legacy. When the squadron cleaned out my dad's locker after the accident, they found taped up inside his locker, Paul's last will and testament to a young pastor in training.

For I'm now ready to be offered in the time of my departures at hand. For I fought a good fight, I finished my course, I've kept the faith. Henceforth there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but to all them also who love his appearing. Grant said my dad covered his eyes at the beach house because they were fixed on his Savior.

This focus isn't easy. As Paul said, it's a fight of faith. It's a fight for purity, but it's worth it. Christ is the purity we can count on. Keeping our eyes on him is worth it, because he's the only one who can truly satisfy our souls. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

All right, point three. God's word is penetrating. Look at verse 12 again. The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints of the marrow, as the discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. The word of God is like a two-edged sword. In Ephesians chapter 6 verse 17, we have one of the greatest passages in the Bible on spiritual warfare, and Paul says, take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. In Revelation chapter 1 and verse 16, John gives us a vision of the resurrected, exalted Christ, and the scripture says that from his mouth came a two-edged sword. Why are there two edges? One is a picture of salvation, the other edge is a picture of judgment.

Like the same sun, that same sun that melts the wax, the same sun hardens the clay. So it is with the two-edged sword. The image describes the penetrating or the piercing power of God's word. What does the word of God do when it pierces into our hearts? It's a discerner.

It discerns the thoughts, the intentions, and the motives of the heart. How often people think, well, I'm going to judge the Bible because I know so much. Folks, the reality is the Bible is judging us.

Let me tell you something. When the word of God pierces my heart and it forces me to look at my own intentions and my own motives, it hurts, and it stings, and I don't really like it, but it also motivates me to repent. The word of God forces me to look beyond the surface, and it doesn't matter at that point in time what my friends might say or what they think. It doesn't really matter at that time that I might have been pushing away the Holy Spirit's conviction. What matters is this, the spirit energized word of God has pierced its way into my heart, and it's forced me to realize my intentions and my motives in my heart were wrong, and there needs to be genuine repentance.

Power to come to Christ in repentance is given to us by the piercing of his word into our hearts. John Newton's mother filled his heart with the word of God until he was 11 years old, and at that time John Newton's mother died, so he went to live with his father. His father was a raucous sailor, and he started taking John with him on his boat trips, and he would get on the boat, and he would bring all these immoral women with him so that the men could enjoy immorality while they were on the ship. He noticed that there was constant alcohol consumption going on day and night, and John Newton decided that he was just going to go the way of the sailors. He became a slave trader, and he would go into Africa, and he would rip men and women away from their homes, breaking up families and take them to England and then sell them in order that he might be made rich.

Newton became a blaspheming, immoral, drunken wretch. When he was 23 years old, he was out in his ship. A terrible, horrible storm came up at sea. His boat was being tossed to and fro like a styrofoam cup in the wind and in the waves, so he just was certain that he was going to die. He got down in the bottom of the boat, and the cold ocean water was drenching his shivering body, and he began to pray, and he began to beg God to save him and have mercy on him. And as he was lying there being covered with drenching water, as he was lying there, the Lord began to take verses, the verses of the Bible that his mother had given him over a decade before and began to just bring them right back to his mind. John chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus said, On the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes to the Father but by me. Romans chapter 6, verse 23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Luke chapter 13, verse 3, Jesus said, Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself.

It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Romans chapter 5, verse 8, For God commended his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He was lying there in that boat in the bottom of the ship, and he was just crying, and he repented. Genuine repentance as the word of God began to pierce his heart, and he cried out to the Lord for salvation, trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior, and as peace began to flood in his heart, the waves died just right down to nothing.

Folks, what had happened? God's word that his mother had implanted in his heart over 12 years before this time had brought life to his dead spirit, and he was a new man. He was a saved man when he got off that boat. He became just a great gospel preacher. He had been a slave trader, but now he became the greatest enemy to slave trade that the world has ever seen.

He helped William Wilberforce bring it to a complete stop in England where it could no longer be done in England any longer. He was also a hymn writer and wrote one of the greatest hymns that we know, Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. Folks, that's what the quick and powerful word of God can do. Point four, God's word is all sufficient. Look at verse 13.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. God's word is living and active. God's word is living and active.

It penetrates and it probes. And verse 13 tells us that nothing can escape God's word. Folks, churches have lost their way because churches have watered down the word of God. Listen, is it loving to tell a homosexual or a transgender person or a fornicator that their lifestyle is fine with God and that they don't need to repent?

No, it's not okay. Our culture is rotten today because our churches are weak. And our churches are weak because we've become soft with the gospel. We've become soft with the word of God. Now, they say, well, we just don't want to be offensive.

I don't want to be offensive either. But if the word of God offends, then that offense is used to convict. And we need to get the word of God into the hearts of the law whether they want to hear it or not because that's what God uses to bring life to a dead spirit. I wanted to share something with you that Richard Phillips said. Yet we are living in a time when many Christians, even evangelicals, who once were singularly known and even derided for their devotion to the word, are losing confidence in the Bible's effectiveness. Yes, it is inspired.

Yes, it's useful. But it must be augmented by human means or wisdom or methods. Our evangelism now relies on manipulative psychological ploys. Our spiritual growth depends on techniques and programs and store-bought gimmicks. Our worship reflects the glitter of Hollywood entertainment. Far different is the passage of the writer of Hebrews who says that nothing is able to escape the revealing, energetic word of God.

Therefore, it alone is sufficient for our every need. Paul warned us of this very thing in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verses 3 through 7 when he said, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity everything to the obedience of Christ and having a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Folks, don't try to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil until you have taken up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are too easily deceived and led astray by Satan's devices. Help us to understand that if Satan hates the word of God, then we should love it. If Satan tempts us to distrust the word, help us to love it and trust it more. Father, fill our hearts with your word. Help us to memorize it, to meditate on it, and stand on it day by day. For it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.