Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. And right now your generous gift will have twice the impact thanks to the Proclaim the Gospel matching challenge active right now through December 31st. To give a special year-end gift, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. This is Robert Jeffress. In response to the horrific attack on Israel, I've written a brand new book called Are We Living in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. The Word of God is living. It is alive. And that's what makes it different from any other book that is written. Jesus said in John 6 63, For the words I have spoken to you are life. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. There have been thousands of great books written over the centuries.
None, however, can compare to the greatest book ever written, the Bible. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress urges us to do everything possible to fully experience the purpose and the power of God's Word. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to this very important edition of Pathway to Victory. It's Thursday, December 28, and I'm teaching from the fourth chapter of Hebrews today and again tomorrow. I've chosen to end the year with this powerful passage because it represents the book we highly revere at Pathway to Victory. The writer of Hebrews says this about the Bible. For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit. Now to help you make God's Word the centerpiece of your life in the coming new year, I've written a daily devotional for you. It's designed to center your heart and mind on the Bible, the two-edged sword, every weekday in 2024. And when you give a generous year-end gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll make sure you receive a leather-bound copy right away. But you need to respond before midnight Sunday night. Remember, New Year's Eve is also the deadline for doubling the impact of your gift.
The Proclaim the Gospel matching challenge is active, but only until midnight December 31. We're asking God to work mightily through friends like you to help us reach the amazing goal of $500,000. Your gift of $100 automatically becomes $200. A $500 gift becomes $1,000. A $5,000 gift would become $10,000. Whatever you give will have twice the impact. Plus, you'll also receive the leather-bound 2024 Pathway to Victory daily devotional. Now, let's open the book that's living and active to Hebrews chapter 4.
I titled today's message, Truth That Transforms. One way you know you're getting older is when you read that pop star Madonna turned 60. Did you all see that a couple of weeks ago? She turned 60. How could she get so old so fast?
Doesn't happen to any of the rest of us, does it? But as I read that about Madonna and her 60 years of life, I was reminded of something that happened a few years ago. She made a New Year's resolution I will never forget. She said that she had a resolution for her and her young daughter at the time. They were going to watch less TV.
That's a good thing. And she was also going to start reading the Bible to her young daughter. Isn't that interesting? Madonna reading the Bible to her young daughter.
But she was very quick to explain. She said, I want my daughter to read the Bible, but I will explain to her that these are stories that people made up to teach people. And the Bible is not the rule. Wouldn't that be a great series for children? The Bible according to Madonna. It could really inspire children to read the Word of God. You know, we read that and we kind of cringe. The Bible is a bunch of stories made up.
They're no better than Aesop's fables. How could you say such a thing, Madonna? That's heresy. And yet the fact is, many of us who are Christians treat the Bible in exactly the same way Madonna does. We read it.
We admire it. We may even teach it to others, but we never allow it to perform its real job of penetrating and renovating our hearts. You know, God gave us His Word not to just read, admire, or even defend. He gave us His Word to convict us and to change us.
And that's the truth of the passage we're going to see today. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter four. Hebrews chapter four, as we talk about the real purpose and the power of the Word of God. We're going to look at just two verses today, but they are perhaps the two most familiar verses in the entire letter to Hebrews. In fact, I imagine you've read and maybe even memorized these verses before. But to understand these verses, you have to understand the context.
Look at Hebrews four, verse 12. For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of the soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and it's able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. There is a time in my Christian life in which I just love to debate anybody about anything. And I especially like to debate believers or unbelievers or professors about the trustworthiness of the Scriptures.
In fact, I would get so angry that my ears would turn red and the veins would pop from my neck, but I would love every minute of it. Because after all, I mean, that was the purpose of God's Word, wasn't it? To debate with people about. And I remember some of my favorite verses I would use, like 2 Timothy 3.16. Paul said, all Scripture is inspired by God. Inspired, theos, nustos, every word of Scripture is God-breathed, is what Paul said. And not just some of it, all of it is inspired.
Do you remember Dr. Criswell, about what he used to talk about? He called it the leopard theory of biblical inspiration. You know what the leopard theory of biblical inspiration is? It's that the Bible is inspired in spots, and I'm inspired to spot the spots.
That's the leopard theory of inspiration. No, Paul said not just some Scripture is inspired, all Scripture is inspired by God. Or 2 Peter 1.21, know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture came by act of the human will, but men, moved, carried along by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God. Somebody didn't just sit down one day and thought, I'd write some Scripture today.
No, it was all, it was all started, initiated by the Holy Spirit of God. But then my favorite verse was this one, Hebrews 4-12, for the word of God is alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. And I love to use God's word like a sword, to inflict as much pain as possible on infidels. I mean, after all, isn't that what you use a sword for?
To attack people, to slice them in two. Isn't that what God's word is all about? And yet, as we're gonna see today, the fact is we really don't have to defend God's word.
God's word stands on its own. In fact, trying to defend or to destroy God's word is kind of like two people I read about who were standing on either side of the rock of Gibraltar. Each man was holding a toothpick. One man was trying to push the rock of Gibraltar over the cliff. The other man with his toothpick was trying to hold it in place. But guess what? It really didn't matter what either man did with his toothpick.
That rock was going to stay right where it is. And so it is with God's word. It's really impossible to defend and it's certainly impossible to destroy. Well then, what is the purpose of the word of God if it's not to attack people or not to defend itself? Well, you have to go back to Hebrews 4, verse 1, the context of this passage to understand what the writer is really saying. In fact, verse 1 and verse 11 of Hebrews 4 are like bookends that help you understand this passage, Hebrews 4, 12, and 13. Look at chapter 4, verse 1. Let us therefore fear lest while a promise remains of entering God's rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. Remember, this is part of one of those warning passages where the writer stops what he's talking about, the superiority of Jesus Christ and issues a word of warning to his listeners, listeners who were primarily Jewish. He's stopping here and saying, by the way, you've been listening to a lot of theology.
You better pay attention to what you're reading or listening to so that you don't make the same mistake that your Jewish forefathers made when they fell short of entering into the promised land because of sin. And remember, the writer uses the term rest here in three distinct ways. Sometimes the word rest in this passage is used to refer to our future rest, that is heaven. He says in verses 8 and 9, for if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day after that. There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. There is a future rest, a future place of blessing we will all enjoy here at believers, and that is in heaven, a future rest.
There's also, secondly, our past rest. Verse 10, for the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his. The way you become a Christian is by quit working and start resting in what God has already done for you.
You don't get saved by working for God. It's when you quit your works and instead trust in what Jesus did on the cross for you. That is the past rest that he refers to. But there's a third kind of rest. It is our present rest. Therefore, verse 11, let us be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience. Think about the Israelites for a moment. They failed to enter the rest God had prepared for them in the promised land. What is our present rest?
It is the place of God's blessing right now in your life. When the Israelites failed to believe God, when they refused to trust in God, they didn't miss heaven, their future rest. They were saved, but they failed to enter the promised land God had for them.
And why did they fail to enter into it? Well, remember at Meribah and Masa, they failed to trust God when they were being tested, when there was no water suddenly for them. And they said, Lord, did you leave us here to die at first? And then a little bit later, they went to Kadesh Barnea, the entry point into the promised land. God said, go into the land and take it. They said, no, Lord, didn't you hear the report of the spies? There are giants in the land and they are too powerful for us to overtake.
They refused to obey God when ordered. The same thing is true for you and for me. God has a present rest that he wants us to experience. Now, by rest, I don't mean taking a nap. When we talk about his present rest, we're talking about that place of blessing God wants us to experience in our marriages, in our schoolwork, in our relationships, in our finances, that no matter what is going on around us, we can have peace of mind, we can experience God's best in every one of those areas. That's what God wants for us. And the writer is saying, make certain you don't make the same mistake that your forefathers made, who by sin failed to experience what God had planned for them. Well, you say, what's the key then to experiencing God's rest? Well, that's the context of verses 12 and 13. Notice right after that warning in verse 11, not to mention the rest, he says, For the word of God is living and active, and it's sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. I want you to write down this statement on your notes, because this is the theme of what these two verses is all about. God's word frees us to experience God's rest. God's word is what frees us to experience God's rest.
You say, wait a minute, I thought the Bible was a bunch of rules and the Bible enslaves us. It keeps us from experiencing real happiness and joy in life. No, no, that's not what keeps us from experiencing God's blessing. It is sin that keeps us from experiencing God's blessings. Remember what Jesus said in John 8, 34?
Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. It's failing to trust God. It's failing to obey God in your everyday life.
That is what keeps you from the place of joy, that place of rest God wants you to experience right now. That was what was going on with the Israelites. You say they had wrong thinking that led to wrong actions. And because of that, they missed God's place of blessing.
For example, they thought they were responsible for their own welfare. And so when they had no water, they began to panic because they thought God had failed them. They didn't understand God was gonna be faithful to do what he had promised to do. When they got to Kadesh Barnea, it was wrong thinking that they would have to overcome the giants in their own strength. That wrong thinking led to wrong actions.
It caused them to miss the promise of God's rest. And the same thing is true for every one of us. It is wrong thinking that leads to wrong actions. For example, adultery doesn't begin in the bedroom. Adultery begins in the mind with a thought.
Murder doesn't begin with picking up a handgun. It begins with hatred in the heart, in the mind. And that's why the writer says in Proverbs 4 23, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Or Proverbs 23 verse 7, for as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. All sin begins in our mind.
And here's the problem. Every one of us, when we're born into this world, we are born with a defective operating system. We have a mind that normally automatically thinks wrongly. We default into a wrong way of thinking. That's how we're born. For example, we are born, our natural thought is, we are responsible for our future. Therefore, we are enslaved, we are bound up with worry. We think that money is the answer to every need we have. So we are enslaved, we are bound up in greed.
We naturally think that it's our responsibility to avenge any wrong committed against us. So we are bound up in bitterness. But it is the Word of God that slices through that wrong way of thinking and allows us to experience God's freedom and God's rest in our life.
That's what he's talking about here. The Word of God is alive and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Isn't that what Jesus said in John 8 32 when he said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall what? Set you free. You know, I've seen those words before, perhaps you have, etched on some building at some prestigious university and the words you see, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. In other words, if you'll enroll in this college for four years and give us $250,000, we're gonna set you free. No, you won't be set free.
You'll be imprisoned by debt for the rest of your life, but you won't be set free. It's not academic truth that a university teaches you that sets you free. That's not what Jesus is talking about. The truth he's talking about is God's truth. God's truth is what sets you free.
It frees you from that pattern of wrong thinking and wrong acting that causes you to miss God's rest. Do you remember the story of Gordius and the Gordian knot? Gordius made this intricate knot that nobody could unravel and they placed it in the center of the town square and people would come from all around trying to untie the Gordian knot. And one day, Alexander the Great came to the village and they told him about the challenge and how no one had been able to untie the knot. So he approached it, looked at it, tried to find some loose strands, couldn't do that. He lost his patience, got his sword out and just sliced right through the knot.
That's one way to untie a knot. And that's exactly what God's Word does. God's Word is like that sword that slices through our wrong thinking and frees us to experience his best. Will you notice here the characteristics of God's Word that make it so effective? First of all, God's Word is living. The Word of God is living. It is alive. It's not some dead piece of literature.
It is a living piece of literature. I want to ask you a question. Have you ever thought about this? How many people do you think in the United States today or around the world, how many people do you imagine this morning got up at 7.30, got dressed, got their children up and went to a central location to listen to a lecture on the works of William Shakespeare? How many people do you think did that? How many people gathered together this morning to listen to a lecture about the works of Aristotle? How many people used their only day off to get up and gather around and talk about and discuss the writings of Plato? And even if some happened to do it this morning, do you think they'd do it the next Sunday morning and the next Sunday morning and the next Sunday morning? And yet today there are millions of people all around the world who got up and went to a church, many of them in third-world countries at the risk of their own lives, and they sat down to listen to the Word of God.
Why is it? Because the Word of God is alive. It is alive. And that's what makes it different from any other book that is written. Jesus said in John 663, For the words I have spoken to you are life. Not only is the Word of God living, the writer says it is also active.
That word active means it is full of energy. I remember when our girls were little, we went several times actually to the San Diego Zoo. And I remember one of our visits to the zoo, I looked over and saw these two giant turtles, and they were absolutely motionless. Now their eyes blinked occasionally, but they didn't move.
They were motionless, just about as motionless as I am in the evening when I come home and plop down in my chair in front of the television set. And Amy comes over occasionally to check my pulse to be sure I'm alive. I'm alive, but I'm not very active. But that's not true about the Word of God. The Word of God is both living and it is active. I like the way somebody said it. The Bible is alive. It is always doing something to anyone who reads it or hears it. It is alive.
It is active. And third, it is sharp. In fact, it is so sharp, it is sharper than any two-edged Roman sword.
Now this morning when I got up, I had a Gillette razor and I shaved my face. My Gillette razor actually has about three or four blades on one side. That's a one-sided razor. But the Roman two-edged sword was one clean, mean killing machine.
It was sharp on both edges. And so when a Roman soldier would slice through somebody in one direction, he would then go in the opposite direction and finish the job. That is the power of the Word of God to penetrate the wrong thinking that leads to wrong actions and causes us to miss God's rest. And that's the power of God in your life as well. For the Word of God is alive.
It is active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. Yes, the Bible is alive. It cuts through all the chaos and confusion in our lives. And God's Word is our exclusive source for learning every day on Pathway to Victory. Now as I mentioned at the beginning of today's program, time is running short to request your copy of the brand new Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional for 2024.
Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional is my gift to you when you give toward the matching challenge that's active just for a few more days. We're in a race to the finish line asking God to help us reach the goal of $500,000 by midnight Sunday evening. This means that we have the opportunity to spend over $1 million more in the coming year reaching more people than ever before with the truth about the Bible.
Just recently, for example, we had the opportunity to add a new release of Pathway to Victory in several major American cities. And we jumped at this invitation because we know that God will use Pathway to Victory to reach people who might not ever hear the good news about Jesus Christ. And we could do this because of generous financial support from people just like you. Please take down our contact information and allow your generous year-end gift to have twice the impact as together we push back the darkness in our culture with the living and active light of God's Word.
David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you give, a generous year-end gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'd like to say thanks by sending you the brand new leather-bound Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional for 2024. To request your very own copy, call 866-999-2965.
Or, even easier, simply go online to ptv.org. Now, when your gift is $100 or more, you'll also receive this month's Christmas teaching series called The Incomparable Christ. We'll send that on both CD and DVD. Plus, you'll receive Celebrate the Savior Volume 2.
That's a brand new music CD featuring performances by the world-class First Baptist Dallas Choir and Orchestra. Remember, your contribution right now will be doubled in impact through our Proclaim the Gospel Matching Challenge. But this Sunday, December 31st is the last day the Matching Challenge will be active, so be sure to get in touch right away. Call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. You could also send your donation by mail right to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's P.O.
Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins inviting you to join us again Friday for the conclusion of our series called The Incomparable Christ. That's right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Even though we don't know the date when Jesus will return, we need to have our finger on the pulse of what's happening today. So, in response to the war in Israel, Dr. Robert Jeffress has written a brand new book. It's called Are We Living in the End Times?
In light of increasing chaos, division, and warfare in our world, this really is a fair question. Request your copy of Are We Living in the End Times by going to ptv.org. You've made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
We're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. And right now, your special year-end gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Proclaim the Gospel Matching Challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on December 31st. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
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