by Mike Ratliff
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 ESV)
In this day in which the truth is said to be unknowable, Christians must rely on the only source of pure truth we have. There is no truth that we can say is the complete truth unless we take it from God’s Word. The Bible is pure truth and it is the authority we rely on in order to have a firm foundation in this lost and dying world that is consuming itself in rebellion against God.
What can we learn from Hebrews 4:12 about this?
The Bible is the word of God and because of that, it is divine. Therefore, we should greatly reverence it as being truly spoken by God. It is living. Unlike my words or your words, the Word of God lives on, whereas our words pass away. The Word of God has a life in itself as the living and incorruptible seed. It creates life where it comes. It can never be destroyed and exterminated. The Protestant Reformation was a movement in protest against the policies of the Roman Catholic Church that forbade the Bible to be in any other form than Latin. This kept the Bible from most people. That is why we should rejoice that God saw fit to bring it about to get His Word into everyone’s hands which makes it possible for people to get it in their hearts.
The Word of God is effectual in that it is living and active or powerful. Unlike many today who say the Bible is a mystery that no one can really understand, we know that a genuine Christian has the Holy Spirit and, therefore, can read, know, and understand it. Through that understanding, we receive conviction and conversion. Also, when we are suffering, we can read it and receive comfort and confirmation. In fact, we should start with prayer and the Word of God before we take our cares to other people. Because it is pure and true the Word of God can raise us to great heights of holiness and joy or happiness.
The Bible is cutting. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. All who touch the Word of God are wounded by it. Some are slain and are reborn gloriously. Others are cut to the heart, which leads them to repentance. Some are hardened by it to their doom. However, those who are Gods, will have their self-righteousness, sin, and unbelief killed by it as they use it. Like an razor sharp sword, the Word of God is piercing. This piercing divides the truth from the lies, the tender from the hard, the belief from the unbelief. It forces its way into the hard heart thereby pulverizing all of our self-righteousness and bases for pride. It causes us to become humble as we submit to the Lordship of Christ as it works in our hearts. No matter how secure or tightly locked up our hearts have become, it can penetrate the smallest opening or make one of its own.
The Word of God is discriminating. It divides the outer from the inner. It shows us that our external religion is what flows from our internal religion. This is our joints and marrow. Genuine Christians may be religious, but they know that it is there personal relationship with God that really counts and they receive this knowledge from God’s Word as it works in the heart to manifest it’s truth there.
The Bible is revealing. It is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. No matter how well hidden we may hold some fleshly, prideful nugget, the Word of God cleaves our hearts like butcher cutting a carcass. It lays open our secrets and tendencies that we share with no one.
Therefore, we must greatly reverence the Word of the God. When we are struggling we should come to it for revival of our hearts. When we are fighting with the infidels of this world who want to destroy the truth, we must come to the Bible and use its power to fight the fight as well as prayer. We must also expose our hearts to it often so that that it will kill our sins and empower us to destroy the evils of the day. We must also allow it to criticize us, and our opinions, and projects, and acts, and all about us.
We must praise God and thank Him for the efficacy of His Word upon our Souls. All of us can remember when God’s Word has pricked out hearts and take the edge off of our lusts. Therefore, praise God and thank Him for that.
Lastly, there are infidels about that tinker with God’s Word and try to make it say what they want it to say. They are false prophets who must be exposed and shunned. The Word of God is too sacred a thing, and preaching too solemn a work, to be toyed and played with. Genuine Christianity is not simply a religion where men can make claims and change truths that are not backed up completely from God’s Word. Those who are truly God’s are accompanied by power and that power is found in God’s Word through the working of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Therefore, those who preach and teach from God’s Word must do so in that power, not merely in their own words. Our enemy, Satan, is not compelled to move by our words, however, if we draw the Sword of the Lord to confront him, we must then strike him with its naked edge. In so doing, we will piece the hearts of those to whom we preach and teach. Their consciences will be provoked and their lives will be changed as only God can do it.
Amen, Mike.
It used to be hard for me to understand why so many who profess to be Christian were so comfortable with and in the world. Then I learned from scripture that there are two streams of Christianity that live and work side by side. One stream is the true body of Christ, God’s children chosen before the foundations of the world, and the other stream are the pretenders, the tares sown by the enemy, the goats who profess Christ verbally and/or intellectually but deny him in their hearts and in their deeds.
Friendship with the world is enmity with God. Christians cannot serve God and mammon and we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Certainly we are required to fellowship with those who profess Christ, but we are just as certainly required to rebuke and correct those selfsame individuals in love when they err from the precepts of God as revealed in His Holy Word.
This is true love. This is true fellowship. This is not the “I’m okay, you’re okay” easy-believism of the liberal modernist’s high noon fantasies. It may feel good to intellectually hug and kiss one another and pooh-pooh away our “petty differences” but when those so-called petty differences hang upon the hinges of Christ Jesus and distort the revealed truth of God then they are not so petty after all.
The natural man is God’s enemy and without the enlightenment and salvation made available solely through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God then men burn in hell forever. This is the message of love, God has made the way, but He has also set the terms and sinful man must meet God on the terms He has set and not by some alternate arrangement created by sinful man.
Thanks Mike. Good article.
I was struck today while reading from Thomas Brooks, and Thomas Boston, that their great love, their GREAT LOVE, was the WORD of GOD.
Their stature as Christians(as well as the many Puritan authors) was produced by their dependence upon and trust in that VERY WORD.
Their incredibly lucid writings that bring us so much joy and benefit and prompt us to pursue the study of the WORD, were the direct result of illumination they received from the Holy Scriptures.
We know that of ourselves we produce nothing worthwhile.
There is no good thing in mankind.
But thanks be to God for His Spirit of Truth, who meets us in His Word and bestows light that the darkness will never overcome……
Thank you LORD for the WORD.
There is only One God, and the Bible is His only revelation. A movement that tweeks methodology must be very careful, a movement that questions established interpretation is on thin ice, but a movement that leaves the Bible as the foundation of their beliefs and the focus of their followship has died no matter how fresh and exciting they may appear.
And any movement that is satisfied with their Biblical creed without actively seeking to be more like Christ and more useable in His service is immobilized in their creed and lacking the humility and self searching required to be changed from glory to glory. It is usually the norm that the further we mature in Christ the more we should see how far we need to go. There is danger on all sides in the fragmented streams that call themselves “Christian” but I believe God is looking for a remnant that can be so filled with His Spirit that God can entrust them with a demonstartion of His power that will point sinners and saints alike back to Christ and His Word.
We should thirst for a time that people will say as they once did, “These men have turned the city upside ” and have “filled the city with their doctrine”. It isn’t God’s Word that lacks power, it is that some no longer believe it while others carry it in leaky cisterns. We can pray that God in His sovereign wisdom will hear our cries and send a revival that will shake the church and display the Risen Christ before the entire world.
Amen, Mike! Thank you for this post!
Mike – excellent. Thanks!
Amen, Mike! Amen! May the Lord preserve in our hearts the love of the truth and keep us from the darkness of our day.
To share my favorite quote though I can’t remember where I got it-”Truth needs no one to believe it to remain truth.Truth is still truth even if no one believes it.”Ever since I heard that I realized that truth belongs to no one but God.It is His Word we are judged by,and our beliefs best line up with His Truth.We aren’t at liberty to say,”that is your truth,this is mine.”