The Word of God is Living and Active (Hebrews Sermon 17)

I am so excited to preach this message. I said that last week didn’t I? I just am. I just feel blessed to the core of my being, for the privilege of unfolding the Word of God before you week after week. And I celebrate today that the topic is the Word of God itself, for I love the Bible, and I love everything that it says.

Throughout history, no technology was so carefully developed and guarded, protected as that of swordmaking. The sword itself, the most powerful weapon in the world before the advent of gunpowder. And thus, it became a symbol both of military conquest and of the governmental power that followed it. To live by the sword, or to die by the sword, meant to live or die by that military conquest. David said, “The sword devours one, as well as another,” referring to the power of the sword to take life. Swords are mentioned over 400 times in the Bible.

The merest mention of the word sword conjures up in our hearts, our memories, the thoughts of heroic courageous figures or terrifying figures from history, the Roman gladiators, the Roman legions who carried that short stabbing sword. English Knights. King Arthur who pulled Excalibur out of the rock, as you remember. Or the terrifying power of the Viking warriors. Or the stealth of Japanese ninjas, the sword.

When I was a missionary in Japan, I was fascinated by the katana. The legendary Samurai sword that was forged with astonishing precision by ancient technologies. If you looked at the edge of one of these exquisite swords, you could see them on display in museums. They had an interesting kind of ripple quality to them. You know, smooth as silk, smooth as glass, but still, you can see these ripples within the crystal structure of the actual steel. And that’s because they use two different kinds of steel and they sandwich them one after the other, and pounded them down under the heat of the forge. They use high carbon steel which is exceptionally hard and could be honed to a razor-sharp edge, but was very brittle and it just won’t do in the middle of a battle to have your sword snap in half. And so, they would put in then a layer of low carbon steel, which was softer, more malleable, which absorbed the blow and could give the sword a kind of a toughness and through secret technologies were able to make these remarkable swords, a katana.It took centuries for the Japanese blacksmiths to develop this art and they guarded the secrets of it very closely and then stories, a kind of mythology, grew up around the katana, around this special Samurai sword, specifically of two individuals, one named Masamune and the other Muramasa, two men who actually lived at different times from each other, but no matter for the myth or the legend. The legendary contest that occurred between them had the elder Samurai blacksmith, Masamune, as the mentor and trainer to the younger Muramasa. Masamune’s swords are regarded as the most beautifully crafted, most skillfully katana ever made. Surviving swords are priceless national treasures. By contrast, Muramasa’s swords were regarded as violent, brutish and evil. The swords of Masamune considered to be deeply spiritual, pure, and benevolent. In the legend, Muramasa was Masamune’s student. The student became arrogant and at some point challenged his master to see who can make the finer sword.

To test the swords, each sword was held into the current of a mountain stream. And the student Muramasa’s sword was so perfectly sharp, honed to a razor sharp edge, it was said to have cut a leaf in half that floated down the stream and just met the edge of its blade. But the Master Masamune’s sword did not cut a thing. When the leaves would get near to its edge, it would miraculously avoid the sword and float around it, showing that the sword somehow possessed a benevolent power that it would harm nothing that was innocent or undeserving a punishment.

Friends, that’s just a legend, it never happened. But I say to you in the passage that we read of today, you just heard read, we hear of a more perfect sword, sharper, more penetrating and more pure, more spiritual than any of these legends can describe. As a matter of fact, this sword is actually said to be alive even better than the Samurai legend, the sword only ever cuts in order to heal, it only ever cuts in order to bring life, it cuts in order to engraft faith, it cuts in order to surgically remove the tumors of sin. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything’s uncovered and laid bare, before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. Every time you pick up a Bible, you’re holding in your hands a miracle, a living miracle spiritually alive. Only the power of Almighty God can explain the existence and the potency of this book. Over the centuries, God forged this sword in the furnace of human history, on the anvil of human experience and hearts. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we have this Scripture.

Now why does the author celebrate the Word of God here in Hebrews 4? What is the context of this celebration of the living and active Word of God? Why here? Well, remember the overall context of the Book of Hebrews, the author to the Hebrews is deeply concerned about a congregation of Jewish people who had made an outward profession of faith in Christ, but who under the pressure of persecution were waffling in their commitment to Christ. Their commitment to Christ outwardly seemed to be decaying. Some of them weren’t attending church anymore, they were afraid to do so. And so they were in a decaying orbit with Christ, and so he writes this letter of warning, this letter of exhortation to stimulate and strengthen them in their faith so that they will not fall away.

And for the last two chapters in Hebrews, Hebrews 3 and 4, he has been marvelously meditating on just five verses in the Old Testament, Psalm 95. He’s just ruminating very deeply on phase after phrase of Psalm 95. And he’s taking the spiritual lessons of that Psalm from the Old Covenant, and moving them over to New Testament, New Covenant believers like you and me, and applying those lessons to our spiritual situation to our condition. He’s taking Psalm 95 and bringing it over. “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” as that generation did when they refused to enter the promised land. And so it says, “I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.” So, the author has meditated powerfully on some key words like the concept of today as long as it is called today, today is the day we have to believe Christ. Today’s the day we have to take in the Word of God to live for Jesus. We have today. It’s all we’ll ever have.

So, he’s meditated on this idea of today or he’s talked about God’s rest. “I swore an oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.” What is God’s rest? We found last week very clearly that it’s the Sabbath rest, of eternity in God’s presence, in heaven. And the danger then, of a hardening of a heart. “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” And so he’s warned them about the danger of a hardening heart and the only remedy there can be to the deceitfulness of sin that comes and hardens our heart is this, the living and active Word of God. It’s the only remedy.

And so he’s wielding this sharp double-edged sword. He’s been wielding it now for these two chapters, he’s been wielding it really from the very beginning, The Book of Hebrews is saturated in Old Testament quotations, saturated in the Word of God, but I think he’s really specifically saying, “Look at all that Psalm 95 can do in your life.” And it’s just five verses of the Old Testament. Oh, the beauty of the Scripture, the power of it, how it can be unleashed in your life. So he’s talking about it, that’s the context. And so what does he say? What does he say about the searching qualities of the Word of God?

I. The Searching Qualities of the Word of God

Well, look again at verse 12, “The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.”

First he says that it’s living. The Scripture is living. The Word of God as a living thing. It’s alive in some mysterious way, it is a mystery, this life of the Scripture, it’s a mysterious thing, but it is alive. These are living words. JI Packer, the Puritan scholar, speaking of Richard Baxter’s ‘Reformed Pastor’ said this, “Its words have hands and feet. They climb all over you, they work their way into your heart and conscience and will not be dislodged.” Well, dear friends, if that is true of Richard Baxter’s uninspired book, ‘Reformed Pastor,’ how much infinitely more is that true of the Word of God?

It has hands and feet and it climbs into your heart. These words are living things, they run into your brain through your eyes as you read and your ears as you hear. They find their way quickly through your spiritual bloodstream, into the vital organs of your spiritual experience, and they settle in there, they are alive, they begin to multiply their effects on you, they send off related thoughts and implications, they challenge an ever widening circle of issues in your heart and mind. They’re multiplying, replicating, they’re moving and churning, they’re running roughshod over every objection you may have. They take your whole way of viewing everything in the world captive and transform it and make it like God’s.

The Bible is living and it’s also life-giving, Basic principle and biology is life comes from life. If any biologist anywhere in the world is studying looking through a microscope at a living cell, plant or animal, that biologist knows one thing, that living cell came from something living. If something is alive, something living gave it birth. So also dear friends, if you are alive spiritually, it is the living Word of God that gave you life. That’s where you got it from. Life comes from life, so the Word of God is living. We were spiritually dead, and now we are alive forever more.

It says in Ephesians 2:1 1, “But as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live.” You were the living dead. You were biologically alive, but you were spiritually dead. But in Ephesians 2:5, it says God “made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved…” and God used as an instrument of that spiritual life-giving, that spiritual resurrection of you, the Word of God, the Word of the Gospel. Jesus said in John 5:24, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life and will not be condemned, he’s crossed over from death to life.” So the Word has power to give life to the dead.

You remember that story in 2 Kings 13, where some dead person was being buried and it was a time of turbulence, military turbulence, as frequently happened in Israel’s history, some raiders rode into that town and so the people in the middle of the funeral hurriedly took that dead body and threw it into Elisha’s tomb where his bones were and suddenly that dead person sprang to life. That really happened. But it’s also a kind of a living parable. If Elisha’s bones can give life to a dead corpse, how much more can the living and enduring Word of God give life to a spiritual soul. Just spring to life when you hear the Gospel. We live on a living planet, don’t we? This green, glowing, pulsating, alive, Emerald-like thing, just in the middle of blackness of space. Where does all that green come from, all those plants? Well, they come from seeds. Where do the seeds come from? They come from plants, and on and on. Read about it in Genesis 1.

But the most remotest piece of land on earth is an island in the South Atlantic called Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic. It’s 1509 miles from the nearest landmass, which is also another tiny little island in the South Atlantic, St. Helena, where Napoleon was exiled because it was so distant itself from every other landmass. It is just like half the continent of North America away from any land, and yet it’s just covered with lush green vegetation. How in the world did that happen? So, biologists study this, and they wonder how the seeds got there to begin with. Well, I have no idea. Maybe they were carried there on wind currents. Maybe they were lodged in logs that floated from South America or from Africa, I don’t really know. Maybe they were in the intestines of birds that ate some plant and then died, flew there and died and then the plant sprang to life. People have different theories, but it doesn’t matter how distant or how far life can get there, how much more than to the distant shores does the gospel go with life in Jesus’ name?

And it doesn’t matter how old it is either. I was reading recently about an archaeologist that found some old wheat seeds in the burial shrouds of a mummy from Egypt, he decided to plant them and he got wheat out of them. They were 3000 years old. But apparently no water had ever touched them and so they were vital, they were ready to go. In the 16th century, there was a copy of the Scriptures in some old Augustinian cloister, Martin Luther blows the dust off the pages, reads and comes to life spiritually, and the Reformation just jumps up out of that.

It doesn’t matter how old the Bible is, it is still vital, still alive. Bible also has power to revive you spiritually, to renew you, to give you new life in your walk with Jesus. As it says in Psalm 23, “He restores my soul.” Or in Isaiah 40, “Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings as eagles, they’ll run and not be weary, they’ll walk and not be faint.” All of that gets ministered to you through the Bible. That’s how it comes, the Scripture comes and gives you life.

Have you ever heard it said of a great teacher, a preacher, “That individual makes the Bible come alive”? I hate that expression. The Bible is already alive. We are the ones with the problem. No, a skillful teacher is using the Bible to make you come alive. The Bible’s forever young, it’s forever ancient. It will never lose its youthful vitality or its ancient wisdom and experience. It’s never gonna get old and feeble, or decrepit. It cannot become out of date and uncool or is the word “vintage.” The Bible is never gonna be vintage, dear friends. The Bible is alive and active today. It’s younger than you are, and it’s older than you are. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how young you are. It’s vital, it’s strong.

And also beautifully, the Bible cannot be killed, though many have tried to do it. You just can’t kill it. The Roman Empire sought to do it, they couldn’t do it. The barbarian Dark Ages that spread over Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire couldn’t do it. Vikings and all their depredations on the monasteries, they didn’t care about the Word of God at all, so they sacked the monasteries, because there is no one there that could fight them, or would fight them. And they burned all these worthless scrolls, and took the gold and silver they found, and off they went. About 150 years later, they’re converted to Christianity. That’s what happens with the Vikings.

You can’t destroy the Word of God. You can burn some copies of it. You can burn some scrolls. Many have done that. The Medieval Roman Catholic church burned Luther’s German translation of the Bible, they burned the Bible, because it was in the vernacular, but still it lives. The enlightenment’s mockery under Voltaire couldn’t stop it. The enlightenment philosophy under Immanuel Kant couldn’t destroy it. It’s still here. And the murderous and totalitarian regimes of the 20th century Nazism and Communism, they tried to destroy it. Nazism is dead and gone, communism is going to join it soon, but the Bible still stands and it will stand forever.

Persecution can’t kill the Bible, neither can worldliness. Our worldliness will not kill the Bible. It may kill us but it’s not gonna kill the Bible. Doctrinal error can’t kill the Bible, lazy neglect of its teachings cannot kill the Bible, nor slanderous misrepresentations of its teachings, that cannot kill it, nor unbelief by whole regions and generations of people, that cannot kill it either, it still lives. Charles Spurgeon put it this way, “The gospel is such a living gospel that were it cut into a thousand shreds, every particle of it would spring to life and grow. If it were buried beneath a thousand avalanches of error, it would shake off the rubble and rise from its grave. If it were cast into the midst of a fire, it would simply walk through the flame, as it has done many a time as if it were in its native element.” So, the Bible is living.

Secondly, the Bible is active. And now, you’re wondering how long this sermon is going to be. Now you’re wondering, Okay, we’re only on the second descriptor. Well, don’t worry, Eric already said you’re going to get out before the Super Bowl, right? When is that? 6 O’clock, 7 O’clock. Worry not, dear friends.

The Bible is active, the Word of God is living and active. What does it mean active? Another translation, would be powerful or perhaps energetic. I take it to mean effective. The Bible is effective, it’s able to produce the effect it desires. When drug manufacturers want to test the effectiveness of a drug, they have to remove any questions about what’s called a psychosomatic effect. In other words, people who take pills and medication think they’re going to get better and that helps them to get better. So in order to test that they come up with things called placebos; they have the same shape and size and color of the other pill and they do tests. The placebo however is studied because it has absolutely no chemical effect on the body at all, at least in the areas that they’re trying to study. So, it just removes that at all, and then they can compare.

Let me tell you something, the Bible is no placebo. It is effective, it’s an effective agent, it steps in and does what God sends it to do, every time. And the clear testimony of this, Isaiah 55:10-11, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” God sends forth His word and it comes back to Him having done the job.

By the way, in that passage, Isaiah 55, I discovered this morning. I hadn’t thought it through. The Word of God is compared to rain there, precipitation. In other places, it’s compared to the seed, so the Word of God is everything, it’s the rain that comes down, it’s the seed that it receives. God’s all over the whole process. The Word of God produces an unmistakable effect and God said, “Let there be light and there was light.” Genesis 1:3, or in Genesis 1:9, “And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear, and it was so.” The Word of God produces the effects specifically on human hearts spiritually, for the elect, those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. The word brings them to life, and sustains them in life until they are glorified in the presence of God.

For the non-elect, they are hardened and offended by the Word. They are confirmed in sin and in patterns. They are given over to their sin, as it says in Romans chapter 1, by the same Word. And so it says in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, “For we are to God, the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing, to the one the smell of death and to the other we are the fragrance of life.”

Now, preachers need to trust wholly in the Bible to transform the church. Put your trust here. Anyone who wants to see a church transform, they must put their trust in the Word and not in some technique or gimmick coming from a Christian book store that you can buy for $39.99 and you get out of a box. Reformation of a church doesn’t come out of a box, it comes out of the Scripture. Spurgeon says this to his fellow pastors, “You may study your sermon, my brother, and you may be a great rhetorician, you may be able to deliver it with wonderful fluency and force, but the only power that is effectual for the highest design of preaching is the power which does not lie in your word nor in my word, but in the Word of God.” Have you never noticed when persons are converted that they almost always attribute it to some text that was quoted in the sermon? It is God’s word and not our comment on God’s Word, which saves souls.

So, what effect does the Word of God produce? Well, it releases those that are held captive to sin, it unlocks the doors of hearts and the prison cell of unbelief, and lets the captive go free into a free life of Jesus. It unlocks the doors of depression and discouragement and sets the captive free into lives of joyful selfless service to the Savior. It convicts sinful twisted hearts of deep patterns of selfishness, it reveals hidden lusts and the cliff edges of materialism and other things in the heart to keep that soul walking in Jesus, that’s what the Scripture can do. And all servants of Christ, pastors or not, it doesn’t matter, should put their full trust in the Word of God because the Word of God alone is effective.

Thirdly, the Word of God is sharp, sharp. It says sharper than any double-edged sword, the sharpness of the Word of God. Its ability to divide and render asunder things that ordinarily would be together, that’s what’s discussed here. What is a double-edged sword? Literally, the Greek is two-mouthed sword, one that cuts both ways, two sharp edges, two honed edges. No dull side. Friends, there are no dull passages in the Bible. There are only dull minds as we come to those passages.

Spurgeon was relating a story of a man who was just reading a Sunday school lesson, just reading the Sunday School lesson. And he came to that genealogy in Genesis 5, which goes from Adam to Noah. And it’s just this kind of rhythmic so-and-so lived so many years after the birth of so and so, and they had other sons and daughters, and then he died, and then he died, and then he died and then he died, and then he died, and the man was converted because he was considering his own death. He was cut to the heart by that passage because it has piercing, it has cutting abilities. The Word is sharp. It is sharp and it cuts both ways. A preacher unleashing the powerful convicting word of the Bible ought to see, does see, if he’s a godly man, that it’s cutting both ways. It’s not just the people that are being cut, but it’s the preacher as well. He stands under the convicting, converting, the transforming power of the Word, because he is having those same things happening in his life.

And I was meditating on this cutting because there’s a Greek word that relates to the cutting. It made me think of another passage of Scripture, 2 Timothy 2:15, which says, Paul’s talking to Timothy, a young pastor. He says “Study to show yourselves approved unto God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.” Orthotomeo is a Greek word, rightly cutting it, cutting it right. So I thought, Now this is strange. In Hebrews, it talks about how the word is sharp, but then in 2 Timothy, it’s that he’s to cut the word straight.

So I was meditating on this and I came up with my onion illustration. About two or three months ago, I was making spaghetti with fresh onions, big white onions from the produce section. And I got a sharp knife and I sliced right through the center of that onion, and opened it up, and I was weeping within 30 seconds. I was just weeping as the pungent chemicals just oozed and flowed up into my face. And so I think that’s how these two relate. A skillful pastor cuts open the Scripture so it can cut you open, just unfolds the Word of God so that you are cut open before it and brought to tears over sin, brought to conviction and brought to joy over what Jesus has done at the cross. And so the Word of God does have power to hurt you and it also has power to heal you from that hurt. He wounds, and then he binds up the wounds, and he does it by the Word.

Take someone with a malignant tumor growing up inside their body, strangely, the body is supporting and nourishing that malignant tumor with blood vessels, feeding that tumor with blood vessels. The surgeon comes in with a scalpel and cut those blood vessels and there is bleeding. But the intention is healing because that tumor will kill you. And so the Word of God is sharp to heal you from sin.

And it’s also penetrating. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. So it’s not just a slashing kind of thing, but a piercing kind of thing. There’s a sense of piercing. Well, what’s being pierced? Our hardened hearts. That’s what’s being pierced.

It says in Hebrews 3:12-13, “See to it brothers that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Sin is deceitful. And the effect is a hardening of the heart. The Word of God has a remedy, it pierces the hardness that sin has produced. As in the days of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2:37. When the people heard his sermon, it says, “They were cut to the heart,” they were pierced in their hearts, “and they said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?'” “Repent and believe in Jesus” is the answer. But because they were pierced. The Word of God can pierce like a rapier point.

One of my favorite stories from church history concerns George Whitefield, he was a powerful preacher of the Word of God, very dramatic but very biblical, very God-centered. He was an expository preacher but very passionate and dramatic in his presentation. He’s just going verse by verse and going through this and unleashing the power of the Word of God. And the Great Awakening, just by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Great Awakening was just pouring down as this man and others preached this Word. However, everywhere Whitefield went, he stimulated tremendous opposition, people hated him, and opposed him. Some would blow trumpets in his ear while he’s up on the stand preaching, others would throw dead cats at him or worse. He had enemies, and as he was doing it in one particular ministry in Bristol, England, he had stimulated some specific opposition.

Now, George Whitefield had a defect with his body. His eyes were constantly crossed. He had crossed-eye like that, and so those that sought to mock him called him Dr. Squintum. And so he had these squinty kind of crossed eyes, and there was this one particular group of young men who made it their business to mock Whitefield everywhere he went. They organized themselves in something called the Hell-Fire Club and there was a particular man named Thorpe, who was kind of the ring leader of the Hell-Fire Club, and they just kind of mocked him wherever he went in Bristol, England. And apparently, Thorpe was very good at doing impressions, he was good at it, and he had all of Whitefield’s mannerisms and gestures down pat. So he went with his buddies, the Hell-Fire Club, to a certain pub like a bar and he got a copy of one of Whitefield’s printed sermons, and he has the copy in his hand, gets up on the table and starts to mock Whitefield by preaching one of Whitefield’s sermons. Ten minutes into it, he is converted by the power of what he’s mocking.

He just sinks down on his knees in tears and begs Jesus to forgive him, forgive. This piercing power of the Word of God, and then he became himself a preacher of the Word, and led many to faith in Christ.

It’s the piercing power of the Word of God. You can’t escape it, if you’re one of God’s elect; and the Word of God has power to discriminate in your mind between this and that, to set it apart, to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow. I don’t know what that means exactly. Some theologians say that there’s a difference between the soul and the spirit. They say that the soul is that part of you that relates to God and they even, some of them, talk about it being implanted at the new birth, relationship with God. And then they say the spirit’s the natural kind of immaterial part of you that enervates you, that gives you life, etcetera. Look, I don’t know, I think that the word soul and spirit are frequently used interchangeable in Scripture, but I know this, if there can be a distinction made between soul and spirit, it’s the Word of God that can do it, and it can divide between joints and marrow too. And so it discriminates.

Charles Spurgeon put it this way, “The Word not only lets you see what your thoughts are, but it criticizes your thoughts. The Word of God says of this thought it is vain and of that thought it is acceptable. of this thought it is selfish and of that thought it is Christ-like. It is a judge of the thoughts of men and the Word of God is such a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart that when men twist about and wind and wander yet it tracks them down.”

II. Judgment Day Before the Word of God

And so, the written Word of God is vibrant, and its job is to bring us now, now, today, while there’s time, spiritually in our minds to bring us to Judgment Day. That’s its job. It brings Judgment Day to you or you to Judgment Day because it says it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The function of Scripture is to save your soul. 2 Timothy 3:15, “How from infancy, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” That’s what they can do. And so, before salvation can happen, a sinner has to be made to see himself as guilty in the eyes of the holy God. That sinner has to be brought to the judgment bar of God and stand guilty, and the Word of God has power to do that. It’s a mirror that shows you your corruptions, and it has power to illuminate your thought-life and reveal it to be godly or corrupt at any moment, it has the power to lay open the twists and turns of your tricky heart.

It says in Jeremiah 17:9 and 10, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” That’s not a rhetorical question, it’s a real question. Who can understand the human heart? Next verse, “I the Lord search the heart and the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” God knows your heart. He knows everything about it, even in its sinfulness.

Hunters catch foxes by studying their habit patterns and how they are clever and tricky, and how they double back on their ways and all that, what their layers are, and so human beings can hunt foxes successfully. But we can’t hunt our own hearts successfully, can we? But God through the Word can hunt our hearts successfully and the Word of God works together with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit uses the Word, and the Word and the Holy Spirit go together. And so the Spirit brings conviction of sin and it brings us to the judgment seat of God. And why is that?

III. The Searching Omniscience of God Himself

Look at verse 13, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account,” of God. This is God’s universe. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and His holy eyes search out everything there is on this planet. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. We in our sin yearn to hide, we yearn to hide.

Adam and Eve made those fig leaf coverings for themselves and then when they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they ran and hid behind trees. They’re looking for a covering and they think that God cannot see what they do in the dark. But even the darkness is as light to God, there’s nothing in all creation hidden. Our secret lusts, our secret deeds, our secret desires, our secret histories, the things we’ve done in the past, the Word of God uncovers them in His holy presence so that we can bring them to the cross of Jesus for forgiveness. So that we can bring those things to Jesus and say, “Lord I am a sinner, oh Be merciful to me. Oh, Jesus, you shed your blood for sinners. I am a sinner. Save me, save me.” Even the best men in the Bible forget that God sees everything. We always think we sin in the dark, don’t we?

So Moses right before he kills the Egyptian, what’s he do? He kind of looks here and there. Well, what’s he looking for? For eyewitnesses. Seeing that there were none, he proceeded and killed the man, but he forgot the most important eyewitness of all, Almighty God. Or Jonah, he runs down and gets on the ship. Why? To get away from God. You can’t do that. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. There’s nowhere you can go from His Spirit, nowhere you can flee from His presence. And we yearn for a covering. And why?

IV. Judgment Day Before God Himself

Because some day in verse 13, we are going to give God an account. We are going to stand before Him and we will give Him an account.

Later in this book of Hebrews, “Man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment.” And we are not ready, in our naked sin, we are not ready to stand before Him. We need a covering, amen? We need a covering. And there is a covering; the covering is the blood of Jesus, and so it says in Romans chapter 4, “Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” We need a covering and the covering is provided. His name is Jesus, His blood was shed that we might be covered, that we might be forgiven, that we might stand clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.

V. Application

And so, what application can we take from this? Prize and reverence the Word of God, revere it. I don’t mean set the book in front of you, and bow down to it like some heathenish idol. Not saying that. I’m saying open it up and read it, listen to its message and realize that God’s speaking to you by it. And let the Word of God convert you. You may be here in an unconverted state, you should tremble about that, it should cause you to be worried and concerned about your soul. I plead with you to flee to Christ. Jesus shed His blood for sinners like you and me, God raised Him from the dead on the third day, trust in Him. The Word of God has power to convert you. And if you’re already a Christian, but you’re feeling saggy in your Christian life, you’re feeling drained, you’re weak, especially in your prayer life, let the word of Christ revive you spiritually. Go to the Word to derive new strength from it and let the Word of God strengthen you for His service. You’re given a ministry but you’re getting weary in it, you’re not seeing the fruits of the results, you’re tired of it. Go back to the Word through the Spirit, and let the Word of God revive you and renew your strength so you can go out and serve Him. And let the Word of God be your main strategy for fruitfulness.

If the Lord tarries and if the Lord calls me away from this pulpit, either by death or by some other calling, which I don’t intend at all, it’s not in my mind… I’d like to stay here till death. But if you’re here and the time comes to get another pastor, get one that’ll preach the Word, that’s what you’re searching for. And if you’re looking, you’re searching for a church, if you should leave from this place as our covenant says, or you’re not a member yet, find a church that preaches the Word above all else, that’s what you need. And finally let the Word of God search your innermost heart. I would suggest you physically lay down on your bed from time to time and say Psalm 139:23 and 24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way and lead me in the way everlasting.” And then having been renewed and revived and strengthened, then take the Word of God out to a world that needs it. You’re surrounded by people without hope and without God in the world, minister the Word of God to somebody this week, say the words of Scripture to a lost person this week, get into a great conversation like Jesus did with that woman at the Samaritan well. Close with me in prayer.

Father, we thank You for the power of the living and active Word of God. We thank you for everything it does in our souls. I pray that you would take the words that I’ve spoken and that You would blow away the chaff, the influences and effects that I have given that are unhelpful for human hearts. Blow them away, but let the eternal seed of the Word of God take root in hearts and grow to bear fruit for eternity. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

Throughout military history, no technology was so carefully developed and guarded as that of swordmaking… the sword was the most powerful weapon in the world before the advent of gunpowder… thus it became a symbol of military conquest:

To live by the sword or to die by the sword meant to live and die by military conquest The sword devours one as well as another

Swords are mentioned 404 times in the NIV…

The merest mention of the word sword evokes images of legendary figures: English knights, Roman gladiators, Japanese ninjas or Viking warriors.

When I was a missionary in Japan, I became fascinated by the katana, the legendary Samurai sword that was forged with astonishing precision by ancient technologies

When you look at the edge of an exquisitely forged Samurai sword, you can see ripples in the steel… as though there are layers upon layers of steel

And that’s because that is exactly what they are… layers after layers of two different types of steel: High carbon steel, that is exceptionally hard: such steel can be honed to a microscopically razor sharp edge, able to cut through any armor it might face; the problem with the high-carbon steel is that it is also brittle… it can snap easily in battle; so the craftsmen learned to layer the high-carbon steel with low carbon steel that was tougher, more durable… the combination of exquisite hardness honed to a razor-sharp edge with amazing toughness was achieved with these layers sometimes the blacksmith would fold the sword’s metal sixteen times and pound it down while it was red hot…

It took centuries for this art to be developed and the secrets to the manufacture of these terrifying weapons of war were closely guarded

Stories developed over time of two master craftsmen

Masamune and Muramasa… two men who actually lived at different times from each other, so the legendary contest between the two could never actually have happened. Now, Samurai sword history regards Masamune’s swords as some of the most beautifully crafted Katana ever made, and his surviving swords are all priceless national treasures. By contrast, Muramasa’s swords were regarded as violent, brutish and evil while the swords of Masamune were considered to be deeply spiritual, pure and benevolent. In the legend, Muramasa was Masamune’s student. The student became arrogant and at some point challenged his master to see who could make the finer sword.

To test the swords, each sword was held into the current of a stream. The student Muramasa’s sword was so perfectly sharp it was said to have cut a leaf in half that simply touched the blade from the current alone. But the master Masamune’s sword did not cut a thing, with the leaves miraculously avoiding it at the last second, as if to show it possessed a benevolent power that would not harm anything that was innocent or undeserving – even a simple leaf…

But that is just a legend… in the passage today we read of a more perfect sword, sharper, more penetrating, and more spiritual… as a matter of fact, this sword is actually said to be ALIVE: Even better than the Samurai legend, this sword only ever cuts in order to heal… it cuts in order to bring life, it cuts in order to ingraft faith, it cuts in order surgically to remove the tumor of sin…it is the word of God

Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double- edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Every time you pick up the Bible, you are holding in your hand an astonishing marvel… it is literally a miracle. Only the power of Almighty God can explain the existence and potency of the Bible

Over the centuries, God forged this sword in the furnace of human history… inspiring its authors to write perfect words that reveal the mind of God to the human race

The Uniqueness of the Bible: “Unique” = different from every other book

a.    unique in its continuity

¨      Written over a 1500 year span

¨      Written over 40 generations

¨      Written by over 40 authors from every walk of life: kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars

¨      Written in different places: Moses in the desert, Jeremiah in a dungeon, Daniel in a palace, Paul in a prison, John in exile on an island

¨      Written in times of war, of peace, of great joy, of terrible sadness

¨      Written on three continents: Asia, Africa, Europe

¨      Written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek

¨      Written about hundreds of controversial subjects: life, death, judgment, right & wrong, marriage, divorce, parenting, government, sin, forgiveness

Yet, for all of this, the Bible speaks with a united voice about all these issues!

b.    unique in its circulation & translation:

¨      several billion copies of the Bible

¨      over 2500 different languages

¨      no other book in human history even comes close

c.    unique in its survival

¨      survival over time: over 3500 years of history

¨      survival through persecution: many kings and leaders have tried to destroy the Bible, burn it, forbid its spread, forbid from being read

¨      survival through criticism: unbelievers have for hundreds of years tried to pick the Bible apart and find errors in it… they have utterly failed

d.    unique in its teachings

¨      prophecy: the Bible alone stands outside of time and makes predictions which come true hundreds, even thousands of years later

¨      history: the Bible records historical events of thousands of years ago with incredible accuracy… modern archeology has verified many of these details

¨      personalities: the Bible is honest about its heroes… never tries to cover up their failings or sins: e.g. King David & Bathsheba; disciples’ constantly misunderstanding Jesus… the Bible has a habit of telling the truth

Context: Why does the author of Hebrews pause to celebrate the power of the word of God here in Hebrews 4?

Answer: for much of the last two chapters, the author has been meditating very powerfully and searchingly over a small portion of the Old Testament, five verses in Psalm 95. He has zeroed in on the overall message of these verses: the failure of the Jews to enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief and disobedience; he has obviously applied that in the New Covenant to the failure of those who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ to press on in faith until they finally enter heaven.

He has also meditated powerfully on some key words: “Today”… “God’s rest” The idea of “Today” has come to the fore several times, that God set a certain day calling it “Today”… this is all we ever have to hear, believe and obey the word of God. God’s rest is a theme of the Old Testament: God’s rest after creation, and the focus on the people of God entering the Promised Land.

He has set the whole Psalm in context, noting that David wrote it long after Joshua gave them

More than anything, he has shown the absolute necessity of hearing the voice of God by the Holy Spirit’s present pressing of the written word of God on the conscience of the believer… the essence of ongoing spiritual health is hearing God speak through Scripture by the Holy Spirit, and not hardening your heart when you do… actually OBEYING whatever God says through the word.

ALL OF THIS has come from five overwhelmingly powerful verses in one Psalm!!! That is the incredible power of the word of God… so the author to Hebrews stops to celebrate this awesome phenomenon—the written word of God.

His goal is to keep the Hebrew believers connected to the only power source by which their faith will be renewed… the living, active word of God

I.   The Searching Qualities of the Word of God

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double- edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow

A.  Living

1.  The word of God is ALIVE… it is living

2.  What does this mean? It is a mystery, impossible to comprehend; but these words are LIVING words

J.I. Packer, speaking of Richard Baxter’s Reformed Pastor: “Its words have hands and feet. They climb all over you; they work their way into your heart and conscience, and will not be dislodged.”

That is true of Baxter’s book… it is INFINITELY MORE TRUE of the words of Scripture… they are living things; they run into your brain through your eyes as you read and your ears as you hear; they find their way quickly through your spiritual bloodstream into the vital organs of your spiritual existence and they settle in their; they are ALIVE… they begin to multiply their effects on you, send off related thoughts and implications, challenging an ever widening circle of issues in your heart and mind… they are multiplying and replicating and moving and churning and running roughshod over your objections and taking over your whole way of viewing everything

3.  They also IMPART life…

a.  Basic biological principle: life comes from life

b.  If something is alive, it had some living parent to give it birth

c.  So also if you are ALIVE spiritually, it is the WORD OF GOD, specifically the WORD of the GOSPEL that gave you birth…

d.  Life comes from life… so the word of God is LIVING, in that it makes you alive spiritually

e.  We WERE spiritually dead, and it was the WORD that gave you life

Ephesians 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins… Ephesians 2:5 God… made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions– it is by grace you have been saved.

John 5:24 I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

f.  Our planet is mysteriously alive by the power of seeds to sprout forth; the remotest island in the world is Tristan de Cunha in the South Atlantic; it is 1509 miles from the nearest landmass, and that is the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon was exiled; Tristan de Cunha is covered with lush vegetation of many different sorts: how did it get there, you may ask? Seeds either float long distances on air currents or on the ocean’s waves on logs, or amazingly in the intestines of birds… but when those seeds are planted, they immediately spring to life and bear vegetation

In 1902, Dr. J.C. Bayles did an astonishing experiment with some wheat seeds that had been extracted from the burial cloths of an Egyptian mummy; the mummy dated from the 12th Dynasty of Egypt, approximately 1288 B.C. That means the seeds were over 3000 years old; Dr. Bayles said these tiny seeds were hard as a grain of silica, but evidently they had been kept perfectly dry all those centuries; when he planted them and watered them as he would any ordinary seeds, they sprouted and formed magnificent heads of bronze grain;

[“The Perennial Miracle of Spring”; NY Times, April 27, 1902]

this is the principle of BIOLOGICAL LIFE wrapped up in a wheat seed; HOW MUCH MORE POWERFUL is the Word of God, which after even more time can spring to life in your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit!

The Reformation was largely due to a copy of the Scriptures left in the seclusion of a monastery in Erfurt, Germany, and there hidden till Luther came under its influence, and his heart furnished soil for the living seed to grow in.

g.  The bible also has power to REVIVE you spiritually… if you are flagging, growing weaker spiritually; it is the LIVING word of God that does this… like this story from 2 Kings:

2 Kings 13:21 Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

4.  No one needs to MAKE THE BIBLE COME ALIVE… the Word of God is alive already; when a pastor or teacher is said to “make the Bible come alive”, what they are saying is that the Holy Spirit is using that man to unleash the power of the living word to make YOU come alive

5.  Other books make an impact…(Plato’s philosophizing, Einstein’s general and special theories of relativity, Shakespeare’s plays, Jane Austen’s novels, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Copernicus’s Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies) but only the Bible is ALIVE and only the Bible can impart life

6.  We may outgrow other books… we may outgrow novels that were our favorites; we may outgrow pastors and teachers; but you will never outgrow the Bible…

7.  It is forever YOUNG and forever ANCIENT… it will never lose its youthful vitality or its ancient wisdom and experience… it will never get old and feeble, or become out of date and uncool

8.  Also, the Bible CANNOT BE KILLED… though many have sought to crush this book and make it disappear, they cannot do it; the Roman Empire could not do it; the Barbarian Dark Ages in Europe could not do it; the Vikings and all their depradations on monasteries and burnings of scrolls could not do it; the medieval Roman Catholic burnings of Luther’s translation of the Bible into German couldn’t stop it; the Enlightenment’s mockery under Voltaire and Kant couldn’t kill it; the murderous and totalitarian 20th century with its Nazis and its Communists couldn’t kill the Word of God

a.  Persecution can’t kill the Bible

b.  Neither can Worldliness

c.  Nor Doctrinal Error

d.  Nor lazy neglect

e.  Nor slanderous misrepresentations of its teachings

f.  Not unbelief by most of a whole generation

g.  IT STILL LIVES!!!

Charles Spurgeon: The gospel is such a living gospel that, if it were cut into a thousand shreds, every particle of it would live and grow. If it were buried beneath a thousand avalanches of error, it would shake off the rubble and rise from its grave, If it were cast into the midst of fire it would walk through the flame as it has done many a time, as though it were in its natural element.

B.  Active (Effective)

1.  The author also tells us that the Word of God is “active”… or “powerful”… or perhaps “energetic”

2.  I take this to mean “effective”… able to produce the effect it desires

a.  Drug manufacturers who want to test the effectiveness of a drug need to clear it away from the psychosomatic effects of simply taking medicine…. In other words, for some people, just taking a pill can produce a mental effect that aids in the healing of the body

b.  SO… researchers who want to prove that their drug actually produces an EFFECT test it compared to a PLACEBO; a placebo is a substance in the exact same shape of pill as the real drug, but which is chemically INERT… proven to have NO CHEMICAL EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the body

c.  Placebo chemicals are studied and analyzed in their own right, and proven to be INERT…

d.  Dear friends, the WORD OF GOD is NOT INERT… it is NO PLACEBO… it produces a specific effect in the human heart

3.  Clear testimony:

Isaiah 55:10-11 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

4.  The Word of God produces a direct and unmistakable effect

Genesis 1:3 “And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.

Genesis 1:9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.

5.  The Word of God produces its effect specifically on HUMAN HEARTS spiritually…

a.  For the elect, they are wooed and won to Christ, sustained and nourished and warned and kept in Christ by the Word of God

b.  For the non-elect, they are hardened and offended confirmed in sin by the Word of God

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.

6.  Preachers need to trust WHOLLY in the Bible… good, clear expositions of Scripture… to build the church to full maturity in Christ

Spurgeon: “I cannot help feeling that the man who preaches the Word of God is standing, not upon a mere platform, but upon a throne.

Suprgeon, to his fellow pastors: You may study your sermon, my brother, and you may be a great rhetorician, and be able to deliver it with wonderful fluency and force; but the only power that is effectual for the highest design of preaching is the power which does not lie in your word, nor in my word, but in the Word of God. Have you never noticed, when persons are converted, that they almost always attribute it to some text that was quoted in the sermon? It is God’s Word, not our comment on God’s Word, which saves souls.

7.  What effect does the Word of God produce?

a.  It releases those captive to sin… it unlocks the doors of hearts in the prison cell of unbelief and lets the captive go free into eternal life in Jesus

b.  In unlocks the doors of depression and discouragement and sets the captive free into lives of joyful service to the Savior

c.  It convicts sinful, twisted hearts of deep hidden patterns of selfishness, showing them to be the snares they are

d.  It illuminates the dangerous snares of lusts and the perilous cliffs of materialism because it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path

8.  All servants of Christ should put their full confidence in the Word of God… if you want to make a difference in this dark world, proclaim the word to others… speak the word, breathe the wor, leave tracts with the word of God

9.  Because the word of God is EFFECTIVE

C.  Sharp

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double- edged sword

1.  The author next describes the SHARPNESS of the Word of God… it has power to divide and separate things that ordinarily are bound together

2.  What is a “double-edged sword”? Literally “two-mouthed” sword, one that cuts both ways… two honed edged, no dull side

3.  There is not a DULL passage in the Bible

Spurgeon told the story of a man reading a simple Sunday School lesson, came upon the genealogy of Genesis 5 from Adam to Noah… each entry ended with the droning words “So and so live so many years, and then he died.” The repetition of the words “And then he died; and then he died; and then he died… including Methuselah who lived longer than any other human being… and then he died

This man was cut to the heart by this passage, surprising as it may seem to you; and he fell under the weight of conviction and the sense of the danger of death and judgment… he repented and eventually came to Christ

This word is SHARPER than any double-edged sword

4.  AND it “cuts both ways”

a.  A preacher unleashing the powerful and convicting word of the Bible needs to see the cutting edge coming back at him as well

b.  Every godly preacher knows that he is sitting under the power and authority of the Word he is proclaiming as much as anyone sitting in the congregation

5.  The Word of God has power to HURT us and then to HEAL us with its cutting

6.  It is a powerful thing that can cut you in surprising ways… it can bleed you internally, but only for the purpose of HEALING you spiritually

Illus. A malignant tumor growing inside your body is sustained and nourished by the same types of blood vessels that sustain and nourish your vital organs… the blood cells dutifully feed that vicious tumor, not knowing that the tumor threatens the very life of the whole body; so it is that sin, undetected can grow to such a point in the body that it threatens the health of your soul; when the surgeon’s scalpel severs the blood vessels that are feeding that tumor, there is some bleeding… but the cutting is necessary to bring health to the body; so is the word of God sharper than any two-edged sword, bringing healing by cutting out sin

D.  Penetrating

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double- edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow

1.  The final attribute of the word of God has to do with its PENETRATING power… it has the power to pierce human hearts

2.  The human heart can put up defenses and barriers to the truth of the gospel

3.  It is hard, like a brick wall… or like a hardened steel of a bank vault… what could possibly penetrate it?

a.  We see this powerfully on the Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Peter’s powerful Pentecost sermon had laid them bare… made them see their sinfulness, the fact that they had had a hand in wickedly putting Jesus to death; Peter’s preaching of the Gospel gave their hearts a wound that was instrumental in saving their souls

The Word of God can PIERCE like a rapier point, penetrating our hardened hearts

b.  Amazing story told from the life of George Whitefield… the great 18th century preacher used so mightily by God in the Great Awakening

c.  He had many powerful enemies, and was mocked wherever he went to preach; people would mock him by throwing dead cats at him while he was preaching; or blowing a trumpet near his ear; but he continued to warn sinners deeply and passionately with the gospel message;

One of Whitefield’s enemies was a man named Thorpe, who was a bitter opponent of everything that is holy. He and a group of his friends—all of them young, rebellious thugs—conspired together to mock and oppose George Whitefield’s evangelistic ministry while Whitefield was preaching in Bristol, England.

George Whitefield had severely crossed eyes, and these guys used to refer to him as “Dr. Squintum.” They called their little gang “The Hell-Fire Club,” and they disrupted meetings, mocked Whitefield on the streets and in public places, and generally tried to make his ministry a reproach in their community. Whitefield’s preaching had already made a deep and lasting impact in Bristol, and these young rebels hated him for it. So this guy Thorpe got one of Whitefield’s published sermons and took it to the local pub, where the “Hell-Fire Club” was gathered to drink together while they make a mockery of Whitefield.

Thorpe was apparently pretty good at doing impressions, and he had all Whitefield’s mannerisms and gestures down pat. So he stood in the center of this pub and crossed his eyes and began to deliver a derisive rendition of Whitefield’s sermon. But in the middle of the sermon, the Word of God pierced his heart, and he suddenly stopped and sat down, trembling and broken-hearted. Right then and there, he confessed the truth of the gospel and gave his heart to Christ. His aim was to taunt and ridicule, but he accidentally converted himself! Or rather, the power of the Word of God penetrated his soul and cut him to the heart. He became a preacher himself and quite an effective evangelist, because he knew so well the power of the Word of God to penetrate hardened hearts.

4.  So the word of God can expose sin, and penetrate to the heart of sin and kill it completely

5.  It has power to DISCRIMINATE between this and that… dividing “soul and spirit, joints and marrow”

a.  This goes to the very deepest part of the human personality

b.  The inmost thoughts of the heart, the deepest aspects of the human life

c.  Some make a careful distinction of “soul and spirit”

i)  They say the soul is the part of you that is supernaturally implanted by God at conversion… the ability to relate to God

ii)  The spirit, they say, is the natural inner man… the spirit is in each living human; the natural internal drives and tendencies, etc.

iii)  I struggle to accept this distinction… but this verse tells me if a distinction CAN BE made between “soul and spirit”, the word of God is penetrating enough to do it!

6.  The word of God discriminates between this thought and that

Spurgeon: The Word not only lets you see what your thoughts are, but it criticizes your thoughts. The Word of God says of this thought, “it is vain,” and of that thought, “it is acceptable”; of this thought, “it is selfish,” and of that thought, “it is Christ-like.” It is a judge of the thoughts of men. And the Word of God is such a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart that when men twist about, and wind, and wander, yet it tracks them.

II.   Judgment Day Before the Word of God

Hebrews 4:12 it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

A.  The Function of the Word of God: Salvation Through Faith in Christ

2 Timothy 3:15 the holy Scriptures… are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

B.  The Function Here: Judgment of the Human Heart… Thoughts and Attitudes

1.  Before salvation can happen, the sinner must be made to see himself as guilty in the holy eyes of Almighty God, his judge…

2.  The word has the power to act as a MIRROR to show you your corrupt motives… why you do what you do

3.  The word of God has the power to ILLUMINATE your thought life and reveal it to be godly or corrupt at every moment

4.  The word of God has the power to lay bare the hidden twists and turns of the human heart, no matter how deceptive or tricky it is

Jeremiah 17:9-10 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”

5.  Hunters can catch foxes, despite their clever tricks and their amazing quickness… we can study the habits of foxes and their habitual lairs, and devise traps that can snare them… but God alone can catch the sinful human heart and string it up and lay it bare and exposed

C.  The Spirit and the Word Cooperate in Conviction

1.  The heart must be brought to conviction before a Savior can be called upon

2.  The word ALONE cannot do this… neither does the Spirit ALONE choose to do this

John 16:8 When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment

3.  This is a purely cooperative work between the Word and the Spirit resulting in our salvation

4.  SO the word of God’s purpose in salvation is to bring Judgment Day… the reality of it… directly home to your heart NOW by faith… to make the day REAL in your minds

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

III.   The Searching Omniscience of God Himself

Hebrews 4:13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him

A.  God the Creator: Omnipotent

1.  The whole realm of creation is God’s, for He made it

2.  Since the universe is God’s, He alone rules omnipotent over it

3.  God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and His eyes search out all the events that are occurring before Him

B.  God the King: Omniscient

1.  God sees everything, and knows everything

2.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from His sight…

3.  Sinners think God cannot see, cannot know

Psalm 94:4-9 They pour out arrogant words; all the evildoers are full of boasting. 5 They crush your people, O LORD; they oppress your inheritance. 6 They slay the widow and the alien; they murder the fatherless. 7 They say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob pays no heed.” 8 Take heed, you senseless ones among the people; you fools, when will you become wise? 9 Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?

4.  The word of God opens up the secret things of our hearts

a.  Our secret lusts… our secret deeds… the things that we hide from others, that we are ashamed to discuss

b.  Our memories, deeply locked away… things we have done in the past… the word of God UNCOVERS them in God’s holy presence so we can bring them to the cross for forgiveness

5.  Even the best men in the Bible forget the omniscience of God and His omnipresence

a.  Moses looked around to see if anyone was watching before he killed the Egyptian

b.  Jonah thought he could flee to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord

C.  Human Sinners: Deeply Desiring a Covering

1.  Adam and Eve made fig leaves to cover themselves from each other

2.  When they heard the sound of God walking in the Garden, they knew their fig leaves were insufficient for covering and they fled to hide behind some trees

3.  God alone can truly cover sins by the blood of Jesus

IV.   Judgment Day Before God Himself

Hebrews 4:13 to whom we must give account.

A.  God the Judge

Hebrews 9:27 … man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment

B.  There is Only One Covering: The Blood of Jesus

Romans 4:7-8 “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”

V.   Application

A.  Prize, Reverence and Stand in Awe of the Word of God

1.  Let us read it, prize it, cherish it, saturate our lives with it

B.  Let the Word of God Convert You!!!

1.  Stop running… let the word of God do its deepest work in your soul

2.  Come to the cross of Christ

C.  Let the Word of God Revive You Spiritually

Spurgeon: let us, whenever we feel ourselves dead, and especially in prayer, get close to the Word, for the Word of God is alive.

D.  Let the Word of God Strengthen You for His Service

whenever we feel weak in our duties, let us go to the Word of God, and the Christ in the Word, for power; and this will be the best of power. The power of our natural abilities, the power of our acquired knowledge, the power of our gathered experience, all these may be vanity, but the power which is in the Word will prove effectual.

E.  Let the Word of God Be Your Main Strategy for Fruitfulness

Let us not attempt to carry on Christ’s war with the weapons of Satan. There is nothing so cutting as the Word of God. Keep to that. I believe also that one of the best ways of convincing men of error is not so much to denounce the error as to proclaim the truth more clearly. If a stick is very crooked, and you wish to prove that it is so, get a straight one, and quietly lay it down by its side, and when men look they will surely see the difference. The Word of God has a very keen edge about it, and all the cutting words you lack you had better borrow from the Bible.

F.  Let the Word of God Search Your Innermost Heart

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.