Brown's Daily Word 10-12-09

Good Morning,
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is a final reminder of the Continentals worship concert, tonight at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church on Grant Avenue in Endicott. Laureen is a part of the leadership team for this group. She would love to see each of you at the concert and have a chance to speak with you afterward.
Today is celebrated as Columbus Day in the USA. Praise the Lord for the life and witness of Christopher Columbus. The current "politically correct" and morally confused culture and media ignore the contributions that Christopher Columbus has made. I have found the following excerpt from the diary of Christopher Columbus:
"It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel his hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures . . .
"I am a most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvelous presence. For the execution of the journey to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps. It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied . . .
"No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service. The working out of all things has been assigned to each person by our Lord, but it all happens according to His sovereign will, even though He gives advice. He lacks nothing that it is in the power of men to give Him. Oh, what a gracious Lord, who desires that people should perform for Him those things for which He holds Himself responsible! Day and night, moment by moment, everyone should express their most devoted gratitude to Him."
The Epistle reading for yesterday was taken from Hebrews 4: 12ff, the classic text on the power of the Word of God, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
This section begins with “for” or “therefore”, tying what follows with what the author has previously told us about the consequences of Israel’s disobedience. The author wants to get it through our thick heads that Israel’s awful tragedy can strike us as well.
The Bible, the word of God, is unlike any other book you have in your home or in the library. The Library of Congress lays claims to being the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts. Yet among all these volumes the only ones that can lay claims to being alive and powerful are copies of the Bible. This places the Bible in a unique category all to itself.
The word of God is no dead letter, but as the word of the living God it cannot itself fail to be living. As the living word it continues through each age with compelling relevance. “For the word of God is living and powerful.” The word translated “powerful” (energes) is the word from which we get energy and energetic. The word literally means “at work.” Charles Swindoll comments, “News articles may inform us. Novels may inspire us. Poetry may enrapture us. But only the living, active Word of God can transform us.”
It is living and active, and so when we read its words they reach out and touch the needs of our lives in an almost tangible way. Isaiah 55:11 describes Scripture as being a living agent or messenger that God sends to touch our lives. God says in this passage, "...My word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." So, unlike any other book, the Bible is living and powerful.
The Bible is also a Penetrating Word (v 12c) It is “… sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow…”
Like a sharp sword which can lay open the human body with one slashing blow, so the sword of the Scripture can open our inner life and expose it to ourselves and to others. What the author is saying is that God’s Word can reach into the innermost recesses of our being! No heart is too tough and no soul is too dark. “When God wills it, his word can pierce anyone." A certain Mr. Thorpe in the 18th century Bristol found this out. Thorpe was a part of a band of men who called themselves, the ‘Hell Fire Club.’ Their reason for existence was to mock and ridicule the work of the famed evangelist, George Whitefield. On one occasion, the ‘Hell Fire Club’ gathered at a pub in order to engage in such mockery. "Mr. Thorpe offered his brilliant imitation of Whitefield, whom he and his friends called, ‘Mr Squintum’ because of Whitefield eyes. He delivered his sermon with brilliant accuracy, perfectly imitating his tone and facial expressions as he quoted Scripture and Whitefield’s exposition. Suddenly amidst the laughter he had to sit down for he was pierced through and was converted on the spot.
Mr. Thorpe had been a thoroughly nasty man, engaged in a nasty action, yet the Word of God pierced his heart and changed him in an instant. Mr. Thorpe went on to be a prominent Christian leader in the city of Bristol” [C. H. Spurgeon. The Metropolitan Pulpit. Vol. 34. (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Pub, 1974) p. 115]
The Word of God Is Not Only A Penetrating Word but it is also a discerning Word (vv. 12d -13) “…and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
God Sees Everything - There Is No Escape. We want God to see us when we are hurting and when we are going through difficult times, so that He may come to our aid. However, when it comes to our sin and wrongdoing we would rather that God looked the other way. But verse twelve concludes by saying that the Word of God “… is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The word “discerner” (kritikos) is the word from which we get critic. As the word of God penetrates into the innermost recesses of man’s being it does so as his critic or judge.
Only the Word of God is capable of exposing the thoughts and attitudes of a single human heart. There really is no use in hiding. Why is it that when we fear that something is not quite right physically we tend to put off going to the doctor because we fear we will hear bad news. The same is true spiritually. Before God “all things are naked” or literally “laid bare.” The last part of verse thirteen says, all things are “… open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” This plainly tells us that there is a coming day of reckoning upon which we will each give an account for our lives. The day of excuses will be over; the book of Romans tells us there is coming a time “when every mouth will be stopped” (Romans 3:19), there will be no more excuses. The Apostle Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Many years ago Samuel Chadwick wrote, “I have guided my life by the Bible for more than sixty years, and I tell you there is no book like it. It is a miracle of literature, a perennial spring of wisdom, a wonder of surprises, a revelation of mystery, an infallible guide of conduct, and an unspeakable source of comfort. Pay no attention to people who discredit it, for I tell you that they speak without knowledge. It is the Word of God itself. Study it according to its own direction. Live by its principles. Believe its message. Follow its precepts. No man is uneducated who knows the Bible, and no one is wise who is ignorant of its teachings.” [Samuel Chadwick from 1001 Great Stories and Quotes. R. Kent Hughes. (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1998) p. 77]
In Christ,
Brown