Arvine. "Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." The Word of God is said to be "quick." The Cry of the Human Heart for a Personal God, The cry of the human heart for a personal God. The conversation is not between two equals, either of whom must contribute his share to the instruction and enjoyment of the meeting. It is common to view sin, even when it is acknowledged and condemned by the transgressor, in the light simply of its effects on society, or the injury it inflicts on a man's own reputation, property, or health; but when the Divine Word penetrates the soul with a convertine power, it is no longer regarded with reference only to its personal or temporal consequences, but as an atrocious violation of the law and an insult to the glory of God. We also are passing through a great crisis. THE CONCLUSIONS TO BE DRAWN FROM THESE STATEMENTS. There is such an integration of the soul and spirit of man that many deny the existence of the spirit, but declare that the soul and spirit are synonymous. 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. The very conception of the spiritual is enshrined in the bosom of God's Word. Listen to Hebrews 4 using the KJV Bible online. And yet all these are external, as such, to the very "spirit of the man that is in him." how often, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name."IV. What is there in me pleasing to God? It says, there is a word of God somewhere. It cuts like a sword whetted on each side of the blade, piercing through to the place where the natural life of the soul divides from, or passes into, the supernatural life of the spirit. Its continued and unimpaired existence notwithstanding innumerable, persistent, and powerful assaults. Saphir.We are familiar with the Word of God. "With Him," directly and personally, "we have to do." of Scripture. And when his daughter replied, "Yes; is He with you?" We have all of us to do with God as SAVIOUR — "a just God and a Saviour." And when over and above its more general statements the Bible descends, as it often does, into particulars; when it speaks of the proneness of man to prefer a transient good to an enduring; the objects in sight, however inconsiderable, to those of faith, however magnificent; when it mentions the subterfuges of those whose conscience has been disquieted; when it shows the vain hopes, the false theories, the lying visions with which men suffer themselves to be cheated, or, rather, with which, they cheat themselves, who is there amongst us who will venture to deny that the representation tallies most nicely either with what he is, or with what he was — with what he is, if he have never repented and sought forgiveness of sin; with what be was if his nature has been renewed by the operations of God's Spirit? In any operation even the women sit unmoved. Just to carry to God Himself, in the nightly confessional where we meet the one Judge, just the very thing itself which we did wrong, which we said wrong, just in so many words, that very day which is now being gathered to its parent days — ""hat is the Christian evensong. And when they find that won't do they rush out of the church and run with all their might, crying as if the hand of death were behind them.(D. Like the sword, it searches out evil and destroys it; but it is sharper than the sword, because it penetrates into the region of spiritual life, whereas the sword can only divide joints and marrow, and its power is limited to the animal life. We have to do, then, with a God of love as our Creator.II. THE VITALITY OF GOD'S WORD. And well I remember, when attending the deathbed of one who died of that most fearful disease, hydrophobia, as, in the agony of the spasms of disease, she grasped my hind until it ached, I repeated to her many of those beautiful prayers of ours, in one of which you have, or ought to have been joining, the thanksgiving, "We bless Time for our creation, preservation"; and she said, with a shriek, "Oh preservation, preservation, how we forget it; look at me, and let none who know it ever forget it again!" It shows the moral nature of what is interior and hidden in mental operations. 2. There are the hidden flowers of humility, of forgiving love, of patience and meekness; there are the unseen and unknown daily conflicts and victories; there is the crucifixion of the old man, and the constant renewal of the resurrection-life; and these are especially the triumphs of the power of the Word.3. Let us not forfeit it, as one whole generation forfeited Canaan, by unbelief. When the Word thus dwells in us, we give glory to God, and we are spiritually-minded. I look at the power of the word to transform lives. THE PENETRATION OF GOD'S WORD. In the conviction of men of sin. Order diversified, which is a true description of Nature, tells of a power which is no brute force; in other words, of a mind at work in its exercise. The conversation is not between two equals, either of whom must contribute his share to the instruction and enjoyment of the meeting. That we come to it for cutting force to kill our own sins and to help us in destroying the evils of the day. The Word is living (Revelation 1:18, Greek; John 5:21, 24, 26; John 6:63, 68). Like God's book of nature, it is endless in its significance and undiminishing in its attractiveness. --------------------
2. 2. 4. (William Gurnall. No created thing but is seen and manifest. It searches the whole of man's nature. The carnal mind rebels against, and, by subtle sophistries, attempts to deny its truth; but it has a powerful influence upon the understanding, spiritualising that understanding, and enabling it to discern spiritual things. H. Spurgeon.I. And by the hearing of the Word, and the deep study of the Word, and by the willing and faithful acceptance of all that it reveals, this life of God in the soul is maintained; renewed as it languishes from its corrupt communication with earth, and daily carried on to further advancement and strength. For the word of God is living and active. There is no independent life but in the one Fountain of all life, and all other life is a life of dependence — a dependence of the creature on the Creator, of the thing made upon the Maker, of the thing living on Him that gave it life. God is called the Living One; and Christ the Lord calls Himself the Living One. 1. "(Baxendale's Anecdotes. How powerful it is for conversion! It opens a man to himself, so that he may know himself in his moral actions and accountability.4. This Word was a voice before it was a Book. The spirit of the man has other words besides this to utter in the ear with which it has to do. --------------------
Livingstone.The Bechuanas are excellent patients. Are there not some who would be ready to own that sermons have occasionally had on them a mighty and almost overcoming effect; so that they have felt constrained to give full assent to the truths uttered in their hearing, though these truths have convicted them of heinous offences, and proved them placed in terrible danger. Today's sermon to the Hebrews hits close to home for us in contemporary America. It is thus a "discerner of the thoughts."II. On, where is Christ? But where would the Word have been by this time, left to itself — left, I mean, to echo and tradition? We have to do with God, or, at least, we may have to do with Him — we have if we are wise, we have if we are saved — as OUR RECONCILED FATHER, "the Lord our Righteousness," in whom we are chosen, in whom we are sealed, in whom we are at peace with God. The potent influence of the Word is often for a long period concealed from the outward world in the depths of the soul. Last week we explored that situation and saw that the writer began his sermon to the group with soaring lines about the God who speaks (Hebrews 1:1-4). Universal anarchy, chaos, and desolation. 2. Hebrews 4:12 12 For the word of God is living and effective g and sharper than any double-edged sword, h penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Might we but enter into this conception, what an elevation, what a grandeur would it give to the life! It is not that on equal terms and with equal rights God and the man meet together to think out and to talk out the thing that was, and that is, and that shall be. While, it has an edge like a sword, it has also a point like a rapier. The Old Testament
The matter of fact is, that the gospel of Christ carries with it its own credentials. "There are," St. Paul says, "so many kinds of voices in the world" — say a hundred, say a thousand — "and no one of them is without signification." the old man replied, "Yes, in a certain sense He is with me; and I have no doubt He is with me in a sense I do not imagine. It will move upon the mass of corruption; it will convince of sin; it will change the love of sin into the love of holiness; and will, if applied and carried out by the Church's wisdom, bring the wayward and ungodly affections into a stale of self-denying discipline, into humble submission to the Divine will.2. Bow is it that ye cannot infer Deity from the Divine — the Emmanuel presence from the Emmanuel character? The second, discovering things most secret. If we did not make ourselves, if we did not string the harp, we cannot keep it attuned; if we did not form the mechanism we cannot keep it from decay and dissolution. I speak of a crisis greater even than these — greater (shall I dare the paradox?) And well I remember, when attending the deathbed of one who died of that most fearful disease, hydrophobia, as, in the agony of the spasms of disease, she grasped my hind until it ached, I repeated to her many of those beautiful prayers of ours, in one of which you have, or ought to have been joining, the thanksgiving, "We bless Time for our creation, preservation"; and she said, with a shriek, "Oh preservation, preservation, how we forget it; look at me, and let none who know it ever forget it again!" General Epistles
And if this be true, then, as is very evident, there belongs to the Bible the character which is assigned to it in the words of our text. 1. The "Word" itself, to be audible as such, must have become the Spirit's voice; then it takes of the things of God and speaks them into the conscience, which is the consciousness of the man.II. We live not on mere notions and impressions; we begin to apply our knowledge to our actual state and to our daily walk: we are delivered from hypocrisy, which is since the Fall the great disease of mankind.(A. "Sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word." The b. I stand in utter astonishment, and joy as I watch Raul, and Mike, and Joe Focht, Bil Galatin, Skip Heitzig, Jeff Johnson, and Greg Laurie, Bob Coy, and the scores of others whose lives are being used so mightily by God today, as they pastor some of the largest churches in the world. David said of that, none to it; but none to this. The life is such as to exert a perpetual energy within us: we might say, powerfully alive. But where would the Word have been by this time, left to itself — left, I mean, to echo and tradition? The Word of God gets at the very marrow of our manhood; it lays bare the secret thoughts of the soul. We have to do with God as our PRESERVER. It carries with it undoubtable credence, and forces the reluctant will and judgment. supposing he had seen some one. Does any man suppose that, because we talk of laws, there is no lawgiver? Conscience is everywhere man's attribute; therefore Christianity has everywhere an evidence.(H. e. All that is necessary is to place the seed in fertile soil, and in 2000 years you could have another giant tree standing 280 feet tall. He is the life, He has life in Himself, and He came to quicken and to give us life abundantly. IT IS A DISCERNER OF THE THOUGHTS AND THE INTENT OF THE HEART. The characteristics of the Divine Word as given in the text, which we have endeavoured to illustrate, should induce the individual inquiry, What am I doing to obstruct or to sustain its influence in my own soul? What a forgetfulness do we see everywhere, and first of all in ourselves, of the great principle of the " Godward Word," of the "with whom we have to do" of this text. A man may refuse to have to do with God in obedience and submission to His will; he may set it at nought and forget it; be may lose all sense of it, by imbruting his moral being and becoming seared as with a hot iron, hut he cannot refuse to have to do with his Judge. Thank you for registering. Draw, therefore, this sword out of your scabbard and strike with its raked edge; this you will find the only way to pierce your people's consciences and fetch blood of their sins. 2. 1. Hebrews 4:12 Parallel Verses [ See commentary ]Hebrews 4:12, NIV: "For the word of God is alive and active.Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the Its doctrines, how heavenly! WITH GOD WE PRE-EMINENTLY " HAVE TO NO." conservative Christian faith, which includes a firm belief in the inerrancy
To the Being who, in Himself, is infinitely great and glorious, we bear a very close and momentous relation. It will move upon the mass of corruption; it will convince of sin; it will change the love of sin into the love of holiness; and will, if applied and carried out by the Church's wisdom, bring the wayward and ungodly affections into a stale of self-denying discipline, into humble submission to the Divine will. There is a word of God in nature, and there is a word of God in providence; there is a word of God in science, and there is a word of God in history; there is a word of God in the Church, and there is a word of God in the Bible. "To God," answered the mother, gravely, 'who remembers them for ever." The Word of God, which is the real speech and utterance of all these voices, comes at last to the man himself in conscience. Luke-Acts
The man stared, and said, "I cannot say that I ever did." 1. "The Word of God," His utterance in judging, His discernment of character, His estimate of conduct, is no dead or dormant thing; it is living and active; it is sharper than any two-edged sword; it divides and discriminates where man sees only the inseparable; " soul and spirit," the immaterial part of us in one aspect and the same immaterial part of us in another aspect, it can cleave in twain; thoughts and feelings, exercises of intellect and exercises of affection, it is apt and quick to distinguish between and to pronounce upon. 3. What haste do we make to explain, to excuse, to apologise for, to daub with obtrusive whitewash, our little dubious acts, our little unfortunate speeches. I and my husband now read it together, and with the children." Once more, the Word of God pierces to the marrow. I’m so glad to see you all here today. Since its powers are so peculiar, let us not resist the Word of God.5. Do you see what I have 2. I have been quite astonished, again and again, at their calmness. 2. It searches out what has hitherto lain buried in the heart, and uncovers the false and transient from what is true and eternal.3. The living Life wrote itself upon other lives; they in their turn wrote it upon others, ere yet a page of Gospel Scripture was written — on purpose that the distinction between ,' letter" and "spirit" might be kept ever fresh and vital, on purpose that the characteristic of the new revelation might never fade or be lost sight of, how that it is God speaking in His Son, God speaking, and God bidding man to make reply. It searches the whole of man's nature most rigorously. And to a two-edged sword. )The sword of the LordC. In fact, there is no spiritually penetrating the heart of any natural man except by this piercing instrument, the Word of God. The rest of God is still in reserve for His true people. The man stared, and said, "I cannot say that I ever did." How would it put an end to that running to and fro to give in our account, which makes so many lives so servile and so contemptible? 3. The speech of God is to thee — His discourse, His self-disclosure, His mind uttering itself, His Spirit breathing itself in converse. And yet all these are external, as such, to the very "spirit of the man that is in him." He would often go to this window with a powerful telescope, and about five minutes every day he would spend in this way, examining what his work people were doing, and whether the work of the farm was being carried on properly or not. Thus we reach the double text, which tells of the impossibility of eluding God's judgment by any differences of circumstance, or by any counterfeits of character. I believe, therefore, that God laid on His own Son " the iniquity of us all." "The sacred pageWith calm attention scan! It is no marvel if to such as these the Word of God should not be as a "sword." S. Patterson.I. God knows whether the morphine or the poultices have anything to do with it. A new store of knowledge is brought to the understanding; a flood of light is poured in which arrays every object in a new colour; an influence works upon the affections by which they are refined and changed, made to delight in new purposes and pursuits, to flow in a new channel, and raised from earth to heaven. Shall we say that Christianity has been admitted without proof? Prophets
)Our relation to GodA. "The Word of God is quick," or, "living." "With whom we have to do." Rendall, M. A.The same illustration is used by St. Paul, by Philo, and in the Book of Wisdom, but with a different application in each case. St. Paul likens the Word of God to the sword of the warrior, used as a weapon of the faith (Ephesians 6:17); the Book of Wisdom compares the almighty Word of God to a sharp sword, but uses a different word for "sword," evidently designating the sword of the destroying am, of, which executed God's mandate on the first-born of Egypt (Wisd. Stephen, in Acts 7., describes the ancient Scriptures as "the lively (or living) oracles," those testimonies from God, by which at that time the means of life were communicated. B. I wish Him to live in me. It is that of which our Lord said, in reference to the volume of His own evidences, "Yea, and why even of yourselves," without waiting for sign or portent, "judge ye not what is right?" What are we? Poetical Books
Of this written Word, of which Christ is centre and end, as well as author and method, which is inspired by the Holy Ghost and sent by God, the gospel message is the kernel. (1)With the one edge it corrects and converts. A. I tell you no. "(Pasteur Hirsch. Johannine Writings
No one can for ever despise it with impunity.(L. its precepts, how holy!2. If we mean to do good we must come unto men's hearts, not in word only, but with power. Whether a man is racked with pain all his life, or disordered, as some are, from their mother's womb; whether he is blessed with health and a cheerful mind, or if he has anything that relieves him in this vale of tears, any flower that blooms in the desert, any star that brightens the dark sky of our fallen lot; is it not all from God? If its eye is keen, its range of vision is also wide. --------------------
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