Proverbs 20:30 ¶ The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.
So, let me just take one step further. Many of you were
good people by the world’s standards before you were saved. You were kind,
decent, and wanted to do right, within certain limits, but you had done wrong
and you did come to realize, with the Holy Spirit’s help, that you were sinners
in need of the Saviour. But some of us weren’t ever good people. Let me throw
this out to you. Some people have no capacity within their own flesh to obey
God. I know that’s a shocker to you. How can a person be saved and not have the
ability to obey, say, the Ten Commandments or The Golden Rule if they have the
Holy Spirit? Some even say that if you don’t turn from sin as soon as you’re
saved you aren’t saved. I didn’t even know what a third of my sins were when I
first believed and trusted Christ. I had sins thrown at me after I got saved
that I had never even heard of before I got saved. I didn’t even know that some
of the sins lying deep and dormant within me even existed. My surgery was a
long operation and we are still in the operating theater and the surgeon is
still cutting.
Some Christians are completely dependent upon
God changing them through His word and the Holy Spirit within them working
together and cannot change themselves. You see, we give really lame advice to
new Christians. We tell them to do right. Stop drinking. Stop doing drugs. Stop
looking at porno. Stop smoking. They go, how? I’ve tried every AA group and self-help
session I could get into and I can’t. I don’t have it within my capacity to
stop. If I could stop doing what I know is wrong I probably wouldn’t be here.
We say, pray. Okay, I pray all the time. Nothing’s happening. God wants to
speak to you. God delivered me from alcohol, a lust for horror movies, and a
number of other things I dare not say in public, by simply reading His word,
and, of course, believing it was His word.
This isn’t magic or rocket science. It’s not
preceded by trumpets and choirs of angels. You likely won’t hear thunder or
fall on your face weeping hysterically so it doesn’t appeal to many people who
are looking for an emotional high. It’s not a new thing but was well known by
the men and women of the era of the Reformation. In fact, a profane philosopher
of the 1600’s, Thomas Hobbes, says in his book Behemoth due to the widespread
Bible reading of his time and his disdain for God dealing personally through
individuals, “…every man, every boy and wench, that could read English, thought
they spoke with God Almighty, and understood what he said…”. How about that for
a Christian testimony for a nation?
True, you must desire to obey God. True, you
must study the Bible. True, you must pray; praising God, confessing your sins
and faults, thanking Him for His mercy, and pleading with Him for the things
that concern you. True, you need to hear good preaching, lest you start
wondering off course, and fall into wild heresies, and good preaching will
convict you of sin and bring you to the front wanting to do right. You need to
physically serve in some way; perhaps you have a function in the church whether
it is cleaning the toilet or helping seat visitors, knocking on doors, leading
a Bible Study, or preaching when asked, or all of the above. But, you are
missing out on the healing power that comes from God’s word when you don’t come
to it expecting and desiring that God will change you through it AS YOU READ
IT.
Bishop Becke, writing in the foreword of a 1551
reprint of the Matthews Bible, a precursor of the King James;
“If people would spare an hour a day for reading
it, they would soon abandon blasphemy, swearing, carding, and dicing! They
would put away all pride, prodigality, riot, licentiousness, and dissolute
living.”
I’m not a good person. I’m not perfect, as in
complete, which Paul talks about, yet. I have faults and sins many. You might
not even like me. You might be thinking right now that you know what I think at
times and that it’s not good. You might disapprove of me. But I’m telling you
that God has done things to me through His word that can’t be explained in any
other way than that Thomas Cranmer, William Tyndale, and their ilk were 100%
correct. If you want to keep God from having to spiritually and physically
“beat you black and blue” to drive evil from your outside and inside then I
strongly suggest you follow their prescription. And, by the way, they weren’t
perfect either.
Here are the seven keys that Gail Riplinger has
laid out in her book In Awe of Thy Word to experience the power of God’s word
in your DAILY LIFE. It’s going to include, not just reading, but study as well
as memorization. But it’s important to have these things in your head when you
read.
Key 1. Fear God; “The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge.” (Proverbs 1:7)
Thomas Cranmer said, “Flesh is a cloud before
the soul’s eye…” In a book about one of the early English versions of the Bible
called The Great Bible, about Cranmer’s forward it is written, “Therefore, says
he, the fear of God must be the first beginning and, as it were, an
…introduction to all them that shall enter to the very true and most faithful
knowledge of the scripture.”
Key 2. Believe the Bible is the very word of
God; “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
(Psalm 119:11) “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” (Psalm
119:89). Hold up your Bible. Do you believe you have the words of God in your
hand? Jesus said that every word was important for life in Luke 4:4 and Matthew
4:4, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. Do you believe that He was telling you the truth?
Translator and martyr, William Tyndale compared the Bible to a “precious
jewel,” whose “value” must be recognized and whose words must be believed to
benefit the reader; doubts cast upon the words of God are as firebrands,
melting men of straw, said he. William Thorpe, when questioned during his
imprisonment, said, “Men and women here in the earth, touched Christ, and saw
him, and knew his bodily person, which neither touched, nor saw, nor knew his
Godhead, right thus, Sir, many men now touch, and see, and write, and read the
Scriptures of God’s law, which neither see, touch, nor read effectually, the
gospel. For, as the Godhead of Christ (that is, the virtue of God) is known by
the virtue of belief, so (is) Christ’s word..”
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