We now inquire, what is the meaning of the Word of God giving life. General Epistles We also are passing through a great crisis. It shows us what is meant by self-examination, what is meant by confession. The operation of truth is sometimes remarkably " quick " as well as "powerful." 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. He did not take the nature of one race, or of one people, or of one colour, or of one clime; but He took upon Him the seed of Abraham: He took upon Him our nature and became the Son of man, so that none can claim Him exclusively, and say, "He did not die for you"; nor can any one say, "He died for me alone." Once more, the Word of God pierces to the marrow. The surface is bared, and the depth within is opened up before it. 6. Find Top Church Sermons, Illustrations, and Preaching Slides on Hebrews 4:12. Before the sermon, write the words family, snow, and kumquat on the paper. Individual instructors or editors may still require the use of URLs. But when the Spirit of God works on their minds they cry most piteously. Do not make a crime of it. and with what circumspection should we regulate our lives!(A. A. How this should make us reconciled, however He may deprive us; how we should be grateful for anything we have, for anything short of hell is the gift of his grace, to us who are deserving of hell; and, therefore, we ought to say, oh! The Word is the seed, which appears insignificant, but which if received in good ground shows its vitality. 4. The Cry of the Human Heart for a Personal God, The cry of the human heart for a personal God. H. THERE IS " NO CREATURE THAT IS NOT MANIFEST IN HIS SIGHT"; yea, "all things are naked and open to His eyes." "The Bible," says Dr. Parker, "exposes the very innermost recesses of human nature; sets a light where no other hand ever placed a candle; lights up the pathways of our most secret life and thought; and we begin to feel that the book we must shut up when we are going to do evil is God's Book. Hebrews 4:11-13 (ESV) Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. Hebrews 4:12 Sermons: For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Oh that Christ would sing, pray, love, live in me! How much more cautious ought you to be when you know, not a holy man, not an angel of God, but God Himself, the Holy One, is inspecting your heart, your tongue, your hand, every moment, and that He Himself will surely call you to account for all yea think, speak, or act!(J. The Word is said to be "powerful," or "active." It is alive in every part, and in every part keen to cut the conscience, and wound the heart. He is the Saviour of all men, and especially of them that belong " to the household of faith." C. Miller, D. D.)The cry of the human heart for a personal GodC. 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. We have to do, then, with a God of love as our Creator.II. The two "words" of which the texts tell are not independent words. But, now, there remains a most important question — how comes it to pass that if the Word of God possess this dissecting power, so that it lays man bare and exposes to his own eye all the secrecies of his soul — how comes it to pass that so little effect is actually produced? What pains do we take to please, to give satisfaction, to win applause, to be admired if it may be so, at all events to avoid censure one of another. Please see Blue Letter Bible's Privacy Policy for cookie usage details. You have the words of eternal life.". There is a rest of God which is the goal of the long race of the human creation. It has been so from the beginning. )It finds meIt was Coleridge, if we remember aright, who, in giving one of the grand internal evidences of the inspiration of the Blade, as derived from his own experience, use t the idiomatic and significant expression, "It flints me. On the contrary, it is a trumpet call to decision. George Matheson wrote, “We commonly associate patience with lying down. What is there in me pleasing to God? Time passes over it, but it ages not. Poetical Books 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. )Quick and powerfulG. "To God," answered the mother, gravely, 'who remembers them for ever." It reveals to man the innermost meaning of his own nature and of the supernatural planted within him. We send a missionary to a barbarous tribe; he settles down amongst the savages; but he can employ no miracle; he can work no wonders to fix the attention, and win the confidence of his wild auditory. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. When the Word thus dwells in us, we give glory to God, and we are spiritually-minded. And when his daughter replied, "Yes; is He with you?" in Josiah, making his heart to melt? When the Word thus dwells in us, we give glory to God, and we are spiritually-minded. C. Edwards, D. D.)God's Word to us, and our word to GodDean Vaughan.We are here at the end of a long argument. But when a man says, "I am very thankful to Providence," "Providence has been very good to me," I always feel disposed to say, "You coward! Spurgeon. Without the Divine and mighty Ruler of all, what would take place? A parent has a claim upon a child as long as it lives. Without the Divine and mighty Ruler of all, what would take place? It is diversified according to circumstances, but the whole is based upon this principle — love to God and love to man. Such knowledge is too awesome for me, it is high I cannot attain it. 1. 3. But where would the Word have been by this time, left to itself — left, I mean, to echo and tradition? There is a Word of God in Nature. As the upturned neck of the sacrificial beast lay bare to the eye of God, so are we exposed to the eye of Him to whom we have to give our account.(T. GenesisExodusLeviticusNumbersDeuteronomyJoshuaJudgesRuth1 Samuel2 Samuel1 Kings2 Kings1 Chronicles2 ChroniclesEzraNehemiahEstherJobPsalmsProverbsEcclesiastesSong of SongsIsaiahJeremiahLamentationsEzekielDanielHoseaJoelAmosObadiahJonahMicahNahumHabakkukZephaniahHaggaiZechariahMalachiMatthewMarkLukeJohnActsRomans1 Corinthians2 CorinthiansGalatiansEphesiansPhilippiansColossians1 Thessalonians2 Thessalonians1 Timothy2 TimothyTitusPhilemonHebrewsJames1 Peter2 Peter1 John2 John3 JohnJudeRevelation, Select a Beginning Point We have to do with Him, "groaning within ourselves, and waiting for the adoption: to wit, the redemption of our bodies"; and we are able to testify that it is through His grace that He has made us His children.IX. Strange that men live on year after year and go up and down, sleeping and waking, toiling and resting, mourning and rejoicing, and yet they can forget how it is that they live and continue in life; how it is that reason still holds its seat; how it is that the heart still throbs; how it is that the harp strings are kept in tune; how it is they are not continually tormented with anguish, distemper, and distress: can any man account for this? It is no marvel if to such as these the Word of God should not be as a "sword." Minor Prophets The phrase "all things" indicates the universal range which the eye of Jehovah takes. Lord give it to us. And yet all these are external, as such, to the very "spirit of the man that is in him." The Word of God has always been found, from the beginning, capable of penetrating deeply into the heart of a sinner; of producing a sudden and terrible alarm in the conscience, of striking conviction into the trembling frame, and lowering the rebel to the ,lust. 2. It is lively and mighty in the godly, to kill sin within them, to raise them up unto newness of life. Hence it is by this Word that souls are born again unto eternal life.2. The speech of the man to his God must presuppose and proceed upon the speech of God to the man. He seems to have nothing at his disposal by which the pretensions of Christianity may be substantiated. in the resource materials are not necessarily affirmed, in total, by this ministry. In the conviction of men of sin. If any of you perish, you perish, not as heathen, bat as professed and baptized Christians; and how this will turn into a source of remorse and " the worm that never dies," if you perish with the name of Christian, with the Cross of Christ, upon your brow! The Word cannot be living and energetic without being also a sword, dividing and separating, with piercing and often painful sharpness, that which in our natural state lies together mixed and confused. The potent influence of the Word is often for a long period concealed from the outward world in the depths of the soul. God speaks, and man makes reply. The living Word is powerful or energetic. Not only so, judgment has begun in this world in present punishment, often in present comfort and joy and peace.VII. And my speech is to Him — my discourse, my self-disclosure, my uttered mind, my soul expressing itself in audible thought. It divides the soul from the spirit, i.e., the lower animal nature from the higher, spiritual and eternal. Melvill, B. D.)The Word of GodJ. Pauline Epistles The Word comes forth like the sun, and introduces the knowledge of Christ and of His gospel into all the world. His text has been Psalm 95, which refers to the tragic example of Israel in the wilderness. I cannot call my "holy things" holy, for they are full of sin. 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. 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. So that in the similitude we have two acts of a sword, or any such cutting instrument. Was it not mighty by twelve men, over all the world, when it subdued by their ministry all nations to Christ? "Sir," said a poor maniac, that had escaped from bedlam, and was passing along the streets of London, to a gentleman he met at the angle of one of the streets, "did you ever thank God for reason?" This figure seems to be borrowed from the prophets (Isaiah 49:2; Hosea 6:5). Slade, M. A.The Word of God may here mean the gospel revelation in all its fulness, especially as contrasted with that under the law; the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ.1. Self knowledge is some of the most difficult knowledge to gain. "The Word of God is quick." Whatever affects you emotionally will affect you physically. Yea, suppose one of your mortal fellow servants, suppose only a holy man stood by you, would you not be extremely anxious how you conducted yourself both in word and action? 1. 2. 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. I speak not now of that more limited sense of conscience in which it is the guiding and warning voice within, saying, "This is the way of duty, walk thou in it." On the contrary, it addresses itself to man's reason and conscience, in order to erect the supernatural upon nature. It is piercing. 3. Cutting.5. That we use it to the most obstinate, to arouse their consciences and convict them of sin.7. It says, there is a word of God somewhere. He is our Creator, Proprietor, Governor, Benefactor, and Judge, and therefore has claims upon us manifold and mighty. Hebrews 4:12-16New International Version (NIV) 12 For the word of Godis aliveand active. 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? The face in the water is not a more accurate copy of the face of the beholder, than is the heart of one man a copy of any other man's. We have to do with Him in anticipation, that we may be like Him for ever.(H. "(Gold Dust. He has given a law; and all things — the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars — have laws; summer and winter, autumn and spring, have all their laws and appointed times — the clouds have their laws, and the light above — everything has its laws; and do you Suppose the moral world hath no law, that the great God hath left the mind and spirit without anything to control or guide it? The Word cannot be living and energetic without being also a sword, dividing and separating, with piercing and often painful sharpness, that which in our natural state lies together mixed and confused. THE WORD OF GOD IS LIVING AND ACTIVE THE WORD OF GOD IS LIVING AND ACTIVE 12 For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And clearly it relates to an operation upon the soul of man, to some new state of being generated and produced. You must by the very necessity of the ease, having heard the Word, either receive or reject it.(F. of Scripture. 2. It does not ignore the former. What pains do we take to please, to give satisfaction, to win applause, to be admired if it may be so, at all events to avoid censure one of another. Difficult because the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Patterson. It divides so closely as to lay bare everything in man's composite nature.III. "Mother," asked a child, "since nothing is ever lost, where do all thoughts go?" "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Our word of account is to God. The text says of this crisis, of this trial, that it is the interchange, so to speak, of two "words" — the dialogue, I had almost said, of two speakers — the word of God judging, and the word of the man making answer and giving account. "For ever!" How much more guarded and serious should our deportment be, seeing that we are ever watched by Him whose eyes are like a flame of fire!(C. The first readers were on the eve of a terrible crisis. I’m so glad to see you all here today. And judgment is not all in a future world — it begins here; the conscience of a man passes a kind of judgment upon him as long as he reads it until he blots it out, or drowns it in mirth, in unbelief, in crime, in debauchery, in drunkenness, and so seals it. 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. 18:16). S. Wherever it is preached, there is a conscience to act upon; amid all the derangements of humanity, a sense of right and wrong is never wholly extinguished, but even where that nature is most sunken, the principle is in action which applauds the cause of virtue and utters a protest against vice; and which, stirring up forebodings when the mind looks onward to death, witnesses powerfully to our living under a retributive government. Hebrews 4:12 is often cited in our publications to show that the Bible has power to change lives, and it is perfectly proper to make that application. 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? It shows the moral nature of what is interior and hidden in mental operations.2. "Sir," said a poor maniac, that had escaped from bedlam, and was passing along the streets of London, to a gentleman he met at the angle of one of the streets, "did you ever thank God for reason?" Does any man suppose that, because we talk of laws, there is no lawgiver? Who is able to stand before this might, Word? 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. 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. IT IS A DISCERNER OF THE THOUGHTS AND THE INTENT OF THE HEART. 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. We have all of us to do with God as SAVIOUR — "a just God and a Saviour." But while the earthquake and the fire declare the approach of the Lord, it is in the still small voice that the Lord at last appears to take up His permanent abode. 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. I tell you no. There is no wincing. )Conviction by the WordD. Was it not mighty by twelve men, over all the world, when it subdued by their ministry all nations to Christ? )Conviction by the WordD. Burnet.When we perceive that a vast number of objects enter in at our eye by a very small passage, and yet are so little jumbled in that crowd that they open themselves regularly, though there is no great space for that either, and that they give us a distinct apprehension of many objects that lie before us, some even at a vast distance from us, both of their nature, colour, and size, and by a secret geometry, from the angles that they make in our eye, we judge of the distance of all objects, both from us and from one another — if to this we add the vast number of figures that we receive and retain long, and with great order, in our brains, which we easily fetch up either in our thoughts or in our discourses, we shall find it less difficult to apprehend how an Infinite Mind should have the universal view of all things ever present before it.(W. 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. But the general idea is simple. Stanford, D. D.)An all-seeing GodJ. If he could heal the sick; if he could hush the elements; if he could raise the dead; then, indeed, the wild denizens of the distant land might be expected to give ear to him as a messenger from heaven; but just standing as a defenceless stranger on their shores, what probability is there of success when he proceeds to denounce their ancestral superstitions, summoning them away from idols that they had invested with all the sacredness of Divine, and declaring as the alone Saviour of mankind, a Being who died centuries back as a malefactor? "As it is from the mouth that man's word proceeds; so this sword, not wielded in the hand, but proceeding from the mouth of the Son of God, is his Word (cf. "(Pasteur Hirsch. 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