Let's turn tonight to Hebrews
chapter 4. You might want to turn that thing
down. Remember, I'm here. Hebrews chapter 4. I've told you before, but at
a bare repetition, the first time I preached at Ashland, Brother
Mahan was sitting back here right behind me. I got up and said,
that's, or uh, or something. And as soon as I got the first
sound out of my mouth, he jumped up and said, I forgot he learned
to whisper in a sawmill, bit the microphone way down into
there. Hebrews chapter 4. It is so good
to be with you tonight. I want you to keep your Bibles
open here at Hebrews 4 and verse 12. For the Word of God is quick
and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart." The word that begins this text, four, refers us back
to that which immediately precedes That which we read particularly
in chapters three and four. This fourth chapter of Hebrews
tells us about the blessed rest that is ours in Christ Jesus
by faith. In the Old Testament, God rested
on the seventh day from his works. That doesn't mean that he got
tired and sat down. He just quit working. The Old
Testament Sabbath was given as a law in Israel not to be perpetuated
in our day in a carnal form of keeping a Sabbath day, but rather
to portray the picture of faith in Christ. When the sinner is
converted by God's grace, he quits working. Some of you here,
I do not doubt, are still trying to work yourselves into God's
favor. I recall years ago, I've been
trying to witness to my parents when they were visiting with
us on one occasion, and my dad Said to me as he started back
home with tears in his eyes, he said, Someday, son, I hope
I can do something to make up with God for all that I've done.
And my eyes swelled with tears and I said, Dad, I pray God will
teach you to quit trying. You can't make up with God. We
who believe quit working. We rest in Christ Jesus the Lord. The same as our Lord Jesus, when
he entered into his glory, entered into his rest, we, believing
on him, enter into rest, so that we do not try to do anything
to commend ourselves to God. We do not try to do anything
to win God's favor, to maintain God's favor, to keep God's favor,
or to improve our standing in God's favor. We rest in Christ
Jesus the Lord. In chapter 3, we read about Moses
leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. In the latter part
of that chapter, we're told that all of those people, except Joshua
and Caleb, who were above 20 years of age when they came out
of Egypt, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, after 40 years
of following God's servant Moses, after 40 years of carrying around
the tabernacle and the mercy seats and the Ark of the Covenant,
after 40 years of carrying around the brazen altar and all the
implements of worship, After 40 years of offering sacrifices
to God, morning and evening, weekly sacrifices, monthly sacrifices,
and annual sacrifices, offering sacrifices to God exactly as
God required, after 40 years, they perished in the wilderness
in unbelief. It wasn't that they didn't believe
the doctrine. It wasn't that they did not believe
the message contained in the tabernacle. The gospel was preached
unto them as it is preached unto us. But they perished because
their hearing of the gospel was not mixed with faith. They believed
all those things that were taught in the tabernacle. They believed
the doctrine of the gospel just as you and I do. They believed
it academically. They believed it mentally. They
believed it so that they would defend it and fight wars defending
it. Don't tell me they didn't believe
it. They believed it, but they didn't know anything about it.
It was nothing written on their hearts. They experienced nothing
of God's grace. The religion was all lip religion,
mind religion, and ceremony religion. Nothing else. Nothing else. Probably, like some of you, probably. When I was a young man before
God saved me, I believed in the resurrection. I did. I believed folks were going to
be raised from the dead. I had heard it since I was a boy when
I'd go to church. I believed that Jesus Christ is God. I believed in eternal life. I
believed this book was the Word of God. But I didn't. I didn't. And then God Almighty
dropped life in my soul. And I believed. And now I stand
before you living in the resurrection. raised by Him who is the resurrection,
having in me that eternal life that was with the Father before
the world began, bestowed upon me. And this is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. We live
in a world where far too many people make everything to be
dependent on experience. But I fear, fear, fear greatly
that far too often We discount the matter of experiencing God's
grace. Someone asked Ralph Barnard one
time, said, do you believe everything in the book? He said, I don't
know. I haven't experienced all of it yet. And I'm going to tell
you something. That's just exactly what you
believe, what you've experienced. And what you haven't experienced,
it's all theory. It's all theory. These folks
perished in the wilderness, though the gospel was preached to them
just as it is to us. And their carcasses fell in the
wilderness, God being not pleased with them. Then we're told in
the first part of chapter four that we who believe do enter
into rest. Not a carnal Canaan rest, not
even a rest of a carnal Sabbath day. But the rest of that blessed,
blessed rest of faith, trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
our Sabbath. And then we're told about Joshua.
He was a great type of our Lord Jesus. As a matter of fact, the
name Joshua is the Old Testament name for Jesus. The name Jesus
in the New Testament would be Joshua in the Old Testament.
Jehovah saves is the meaning of the name. Joshua was a great
type of our Savior. He brought Israel into the land
of Canaan. Gave them possession of the land
of promise. And typically, ceremonially,
he brought them into that land of rest. But if you read Old
Testament history, you find out in a hurry they didn't have much
rest there. Because Joshua could no more give them rest in the
land of Canaan than Moses could give them rest in the valley
of Sinai. The Lord Jesus alone gives sinners rest. Look at verse
8, Hebrews 4 verse 8. For if Jesus, that is Joshua,
had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken
of another day? There remaineth therefore a rest. And this word rest, everywhere
you read it in this chapter, if you were to write it out as
a transliteration, that is if you just wrote the Greek letters
in English, it would spell Sabbath. There remaineth therefore a Sabbath,
not a carnal Sabbath, a gospel Sabbath, not a legal Sabbath,
a grace Sabbath. There remaineth therefore a Sabbath
unto the people of God. For he, that is the Lord Jesus,
that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his
own works, as God did from his, and as you. enter into his rest. You cease from your works as
God did from his. Let us therefore labor, strive
therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after
the same example of unbelief. Now that's the background for
our text. Four. Four. The Word of God is quick
and powerful. We who believe have entered into
rest, rest with Christ and in Christ, because the Lord God
has performed a mighty work of grace for us and in us and upon
us. A mighty work of grace that's
performed by this word you've got in your hand right now. By
the word of God. For the word of God is quick
and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints
and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. Now let's look at this line by
line. May God the Spirit be our teacher. Does the word, or the
phrase here, the word of God, refer to Christ, the eternal
word, as John speaks of him in John chapter 1? In the beginning
was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God,
the same was in the beginning with God. Does it speak of that,
or does it speak of this book, the word of God, given by inspiration,
this written word? The good commentaries, I only
read good ones. The good commentary is about
equally divided. Calvin and Owen both said it's talking about
the written word. Gill and Hawker both said it's talking about
Christ, the eternal word. And as I studied and prepared
the message, I asked myself, why make the choice? Why make
the choice? You see, the fact is, Christ,
the eternal word, is he of whom the written word speaks in all
its details. And you cannot separate the written
Word of God, by which God reveals Himself, from Christ, the eternal
living Word of God, in whom and by whom God reveals Himself.
Certainly, this phrase then refers to our Lord Jesus, the eternal
Word of God, who in time was made flesh, and in whom and by
whom we know God. The only way anyone knows the
living God, the only way God communicates to men and men can
speak to God, the only way God comes to men and men can come
to God is by Christ the Word, who is the wisdom of God. And
now God speaks by his Son in our hearts and reveals himself
to us in his Son, the Lord Jesus. No man has seen the Father at
any time. The only begotten Son which is
in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. He's opened
Him up and shown Him to you. So that we know God as God makes
Himself known in the person and work and the revelation of His
Son. Christ is that one of whom the
Apostle speaks when he says, you are complete in Him. But
it says, in Him, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily."
Now just let that sink in a minute. Sitting now in heaven's glory
is a man in a human body just like this one. A man. And in that man, in his body,
resides the totality of the triune Godhead in all its fullness. How can that be? I don't have
any idea. But that's what the book says.
Christ is the fullness of the triune God. You know God in Christ,
by Christ, and only in Christ and by Christ. It is equally
obvious that the word he declares in the volume of the book, this
book of Holy Scripture, is that by which God reveals himself
to men. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I want to spend a
little bit of time here because it's very, very important. Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We cannot place
sufficient emphasis on the hearing of the gospel of God's free grace.
Your pastor is down visiting Brother Walter Gruber. I was
down there just last month. Oh, what a tremendous work God
used that man to accomplish. How? Just preaching the word. Just
preaching the word. I remember my first visit there.
We went out into a Pueblo and showed a film, got permission
to have a service and met in a little room, somebody called
a house with a dirt floor. It was just some sticks tied
together with some grass on top of it to keep the rain out in
bad weather. And the church is still going and going strong. How? Just preach the word. Just
preach the word. The most important aspect of
every believer's life is what you're doing right now. Gathering
with God's people to worship Him and hear from Him. If God
speaks to you, it will be through the instrumentality of gospel
preaching. Well, preacher, doesn't God speak
as we read the Word? Yes, because of what you've heard
God speak from right here in this pulpit. God speaks to men,
teaches men, comforts men, directs men, instructs men, guides them,
reproves them in all their ways by the preaching of the gospel. You place too much emphasis on
preaching. If evangelism and preaching could
be replaced with just folks having a copy of the Bible, then the
way we ought to go about missionary work is avoid sending folks where
they get sick and they're involved in possibility of persecution,
or folks attacking them, or robbing them, or mutilating them. Robin
Heller, just as soon as they were in New Guinea, hadn't been
there any time, a man took her from her home and kept her as
a captive for hours, attempting to rape her, for hours. Why send
somebody down there if it's not important, if it's not vital?
If it's just folks, God saves folks just by reading the scriptures,
well, let's print them up in cheap volumes, get us an airplane
and just drop them all over the world. That's not how God saves
sinners. Well, couldn't He do that? Yes,
He sure could. He could save sinners by tapping
them on the head and revealing the gospel to them if He wanted
to. But that's not what He's purposed. When our Lord came
to the tomb of Lazarus, He's about to raise Lazarus from the
dead. And do you know what he did right before that? You remember?
He said, take ye away the stone. Don't you reckon he could have
taken away the stone? Don't you suppose if he's going
to raise Lazarus from the dead, he could sure take away the stone?
Why does he command others to take it away? He condescends. Oh, hear me, children of God.
You young men to whom God's given some aspiration and gifts for
preaching, hear me. God Almighty condescends in great
grace to use us as instruments in His hands for the saving of
His land. What a wonder. What a privilege. What a responsibility. 1 Corinthians
1, verse 17. For Christ sent me not to baptize. That doesn't mean baptism is
not important. It means it's not the primary thing. But to
preach. That's not what it said. Christ
sent me to preach the gospel. And not with wisdom of words.
That is, not with great spellbinding oratory. and great rhetorical,
precise logic and philosophy, not in such a way as to make
you be impressed with how learned and smart I am and how much I've
studied, but rather with simplicity, not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross,
now that's not talking about preaching about the historic
fact of Christ's death. It's sure not talking about the
emblem of the cross. If you've got one you wear around
your neck, I suggest you melt it down and make an ear bob or
something out of it. It's not talking about any of that kind
of nonsense. It's sure not talking about the
sign of the cross. It's talking about the doctrine
of the cross, the gospel of Christ, the preaching of the gospel.
The preaching of the gospel is to them that perish, to unbelieving,
unregenerate men and women, religious and otherwise, To them, it's
foolishness. It's foolishness. Why would you
spend your life arranging your life and your family's life around
hearing the gospel and worshiping God in a place like this? Why
would you do that? Why, it's foolishness to folks
living next door to you, foolishness to family and friends, foolishness
to them that perish. But to us, to us, which are saved. To us who are
being saved by God's power, it's the power of God. It's the power
of God. For it is written, it's written
in Isaiah 29, we may look at it a little bit at a time, I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For
after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew
not God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. God has given you a
remarkable gift. He's given you pastors after
his own heart to feed you with knowledge and understanding.
He's given you a faithful pastor to open to you the scriptures,
to preach the gospel of God's grace to you. How we ought to
cherish this privilege. Thy word, the psalmist says,
is a lamp under my feet and a light under my path. without this glorious
revelation of God in the pages of this book, without what's
written right here, what's written right here, I would still be as I was when
I came into this world. And as I was when I lived with
my fist shoved in God's face, lost, ignorant of God, without
life and without hope. I know nothing about my sin,
nothing about my Savior, nothing about redemption, nothing about
the character of God, nothing about the grace of God. These
things are discovered only as this book is preached to you. Oh, how we ought to cherish the
Word and cherish the preaching of the Word. This book and this
book alone is inspired of God. This book and this book alone,
by the blessing of God's Spirit, is able to make you wise unto
salvation. This book and this book alone
is our only rule of faith and practice. Now, we repeat those
words. Let me remind you what they mean.
I don't believe anything with regard to spiritual truth except
what's written in this book. Nothing. Doesn't matter who teaches
it. I don't practice anything in
the exercise of faith, in the exercise of worshiping God, in
the exercise of this thing called godliness. I don't practice anything. except what's written in this
book. That's the reason when we meet and have the Lord's Supper,
we do so with simplicity, have unleavened bread and wine. We're
baptized folks, we still bury them in the waters of baptism,
and we don't have any other ordinances. We don't practice any other,
because those things are clearly written in the book. This is
our only rule of faith and practice. All right, back at our text.
This Word of God is quick and powerful. The word quick means
living or life-giving or reviving. Well, Brother Doug, the Bible's not living. You know
what? You're right. It's not. Unless
God, the Holy Spirit, makes it live in you. We know by experience that's
so, don't we? You read the book, and you can read the newspaper.
You can even read the warned ads in the newspaper and profit
more than read the book, unless God speaks by the book. And then
you read the book, and you read it. You come here and hear the
gospel preached, and it's like pouring water off a duck's back,
it doesn't have any effect at all. Unless God speaks to you
by the word preached, then you hear God speak. You understand
the difference? You who believe understand the
difference. It's not a difference that can be explained to anyone
who hasn't experienced it. The Word of God is quick. It's
quick and powerful. This word powerful is a little
different than the word, it's very different from the word
that's normally translated powerful. In Romans chapter 1 when Paul
says the gospel of God is the power of God and salvation, the
word translated powerful there is the word dynamite, the word
from which we get our word dynamite, the explosive power of God. This
word means energetic, efficient, effectual. irresistible. The Word of God,
this book, when blessed of God to the chosen redeemed sinner,
when God the Holy Spirit causes the Word to come to you, not
in word only, but in power and in demonstration of the Holy
Spirit, it's living, life-giving and powerful, energetic. Energetic to what purpose? Energetic to give life and faith
in you. The psalmist said, thy word hath
quickened me. Our Lord Jesus said, it's the
spirit that quickeneth the flesh, profiteth nothing. And this is
what he means by that. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. The word of God is preached
to men by the gospel. And when the gospel is preached
in the power of the spirit, the word of God is quickening, reviving,
life-giving. and defectual. Turn to 1 Peter
2. Now I want you to hear what I'm saying
before you look at the text. Just hold your place there. The
Word of God is preached only when the gospel is preached. Now I'm not looking for something
to say. I want that to sink in deep. The Word of God is not
preached just because a man recites the Ten Commandments accurately.
That's not preaching the Word of God. The Word of God is not
preached when a man takes a text and just gives the historic,
accurate, grammatical interpretation of the text. That is not preaching
the Word of God. The Word of God is not preached
when the Word of God is used to teach history, Church history,
Bible history, or other history. The Word of God is not preached
when a man takes the Word of God and uses it to teach men
morality. The Word of God is not preached
when a man takes the Word of God and uses it merely to talk
about your family, or to talk about your finances, or any of
the other nonsense that goes on in the name of religion, and
often in the name of religion that claims to believe the very
gospel of God's grace. No, sir. The Word of God is preached. when the man preaching is gifted
of God to declare to you the message of the gospel from that
Word. And it doesn't matter whether
this text is Genesis 1 or Exodus 20 or Malachi chapter 4 or Matthew
chapter 7 or Romans chapter 1, the Word of God is preached only
by the preaching of the gospel. God let me never mock You mock
your word or mock the souls of eternity-bound men and women
by pretending to preach and not preach the gospel. Can I make
good on that? Can I make good on it? 1 Peter
1, verse 23. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God. By the Word
of God. Now I know the fellows say, well
that's talking about Christ. Okay, let's give it that. Let's
give it that. The Word of God which liveth and abideth forever,
for all flesh is grass and all the glory of man, as the flower
of grass, the grass withereth, the flower thereof falleth away,
but the Word of the Lord endures forever. Now watch this. is the Word which by the Gospel
is preached unto you. The Word is not preached except
by the preaching of the Gospel. This book is the only weapon
of our warfare in the business of doing warfare with sin, Satan,
death, hell, and the world. Not the ballot box. and certainly
not the religious tomfoolery and shenanigans that go on all
over the world in the name of Christ. No, no. I had a preacher
call me this morning. He'd been listening to me on
Free Grace Radio. He was asking me about, well,
what do y'all have? What kind of services do you
have? Do you have sales? Do you have prayer groups? Do you have this for this group
and this for that group? And finally, he said, well, what
do y'all do? I said, we preach. Prayer meeting? Yeah. How do you go about that? I said,
I preach the gospel. And after a little while, I was waiting
for him to ask the right questions. He was very pleasant, seemed
to be sincere. I said to him, there is no preaching but gospel
preaching. And all other religious exercise
is foolishness and a mockery of God. We come together to worship
God, singing his praise, giving thanks to him, calling on his
name, and to ask God to speak by his word. This book is my
way to the pulling down of strongholds, to bring into captivity the thoughts
to bring into captivity every thought of a man's mind. Well, I don't see it working.
What do you do? You just preach and wait. But we're not seeing
things happen like they ought to. Hang on. God uses His Word
as He will, when He will, where He will. It is ours just to preach
the Word in the generation in which we live. Now look at the
next slide. This word is sharper than any
two-edged sword. The Word of God is a sword, not
a surgeon's scaffold. A scaffold they use to make very
precise, determined cuts. no deeper, no larger than was
intended. The scaffold is used with great
learning and skill and precision. Now, I realize some folks don't
realize this, but that's not what you use a sword for, especially
a two-edged sword. A two-edged sword has a very
sharp point. Its only purpose is to hack and
cut and pierce and cut asunder and slay and divide. It has no
other purpose. And you don't use it carefully.
You just wield the sword. You just swing the sword. You
don't give it to a boy to play with. You handle the sword with
great determination, but not carefully. You handle the sword
with great energy, but not carefully. You take the sword and you use
it as you're able to use it for the purpose intended. The Word
of God is a mighty sword. A mighty sword. And it cuts. And when it cuts, it causes pain.
You can't be cut. and not have pain. It divides. When a man or a woman is born
of God, God takes this Word and makes things clear to that
man or that woman, makes them clear by the mighty operation
of His grace. We're told here that this Word
This quick, powerful, mighty Word of God divides asunder soul
and spirit, and joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. When the world was first made,
something happened, we're told, in Genesis 1, and the earth became
without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
The world was in chaos. And then God the Spirit moved
upon the darkness and the chaos, and God spoke by His Word and
divided the light from the darkness. He divided the waters above from
the waters beneath. He divided the dry land from
the sea all by His Word. The Word of God came to our fathers
in the Old Testament, and it tried them and proved them. A
heart-searching, dividing Word. calls men and women to be separated
willingly from things they loved and people they cherished. Separated
willingly in order to follow and worship God. The Word of
God, the Incarnate God, our Lord Jesus Christ, we're told from
His infancy, was sent for the fall and rising again of many
in Israel. that the thoughts of many may
be revealed. Before the triune God gives life
to the sinner, dead in trespasses and in sins, everything's darkness
and chaotic, empty and void, useless, useless. Now hear me, you who are without
Christ, Your life is useless. And when
you've done the greatest thing you can do without Him, you will
die having served nothing. Uselessness. Uselessness. That's what the scripture means
when it said we were redeemed from our vain conversation, from
our empty, meaningless way of life. The life of man on this
earth without God, without the knowledge of God, is empty, meaningless,
uselessness. Uselessness. The Word of God
comes and performs a mighty operation of grace, and everything changes. It's a violent work. It's a painful
work, dividing soul and spirit. The heaven-born man or woman
is no longer just a man with a body who is a soul that must
live forever, either in heaven or in hell, but now he is a man
with a natural soul and a God-given spirit. Christ in you, the hope
of glory. A new creature in Christ Jesus. A new man living in you. Created
in righteousness and in true holiness. And the two are divided. And you know the difference.
You know the difference. Paul talks about that old man.
He talks about his sin. He says, that's not me. No, that's
sin dwelling in me. He talks about faith in Christ
and devotion to God, loving God. He says, that's Christ in me.
He knows the difference. You know immediately, immediately
the thoughts of your heart. You know immediately, you who
are born of God, oh my God, what hell is still in me. And then
occasionally you move to God to pray, to worship. That's God's work. That's the
new man. That's the new man. He divides
us under joints and marrow. Come back to Genesis 32. Joints and marrow. I was studying this the other
day coming down the road, and I called one of the doctors in
our church. I said, I've had trouble with this all my life.
I don't know what it means. And I had just been talking about
when I had a bone marrow test, and they take that long needle
and stick it right in that ball on the end of your, right in
the hip joint. And I asked him, I said, Has
that got anything to do with age? No. Take the marrow out
there, because that's where the most of it needs to get to. I
said, spoken like a man who's never had it gotten out there.
He will be glad to get out of the breastbone. But, you know,
the marrow, talking about the long bone, I believe. And as
soon as I hung up the phone, I thought of this passage here
in Genesis 32. This is what it's talking about. Genesis 32. Verse
24. Jacob was left alone, and they
wrestled a man with him. The Lord Jesus wrestled with
him. Now, when I was in high school, I was on the wrestling
team, and I know what wrestling object is. The object is to whip
the fellow. The object is to pin him, get
him down, pin his shoulders to the ground, fix it so that he
either gives or he's counted out. The Lord Jesus met Jacob
to pin him down. Not Jacob wrestled with God.
God the Son comes to wrestle with Jacob until the breaking
of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed
not against him, he fixed it so he did. He touched the hollow
of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint
as he wrestled with him. Now look down at verse 31, very
last sentence. And he halted upon his thigh. There's only one way to divide
joints from the marrow. You've got to sever the joint.
And when the Word of God comes in saving power, God severs the
joint. Can you imagine trying to walk
with this joint severed? I have a friend who heads a SWAT
team. Last time I saw him, he told me, he said, Trainers now
not to shoot were involved in opposition to the tests, and
the drug addicts and the drug dealers are so well armed, said
they are protected just like we are. They'd tell you to shoot
for the hip, crush the hip, and they'll fall. When the joints
are severed, God the Son touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh,
and Jacob never And he halted on his thigh the rest of his
life. Oh, blessed halting. You see, when you halt on your
thigh, when all your strength is gone, when God takes away
all that proud, arrogant strength by which you think you're distinguished
from others, you've got to have something to hold on to. You've
got to have someone to lean on, someone to carry you, someone
to help you along the way. And the Lord Jesus, by His mighty
Spirit, takes His Word in the saving of our souls and severs
us from our strength, severs us from the strongest portion
of our life, severs us so that we must continually look to Him,
live constantly trusting Him, not ourselves. The fact is, the fact is, if right now, Joe McSherry,
you believe God, right now, just this few minutes, Just this minute. It's because God works faith
in you. And if he didn't, he wouldn't. There's nothing we can do without
a Redeemer. Nothing. And he makes us to know
it periodically for our good. Can you imagine how terrified
Peter must have been? When he heard that rooster crow
the first time on the morning of his denial, the Lord told
him, said, before the cock crows twice, you're going to deny me
three times. And Peter denied him and denied him again. He
heard that rooster crow. I can almost see him cringe with
fear. God, I can't believe this. I
never dreamed I could think such things, let alone do them. I
never dreamed it. Terrified. And you know what
he did about it? Nothing. Nothing. He went right on in his mad,
mad apostasy and denied the Master again. How come? Because left to yourself,
Don Fortin, There's nothing you won't do. And left to yourself,
there's nothing you can't do. Nothing. Nothing. The Word of
God is quick, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints
and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. Natural man doesn't have any
knowledge. He doesn't discern anything. But you know all things. Is that language in the book?
You know all things. You have the mind of Christ.
You were born of God. You listen to fellows talk about
these two earthquakes they've had in Haiti. And I hurt for
those people. I hurt for them. I know we've
got some brethren there. I haven't been able to get in
contact with them. But I know there's some churches and pastors
there. And I want to do what we can to help. But the natural
man doesn't see anything that God admits. The foolish, ignorant,
religious man thinks what happened to them because they're barbarians
and we're not. Except you repent, you'll perish just like them.
That's not it. But we who believe, see, this
is God's hand. And His judgments are all right.
He only does what's right. Only does what's right. You remember
when our Lord Jesus healed that man born blind, and he touched
him the second time, and he said, what he sees, I see all men clearly. The natural man doesn't see anything.
Things have got a foolishness to them. But the Word of God
comes in you in power and discerns the thoughts and the intents
of the heart. May God cause His Word now to
come to you with life-giving, irresistible power in producing
you this mighty division, not once, but constantly, for Christ's
sake.