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THE WORD OF GOD

Boyce Mouton · 8 pages · 4,210 words

THE WORD OF GOD

THE FIRST CREATION CAME FROM THE WORD OF GOD

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:1-3)
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
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1 - “And God said,“Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)
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2 - “And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water. So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.” (Genesis 1:6-7)
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3 - “And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.” (Genesis 1:9)
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3 - “Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so.” (Genesis 1:11)
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4 - “And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.” (Genesis 1:14-15)
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5 - “And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 20-21)
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6 - “And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.” (Genesis 1:24)
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6 - “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground— everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.” (Genesis 1:26-30)
Note that God spoke two times on day 3 and two times on day 6 . This is because there were two acts of creation that involved life on each of those days. On day 3 God created lands and oceans and also living vegetation. On day 6 God created both animal life and human life.
The “Word of God” accomplishes what God desires! “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:8-11)
The Word of God is also alive. Jesus said: “The words that I speak unto you are spirit and they are life”. (John 6:63)
Consequently the Word of God is eternal! Jesus said: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35)

THE NEW CREATION ALSO COMES FROM THE WORD OF GOD

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)
The Jews were born again when Peter preached the word of God: “Then they that received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added to them about three thousand souls.”
The gentiles were also born again when Peter preached unto them the word of God: “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.” (Acts 10:44)
“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:11-13)
“Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
“And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13)
The Christian armor features the “belt of truth” and the “Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:13-17)
The word of God is the key to conversion ! The book of Acts described the evangelism of the early church by making 17 specific references to the “Word of God” and 7 specific references to the “Word of the Lord.”
Luke noted that those who received the word were baptized (Acts 2:41), those who heard the word believed (Acts 4:4), the apostles devoted themselves to the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4), the Bereans received the word with all readiness (Acts 17:11), and Paul committed the elders at Ephesus to the word of His grace (Acts 20:32).

THE WORD OF GOD IS LIKE A SEED

“While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,“‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’ “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” (Luke 8:4-150

EVERY SEED HAS ITS OWN DNA

The seed of a tomato plant and a redwood tree are about the same size (about 1/8th of an inch long). However, they have a different genetic code or DNA. The tomato plant will be over 3 feet tall, and the redwood tree will be over 300 feet tall.

God created seeds on the third day (Genesis 1:11-12). Note that every seed reproduced after it’s own kind. Jesus referred to this fact to help Nicodemus understand why he needed to be born again. He said: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:6-7)

Nicodemus had “physical life” because it came from a “physical seed”. Flesh and blood, however are temporal! Note: “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1 Corinthians 15:50)

If Nicodemus wanted “spiritual life” he would have to be born again of a “spiritual seed”. “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.” (1 Corinthians 15:44-49)

Peter said it like this: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and eternal word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)

YOUR DNA CONFIRMS WHO YOUR FATHER IS

Salvador Dali was a famous artist and film maker. He died January 23, 1989 and a 61 year old woman named Pilar Abel claimed to be his daughter and tried to inherit his vast estate. After ten years of legal battles his body was exhumed and his DNA proved that Pilar Abel was not his daughter.

79 year old Manuel Benitez was a famous matador in Spain who revolutionized bullfighting in the 1960’s. For many years he denied that a 47 year old matador, Manuel Diaz, was his son. Finally. a court in the southern city of Cordoba agreed to take the case. By analyzing his DNA the court determined that there is a 99.9% certainty that Manuel Diaz was in fact the son of Manuel Benitez.

Your DNA makes the difference! If you are a child of God you have the DNA of God!

John wrote: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.” (1 John 3:9) John is clear that Christians do sin! In fact, he wrote: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8). John is emphatic, however, that the child of God does not “continue to sin.”

One Greek word used to describe conversion is “metamorphosis.” It is used four times in the New Testament Scriptures. Two times it refers to Jesus on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:1- 8 and Mark 9:2-8). The “transformation” of Jesus on that mountain was as obvious as the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The other two times the word is used it refers to the transformation of a believer from the works of the flesh to the fruit of the Spirit (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18). This too is as obvious as the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Paul’s conversion, for example, transformed him from someone who persecuted Christians to someone who was persecuted as a Christian. A butterfly may make mistakes, but it is obviously different from a caterpillar!

In 1 John we find 6 different characteristics describing those who have been born of God.
“Everyone who does what is right has been born of Him.” (1 John 2:29)
“No one who is born of God continues to sin.” (1 John 3:9)
“Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.” (1 John 5:1)
“Everyone born of God overcomes the world.” (1 John 5:4)
“We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin.” (1 John 5:18)

THE WORD OF GOD IS ALIVE

“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 thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

Please consider this parable of Jesus: “He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)

One man can plant a seed, another can water the seed, but only God can make it grow (1 Corinthians 3:5-9). The seed grows because it is alive, but no man knows exactly how the seed grows! For the seed to grow it needs to be planted, watered, and exposed to the sun. These same three things, however, will destroy something that is not alive! For example, how long will your clothes last if you cover them with dirt, pour water on them, and expose them to the sun?

Since God has put life in the seed, the seed knows how to send out roots down into the earth around rocks and other obstacles to find nourishment. The seed also knows how to grow upward and reach for the sunlight. The seed will not start to grow until the sun warms the earth. God gives the seed the strength to break through the crust of the earth and reach for the sun. This miraculous ability is called phototropism. We know the plant can do it, but we don’t know how! The same water that will rot your clothes will enable the seed to grow and reproduce.

Remember! The Word of God is also a living seed! It too can grow and reproduce even though we don’t know how! The word of God “penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12). Just as a physical seed produces physical fruit, the Word of God produces spiritual fruit (Galatians 5:22-24).

THE WORD OF GOD AND MANNA

Immediately after He was baptized “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:1-4)

Satan tempts us in three different ways: (1) Lust of the flesh. (2) Lust of the eyes. (3) Pride of life (1 John 2:15-16) Satan began this strategy in the Garden of Eden when he pointed out to Eve that the forbidden fruit was (1) Good for food. (2) Pleasing to the eye. (3). Desirable for gaining wisdom (Genesis 3:6). Jesus was faced with these same basic temptations. (1) Turn these stones into bread. (2). Worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms you see. (3). Jump from the highest point of the temple and become famous (Matthew 4:1-11).

Each time Jesus triumphed over Satan by quoting the Scriptures. (See Matthew 4:4; 4:7; and 4:10)

When Jesus was tempted to turn the stones into bread and satisfy His earthly hunger He quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3. In this passage God told His people: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had know, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

First, God humbled them. Remember how God guided Israel: “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.” (Exodus 13:21) One of the
ways that God humbled Israel was by leading them into the desert and “For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.” (Exodus 15:22)
Then God caused them to hunger! A loss of appetite often leads to death. If a man or an animal never gets hungry it will stop hunting and die of starvation.
God decided to feed them with manna to teach them how to study the Bible. God could have fed His people any way He wanted to. He had the ravens bring bread and meat to Elijah (1 Kings 17:5). When Jesus fed the multitude with 5 loaves and 2 small fish He divided them into groups of hundreds and fifties and had his disciples bring the food to them (Mark 6:30-44).
God, however, made every Israelite gather his or her own manna, and it was not easy!
The manna was little seeds (Exodus 16:231).
It came early in the morning when the dew was gone, and disappeared when the sun got hot (Exodus 16:14, 21).
Each person needed an omer to survive. This was about 2 liters (Exodus 16:16).
The Israelites had a large camp of over 3 million people. To gather manna you would have to go outside the camp and beyond where the cattle and sheep were grazing.
Old people sometimes could not get their full ration, and young people easily gathered more than they needed. Miraculously, however, God saw to it that everyone who tried got all of the manna that they needed (Exodus 16:18).
You had to gather manna every day, for if you tried to save some for the next day it was full of maggots and began to smell (Exodus 16:20).
On the sixth day, however, the people gathered twice their daily ration and it was miraculously preserved (Exodus 16:22-23).
THE ISRAELITES COULD NOT HAVE SURVIVED WITHOUT MANNA, AND CHRISTIANS CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT THE BIBLE!
TRULY “MAN DOES NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD”. (Matthew 4:4)

THE NOLBLE BEREANS

When Paul and Silas came to Berea the Scriptures state: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)

Copies of the Bible were expensive and rare. It took a scribe 15 months to make a copy the Bible. Virtually no one had copies of the Bible in their home, so to check on the Apostle Paul the noble Bereans would have to go to the synagogue, and stand in line to see if what Paul said was true.
The Bible was not divided into chapters until Stephen Langton did so around A.D. 1227. The Bible was not divided into verses until Robert Estienne did so around A.D. 1448. This made it very difficult for the Bereans to see if what Paul said was true.
The Jews called their Bible the “Tenakh”. This stands for the Torah (Law), Neviim (Prohets), and the Ketuvim (Writings).
Constantine was the first emperor of Rome who claimed to be a Christian. In A.D. 331 he commissioned Eusebius of Caesarea to have scribes produce 50 copies of the Bible in Greek to be distributed through the whole world. This fact is significant for 300 years after Paul preached in Berea, Bibles were so rare that not all synagogues even had scrolls containing all the books of the Bible.
The point is that the Israelites had to go to a lot of trouble to gather manna, and the Bereans also had to go to a lot of trouble to study the Scriptures.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS

Since little children are incapable of caring for themselves it is the responsibility of parents to take care of them until they are old enough to take care of themselves.
Paul told Timothy: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8)
Parents also have a responsibility to teach their children the Word of God. Hear is a prayer that the devout Jew recites every day: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)
Jeremiah warned that God will ask the Shepherds of Israel “Where is the flock that was entrusted to you?” (Jeremiah 13:20)
Surely God will ask every parent the same question! “Where are the children that were entrusted to you”?
The one thing worse than dying and going to hell, is dying and going to hell and then realizing that you brought your children with you!

LET US PLACE NO CONFIDENCE IN THE FLESH

The Apostle Paul worked hard like an athlete in training (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)! Yet he refused to put any confidence in his flesh. “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3)

When we witness for Christ we should let our “conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:6) Yet our message and our preaching does not depend upon “wise and persuasive words, but with the demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” (1 Corinthians 2:4) Remember! “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13) It is God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20).

When Moses stretched out his staff over the sea the waters parted (Exodus 14:16). When he stretched out his hand over the sea the waters returned and drowned the Egyptian army (Exodus 14:26- 28). Moses placed his confidence in God and not in fleshly power. That’s why he composed a song giving all the glory to God for delivering his people from bondage (Exodus 15:1-19). When we get to heaven we will be singing the Song of Moses giving all glory to God for our salvation.” (Revelation 15:1-4).

Therefore: “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” (Jude 24-25)