Every Step of the Way

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright? Well I trust so, bless your heart. Just been asking the Lord to give me something special for you and I trust that that prayer may be abundantly answered as you and I listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit of God who dwells within the believer’s heart, and we look at God’s inerrant, infallible, Holy Word, the Bible. You and I have been in Colossians Chapter 3. We’ve come now to one of the blessed 3:16s of the Bible, John 3:16, is not the only 3:16 that has a lot of blessing in it. You read your Bible and find some other passages. The location of which is the third chapter in the 16th verse of whatever book it happens to be in. This is one of them.

“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” I think it was Dr. HA Ironside who first pointed out to me that the punctuation in the King James Bible is not necessarily inspired. And it makes it a little difficult if you follow the punctuation in your King James version. “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Now, how are you going to teach somebody else in a psalm or a hymn or a spiritual song? You have to sing to him and say brother, you’re singing now, I’m not gonna sing, you’d have to clear your sinuses for sure, but if you sing to him, and say, “Brother, I think that you need to strengthen your spiritual life and the way for you to do it is to read God’s Holy Word.” Well, I don’t know how much teaching there would be if you were simply singing the lesson to him. It doesn’t make all that much sense.

So remember that the punctuation in the chapter and verse divisions in the King James version are not necessarily inspired, but here you have a verse which if you simply put it together in the way, read in your Greek New Testament for example, in the way the thing falls naturally, then it comes out this way, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Then he goes on in 17 and says, “Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.” That makes a lot more sense if you do it that way, doesn’t it? Let the Word of Christ dwell in you. Here, you have again, that Greek verb “oikos” which means to make a home and feel at home in. Let the Word of Christ feel at home in your hearts richly, that means every part of all of your heart-house filled with God’s Word.

Do you work at this at all? In other words, are you making any effort to apply God’s Word to the various sectors of your life and your existence? I think it must be admitted, sadly, that most of us compartmentalize our religion and for the most part, it doesn’t get into the business of every day. How long since you asked God for advice about a secular matter that may involve the car or the house payments or a new suit, or a top coat or whatever, you know, how long since you asked God for advice on secular matters? And to follow through on that, how long since you looked in the Bible for God’s Word to you about something? One of the things that is surfacing now blessedly, I think, in these last few decades, is the tendency of people to look in God’s Word for something that will especially speak to their hearts. Now, this is not a kind of a wild happenstance of flip the Bible open and and point your finger at the first word you see thing, that you know the Bible isn’t magic, and you shouldn’t treat it that way, it’s God’s holy word to you.

But Jesus said, “Search the scriptures for they are they that testify of me.” And so, to read your Bible prayerfully will result invariably in a message from God’s Holy Spirit who takes the things of Christ and shows them to the believer. To read the Bible prayerfully will invariably result in some enlightening illuminating directing truth that God will give you. Do you follow that line of reasoning? “That the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.” What does it mean? It means have enough of God’s Word so you feel comfortable with it, and God feels comfortable with you.

Have you ever been in somebody’s home, you were there, just as a dropper-inner, so to speak, but it developed that this was the place where you were going to stay during a series of meetings or you’re gonna have some other close contact with these people. And so, as it’s happened with me, so many times, you’re gonna be entertained in somebody’s home and you come in, you’re very careful what you say and do. You try to avoid offending in any way, you try to be on your best behavior and let’s face it, the rest of the family has been warned. Now don’t say or do anything that might upset brother Cook. And you could just see that the kids are on their best behavior they don’t dare breathe scarcely. Well, if you stay there a few days, everybody relaxes and you can laugh at each other’s jokes, or faux pas, you can just be relaxed, you feel at home after a while and the people feel at home with you. I’ve had people say to me, “Brother Cook. You’re just like one of the family.” Well, that’s exactly how it ought to be.

You feel at home with God’s Word and does God feel at home in your heart, or is that there that sense of strangeness? Where you’re there on ceremony, and you have to watch every word, every step to be sure that it’s properly modulated and properly planned.

Well, that I think is what Paul is getting at here. Don’t you think so? Let the Word of Christ dwell, be at home, make a home, in your hearts richly. That is to say every part of all of your life suffused with and controlled by the blessed Word of God.

Now, I’m not a bibliolater as they say, I’m not the kind of person who says, that you sort of worship the Bible. That isn’t the point. Our worship is for the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus is Lord of all, and He is God’s living Word and we worship Him through the Holy Spirit, and we come to the Heavenly Father in the merits of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You know that. And so do I. So I don’t associate any special worshipful attitude toward the Word of God, except to say this, the Bible is God’s way of speaking to you and to me. Isaiah said, “to the law and to the testimony, for if they speak not according to this Word, it is because there’s no light in them.” The Word of God is our source of information, inspiration, wisdom and motivation. That’s where you get it.

The reason many a Christian is weak, and shallow and the reason why his or her testimony is ineffective is that there is none of the Word of God there in the life and in the witness. When I was counseling young people who would be going out on a Gospel team throughout the years where I served as president of the college, I would always tell them, “No, in your testimony, don’t just have some trivial little things say Well, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the meeting, and try to draw some religious moral from it. You tie your testimony to the Word of God, and it’ll be worth listening to.” And I think there’s a lot there, don’t you? Tie your testimony and your witness and your motivation, and the direction of your life, tie them all to the authority, the richness of the Word of God as it fills every area of your life.

Does God’s Word have something to say about your family life? Oh indeed it does. Does God have something to say about the way you should bring up your children? Yes, it does. Does God’s Word have something to say about your business? Oh, yes. Does God’s Word have something to say about your relationships with people some of whom are difficult and others are impossible as we say? Yes, it does. About making up with people after a quarrel? Yes. About being faithful and keeping your commitments? Yes. About the source of decision, how to make a decision? Yes. God’s Word has it all. So he says, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Relate every aspect of your life to the wisdom and the authority of God’s blessed holy Word.

Now, how do you do that? Well, number one, you can depend upon the Spirit of God to bring to your remembrance those portions of Scripture that you’ve already put in mind and memory. Thank God for the faithful Holy Spirit who dwells within the believer. He wants to fill every part of your life. That’s the meaning of Ephesians 5:18 “Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit” And if you’ve never opened by faith, your heart and life to the Holy Spirit, you need to do that right away. This is not an option, it’s one of God’s commands, and you should obey it by faith, open every part of all of your heart house to the Holy Spirit of God. He already dwells within you if you’re a Christian, but He wants to fill your life with Himself, and you do this by faith, it is an action you take in opening your heart and life to Him, so that you can be a spirit-filled Christian. And then He manifests Himself in so many ways, thank God for the manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God in people’s lives.

Well, now, the Bible is used, let us say, by the Spirit of God to direct you and as you pray about a matter, and God’s Holy Spirit will remind you of portions of Scriptures that you’ve already stored in your mind and memory. But let us say that you’re still not very clear about this decision that you’re going to make. And so then you get down with the Bible perhaps on your knees, or perhaps in a comfortable chair, and you start to search God’s Word. You read in the Psalms and you go on over into the gospels or the Epistles or you go back to the prophets, and you read and you search and you think and you pray all the time saying, “Lord, teach me by your Word.” Now, I can guarantee you that as you pray about a matter, and as you search God’s Word, the faithful Holy Spirit is going to give you some direction. It won’t be in specifics in terms of go down to the corner store at 10 o’clock. God doesn’t do it that way. He gives you operating principles upon which you then connect by using your full complement of brains and intelligence.

You follow me there? God will… You will not find in the Bible, as you search it a direction that says, “You should do this at 2 o’clock of a Thursday afternoon.” But God will give you clear, clear guidance in terms of operating principles which make then very clear to you what you should do next. I can guarantee you that as God’s Word dwells in your heart richly the Holy Spirit of God will guide you to do God’s holy will. You can be sure of that every step of the way. Let the Word of Christ dwell, be at home in your hearts that is richly that is to say, relate every factor of your daily existence to God’s revealed will as we find it in his infallible, inerrant Word, the Bible. This is the combination, a believing heart, an indwelling Holy Spirit and the written Word of God made clear by the ministry of that same Spirit as you wait before God. And then as you obey what He whispers to your heart.

Small thought here before we sign off, always have a notebook with you and a pen, or pencil where you can write down the precious things and the operating principles that you get from God’s Word that will help you otherwise you’d forget. So always have a notebook with you when you study God’s Word and when you pray, so that you can write down the things that God says to you.

Father God, guide us today by thy Holy Spirit, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!