The Authority of God’s Word
Scripture: Nehemiah 8:1-3Devotional Series: The Integrity of God's Word
Teaching: The Integrity Of God's Word pt. 2 (SUN_PM 2021-06-13) by Pastor Star R Scott
The stronger the light of the church becomes, the greater the hatred will express itself. I believe we’re right at the line of decisions that you and I are making on a daily basis becoming crimes. I’m talking about how now they’ll begin to call our aggressive evangelism “hate crimes.” As we stand and relate to all other religions and say, “No.” We believe that every religion has a right to stand up and express itself as Americans. So, you can teach and preach anything you want but let it be known there’s no other name under heaven given by where men can be saved but the name of Jesus; amen? What they’ll see as intolerance, as divisive, and as hate crimes, God will see a people who are being purified and prepared for His soon coming. A church without spot or wrinkle, taking up their rightful authority and understanding that the gates of hell will not prevail against us. Hallelujah! We’re there. We’re finding ourselves in this place. So, put on the whole armor of God; amen? That in these hours, the Scripture says, we would be able to stand.
As we come knowingly into this hour, this day is not coming upon us unawares; amen? We can see what’s happening. If you can’t, I would encourage you to take just a moment, pull your head out of the sand, sit down with your Bible, get quiet, and begin to seek the kingdom of God with all of your heart. For when we seek truth, when we seek God with all of our hearts, we’ll find Him, then we’ll see what He sees, praise God!
We have this parable Jesus taught in Mark, Chapter 4, that gives us a great appreciation for and understanding of the authority of God’s Word. Don’t take these principles as principles that just apply to the unregenerated. When Jesus is teaching these principles, He’s teaching principles about the human heart, believer or non-believer, and how the heart responds to the Word of God. There are way too many professed Christians today that are allowing the Word of God to be immediately stolen from their hearts when God brings forth revelation and truth. There are way too many shallow-hearted Christians today, stony ground, that when the Word of God does come and germinate, any small bit of pressure causes them to cave and sorrowfully, like the rich young man, drop their heads and walk away from Jesus. In this hour of prosperity, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of other things that enter in and take that that we’ve stood on and believed is true for decades and ultimately squeeze the life of God’s Word out of us to where it becomes nothing any more than a study book. It’s no longer bread and life to us. It’s no longer the water that we drink so that we would never thirst again. Just more religion, more learning. Beloved, we’re to be doers of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. The parable goes on and talks about that good ground that hears the Word of God and does it.
So, the question that we’re asking and the direction we’re headed is going to be, how do we get that good ground to be in abundance in our lives? You remember, we shared that, as individuals, not one of us is wayside ground at all times or stony ground or thorny ground or, unfortunately, good ground. We, at different times, in different circumstances, find ourselves—and in some times multiple expressions of a heart that needs to be repentant, purified by the washing of the water of the Word. There needs to come to each and every one of us that time of repenting of where we find ourselves, that we could turn. In that hour of repentance, in that reestablishing of the Word, we have the revival like in Ezra’s day when all men stood up when the Word of God was to be read and reverenced it. They made a covenant that they would be a doer of the Word and not a hearer, even at the cost of their lives. They all said, “Amen.” We’ve all said, “Amen,” at one time. We’ve said “Amen” as a fellowship. Where’s the fruit that good ground brings? If you sow the perfect law of God, the perfect seed, the perfect Word of God into good ground, it will produce fruit thirty-, sixty- and one-hundred-fold; amen?
As we come knowingly into this hour, this day is not coming upon us unawares; amen? We can see what’s happening. If you can’t, I would encourage you to take just a moment, pull your head out of the sand, sit down with your Bible, get quiet, and begin to seek the kingdom of God with all of your heart. For when we seek truth, when we seek God with all of our hearts, we’ll find Him, then we’ll see what He sees, praise God!
We have this parable Jesus taught in Mark, Chapter 4, that gives us a great appreciation for and understanding of the authority of God’s Word. Don’t take these principles as principles that just apply to the unregenerated. When Jesus is teaching these principles, He’s teaching principles about the human heart, believer or non-believer, and how the heart responds to the Word of God. There are way too many professed Christians today that are allowing the Word of God to be immediately stolen from their hearts when God brings forth revelation and truth. There are way too many shallow-hearted Christians today, stony ground, that when the Word of God does come and germinate, any small bit of pressure causes them to cave and sorrowfully, like the rich young man, drop their heads and walk away from Jesus. In this hour of prosperity, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of other things that enter in and take that that we’ve stood on and believed is true for decades and ultimately squeeze the life of God’s Word out of us to where it becomes nothing any more than a study book. It’s no longer bread and life to us. It’s no longer the water that we drink so that we would never thirst again. Just more religion, more learning. Beloved, we’re to be doers of the Word, not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. The parable goes on and talks about that good ground that hears the Word of God and does it.
So, the question that we’re asking and the direction we’re headed is going to be, how do we get that good ground to be in abundance in our lives? You remember, we shared that, as individuals, not one of us is wayside ground at all times or stony ground or thorny ground or, unfortunately, good ground. We, at different times, in different circumstances, find ourselves—and in some times multiple expressions of a heart that needs to be repentant, purified by the washing of the water of the Word. There needs to come to each and every one of us that time of repenting of where we find ourselves, that we could turn. In that hour of repentance, in that reestablishing of the Word, we have the revival like in Ezra’s day when all men stood up when the Word of God was to be read and reverenced it. They made a covenant that they would be a doer of the Word and not a hearer, even at the cost of their lives. They all said, “Amen.” We’ve all said, “Amen,” at one time. We’ve said “Amen” as a fellowship. Where’s the fruit that good ground brings? If you sow the perfect law of God, the perfect seed, the perfect Word of God into good ground, it will produce fruit thirty-, sixty- and one-hundred-fold; amen?