The Book of Hebrews 4:12 "The word of God revisited"
Hebrews 4:12 · Vern Peterman · Jul 21, 2013
Hebrews, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926357362251

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. What do people tend to think about the Bible? Have you got any kind of public opinions on that? Friends? Enemies? Neighbors? Family? Different people have different thoughts, you know. So, you might have noticed that there is a variety of opinion. about the Bible. And different people look at it and see different things. Now we're going to take a little look today at what the Bible itself says about the Bible. So just a little look.

One of the things we're going to point out here just at the outset is God deliberately reveals Himself in other truths we could not otherwise find out. Certainly God reveals truths about himself, about his physical, excuse me, about his nature, about Christ's coming, things of that sort. Things about God's character and nature are revealed. Things about both the physical and spiritual realms are revealed, and we'll take a closer look at some of that as we go through our study here this morning.

One of the things that a lot of Christians have been backing off from is the idea that the Bible reveals things about the physical realm. People object to, you know, you can't believe that because, you know, everything evolved. You can't believe that because You know, we don't believe that that's historical. We think that's mythology, etc. And so a lot of Christians have been backing off from that. We won't.

We see that the Bible reveals things about the physical realm, things that are historical, and those things we see the scripture is presenting as real and actual. But things about the spiritual realm especially we need to have revealed to us because it's not something we're going to figure out on our own. All the various religions on the planet are man trying on his own to figure it out. And they don't all come to the same conclusion. Isn't that interesting?

God revealed things about how the world was brought into existence, how the world was created. And those are things we would not have known by simply studying the creation itself. God reveals things about the angelic beings, including the fall of angelic beings. The angelic beings, from anything that we know, are entirely created beings and some of them fell during one particular window of time when they had an opportunity to choose to be with the Lord or against Him. We find out things about human beings you would not necessarily automatically conclude from the natural realm about us, that this is a fallen world, that humanity is a fallen race, once created quite differently.

God reveals truths about before this world began, and that's a very interesting thing to look in the Bible and do searches on things like before the beginning, or from the beginning, those kinds of terms. God reveals truths about before this world began, truths and events in time, and after this world ends.

Here's an example, John 17, 5. Now, Father, glorify me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was. The glory that He had with the Father before God said, Let there be light. Things historical, of course, a great many things historical are revealed, including Mark 15, 24, and they crucified him.

And then things that are yet to be, in a world yet to be, when this world has ended. Relation 21, 4 says, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away. So there are things revealed in the Bible before this present world existed, things about this present world, both spiritual and physical, and there are things revealed about a world that we do not know yet, except for Christ, who is the firstborn of the new creation. And you and I are in Him, and He is in us. But things before time, things in historical time, and things after.

There is no time on this earth. God reveals truths about salvation by grace through fate and what that means to us forever. Isn't it interesting that here are the angels, about a third of them fell. That's from Revelation chapter 12. A third of them fell. There does not appear to be any plan of salvation for them. But there is a plan of salvation for us that was originated before God said, let there be light. That's really rather amazing.

We're told repeatedly in the New Testament epistles, and we were seeing it this morning in our Gospel of John elective in John 14, the same truth that we are in Christ. What's spelled out and explained to us as we were identified with Christ, made to be in Christ in his crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension and seeding. Those things are only revealed in scripture. You would not, just through the experience and observation of the natural world, you would not have any idea that that was true.

We're also told about grace, amazing grace, phenomenal grace, grace so great, Ephesians 2.7, that it's going to take God forever to show and demonstrate that amazing grace. God reveals truths about the deep impact His Word is intended and designed to have in our hearts.

God reveals the deep impact that the truth is to have in our hearts, and we'll talk more about that as we get into Hebrews 4.12.

Now, we want to present two terms that sound identical, and they're not. And we'll differentiate between them this way. The Word of God and the Word of God. And the only difference is the capital W in the second part of that, the Word of God. What do we mean? The written Word of God, lowercase w, written by about 40 human authors. I don't have 40 fingers, so anyway, we won't try to count that.

40 human authors over a period of about 1500 years. That's how the Bible was drawn together. The time before that, Moses compiled from earlier records. But over a period of 1500 years, that's God's special revelation by means of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now, oh, by the way, Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Very interesting. I'll just kind of point this out. Very interesting that during the time of the life of Moses, the pharaohs, for several generations, had the name Moses in their names, and not before and not after. Isn't that very interesting? This is a statue of Thutmoses, one of the pharaohs.

We have here, here's Jeremiah who dictated to his scribe Baruch. And it says a number of times that here is Baruch who was the one repeatedly writing down what Jeremiah said to write. It turns out we have two copies of the seal imprint from Baruch, the son of Neriah, that very scribe. We have two copies of it. He's named 23 times in the book of Jeremiah. and several times saying, Baruch, the son of Neriah, just like the seal imprint says, Baruch, the son of Neriah. That's why we're pretty certain that's the seal of Digei.

There are points of connection in scripture that are good confirmation, not proof, confirmation of the truth and reality of scripture. Now the living Word of God, Christ, Born of the Virgin Mary, he died and rose again. He is God's special revelation as well. And this is the capital W. The Holy Spirit has a job of focusing upon Christ. That's not the only job that the Holy Spirit carries out. Focusing us upon Christ and transforms us as we behold Christ in his word. Written word, lowercase w. Now, you have this chart here on page one, and there's one very much like it that has the scriptures. So let's step our way through that. We want to talk through it and make sure it's clearly understood.

God has revealed himself in five ways, and scripture makes quite clear what those are. The first three of those are general revelation. You'll see that spelled in a column format on the left-hand side. And the last two are special revelation. And let's talk through why we say one is general revelation and the other is special. So now, we have the first one, nature.

In the nature about us that reveals God's existence and a limited set of aspects of God's character. What do we mean by that? As we look at that, that's revealed in Psalm 19, 1-6, the heavens declare the glory of God. So what about God's character is revealed in the heavens? The glory of God. Romans 1, 18-21, in nature is seen His eternal power and deity. Hey, here we have just, here's a person looking up at the heavens here.

And if you've ever been to a place away from all the dust and away from all the lights, you'll see a scene like this, and it is spectacular. You have to get away from Denver to do that. But anyway, we used to, up on the farm, go out at night and just be in awe at the stars that we could see, because we were far away from any city. And except for the dust up and down the road, there wasn't quite the opportunity for the dust and particles to get in the way.

And so a scene like this, and you could look at it and just be awestruck. I remember going out and looking and seeing it and thinking, man, those stars are so phenomenal. It looks like a cloud. It's not blowing away, and it's not going away. This is amazing.

As we see that, the heavens declare the glory of God. It declares glory, and occasionally we'll have various kinds of phenomenon, eclipses and meteors and things of that sort, that are also adding to that declaration. The heavens declare the glory of God.

We will look at things on earth and say, oh boy, that's just gorgeous. As a matter of fact, some people will say, you know, this is my church. Well, no, it's not. But people who don't understand look at that and they say, wow, I can see God in nature, right?

And his eternal power and deity is disclosed in nature, including in the heavens as well. That's what nature reveals, but there are things that nature doesn't tell you. Would it tell you that Christ died on the cross for your sins? Nature by itself doesn't quite do that. It doesn't quite get there, does it? Would it tell you that man is fallen and in need of a savior?

Well, you wouldn't quite figure that out from nature necessarily either. A lot of people who enjoy nature, even study it in depth, don't automatically reach that conclusion. And some of them don't even come to the conclusion that there is a God. And some of them don't even come to the conclusion that His glory or His eternal power and deity is shown in nature.

Even though you and I would say we certainly recognize it. Now let's look at the next one, God's providence. It's actually a combination of a couple of things. That's God's provision, his general provision for mankind. Think about it, here we are on planet Earth. I think this is most certainly the best planet to be on. You wouldn't want to be on any of the others. Not on the moons going around any of the others. Not even our own moon is a nice habitation.

God provides for us here with rain and trees and things to eat and that sort of thing. But God's providence, while it includes that, also includes God's limitation of man, limitation by geographical things, limitation because of our capacities. Those are in place to help us see our need for the Lord and to seek Him. We don't have unlimited capacity. We come to the ocean and we say, oh, I'm not swimming across this thing. And so we have a realization that we have limitations. I need something else here.

Matthew 5.45 is one place where it talks about God's provision.

And then Acts 14.15-17 is another place where it talks about God's provision and His guidance as well. Now, here I have a world map, and the reason for that is because the world map then gives some idea of what this is talking about. I see Roger shaking his head. I'm going to hear about this at the next elders meeting. Burn enough of the cows! Alright, okay. So, this is from Acts 17, where he also talks about God's providence. Verses 25-27, I'll read them.

And he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. That's God's provision, right? and 26, and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, Genesis 1 and 2, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.

Why does God put us in time? Why does God put limitations on us and make various kinds of restrictions? That we would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. So this message, very interestingly, a lot of this draws from things out of the first chapters of the book of Genesis. But these are things that talk about God's provision. When God created, He did so with the idea of providing for mankind. We have, just in nature, the provision of rain, provision of the sunlight, provision of fruit trees.

Now, do these things reveal God? Yes. They reveal some things about God, but you still couldn't know that Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again. You couldn't know that just from looking at the apples and the apple tree and the rain and all the way God provides. It's a revelation, but it's a general revelation. It's not a specific and special revelation.

The next one is conscience, and this is revealing innate moral law. That is, you can go to people all kinds of different places, and they will have a different sense of what is moral and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. But universally across the planet, people have an inborn sense that, boy, there's something not right about this. Even if they carry it out wrongly, even if they come to wrong conclusions, there is still an innate moral sense. Romans 2, 14 and 15 spells this out.

You can go to primitive people. In all kinds of places and this is actually I got people who live in high tree houses And now this is one that's inside of a cave So here's another tribal group you can go to people way out somewhere and They will have some sort of a moral code that they will operate by Then we get into the special revelations and that starts with scripture and of course what we'll be looking at here today is reveals specific truth by God's intent, salvation, and other things.

Of course, we could put a long list of the things that are talked about, but you have statements then of what is true and what is not true, and what principles we're to operate by, and what God has done. This is the special revelation through scripture, and we'll be focusing mostly on that from here forward. You have 2nd Timothy 3, 16, and 17, which we'll be looking at, and 2nd Peter 1, 21, which we'll also be looking at here shortly. We have from the Bible great things are revealed, wonderful things are revealed, even some hard things are revealed. But we ultimately are called to look at Scripture as the means by which we, in the Church, are beholding Christ in the Word. Beholding the Word of God, capital W, in the Word of God, lowercase w.

Two special revelations. And we have that final special revelation, the last of the five kinds of revelation in Jesus Christ. God reveals himself in the form of man in his salvation. We were talking about in the Gospel of John elective here this morning how Christ was was tasked with revealing the Father. Revealing the Father to the people that he was committing himself to, the disciples.

So you have in there, that's in 2 Corinthians 4.4 and Colossians 1.15 would be a couple places that it makes note of the special revelation through Jesus Christ.

Now, one of the things we'll point out here, the special revelation of Jesus Christ is seen through the special revelation we call the Bible. So while we say Christ and the Bible are two special revelations, we see the special revelation of Christ through the Bible also a special revelation. So we could say that we see the Word of God, capital W, through the Word of God, lowercase w. We see the Word of God, uppercase W, capital W, through the Word of God, lowercase w.

Now here's the 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17 that we're talking about here, and I have this in expanded and explained format. All scripture, that is the Bible, and when we say all scripture, it's the Bible, it's not the Bhagavad Gita or the Koran and the Hadith or any other scriptures, but specifically the Bible, is God-breathed, the term has often been said inspired, and many of our translations will have that, but literally it's God-breathed, revealing truth as spoken from God, and is spiritually profitable for teaching, for refuting error, for correction from falsehood towards the truth. That's the wrong way, this is the right way. That's the wrong statement. This is the right statement. For training toward maturity in righteousness, so that the believer in God may be adequate and completely equipped for every good work.

So here's one very pivotal statement about the Bible itself and its usefulness and multipurpose usefulness. Okay? God breathed, we'll say, the words of the Bible, worked through human authors of the Bible as they wrote, like we say, about 40 of them, to accomplish several critical spiritual purposes in the believer. So far as we know, almost all of the authors of scripture were Jewish. A couple of possible exceptions with Luke and Job. 2 Peter 1 20-21 Expanded and Explained reads like this But you must know this principle is a top priority, that not one expression of God in scripture is a matter of one's own subjective or privately controlled interpretation. Ever go to a Bible study and they say, what do you think it means? What do you think it means? How does this make you feel? Right?

And so that's a subjective interpretation. The privately controlled interpretation is where somebody, and this is typical of cult groups, Somebody says this is what it means and you better believe it or you're out of here. Various groups will have leaders who control the interpretation and don't allow you to draw your own conclusions and examine it for yourself. So he's saying not subjective or privately controlled. You don't get to do that. For no human author of the Bible ever expressed himself simply as an act of his own will. They didn't just do it, and it's all humanly controlled.

These were men who, as they wrote, were brought along by the Holy Spirit, which each believer here this morning has. And what Romans 8 teaches, you are in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit's in you. As they wrote, they were brought along by the Holy Spirit, expressing a message that came from God Himself. This is God's message, not this guy over here or that group over there that dictates what this thing means. God's the one who says what it means, and he means what he says. The Bible is God's objective and always relevant message for you and for me. The interpretation is not subjective nor under anyone's private control.

One of the things that will happen when Roger and Mike and I get together is we'll talk about, you know, what does this passage mean and what does that say? And we talk about it to arrive at a common conclusion, make sure we have a common understanding of different passages of scripture and on different areas of teaching. And one of the reasons why we can do that is because it's not subjective. It is objective. Our question is not, what does Verne think this means? But the question is, what did God intend to say? That's it. That's the end of it. And so our discussions are in the direction of, what did God intend to say?

Hebrews 4.12. Now we're getting to the passage that's central here and part of our Hebrew study.

Hebrews 4.12 expanded and explained. For the Word of God, the Bible, is living and energized to full potency.

And it is, by way of analogy, sharper than any two-edged sword, so that it is piercing and penetrating as deeply as the division of soul and spirit, and by bodily analogy of both joints and marrow, and the application of the word of God is able to judge and discern the thoughts and intentions of the believer's heart." So this verse is immediately after a set of verses in chapter 3 and then now in chapter 4 on the topic of resting. Isn't that interesting? That's because the nature and activity of the Word of God is essential to a believer's resting.

You can not rest spiritually. You can not rest without the truth of the Word of God. It's essential. It's not optional. This verse is put exactly where it is because we need the truth of the Word of God to penetrate deep within us in order for us to know what resting is.

And we're not going to do it without that. You have a diagram like this at the bottom of page one, and we're going to step our way through this. Otherwise you're likely to think, well Vern's drawn another wiring diagram for the space shuttle. We'll go through it one step at a time.

From the spiritual realm, the physical realm was created. From the spiritual realm, the physical realm was created. The spiritual realm comes from God Himself. And the physical realm was created out of the spiritual realm. Now we've actually got people walking the earth now who think that there is no spiritual realm and the physical realm is all there is. But what the Bible reveals is the spiritual realm is the source of the physical realm and everything here is going to be erased one day. As soon as 1007 years from now. The body, our physical bodies, are in the physical realm and our spirit is in the spiritual realm. Part 1.

So we have in the physical realm all the things God created, everything from the astronomical scale to things down on planet earth and things that are biological as well, plant and animal and then of course human beings. You have in the spiritual realm God himself, the originator of everything else and everyone else. You have in the spiritual realm angels who are created beings different from human beings. They can appear in the physical realm and embody themselves in the physical realm, but that's not their native state.

You have, in addition to that, and I'll put a heart here, You have, in addition to that, the spiritual aspect of man. The spiritual aspect of man. And so all these things are things that God brought into existence in the spiritual realm, as we talked about them, and the physical realm.

Now, next part. We have here, as a part of the body, we have the brain. And that's this one thing out of this whole chart that is modern observation, not necessarily something that's revealed directly in scripture. But I think you'll see that it makes good sense. So the brain is a part of the body. You have in addition to that, the soul is a part of the spirit. Got that? The soul is a part of the spirit.

The words spirit, soul and body are found together in 1 Thessalonians 5.23. That's not on your chart, so if you want that, you need to write that down.

Spirit, soul and body are all mentioned there in 1 Thessalonians 5.23. So you have the brain as a part of the body and the soul as a part of the human spirit. Sometimes you'll find them used interchangeably, but that's the distinction. Now you have within that brain and the soul, on the spiritual side, mind, emotions, and will. And you will see that on your little chart there. So you have mind, emotions, and will are included in both the brain aspect and the soul aspect.

The mind is mentioned numerous places in scripture, but one of them is Psalm 10.3, and that's not in your chart. You can write it down if you like.

Emotions are mentioned in Romans 9.2 and other places, but that would be one. And the will is mentioned numerous times. And by the way, every time the Bible urges you to do this or commands you to do something, it's an appeal to the will. So mind, emotions, and will. And now we have, in the physical realm, we have the senses of sight, hearing, and touch.

We obviously have additional ones of smelling and taste, but sight, hearing, and touch, that is the means that God uses to take His Word, from Hebrews 4.12, to take His Word into our physical being, and then that goes to impact us at the deepest part of the dividing line between soul and spirit.

It penetrates deep. Nothing out here in the physical realm penetrates like the Bible. Nothing has that deep of an impact. You can go through all sorts of things in life, but this is a miraculous thing that we have. Here's the Bible. It's a physical entity that is designed by God to have a deep spiritual impact. Do you see that? So the Bible is a physical entity uniquely designed. Nothing else is like this. Your pews won't do this. Nothing else is designed to go that deep. Nothing is designed to go that deep to the dividing line between soul and spirit, the deepest part of you.

So Hebrews 4.12 would say this, we are impacted deeply and eternally by the Word of God and uppercase W, the Word of God. So the written word of God reveals truth is also designed and intended to have a deep and profound impact upon the deepest parts of our being.

And we need it. We need it. We need that impact. By the written word of God we know about Jesus Christ, the living word of God, who he is and what he's done in our relationship to him, and we need him. So we need the Word of God, lowercase w. We need the Word of God, uppercase W. It is the written Word of God, lowercase w, that tells us about our need for the Word of God, the living Word of God, the uppercase W. Only by the Word of God as revealed in the Word of God that we can rest and grow. No Word of God, no resting. No Word of God, no growth. Got to have it. We need the Word of God and we need uppercase W, the Word of God. Got to have it. No resting, no growth without it.

The Word of God is living and energized to full potency. I think one of the things to think of it, we think of it, okay, here's this thing, this Bible, and we have them in our pew racks here, and a lot of you brought your Bibles, and that's a good thing. But here you have this unique book. It is not just an entity that sits passively.

Engaged, it's living and energized to full potency by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who inspired it in the first place. The Holy Spirit is the one that preserved it for you and for me. The Holy Spirit is also the one that makes it energized to full potency. The Bible is more than just words printed on a page, or bits and bytes in all our electronic devices, if you happen to have an electronic version of the Bible. The Bible is living and energized to full potency as a work of the Holy Spirit. It is because of the work of the Holy Spirit that it goes to full depth. It's because of the work of the Holy Spirit that it has the essential impact that it does.

Now we have a supplement available and those in the John elect have got this actually as part of their handout today. This supplement is on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the believer's life by Hal Molloy. We've had it available before, but if you don't have one, feel free to take advantage of it. We will get it on the Holly Hills website as well as another way to get the link.

Now here in Ephesians 6, 10, 11, and then verse 17, I'm going to zero in on that part of it. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you'll be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. And verse 17, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So the Word of God, and specifically that phrase, and the idea that it's a sword, something that taught not just in Hebrews 4.12 but also here in Ephesians 6.17. There is a difference, however, and notice that this is a part of standing against the enemy. The sword's directed at the enemy.

The application here in Ephesians 4.12, the sword's directed at you and me.

Sword of the Spirit, which was the Word of God, has multiple purposes. It's a multi-tool, which includes standing against the schemes of the devil and working deeply in the heart of the believer. It has multiple purposes as a sword. Now, I have to tell you, the Word of God is aimed straight at your heart as a sword.

Now, most of us get nervous when they have things like a sword pointed at us. But the thing we have to remember is that this sword is wielded by the Holy Spirit. It's a word picture of the Word of God as a sword not intended to harm us, but for our own benefit to convey to you and me that degree of deep penetration that the Word of God is intended to have in our hearts. So the sword is not there to scare you. The sword, however, is meant to have you have full respect for the unique sharpness and depth that the Word of God has. That's why we have this diagram that we showed there. Yes, it's a physical entity here, but it goes deep. It goes deep. Very deep.

The Holy Spirit is the one who wields the sword. It's not just some crazy guy just swinging a sword around and all of a sudden, boy, now you got your this or that part sliced open. This is not that. It is the Holy Spirit who wields that sword. And so it's not to be thought of as military in this purpose, but surgical. Not military, but surgical. He knows what he's doing. Isn't that good? He knows what he's doing with it.

Multiple times in the New Testament, we also find that the Holy Spirit is in one way or another associated with love, including things like the fruit of the Spirit. What's one of those? Love. The Holy Spirit's work in us through the Word of God is done out of love. It's done out of love.

So we don't need to worry about, uh-oh, I've got the sword pointed at me. No. Everything that's done, the penetration, the depth of penetration, the sharpness of it, is all done out of fluff. The last thing that this verse tells us is that the Word of God judges and discerns thoughts and intentions. It goes in and decides what's going on inside. It points out what's actually happening in the inner part of our being. It doesn't just deal with superficial things. deals with the deepest part of us. The Word of God is the instrument to judge and to discern.

Our culture has been telling us for a long time that feelings and experiences are the judge of all things, and a great many churches have embraced that. I feel blessed, therefore I must be blessed, right? And so looking for the feeling ends up being a big part of a lot of Christians' involvement. I feel like Satan's attacking me, so he must be, right? So I've got to go bind him, right? I've got to rebuke him. I don't know why I've got to keep binding him and binding him and binding him again. Who lets him loose? Right? I don't know.

But the Word of God is to be the judge of all of our feelings and experiences. Got that? It's the Word of God that's to judge all our feelings and experiences. One of the ways we put it here, faith in the facts is like the train on the tracks. There's the train, and there's the track. So the track is the facts. That's what guides the direction of the train. Faith is the train on the track, and the caboose, feelings follow. Faith in the facts is like the train on the tracks, and like the caboose, the feelings follow.

I'm going to end with 2 Corinthians 3.18, expanded and explained, because this is ultimately where we're seeing the direction of the Word of God. This is a tremendous insight for us to have, so let me read it along with you here.

But all of us who are in Christ with a face that is not veiled by the law, having died in relationship to the law and living by God's amazing grace, are right now continuing to behold as we read and hear the written word of God, seeing as one who looks into a mirror the glory, the radiant essence of who Christ is. the glory that comes from Christ himself, and we are in fact in the very process of being changed and transformed into the same spiritual character, growing from one level of Christ's glory to the next, and every part of this beholding and transformation is from the God-given ministries of the Holy Spirit. That's what God's Word is doing. We're beholding Christ. The Holy Spirit is completing His work that he began by inspiring the Word of God, and preserving it, and now bringing it to us. Why? So that we can see Christ in the Word of God, beholding Him, and as a ministry of the Holy Spirit. being changed and transformed into the very image of Christ until the day that we go to see him face to face.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your precious word. Thank you for the truths that you revealed in your word about your word and the purposes that you have intended for us. And we do pray, as having looked at these truths briefly, we pray that you would bring these truths home to our hearts, that we might grow in them, that we might stand upon these truths, that we, as the analogy, might put our faith in the facts, and that our thoughts and feelings and intentions would be judged by faith in those facts that you revealed. We thank you for these marvelous truths. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.