The Word is God speaking to you.
“Thus saith Jehovah” is repeated over two thousand times from Exodus to Deuteronomy.
God and His Word are one. The Word is always now.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
And now, notice carefully the next verse:13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
The Word is called the Logos. Jesus is the Logos, and the Logos is a living thing—not in the book, not on the written page, but in the lips of the believer.
There is no created thing hidden from Him, this living Word.
The Word searches us out, finds us.
This paragraph should be studied carefully.
THE WORD IS OUR CONTACT WITH GOD
• The Word is our contact with God the Father.
• It is His contact with us.
• John 16:8 reads, “He…will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”
WE ARE CONVICTED BY THE WORD
• This conviction can come from no other source than the Word. It is a threefold conviction:
- First, He convicts of our union with Satan: “…of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged,” (John 16:11) that the natural man is judged in Satan, is a child of Satan. (See John 8:44–45; 1 John 3:10.)
- Second, He convicts of righteousness, showing that although we are children of the devil, righteousness is available and belongs to us.
- Third, He convicts of sin because we believe not on Him. There is only one sin for which the sinner will be judged: that is the rejection of Jesus Christ.
WE ARE RECREATED BY THE WORD
• “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures” (James 1:18). (See also John 3:3–8.)
• “Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth” (1 Peter 1:23).
• The Word imparts to us eternal life. Were it not for the Word, we would not know that there was a redemption or a substitution or a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,
• The mind is renewed by studying the Word and by acting upon it. One may study the Word for years, but if he does not act it, live it, is not a doer, the mind is not renewed.
• James gives us the secret in James l:22: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.”
• Many Bible students are deceiving themselves because they are not acting, living, doing the Word.
WE ARE INDWELT BY THE WORD
• “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another” (Colossians 3:16). What does Paul mean by letting the Word dwell in us richly? This is one of the most striking sentences in this epistle.
• “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). The Word here is dwelling in us, producing prayer fruit. Read verse 8 carefully: “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples.”
• It is prayer fruit. It is the Word bringing forth its own kind in the believer’s life.
• It is not only committing the Word to memory, which is valuable, but it is letting that Word become an integral part of our beings. It lives in us.
• “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17). Christ and the Word are one. It is the Word dwelling in you which is equivalent to Christ personally being in you.
• Letting the Word have right-of-way in your life is letting Christ have right-of-way. The Word dominating you is the Lordship of Christ in you.
WE ARE BUILT UP WITH THE WORD
And now I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you the inheritance among all them that are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)
• He commends us to the Word of His grace. This Word builds the Christ nature and the love nature of the Father into the individual. In other words, God is building Himself into us, making Himself a part of us as the Word dominates, rules, and satisfies our spirit nature.
• You cannot build one up spiritually on philosophies or theories about the Word, or on the history of the Word. We are only made spiritual by living in the Word and by the Word living in us.
WE ARE HEALED BY THE WORD
• “He sent his word, and healed them” (Psalm 107:20 KJV). How few of us have realized that it is the Word that heals us.
• We talk about faith in the Word—nothing wrong in that—but it is when Isaiah 53:4 becomes a reality in our spirit—“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our diseases [marginal rendering]; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted”—that it operates in our physical bodies.
• He was stricken and smitten with our diseases and sins.
• And then the Word declares, “…with his stripes we are healed” (verse 5).
• We read it and meditate upon it, and we know that it is true. “I watch over my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12).
• We know that the Father watches over His Word, and that He will make that Word good in us.
• He said, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our diseases.” Then we do not need to carry them. They cannot be a part of us because He put our diseases and sins on Jesus—“Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
• The righteousness of God cannot be sick then and cannot be ruled by sin. Satan has no dominion over the righteousness of God unless we give it to Him.
• It is the Word that has made us know this. It is the Word that has saved us, recreated us, and it is the Word that heals us now. It is the Word that makes us masters of Satan.
• Mark 16:17: “In my name shall they cast out demons.”
• It is the Word that has taught us the value of the name, the authority of the name, and our legal right to the use of the name. So it is the Word in reality that has healed us.
WE KNOW THE FATHER THROUGH THE WORD
For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father. (John 16:27)
John 17:23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
• These three Scriptures prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Father loves His children, these new creation folks, as much as He loved Jesus, and that it is a joy to make His home with them.
• What would it mean to have the Father and Jesus both living in your home? It would ensure the rent, the taxes, and all the bills, because the Father would pay His way and enable you to meet every obligation. How intimate He wishes to become with us. (See Matthew 6:31–33.)
FAITH COMES THROUGH THE WORD
The word of faith, which we preach. (Romans 10:8)
Hebrews 12:2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
• I used to wonder how we could look unto Jesus. Then, when I found that the Word and Jesus were one, I knew that by looking into the Word and acting on it, I brought Jesus on the scene instantly. And when I knew how faith is perfected by our acting on the Word, letting the Word loose in us, to live in us, dominate us, rule us, I had found the secret.
• “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18). This means nothing until we act on it.
• “In my name shall they cast out demons” (verse 17). This Scripture means nothing until we act on it.
• “That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you” (John 15:16). This Scripture is useless, dead, until we act on it. It is acting on the Word that builds faith in the believer. You may have all the promises; you may have the mighty Spirit dwelling in you; but if you do not act on the Word, God is impotent in you. Acting on the Word makes Jesus vitally real to the believer. (See 2 Corinthians 5:7.)
THE WORD ON OUR LIPS
Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord…with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9, 10)
• It is the Word in my lips that counts. The Word becomes a living thing in the lips of the believer; it brings the unsaved man under conviction; it gives him faith to act on the Word; it causes the believer to “trust in the LORD with all [his] heart” (Proverbs 3:5 KJV).
• Your word becomes God’s Word, and your lips become God’s ambassador. God’s Word in your mouth, fresh from the love in your heart, burns in the heart of the hearer.
FEEDING ON THE WORD
• Matthew 4:4: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
• Jeremiah 15:16: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by thy name, O Jehovah, God of hosts.”
• Psalm 78:24–25: “And he rained down manna upon them to eat, and gave them food from heaven. Man did eat the bread of the mighty.”
• Job 23:12: “I have not gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU REMEMBER?
- What is the Word of God doing?
- Give the three convictions by the Word.
- Why is it necessary to hear the Word in order to be saved?
- What is a renewed mind?
- Discuss the difference between memorizing the Word and having the Word indwell you.
- Quote the Scripture that shows we receive our inheritance through the Word.
- Discuss how the Word brings healing.
- What does it mean for you to act on the Scriptures that tell you that God is your Father?
- How does the Word become effective in your lips?
- Give Scriptures that show the need of feeding on the Word.