Eight Ways to Cultivate God's Word

We are going to cover the last four comparisons about God's Word in the Scriptures. So, this is part two of eight ways to cultivate God's Word.

And for those who weren't here, I can review the first four that we covered. Number one, God's Word is like a seed. Let's make sure it's being watered and fertilized enough.

And we cover the parable of the seed there in Luke 8, 11. It says, the seed is the Word of God. And so it's a comparison in how it can fall into the right type of soil or the wrong type for it to be cultivated. It says there in verse 15, But the ones that fell on the good ground of those who, having heard the Word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. Secondly, God's Word is like a fire. Let's make sure we give it enough fuel to keep it burning.

Psalm 119 verse 105, it says, your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. But you have to keep that lamp lit. You have to feed it by reading it. It's not going to do any good to just have it laying around the house.

The third comparison is that it is like a mirror. It reflects God's will. Let's constantly peek into it to see how God sees us. And let's do something about it, not be a forgetful hearer of the Word. The fourth and last point we covered, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. The biblical pieces have to be fit together to show the overall purpose. In 1 Corinthians 2, 13 through 15, it says that God's Word has to be understood only with God's Spirit in one. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, because it's so clear here that it is like a jigsaw puzzle. I don't care how many theology degrees you have. But I'm going to show you how. If God doesn't give you his Holy Spirit, it's still something incomprehensible. Notice, it says here in verse 11, it says, but what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him. The spirit of man is what gives us the intelligence, the human qualities, that no creature on earth besides man has. No animal has the spirit of man, only human beings. And so even so, no one knows the things of God except, and it should say, by the Spirit of God.

And he says, now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God, freely given in his word. These things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches, not all the philosophy and speculation and false doctrine we hear out there, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. So another, this is a book God made like a jigsaw puzzle, and to be able to understand true doctrine, you need to have God's Spirit. That's why I'm going to theology school, and I've certainly taken classes in Biola very fine, but they don't teach me about keeping the Ten Commandments of God. They don't teach me about keeping the Sabbath day or the feast days. They still teach me about going to heaven or hell, and talking about how people that are not supposedly converted, that they've been judged in this life. There's no other opportunity for them. All of these things, because one thing is to understand the history, the grammar, the culture of the Scriptures. Another thing is to understand the biblical truths. That's why it says, but the natural man, in other words, then a person who's not converted does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Yeah, they talk about Jewish feast days. Oh, the Sabbath's been done away. That we're all going to go to heaven unless you're so evil you're going to end up in hell forever, burning. And like people say, even the worst person in the world would not condemn somebody else to everlasting fire for eternity. It says, "'For they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them these truths, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual, who has God's Spirit, judges all things. He understands Scripture, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.' And Paul was saying that. He knew there were a lot of good theologians in Jerusalem that he knew, and rabbis, but they didn't have the truth. He had to swallow his pride. He had to basically remove all of those traditions and all of these ideas and begin anew learning the Scriptures. And so now we go into the last four comparisons to the Word of God.

And so, number five, the Bible is like a teacher.

Let us listen to it, understand it, and apply it. God the Father and Jesus Christ are the teachers, and the Bible is the textbook. Notice in Romans 15, verse 4. Romans 15, verse 4.

It says, for whatever things were written before, in other words, in Scripture, were written for our learning. It's not just for the Israelites in the Old Testament, or in the New Testament for the first hundred years of the church. No, it's also for us. It says that we, through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. So the Scriptures give us hope, help us through perseverance, to know we have that kingdom coming. We know the last moment of our existence and consciousness. Once we go to sleep, then the next moment that we wake up could be a hundred years, could be five years. We don't know. But when Christ comes back, we won't know from one instant to the next. It's like getting woken up in the night. You sound asleep, and all of a sudden you wake up. It's the time Christ is coming back to the earth. And you're going to avoid all the great tribulation and all the other things that are going to happen. It's going to be a tough time tunnel that humanity is going to have to go through before Christ comes back. So it says here that we have that hope, and we're going to be reunited with our loved ones, never to face sickness or death again.

It says, now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So it is like a textbook, and it teaches us. It helps us to understand God's will. Notice 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2, verse 14. It says, remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words, to know prophet, to the ruin of the hearers.

That means you can be contentious about words, and it can just become an obsession with some people. I told you that example of this young man that came into the church over there in Chile, and he became obsessed with just wanting to read the Bible all day long, and he quit his job. And so his wife had to begin earning a living for him. And when we asked him, he said, you are supposed to set a good example for your wife, who's not in the church, and you're not carrying the responsibility of the house.

And he said, well, now I just want to read the Bible. And finally, he just went off the deep end, started getting involved in other type of teachings and everything, and left his wife doing all the hard work at home. So you can just go to extremes. It goes on to say, to counter that, it says, be diligent to present yourself, approve to God a worker who does not need to be ashamed. In other words, hear a laborer of the Word of God, a worker who need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.

It takes diligent study. The word here where it talks about rightly dividing the Word of Truth, the term means to cut a straight line. And it seems like Paul, who had to be a tentmaker in his ordinary job, you know, besides being a pastor and a regional director of all the Gentiles, he had to go out and work because the tithing, his system, only started working after the destruction of the temple.

Before that time, it was still the Levitical priesthood and Levites that received the tithes for the maintenance of the temple and all the activities. But once that was gone, that's why the book of Hebrews talks about the difference between the priesthood of Aaron with the Levites and the tithing system there, that then it shifted over to the priesthood of Melchizedek with Jesus Christ as the high priest.

And he has his ministers. And so tithes go there, but this didn't happen during the period of time because you respect what system was active at the time. And that's why Christ, he could have collected tithing, and he never did. And he just had to depend on the goodwill offerings of people. And he had to work, too, as a carpenter. More than that, he was more like a builder. And then Paul and others, they had to live off of the voluntary offerings until after the temple, when the church then took its full activity and came in to the fullness of it, then you see the pastors and everybody there where it talks about sustaining that.

So the tithing system had to change. And it tells us here that we are to cut straight the Word of God. That just like Paul as a tent maker had to know how to cut the different leather and all the from goats and other animals.

Well, we have to be diligent workers of the Word. Notice in Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews chapter 2, So it's interesting that God's Word is not just a textbook, but actually when you have God's Spirit and you can understand it, you can go much further.

You don't have to have God the Father and Jesus Christ talking to you and teaching. Through God's Spirit, they do teach us through the Word as well. Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 12. It says, For though by this time you might be teachers, talking about teachers of the Word, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles, which has to do with the Word of God, and you have to come to need milk and not solid food.

People have not progressed. You can have 40 years of experience, or you can have one year of experience and you repeat it 40 times. So just because it says here you're in the church, you're doing everything, but you don't have much understanding, well it's only the milk that you can understand.

It says verse 13, For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, talking about the Word of God, for he is a babe, but solid food belongs to those who are of full age, mature. That is, those who by reason of use, in other words experience, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. And that's according to the Word of God, that we can do that.

The sixth comparison is that God's Word is like a sword, a two-edged sword. It cuts deep between truth and error, and it equips us to destroy false arguments. Hebrews 4, 12, just across the page here, Hebrews 4 verse 12, it says, 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 there is no creature hidden from his sight. Of course, God is the one that's inspiring it. He's revealing it. But all things are naked and open, to the eyes of him, to whom we must give account.

So we must be experienced in applying God's Word. Here it tells us it's like a double-edged sword, like the Romans had in their day. In Ephesians 6 verse 17, it uses the same analogy. Ephesians 6 verse 17.

Talking about the spiritual armor compared to the Roman armor, it says verse 17, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. It's interesting that in all this armor, it's the only offensive weapon we have. It's a spiritual weapon, like the one Christ used. How did he defend himself from Satan and his clever arguments? He used God's Word. He knew it well. He could quote and counteract and refute everything that Satan threw at him. Notice in Matthew chapter 4 verse 1. Matthew chapter 4 verse 1. It says, Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit, God was guiding all of this, into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. It's one of the things Christ knew he was going to have to face one day.

It's a special temptation because this is when Satan threw at him everything, plus the kitchen sink at Christ, trying to defeat him, trying to get him to switch his mind about it. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry. I sure imagine he was. Now when the tempter came, that's another name for Satan, the tempter came to him, he said, and he knew where was Christ's weakness at the time. He was very hungry. He needed physical food. 2. So then he says, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. Look, you can make tasty bread out of these stones. You're very hungry. Why don't you go ahead and do it?

3. And Christ answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He basically told Satan, No, I'm not going to follow you. I'm following God's word. I know that you are a liar, and you're trying to trick me, and I'm not going to fall into that trap. I'm going to keep God's word in the uppermost in my mind. 4. So, okay, here comes round two. Then the devil took him up into the holy city, that's Jerusalem, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, that's the highest area, and said to him, If you are the Son of Man, always digging in. Are you sure? You're still human here. You're flesh and blood. That claim that you are the Son of God, he was questioning it. He said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over you. Satan knows the Scriptures very well. He knows how to twist them. And another quote from Satan about the Bible, In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone.

And Jesus said to him, what was his authority? The Scriptures. It is written, again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. So he said, No, I'm not going to cast myself out and insist that God has to save me. Why tempt God? I'm not going to do something foolish just to see if God will save me. He said, You have to obey Scripture, which tells us, don't tempt God. Don't go out in the branch. As far as you can, it'll break. Don't tempt Him that way. So round three. And of course, at that time, so much of the whole universe was at stake here. If Christ would have yielded, if He would have sinned following Satan, we don't have a Savior. And that could have been it. And He was fasting before this trial because He wanted to be spiritually strong to be able to carry out God's will. So, okay, round three. This is the last one. Final round. Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. So, showed Him the Roman Empire. And you had the Parthian Empire. You had the farther the Chinese Empire. Here in Latin America, you had all of these other empires. I don't know how far they could see, but it said all the kingdoms of the world, which so many men have lusted after to be able to conquer the world. Who was the last one? Who tried to conquer the world? Can I... Who was the last one? Yes. Who? Yeah, Napoleon was the one, but that was in the 19th century that he did that. Anybody? This was the 20th century. Hitler! He wanted to conquer the whole world!

And Stalin was not far behind him as well. But here, power seduces. Here, Christ could have said, well, I can be the king of all the nations. They'll all come to pay homage to me.

And what did Christ say? Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan! For it is written. He knew God's word.

You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. I didn't come here to be worshipped by mankind. God the Father is in charge, and I am under his submission. That's God's word makes it clear. And guess what? Satan was defeated. Then the devil left and behold, angels came and ministered. After that, he received the food that he needed from God. And so, we see here how Christ used God's word like a sword. And many of us ministers have had to use the sword of God's word to deal with the spirit world. And that's what gives us the power and the strength to make them go back. Just like one of these lions in the cage, and you go in, and you've got the shield of faith, and you have the sword of spirit. My wife, Cottie, can tell you how many times we had those issues going on, especially in Chile. It's not theory, it's practice. And so, let's go to the seventh.

God's word is like the oceans in their vastness and depth. There are seven oceans around the earth. And notice in Isaiah 11 verse 9, Isaiah 11 verse 9, what is God's word compared to?

This is a kingdom verse. This is something that will probably be mentioned during the Feast of Tabernacles. It says in verse 9, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. This is the kingdom of God. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. All of the oceans. Notice in verse 8 or 6, wolf also shall dwell the lamb, stealing up with a millennial setting. And what are we going to be doing? We're going to be taking God's word and expending it out and deepening it, because that's where the spiritual principles, that's where God's mind, put it into words. But it's God's mind that's behind the scriptures. And guess what? People are going to learn. The Chinese are going to learn to use the Bible. The Africans are going to learn. The Indians, all of these different peoples, they're going to learn. And it's going to be a knowledge that is as broad and as deep as the oceans. Do you know the Pacific Ocean is the largest of all the seven oceans? And it's the deepest as well. Over there by the Philippines, you have the Mariana Trench that goes down to about 33,000 feet. In other words, you could take Mount Everest, which is about 29,000 and some, and you could drop that mountain in the Mariana Trench, and you could not see the tip of Mount Everest. That's how deep it is.

And so we are going to expand, because the Bible is the foundation of knowledge. It's not the total, but it is the basis for it. And people are going to learn to appreciate it so much.

Notice in Daniel chapter 12 what we are going to be doing, God willing. We persevere to the end. It says, again, this is talking about when Christ returns, it says, those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament. It would be shining spirit beings, immortal, no longer flesh and blood, spirit, with an infinite capacity to absorb knowledge and process it.

And it says, and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. So you'll be turning many to righteousness, teaching them God's ways.

And this is just the first stage, the thousand-year period, because those are the humans that will survive during that period. But then afterwards comes the second resurrection. And all of these people, they need to know the way of righteousness. And so that's what we're doing here. We are teaching future teachers. We are teaching people to be part of God's teachers in the millennium. And finally, it is like a romance. It is like a romance, something one loves and cherishes. In God told one of the churches that romance was getting pretty tired, run down, and he didn't want that from the church members. Revelation 2, verse 4, talking to the Ephesus church, he says, nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

That first love, that flush, that oh, I couldn't get enough of studying the booklets and the correspondence course. How many went through the entire, was it 55, correspondence course? 55 lessons. Yeah, that was fantastic. And I think everybody still cherishes how much they learn that way. But as time goes along, you get your armor dented, you start losing that first love, the first zeal, the romance that we had with God's word one time. It says, verse 5, Remember therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. God doesn't want one of these lackadaisical type of Christians that do the minimum. That are half-hearted about things. He wants us to have that zeal.

Notice what Psalm chapter 1 and verse 2, we sing this hymn many times, Psalms chapter 1, chapter 1, verse 2.

It says, let's read verse 1, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night, shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.

So we need to have that first love working more and more in us.

Do we ever ask ourselves? That thought or comment is interesting. Let's see what the Bible says about it. Seek the answers in the Bible. Learn to use the tools to bring out a deeper understanding of the Scriptures.

So I'd like to review again these eight ways to cultivate God's Word, these eight comparisons. It's like a seed. Let's make sure it is being watered and fertilized enough.

Number two, it's like a fire. Let's make sure we give enough fuel to keep it alive so it won't get quenched. It's like a mirror. It reflects God's will. Let's constantly peek into it to see how God sees us. And let's do something about it. It is like a jigsaw puzzle. The biblical pieces have to fit together to show the overall purpose and the overall truths in Scripture. And then the last four, which we just covered, it's like a teacher. Let us listen to it, understand it, and then apply it. Number six, it's like a sword cuts deep in between the truth and error. It equips us to destroy false arguments. It's like a two-edged sword that we can go on the offensive with God's Word. Number seven, it's like the oceans in its vastness and depth. Let us deepen our knowledge and hunger and thirst for that Word of God. And finally, it's like a romance, something one loves and cherishes all through his life. If we do that, we are going to strengthen and revolutionize our lives for the better with God's Word guiding us.