Timothy: You want to become wise? If so, it’s going to hurt. You’re not going to like it but you may come to love it. Welcome to The Consider Podcast.
Video: “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you’d responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. But since you rejected me, when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you- when calamity overtakes you like a storm. When disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind. When distress and trouble overwhelm you. “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurn my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their scheme. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease without fear of harm.” (Proverbs 1”22-33). The Consider Podcast examining today’s wisdom, madness and folly. www.consider.info.
Timothy: What we’re going to begin to talk about how to get wisdom or to become wise. I’m sure if I took a poll, everybody would say they want to become wise but getting there is a whole different matter. How’s it going today, Jacob?
Jacob: It’s going pretty good.
Timothy: And before we begin to examine how God makes us wise need to remind everybody of first John chapter 2 verse 6 that, “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus walked.” So, we’re going to look at how Jesus walked today in relationship to having the disciples become wise. How we would make other people wise? Say somebody came to me and said yeah Timothy, I want to be made wise. I don’t have a church or anything. Nobody’s going to join anything but let’s just say they wanted to fellowship and they were hungry to be made wise in Jesus Christ. How would that come about? What would it look like? Would they be able to tolerate it? Because obviously, as everybody knows by now, we’re talking about the message of the cross here. We’re not talking about Bible College.
Lot of people go to Bible College and never come out any wiser when they went in. In fact, they used to live down in the buckle of the Bible belt and it was kind of a joke. It really wasn’t pretty funny, but it was a joke that if you want to lose your faith, you just go to Bible College. We’re going to talk about that here in a moment. What we want to examine is Romans chapter 12 starting at verse 1. Because in order to become wise, in order to do anything that we’re talking about here today or Paulorrow or anytime, you have to make an offer. You have to offer yourself to Jesus Christ every single day.
Now, in order to look at this scripture and understand it, we have to completely demolish do away with this nonsense of just asking Jesus in your heart to be saved or that if we call on the name of the Lord, you’ve heard all you Will be saved. We’re going to have to look at this now in its proper context exactly what God meant and you’re going to have to do away with that as a salvation call. Jacob, you want to read verse one there?
Jacob: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God– this is your spiritual act of worship”.
Timothy: Alright, in order to do anything that we’ve examined or looking at as I’ve already said. You have to just go in and offer yourself to God. You have to yourself available. Most people just don’t even do that. They’ll study. They’ll even pray. They’ll do all kinds of religious works but they won’t go before God and say, here’s my body, my physical body for you God to do whatever it is that you want to do. It’s a living sacrifice. Now, remember, we’re talking about as walking as Jesus walks. So, when Jesus said to God so to speak. Okay, here’s my body. I offer it to you as a living sacrifice. Jacob, where did that wind up?
Jacob: It ended up him going to the cross and then he died.
Timothy: Right, being crucified and all the sufferings that led up to that. We kind of, I don’t know if we kind of forget or not but we tend to think of, okay, Jesus died and suffered on the cross but every step, let me repeat that. Every step that Jesus took was opposed by other people was certainly opposed by demons. We all know that. It was opposed by the religious community. It was opposed by disciples that didn’t understand what he was doing. If you decide, you want to be made wise, expect to be opposed on every level. Even your flesh. Your own flesh is going to opposes. You’re not going to like it. You might come to love it, but you’re not going to like it because it involves crucifixion. It involves rebukes and correction. Says, “To offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God”.
You got to clean yourself up. You have to become holy. You have to get in before the Lord even to get in before the Lord to be pleasing to God. You can’t just walk in there and go, okay here’s my body and you’re just a total mess. Your hair’s a mess. Your dress is a mess. Your spirit’s a mess. Your soul’s a mess. Your spirit’s a mess. If you’re going to offer yourself to God on that level, you better ask him to clean you up as you offer yourself to him. Don’t go in there and think that you’re already ready. In fact, read verse two there, Jacob.
Jacob: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is– his good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
Timothy: The second part of that verse, “then you will be able to test”. It’s so sad to watch. I know you’ve seen it, Jacob. People run around saying I prayed about this or God told me to do this and it’s a train wreck waiting to happen. The only way that we can test and then approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing, perfect will is that we have to be transformed and no longer the pattern of this world. So, you offer your body to God and the first thing he’s going to begin to do is to transform the way you think, what you think is religious, what you think is of Jesus Christ. We’ll see that here as we move into scriptures in a moment but don’t think that you can test and say, okay, that’s God’s will. I need to just stop there for a moment.
There’re many times too many times as my flesh wrestles things out. I can test, well, this is God God’s will. But that doesn’t mean that I approve. Doesn’t mean my soul and my spirit and my body are in line with God’s will. So, there’s a process of wrestling and a suffering and a growing and a maturing. And it’s only when my mind is renewed. Okay, this is what the message of the cross is. This is what it means to be holy. This is what I’m supposed to do. Once I understand that it doesn’t mean then that I’m able to really approve of it and say well this is good, this is pleasing and this is perfect. There’s a real struggle that takes place which everybody’s going to go through.
A man who to Jesus Christ quote unquote begins to say, well, this is of God. And there’s no struggle, there’s no suffering. He just approves that, he just kind of superficially tested, he just as good pleasing perfect has not picked up his cross. Even Jesus Christ when he went to the cross and finally got there ask that God take that cup away from him. This is not an easy thing. That’s why he said, “If you want to be made wise then you need to really buckle up of who he said before”. Because the rebukes, the corrections, the advice, the admonishment, all the different ways that God can come and that’s just on the superficial outward side. Wait till you get down to the part of bone and marrow and soul and spirit.
Alright, let’s move on to Acts chapter 22 starting there in verse 12, Jacob. And I know you’re more familiar with the, just ask Jesus in your heart kind of thing because you hang around in that environment although it’s really just kind of everywhere. I don’t know if it’s true anymore, but the Bible used to have except Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior page. It’s like a one-page thing, you’re supposed to kind of say this prayer and say, that’s not of Jesus Christ. Let me repeat that I’m sure nobody’s misunderstanding me here, but I want to make it absolutely clear. That is not of Jesus Christ. I’m wondering if these people that print the Bible actually read their Bible, because nowhere not one single place in scripture is anybody taught to just ask Jesus Christ in their heart to be their Lord and savior. It’s nowhere to be found. And in fact, scripture contradicts that on every level. Jacob wanted to read let’s say verse 12. We’ll go ahead through 12-16.
Jacob: “A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him. Then he said; ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the righteous one and to hear their words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’”
Timothy: Did you catch that? Right at the last sentence and now, what are you waiting for? Now, here’s the gospel message. Listen to what he says. This is the complete, the full message, the starting point. It’s really just the foundational point but the problem is you can listen to this podcast. If you hang on to all of the churchy stuff you’ve got or your opinion. You’re not going to make it very far. I’m not saying whether you’re going to be saved or not. That’s not my point. You’re going to be struggling through bumping in the wall doing Jesus a disservice. We don’t have time to get in all the different ways, that can be affected. But look at what he says, “Get up be baptized and wash away, wash your sins away.”
It’s in water baptism that your sins are washed away. You can’t get more simple than that. It’s water, it’s washed, it’s baptized, it’s immersed. And then he says, “Calling on his names”. The proper usage of asking Jesus in your heart, confessing with your mouth and we’ll get to that here in a moment is as you walk along the narrow road. Once you’ve gone through the narrow gate and you’re on the narrow road. Every single day, you offer yourself as a living sacrifice, calling on the name of the Lord. Calling on the name of the Lord is what the process is as you follow Jesus Christ by denying self, picking up your cross, and hating your own life. Now, Jacob, I don’t know about you but is this the message that you hear being proclaimed?
Jacob: No, I think that there’s a lot of people that are usually just sold something. You look as people’s hearts grew colder and colder in America and the world, and then you have, I think church leadership that continues to get worse and worse. So many churches nowadays aren’t even churches at all. It’s just one giant sort of business, right? It’s one sort of giant flesh pot and I’m just sitting here thinking so many people like if there’s anybody that’s soft, they’d be like why haven’t I heard this before, or well that’s not what they taught me in my Sunday school class. And church leadership is just trying to sell people because they want people in the pews. That’s kind of a deviation or a side note, but that’s kind of what’s happening.
Timothy: You bring up an interesting point, many down through the decades for which I preach the complete gospel. I walk people through scriptures and they’ll be this pause moment with many of them and they’ll go, why was I not told this? And they feel cheated. There are a lot of people they’re flat out being cheated. They’re being sold something that’s called gold but it’s fool’s gold. In Acts chapter 26 verse 19 when Paul talks about this vision that God came to him and confronted him and then he became baptized and then he learned to call on the name of the Lord. Paul did what most people don’t do. They’re just disobedient. Paul was obedient. He says, “So then King Agripa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.”
This isn’t just a salvation issue. Meaning well was I not saved all that time. Those are things you’ve got to work out with the Lord. The point is you’re hearing it now. You’re listening. You have the opportunity to respond. You can choose to be obedient or disobedient. This is serious stuff and it is a foundational level. And if you’re not going to do this then you know what? I wouldn’t bother listening to the rest of this because you’re not going to gain much ground. And this is why you see the church is such a mess and people falling into sin, there’s not the righteousness there and you can pretty much predict. Yeah, down the road this is just going to be a bad situation, because the foundational gospel call isn’t there, I encourage people to go by “Luke1425.org” where the complete message is out or you can get a copy of the book “Even Demons Believe” or you can get a free copy off the website either the “Action Study Bible” site or off the “consider.info” site.
But you need to start digging, you start examining, you need to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God saying, okay, God whatever your scripture says, whatever it is that you demand, whatever you want to work no matter how tough that is or what a blessing it is, I want you to do it. I want you to use me up. I want to lose my life for you instead of finding my religious life at church. Let’s go to Romans chapter 10 verse 9 and this is the ask Jesus in your heart main passage. Isn’t it Jacob? Is this the one they got to go to?
Jacob: It is the go to.
Timothy: Okay, so we’re in the go to situation. Since you’re more familiar with it, I’m going to let you read when you get there. Romans 10 through 19.
Jacob: “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the scripture says, “Anyone who trust in him will never be put to shame”. I keep going?
Timothy: Yeah, go ahead, “For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile– the same Lord is Lord of all and richly Blesses all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”. This is not come down to the end of the pews and just say a quote unquote believer’s prayer. Again, that’s just nowhere in scripture. This is as you walk along the road. This is every day, all day long. I’m reminded of Genesis chapter 4 verse 26. As man begin to fall away from God, his distance between God and that relationship became disappeared. I mean, Adam and Eve, God would come in the cool of the day. I’m assuming they fellowship on a very intimate level. They fell into sin and then it says in Genesis 4:26, “Seth also had a son, and named him Enosh. At that time”, at that time, listen, “At that time, men begin to call on the name of the Lord”.
Calling on the name of the Lord is your act of prayer. It is offering your body as a living sacrifice. You got to remember we’re still reading in Romans where Paul will say in chapter 12, “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice”. We saw in Acts that Paul was taught, “Be baptized, wash away your sins, and call on the name of the Lord”. This is the walking discipleship process. I know I’m repeating myself but it is not in any way, shape, or form the salvation message. If this is how you think you came to God, you need to back up, offer yourself God is a living sacrifice and ask for him to make you wise about the salvation message. Let’s look at Romans 10:9, chapter 10 verse 9 again that, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord”.
Now, remember, demons confess that Jesus is Lord. So, this is something more than just mouthing off the words and we’ll come back to this later. I wish we had the time but we don’t at the moment. “Jesus Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. It is a process is going the process. “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified. It is with your mouth that you confess or be saved, and anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame”. If you’re going to ask God to make you wise, if you’re going to pick up your cross and follow him, if you’re going to hate your own life, believe me, you’re going to have to learn to trust God like you have never trusted him before.
You will be opposed, God will come to crucify you, the workers are few. The demands will be great. The power that God will put in your life to try and deal with sin in your life. It is going to hurt. It’s going to be deep. It is going to be precise. God is going to attempt to make you holy. Your knees will buckle. That’s why you have to learn to trust no matter what is going on. You may have everybody desert you. Everybody in your family not want to associate with you. You may be left perfectly alone in every shape and form. God may hide his face. You kind of get the idea that I kind of sort of know what I’m talking about here or am I off base Jacob?
Jacob: No.
Timothy: “Anyone who trust the Lord will never be put to shame”. There will be this thread through your whole life. Your whole disciple process as you follow Jesus Christ where you trusted Jesus Christ no matter what. You continue to confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ was Lord. You believed in your heart that he would accomplish the work no matter what the opposition or the crucifixion process or the message of the cross demanded and you become justified. This is what this passage mean is something alive and every day and offering your body as a living sacrifice. You become alive, and all of this process is going on multiple levels. You’re up Jacob.
Jacob: Man, I don’t think you’re garnishing and bringing us in subscribers, right? As people would call it.
Timothy: Yep. Go ahead.
Jacob: Yeah, it is shocking and sad how cold things are. I think I used the word cold earlier, but this is not taught, this is not preached, this is not lived. And the same crowd that likes to cherry pick verses out of Romans. Read Romans 10, 12 or whatever it is, and they cherry pick it they quote it. So, they say if you do that then you’ll be saved, is the same group of people that then say point fingers at other people who say, oh, if you bring up a different scripture, about a completely different subject and let’s say, oh, you’re just cherry picking. So, I I’m just saying that only because that’s usually the same crowds and so they would and it’s like okay well do you actually believe the whole Bible or not and of course everyone will say, oh of course I believe the whole Bible. Yes, that’s perfect, that’s the inspired word of God. But then you bring up certain scriptures, like I don’t know you’re cherry picking. Like, well you cherry picked, anyways.
Timothy: The sad part about it is you quote one scripture and then people will always quote another scripture. As if that voided this scripture over here.
Jacob: Yeah.
Timothy: And you go, no let’s combine them and let’s ask God what they mean. And God’s not going, oh well, you can ignore, since you are in this denomination you can just ignore all those scriptures and because you belong to this club over here. You don’t need to pay attention to, but four of these over here but everybody else has to live all of it. Now if you’re going to quote me a scripture, don’t quote me to undo another scripture. Let’s say, okay, how do we obey by the Holy Spirit, by the crucified life, both scriptures.
Jacob: Correct.
Mid Point
Timothy: It’s all about calling on the name of the Lord which is another way of saying, you got to obey. Before we move in to how to become wise now, we’ve got the understanding down now that to become wise you’re going to have to learn to call on the name of the Lord like you’ve never called on him before. Let’s go ahead and play our intro, and let’s get ready to discuss how to become wise.
Intro: Welcome to the Consider Podcast where we turn our minds to consider wisdom, madness and folly. Join the host Timothy and Jacob on a quest to have God enlighten the mind according to verse 25 of Ecclesiastes chapter 7. So, I turned my mind to understand. To investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly. Ecclesiastes 7:25. The Consider Podcast examining today’s events and Paulorrow’s realities at www.consider.info.
Timothy: I don’t know of any Bible College really; I don’t know any ministry, but let’s just stick with the Bible College for now, that has this class. Every Bible College if it were fully of Jesus Christ would have a class called Rebukes 101. Because the only way, the absolute only way you become wise in Jesus Christ, are you listening? Is by responding to his rebukes. Proverbs 1:23, if, that’s a huge if. “If you had responded to my rebuke”, didn’t say, go to Bible College. He didn’t say by the nice little your Bible diary and write in the little things that you think you see and understand. No, no. There’s nothing pretty about this and when we see that God is saying rebuke, we know this is more than, I’m going to jump a little bit ahead here. But I’m not going to jump ahead.
“If you had responded to my rebuke”, look at the promise. Look at this promise. This is the blessing. This is as lovely as lovely can be. God says, “I would have poured out my heart”. Everybody says they want the heart of God and worse yet, everybody says they’re like David who has a heart after God. If I asked him, well, what are the rebukes that brought you to that place, they wouldn’t be able to tell me, but look at the loveliness of this. “I would have poured out my heart”. You wouldn’t just have a little bit of wisdom. You wouldn’t have just a touch of understanding, and the first thing he mentions is the heart. You get the heart of God long before you get the knowledge of it. “I will have poured out my heart”. You’d have the heart of God in everything.
Loving your family, loving people around you, loving governing authorities, just loving everybody else, learning to love God, learning to serve other people. I would have poured out my heart. You’d had the heart and be given the heart of Jesus Christ, but it has to do with responding to rebuke. He goes, “I would have poured out my heart to you,” and you get, here’s the bonus. It would be enough, if God said, here’s the fullness of my heart just like Jesus Christ, Timothy. Here’s yours. That would be enough for the day, okay? “I would have poured out my heart,” but you get more of that, “To you and made my thoughts known to you”.
Now, I like that word “made”. “I would have made my thoughts known to you”. I didn’t go down easy and I’m still not going down easy. I’m better than I was. Jesus Christ brought me a long way but he’s had to make me know his thoughts. He’s had to crucify my opinions. He’s had to come in on the finest of details to correct and rebuke and as I’ve responded to those, he’s made his thoughts. He’s impressed them upon me. What a blessing. If this doesn’t draw you to the full message, if this doesn’t draw you to go to sit down and consider the full gospel message, to be baptized, to begin that discipleship process, to surrender yourself to God, then nothing else matters. Don’t play the game. Just go home.
If this is not a drawing card and I’m not telling you, you have to have a full heart. You have to be willing to least go before God and go, okay, God my heart’s not that hungry or I’m not that thirsty. Make me willing. There have been plenty of times when there was a stubborn part of my field in my heart. It was a hard clay. It just couldn’t be broken up and I go to God, make me willing which meant what? What did that mean he had to do, Jacob?
Jacob: He’s going to rebuke you more.
Timothy: Rebuke me more. I don’t know about you but a plow going across the field doesn’t look like the kindest thing going on, and that’s what we’re talking about. And even Hosea talks about, “Plow up your unplowed ground”. So, we all have these hard spots in our life. It just kind of stuck and it’s a field section where lots of rocks and lots of weeds and turmoil. That’s got to be plowed up, plowed under, it’s got a rot, it’s got a decay, it’s got to go through a process. If you want to become wise, you will have to respond to the rebuke. Now, by response, it doesn’t mean you get all stiff necked and get all upset and this is part of where I was going to earlier. People would as a pastor and I need to slow down here, don’t I, Jacob?
Jacob: Yeah.
Timothy: Okay. As a pastor, especially, you’re rebuked about everything. Everybody’s critical. Everybody has a viewpoint. Your life is never perfect enough and I’m not whining here because I’ll tell you why in a moment. Then, you’ve got the enemies of cross on outside the church. Nothing you do is right. In fact, it’s very sinister and very evil and they come at you. They’re watching your life and they’re looking for the bad and everything. It got to the point that there were police and prosecutors looking to find something on me. It gets all the way out there just like Jesus Christ. You had the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Roman people. You begin to become wise. Guess what? Satan’s going to come at you. Ungodly people are going to come at you. And it’s going to expose you.
When you’re crucified, you’re crucified naked.
Every aspect, every weakness you have, every fault you have, every just weakness in terms of being a man and walking with Jesus Christ. None of us are these ivory towers that are made perfect and strong. Job talks about, would you attack this tottering fence. I feel most of the time just like a tottering fence. It’s held up, but I’m not so sure how except by the grace of God. But all of that did me a favor. Because what I would do is go back before the Lord and say, Lord okay is any of this true? And which parts are true?
Now that’s just the outward part of the world God uses. I mean God will use Balam; he’ll use a donkey to rebuke you. So, I look for God’s rebukes in everything. Did I enjoy them? Not necessarily I didn’t say that you’d like it. I’ve learned to love it because it pure me in Jesus Christ. It helped me to see everything. A lot of the things they brought to me; they were wrong on. Lot of things they were right but not as guilty as they made me out to be but what I did was I didn’t do the usual like go hide myself in a corner or associate with only people who pat me on the back, offered my body as a living sacrifice. So, God, is any of this true? Where do I go with this and what’s there, and the confusion and the frustration and the wanting overcome and the struggles and trying to work through all of that is a difficult process. And that’s where I learned to no matter what I was feeling to what? Call on the name of the Lord.
No, matter how weak I felt was be to trust the Lord. So, we see Romans lived out as you begin to live this. It will drive you to literally on the ground with your hands spread out saying, God deliver me from my sin, what parts are true, what part should I go back on it. And it’s a huge. It’s like slow being crucified and you’re being pushed up and you take a breath and then you go down and you’re in pain. But the promise held me there. “If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart”. Poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. That is my reward.
There’s no greater reward than that fellowship with him. Let’s go to Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12. Jacob I’m going to let you read this, and as you read this ask yourself how often you’ve seen this in the church or in other people’s lives or anybody that could actually expound on this to tell you, well this is what you’re going to go through. This is what, I know you’ve heard this quoted because I’ve heard it quoted all the time. And it’s just kind of a, go ahead and read it before I start sermonizing on it.
Jacob: Hebrews 4:12, ‘For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”.
Timothy: Have you heard that quoted before?
Jacob: Sure, I’ve heard it quoted.
Timothy: Often or a little bit or whatever.
Jacob: A little bit. It’s not the go to usually, but people always like to point out, I think people like the first part better which is it’s living. It’s active. It’s sharp. The word of God is sharp, but can anyone actually kind of dive deeper into dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow? No.
Timothy: And when it’s quoted, I hear exactly what you’re saying the first part. “For the word of God is living active”. I think you can buy that on like T shirts or plaques for the home or.
Jacob: Well, that’s fact. So, no one’s going to deny that part of it, right?
Timothy: Right, right.
Jacob: And everybody believes it.
Timothy: Yeah, we won’t debate at this point. Don’t throw it out.
Jacob: Yeah.
Timothy: Again, people need to understand when you and I have a banter, a good iron sharpens iron relationship so we can easily wrestle this thing out and heat things up. Alright, who’s it usually quoted toward?
Jacob: Well, I think it’s.
Timothy: Well, let me rephrase that as you think about it. Do people usually quote that meaning it’s for themselves? “For the word of God is living and active.” Is that what they mean?
Jacob: Well nowadays nobody seems to read the Bible for themselves.
Timothy: Okay.
Jacob: But no. oh, I think usually this is more of a generic one that’s used, it’s almost like for the pastor or it’s you know what I mean? Like they’re the ones reading the word of God kind of back to us. I don’t know.
Timothy: Oh, I’m sure that’s true. I think it’s mostly used to rebuke the pagan down the street or the unbeliever we don’t agree with or we’re talking to another church member denomination we don’t agree with. Well, the word of God is living an activist somehow, it’s always out there that is supposed to be going and doing its work. True or not, it’s a minor point. What is important is nobody saying this with any appreciation, fear and trembling, showing the scars of saying, yeah, I’ll tell you how true this is. Now, let’s look at this. “For the word of God is living active”. Okay, great. Got it. Now, think about this. Let’s just start here. “Sharper than any double-edged sword”. How many times we’ve listened to some of my old sermons back and forth, right?
Jacob: Yes.
Timothy: And I’ll tell you, man, that hurts. Ouch. That cuts or that’s offensive because when I am preaching, it’s a double-edged sword. There’s no way that I’d have to be a mass. Well, I’d have to be your normal Christian where it applies to everybody else but it’s sharper than a double-edged sword. Cuts both ways. You swing one way towards say somebody else or situation or sermon, it’s going to cut. So, every time a congregation comes into a sermon number one, there should be a cutting that’s coming from the pulpit. You don’t even see that. You may see some pounding on people but not cutting. Then when it swings back another direction, say towards you, it’s going to be cutting you at the same time. So, we’re talking about, it’s a sword.
So really, when people are reading Roman, “ask Jesus in your heart”, that’s a sword that’s cutting them. Really that’s what they mean by. That they can feel the sharpness of the blade, the blood can come, it can cut away things and gross and tumors and things that are bad. Is that what they mean by that, Jacob?
Jacob: No.
Timothy: Alright, so the word of God is sharper. We’ll go with that. That’s even strong enough. That’s enough to drive you to the ground. Are you are you getting the sense here as we read this how you’re going to have to call on the Lord? Because when it swings at you, you’re cut to pieces you’re cut down. Self is gone or it’s being cut down, you’re being disciplined, it’s a painful thing or you’re evangelizing and you’re trying to wrestle out what scriptures do I share or how do I love them or what ways did I go wrong or the worst ones when I’ve missed an opportunity. It just cuts and that can be a lot in one day or he can go a couple weeks when there’s not much, but it’s always there. That sword, I’m reminded the sword that was before the Garden of Eden went back and forth to keep Adam and Eve going This is that sword that in order to get back in that relationship with God, we’ve got to let the word of God cut us.
So, when we look at scripture here, I’m not presenting this some nice thing for you to go study. I might share some Greek and Hebrew but that we’re not going there. I’m offering you a sword. You want to be cut to pieces? You want this to be cut away? Let this doctrine go. Let him cut it off and get rid of it. Now, it goes on to say that, “The word of God as you’re reading that as a living sacrifice, it penetrates”. It starts digging in every thought is taken captive. Thoughts are rebuked. I can’t tell you the number of rebukes. I know the last several years I’m going to say probably what seven years has been a very quiet time for me. Most people probably wouldn’t believe that because even then God’s done a lot of stuff but inside, he’s brought back. Hundreds of different little incidences that is penetrating and cutting and sharp showing me where I failed or wasn’t perfect or wasn’t just where it was supposed to be.
Now, I didn’t walk around all moany and groany and whiny. Hebrews says, “To strengthen your feeble knees.” I’ve grown enough in this. I didn’t like it but I loved it because he’s cleansing me. He’s purifying me. You know what? Just on a logical level and logic that really doesn’t carry you very far. When would you rather have God kind of come to you on stuff? The judgment seat or now?
Jacob: Now.
Timothy: Now would be the time to discuss it. It penetrates, penetrates to dividing that. Now, this is how fine the cutting is. So, when God says, “If you respond in my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart.” Okay, this is how fine-tuned this is. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit. So, God might bring something to my mind. And there’s going to be a very very fine cutting between what was holy and righteous, what was right and wrong or what wasn’t perfect and what wasn’t up to par or what was good or bad. So, if we’re all defensive about our life. You come to people and you just offer slight suggestion like yeah, that may not be right. They get all defensive, they act like it’s the biggest rebuke in the world. I know people among all the kind of false allegations or corrections whatever coming up through pastoring. People would bring me stuff all the time and I took it extremely serious, but I didn’t believe me I got plenty of times. But I think as a general rule, I did not get all defensive. So, they didn’t think I was responding to the rebuke.
We’re all such big babies that we think the only time somebody’s responding to rebuke is if everybody else is all defensive. Like, oh yeah, oh that’s my flesh like saying, oh I’m a Judas, whatever or you’re wrong or this or I’ll talk to you later or all the defensiveness there. If you’re not defensive, I’m taking in what they’re telling me. I’m taking it before the Lord and he’s going to take the of God, and he’s going to penetrate and he’s going to go okay here’s the soul, here’s the spirit that is a very fine tuning and cleaning up of a person so that we can share in his holiness. It goes even further than that. It penetrates, it divides soul and spirit and it divides joint and marrow.
Now I didn’t look it up, I didn’t have a time I want to see when doctors would go in with laser surgery or whatever. What is that fine cutting. Just how fine is joint from marrow. So, God is able to come in and cripple you in areas. You can go, here’s a joint I’m going to cut that or I’m going to heal that joint, or here’s the marrow of your bones that make you strong. He can heal you and make you strong. He can make you weak. There’s been plenty years or times when God has just weakened me and weaken me. The very marrow of my bones is giving way. And then he’ll strengthen later. As he cuts down, he heals.
Let me kind of stop there. Jacob, just what is your impression of, just that’s enough. I mean if God just came with sharper than devil-edge sword or penetrates dividing soul and joy to marrow. Thoughts?
Jacob: I was just thinking about dividing soul and spirit. The Lord’s going to come along and we all have this. Well, the broader church also likes to use the term “sin nature”. I don’t know why it’s like a catchphrase. But the soul of a man is like how you were knit, how you were made, and even that has to be cut up. Your spirit, I think of when Jesus talks about in the garden like the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and I don’t know just as we’re talking about soul and spirit. He’s coming for everything, right? He’s going to penetrate and cut up and clean up the very character of who you are even the spirit maybe someone that says, I really do want to do God’s will. That’s going to be dealt with. It’s all going to be dealt with all of it and he can sift through He can sift through it. We definitely can’t.
Timothy: You bring up a really good point. If you offer your body as a living sacrifice, clearly that means God cares what you wear. He cares what how your hair looks. He cares about how you present yourself. Then, you were talking about going to the soul and the spirit and it just goes on deeper. Again, all of this is in the context of rebuke. Not in the context of, well, let’s just sit down and have a little Bible study but well, let’s see. How long is long hair, or why is this wrong or the tattoo wrong or this? God doesn’t play those kinds of games. Bible people play those games. Churches play that game. Ministries play that game. You know what? I don’t play that game. God doesn’t play that game. He flat out this is a rebuke. Wrong. And then we might figure out why and of course he does give wisdom.
Pressing on though it says in Hebrews 4:12, “It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart.” If we’re really letting the word of God do its work. When was the last time you saw anybody down in the dumps close to depressed because the word of God was judging their thoughts?
Jacob: No.
Timothy: When’s the last time you saw somebody that you could tell the word of God had them under judgement and they literally had to call on the name of the Lord, strengthen their weak knees and feeble arms, as Hebrews says to continue on in the work. They quote scripture about God doesn’t judge and we don’t have time to go in with the proper use of there, but the word of God judges me. He judges my thoughts. If you’d responded to my rebuke, if you’d responded to your thoughts being wrong, he would’ve given me my thoughts. You can’t have two opinions. You can’t have my opinion and God’s opinion. Even my opinion that agrees with God has got to go. It’s got to be crucified. It comes from the simple nature. It judges, that means there’s days or hours and just speaking from my own experience.
I’m talking years of judgement where God comes in and just every thought is rebuked and judged, and you’re just driven to your knees in prayer and weeping and asking God to make you holy. There are moments and go this is impossible, but not going to stop. I love the Lord and even when I didn’t feel I love the Lord, I’m going to praise the Lord anyway. It judges the thoughts and attitudes. Now you see why Satan uses the government to keep it from discipline your kids. They used to be able you could have your kid go through an attitude adjustment. You can’t do it anymore. Satan get the world at large and the church at large not to discipline their children even in terms of attitude. They’re not going to be able to respond to God when he comes to judge them. So, you’re fighting like four or five levels of hardness of heart before God can even begin to come in and to judge.
All that to say that the word of God if we let it come alive if we all for our bodies as a living sacrifice. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart. I’m not promoting my book. You can get it for free but if you want to judge or test where your heart is or your thoughts are, pick up that little book. Sit down before Lord. You find that real fast. A lot of things are going to come into contrast. We’re going to continue this discussion. There’s a lot more to look at, but we’re going to have to break at this moment and we’ll come back at it on the next episode of The Considered Podcast.
Outro: This has been the Consider Podcast at www.consider.info where yesterday’s folly is today’s madness. In the beginning, the unrepentant sinners words are folly. At the end, they are wicked madness. Ecclesiastes 10:13. Judgement begins with the house of God. Therefore, let everyone who loves the Lord with an undying love pick up their cross and walk the talk. As Peter the wrote. “Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be self-controlled”. First Peter 1:13-14. The Considered Podcast, examining today’s events and Paulorrow’s realities. www.consider.info.
End
The Consider Podcast
Examining today’s wisdom, folly and madness with the whole gospel
www.consider.info
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