The Word of God vs the Word of Man

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. Thank you for tuning into the program again today. Braedan and myself are delighted to have your company. And just as we start our study, we just invite you to bow with us in prayer. Gracious Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Thank you for the understanding we can receive from it. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that you've given us so that we can understand spiritual things. And Father, we just commit ourselves asking for a fresh measure of your spirit to lead us in our study today as we talk about this important subject of faith and the importance of it in regards to relating to you and trusting you is our prayer. In Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C So if you've been listening to the program so far, we've done a number of programs talking about faith and the principles of faith as espoused in the Old Testament, in the stories of people like Enoch and Noah and abraham. Abraham and just the practical implications of know what we can do and then what we can't do that God has to do for us. And faith comes into it. Because we wouldn't need faith if we could do all the things ourselves. If we could save ourselves, we wouldn't need faith. We wouldn't have to rely on an external savior. But we need an external power, a God that loves us, who's intimately acquainted with us but wants us to be intimately acquainted with him. And we spoke about faith being the expectation that the Word of God itself will do whatever God says. If God says, Let there be light, our expectation is that there will be light. And we've seen that in creation. And also then we start depending upon the Word itself to do exactly what God says it would do. So previous programs who looked at faith and Jesus spoke about a man, this guy was a centurion and he was based in Capernaum. And Jesus called his faith great faith. Now, I've not heard or read anywhere else where Jesus actually refers to anybody's faith as great faith. But this man had great faith. Matter of fact, it was greater than any other faith he had seen, even in Israel, which is a remarkable statement. Now, this man was not even a Jew. He was a Gentile, he was a Roman, a Roman centurion. And the centurion recognized something about Jesus'words, that there was power in the words of Jesus to do exactly what Jesus said it would do. So what was it about this man that Jesus said he had great faith and greater than anything else he had seen up to that point in time? It was the fact that he relied solely on Jesus'words to accomplish what he had requested from Jesus. He said to Jesus, speak the Word only and my servant would be healed. So that is great faith relying on the word of God and expecting the word of God even when Jesus speaks it because it's the word of God. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh to accomplish exactly what it said it would do. Now, last week we looked at the inherent creative power that God has in His Word. We looked at the creation account and how God spoke things into existence. Creation demonstrates God's power and demonstrates the power of God's Word. You know, Romans, chapter four and verse 17 tells us that God can actually call those things that do not exist as though they do. And when he does that, it exists. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C That is just absolutely remarkable. Now, man cannot do that. But we read in Psalms, chapter 33, verse six, it says, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. So God used His Word, he spoke it into existence and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. And then going to verse nine, it says, for he spoke. So God spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Incredible that there's a being, fortunately for us, a being of love that loves us intimately, a God of justice and mercy and grace that has so much power that he simply has to speak and things exist. So coming back to our deeper understanding of what faith is, faith being the expectation of God's Word to do exactly what God says it would do, and then fully depending upon the Word itself to do exactly that. Now, this becomes clearer in our minds as we look at our understanding of faith and the faith chapter Hebrews, chapter eleven, verse one, where we read that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. So faith actually has substance and the substance comes from the Word of God, because the Word of God can produce the substance from which the thing that God speaks exists. I know that's a mouthful Braedan, but that's how it actually works. So the Word of God is imbued with creative power. It's able to produce of itself the substance of which it speaks. When God said, Let there be light, before he spoke, there was no light. After he spoke, there was light. Now, where did the light come from? The word of God. From the word of God. There were no light elements there that Jesus just sort of trapped and then or God just trapped and put into existence. His word created the substance. So faith is the substance of things hoped for. And then also before the Word of God was spoken there was no evidence of things seen. And we can read that out of Hebrews chapter eleven, verse three. Hebrews eleven, verse three says by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. So here the word of God is emphasized again so that the things which are seen, so the things that came into existence by the Word of God were not made by the things which are visible. So as we said before God spoke, there was not anything visible related to that Word. After God spoke, the things that we now see were created by that Word. And the interesting thing is there in Hebrews chapter eleven, verse three it says by faith we understand. So we don't need to guess, we don't even need to put a wager on it or calculate the ODS. It's not hit and miss. Faith allows us to understand that the worlds were produced, they were caused to exist by the Word of God. And the we who exercise faith can understand that before the Word of God was spoken, neither the things which are now seen nor the substance from which those things are composed had yet appeared or existed. Why? Well, simply they didn't exist. And God doesn't need anything to exist for Him to speak things into existence because he has this latent power within His Word. SPEAKER D And every person in Hebrews chapter eleven, there's that long list of people who every verse starts with by faith, by faith, by faith every single person there would be able to testify to the truth. Of verse three it says by faith we understand. Yes, that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. Every single person there was not there at creation. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D There's no human being who is actually there at creation and visibly with their own eyes saw God create. No one was able to see that. But here we have by faith we understand. Yes, we get it, we understand. And that almost seems a bit bizarre until we discover what faith actually is. And for all of these amazing people who in many ways were not amazing, but the amazing thing about them was that they were willing to trust God. They realized that when God said something, a miracle happened. And they realized that when God said something, that word, that promise, that command, that pledge, you could take it straight to the bank every time and it would always materialize and always be real. And they proved the faithfulness and the power of God's Word. And so for Abraham, who hasn't had a child and cannot have a child no matter how much he tries, no matter how much he and his wife try to have a child. They cannot have a child. And then God says, this time next year, you're going to have a child, and then they have a child that time next year. So what made the difference? God said, they'd have a child then. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D And as he and his wife experienced the power of God's Word and started believing in his promises, so God says, this will happen. He said, you know what? I'm going to start believing you now and cling to the promise that you've made. If we were to ask Abraham and say, was the world created by the Word of God, he'd be like, yeah, yep. Because he says, I know the power of God's Word because I've seen it bring life to my wife's womb and given us a child when we had no possibility of doing it. God made possible that which was impossible, made present which was absent beforehand. And so I think our daily life and experience of seeing God's Word transform us, do things powerfully in our lives, we go, oh, yeah, god created the world by His Word because we've known and experienced the power of His Word today. SPEAKER C That's beautiful. When God speaks something to an existence immediately, we call that creation. When God speaks something and says it will happen in a year, we call that prophecy. It's foretelling the future. So we can exercise faith in His Word when it's something that God wants to do instantly, and we can exercise faith in His Word. When God says, at such and such a time, it will happen. So we have timelines and prophecy where God has foretold things way from the past that will things that will exist in the future. And when that time arrives, it actually happens. Now, the example that you shared there was the example of Abraham. God said, in a year, you will have a son. And that's exactly what happened. So God prophesied and he believed God, although the evidence wasn't there. We weren't talking about instant creation. We were talking about prophecy. But the power, the latent power in the Word of God is not diminished by time. Now, I remember reading in the Old Testament, in the Book of Habakkuk, where it talks about prophecies, and it's Habakkuk, chapter two, and it says, then the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain on tablets. Now, vision is something that God gives his prophets, typically. Sometimes visions will take them into the past. Sometimes visions will explain things in the present. Sometimes visions will take them into the future, and they will write these down as prophecies. But for example, the reason we know how we came into existence is only because the Word of God tells us. Now, how do we have that? Well, Moses in vision was taken to the creation account, and when he was taken in vision, he could see God speaking the worlds into existence. And he was able to write that down. That came from the pen of Moses when God showed him in vision day one, day two, day three, when God generated the earth and created those things. So it's the word of God diffused through his prophets, which received these impressions from God through visions that we understand that the worlds were framed. We accept by faith what God has said through his prophets. So coming back to Habakkuk, chapter two says, write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it, for the vision is yet for an appointed time. So this is not a vision of the past. This is a vision for an appointed time, which refers to a time in the future, but says at the end, it will speak, it will not lie, though it tarries. Wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. So when we talk about God's creative power, we also talk about that same latent power in God's ability to foretell things that will need to exist at a given time. That's called prophecy. Now, we do have someone else who also claimed to be God. Well, he wanted to be God, but the difference between God, the creator of Heaven and Earth, and this being who was a creative being was that he doesn't have latent creative power within his word. SPEAKER D Can I just jump in and say something on what you're talking about the prophets? SPEAKER C Sure. SPEAKER D In two, Peter, chapter one, and it says, and so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed or pay attention to as a light that shines in a dark place. In the original King James version, it says, we have a more sure word of prophecy. More sure that means more solid, more reliable, more dependable word of prophecy. Prior to that, he actually says that we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty. So he's speaking to people. And Peter says, I saw all this with my own eyes. But something that's even far more reliable, something that's even far more dependable, is the more sure, more guaranteed word of prophecy. So he saw God's Word as being something far more dependable, something that's far more powerful, far more reliable than even the testimony of his own senses. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D He says, I saw it. I got to be with him and see it all. But he said, you check out the word of God and experience the power of God's Word and see the accuracy of God's Word. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And that's an even greater testimony than anything that I can say as an eyewitness. So I thought I'd just chuck that in. SPEAKER C That's beautiful. Thank you for bringing that out. Yeah. The more sure word of prophecy, that it's even stronger than an eyewitness account because the Holy Spirit is the one that impresses us regarding the truth of this. And also, of course, we can test it through the rest of the Scriptures. The Bible says to us there in Isaiah chapter eight and verse 20, to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this Word, there is no light in them. So we can test everything by the Word of God. Now, if we look at the Word of God and we look at the Word of created beings, including man, and we'll get to Lucifer in a short period, but when man says something, he normally has to do something to make good on that Word. Now, it's not necessary for God to do something in addition to His Word spoken, so he doesn't need to make good on the Word. But man. For example, if I said, listen, I'm going to meet you tonight at 06:00 p.m.. If I just say that, that's not going to happen unless I actually get in my car, make sure I leave with enough time to cover the traffic and everything else that might be there, and meet you at that venue. But I've got to put in the effort afterwards. God doesn't have to make good on His Word. His word is good already. And we can see that the Bible in first thessalonians chapter two and verse 13 actually contrasts the Word of men and the Word of God. Now, we spoke before about prophecy. Prophecy comes through prophets. God has called these men. He selected himself. He's inspired them. Their relationship between God and them were really close. There was a trust and a confidence there, and God trusted them with His Word to disseminate, to speak that to people, or to write it down like we have, for example, with the books of Moses. And then people could then understand what God's will was for their lives because God had spoken it through his prophets. But in one, thessalonians chapter two and verse 13, the Apostle Paul says the following for this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you receive the Word of God, now where did they hear this Word of God, which you heard from us? So the apostles and the prophets speak for God. It says, you receive the Word of God, which you heard from us. You welcomed it not as the Word of men. So this wasn't mere human words that they were listening to. This was the Word of God diffused through man. It says, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. Now, when it says effectively works in you who believe as you who exercises faith. Now, does God force his will on us? I mean, his word has got power. We've seen it in creation. We can see it in prophecies fulfilled in the past. But with all that power in God's Word, how does it interact with us as human beings, as moral agents, free moral agents? SPEAKER D I think it's a very good question for us to ask, especially as we've been looking at the power of God's Word to change people's lives and everything like that. And the temptation we have is sometimes to go, well, that doesn't sound right because I'm not experiencing it. There's been people who've read their Bibles over and over again, and I'm sure there's people who say, I didn't do anything for me, and they throw it out. SPEAKER C Right. SPEAKER D And so the question is, like, I'm thinking of a verse, I might be in Hebrews, but it talks about they could not enter because of unbelief. SPEAKER C That's right, yes. Chapter three and chapter four deals with that entering the rest of God and they couldn't enter because of unbelief. Yeah. SPEAKER D And so what we have here is that God's ability to get them to the Promised Land was perfect. Like he had perfect ability. He demonstrated over and over again, like, you're hungry? You got no food. I'll rain down bread from heaven. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D You're thirsty? I'll bust open a rock and put water everywhere for like, you've got an enemy coming up and you've got to see, no worries, I'll open up a path. Like, God's got perfect power, perfect ability. And when God says through Moses, he says to the people, he says, I'm going to take you to the Promised Land, you can just take that straight to the bank, because it's going to happen. But there's another element to this. If we were just robots, there would be very, very easy process. But the fact is, we've got independent wills, we've got freedom of choice, and we often use our wills in rebellion against God. God says something, we say no. God says go, we say no. God says stay, we start to go. So we've got this God's dealing with challenging human beings who are very, very slow to believe in what God has said. And so we read a promise in Scripture. We only really get the benefit from that when there's a relationship involved and when we're willing to trust. Yes, there's actually something which is it's a bit of a big thing to say, but there's actually something more powerful than the Word of God. God created galaxies by his word. God created the sky, the sea, the land, fruit trees, everything by the power of His Word. And yet His Word comes to a grinding halt wow. And will not bash down the door of our hearts. SPEAKER C Yeah. SPEAKER D Because Jesus says in Revelation chapter three, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and we'll have dinner together. But Jesus says I'm standing there knocking. Jesus doesn't come barging into our lives doing whatever he wants to do. Nor does the Word of God violate the freedom of our free will. As we learn to cooperate and learn to trust in God, that's when we get to experience the power. SPEAKER C Right. That is remarkable. Because we read in Psalm I think it's Psalm 138 and verse two, it says there that God has magnified His Word above all His Name. That shows you how powerful and how much emphasis God puts on His Word. I mean, we exist because of His Word. And of course, we know that the Word has been embodied in flesh. They said the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So Christ is represented in that word. He's the One that spoke things into existence. But now to have God be so gentle with human beings, fallen human beings, that he permits them to determine whether they will receive His Word or not, it does come back to what you're saying. It's a relationship issue because God wants us to trust Him. He doesn't want to force us, he doesn't want to compel us. It's contrary to his character and who he is. But when you accept what God says in His Word and you receive it as His Word and his will and his desire for your life, that shows an element of trust because of unbelief. We are told that the children of Israel, when they left Egypt, they couldn't enter God's rest, and that was simply in God allowing them the same freedoms. He allows us to choose to determine whether we will actually accept God and worship Him as our Creator, knowing that he created the heavens and the earth, and we accept it by faith or whether we want to follow our own way. SPEAKER D It's very interesting. In John, chapter one, we actually find out that Jesus is called the Word of god says that Jesus is the Word and the Word became flesh. So the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us and comes to save us. This powerful Word which is actually walking around, it happens to be our Savior and our Creator, Jesus Christ. When he gets to the end of his ministry, after that three and a half years of ministry, this is what he says when he looks down at the city that he loves, the people that he came to save. He says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the One who kills the prophets and stones, those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. So here you've got the mighty Creator God, who comes on a mercy mission to transform hearts. And yet here we've got this same powerful Creator there in tears, and he says, you are not willing. You are not willing. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D So it almost looks at the end of his ministry, it looks like he's been a failure from all external perspectives, it looks like he's failed. The nation rejects him and kills him. If God had no respect for our free will, the power of His Word would just force us. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D He'd just speak and we'd be forced into a reality that we didn't choose. But the fact is that God respects our free will. SPEAKER C Yes, he does. SPEAKER D The word Jesus, he stands at the door and knocks. He's willing to come in and have a personal, transformative experience with us. But there's a cooperation there. We need to be willing to open that door and to let Him into our lives. And that's when we experience power. That's when we experience transformation, when Jesus is on the inside. But he won't barge in. He won't barge in. SPEAKER C Yeah. And I like the fact that you bring up the emphasis on relationship and trust and that God doesn't force he commends Himself to us. It says God commended Himself to us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It's a commendation. It's one that draws us rather than compels us. And the reason why we can trust God is if we understand the power of God's Word, it's simply impossible for God to lie. Why would you not trust someone who just can't lie? And Hebrews, Chapter Six, verse 18 tells us that it's impossible for God to lie, not only because of his character, not only because he won't lie, but because there's creative power in His Word. When he speaks, he produces the very thing of which he speaks. So if man calls a thing which does not exist as though it did, it is a lie, unless he can make good on that Word. But for God, that is not so. So for example, for man, it is forbidden for Him to speak about things that don't exist as though they did. If he can't make good on His Word, the 8th commandment out of the moral law says, thou shalt not that's right bear false witness. It's called false witness. But God cannot bear false witness because there is power in His Word. We have Satan who wanted to be God. He was the first created being to call those things that did not exist as though they did. And he said I will be like the most high now? Did he then create himself to be the Most High through his own words? No, he didn't. He's never been, like, the most high. He does not have creative power in His Word. He's not anything like God in character or in power. And as such, he is actually the inventor of lying. The Bible refers to him as the father of lies. When he speaks, he speaks out of his own volition because he wants to be like God. He says things that don't exist, but the power is not there to create it. So therefore, he continues lying. So the power of his lies does not lie so much within the Creator power of His Word, but also more in the ability to convince people that what he says is true. Now, how does the Devil do that if he doesn't have that creative power? Well, typically, he uses something that's tangible, something that can be seen or something that we're aware of. And he will mix that with some truths, half truths basically, to give it some credibility. And because we don't know everything as fallen human beings and we don't see everything and we don't see the big picture at times, he can deceive us to believe half truths and accept them. Jesus came to unmask the devil and his lies, and he did it by the truth, the whole truth and nothing else but the truth. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. He has the inherent creative power in His Word, which he, as man, received from God to do exactly what he said he would do. Now he had people confront him. One day he saw this paralytic man brought him by his friends. This man is lying on his bed. He can't move. And Jesus looks at him, he looks at their faith, and he says to the man, son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you. And then when he says that, there's some scribes there, and at once they say within themselves, but this man is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God? But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, he said to them, why do you think evil in your hearts? Which is easier to say? So this is a good question. Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you, or to say Arise and walk, but that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins? Then he said to the paralytic, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. And he arose and departed to his house. So the fact that Jesus has power in His Word to forgive sins, he can say to you and me, be of Kuchi, your sins are forgiven. And if we can receive that by faith, our sins are forgiven. He demonstrated it by the fact that he could heal a man who was paralytic by simply saying, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. Dear listener, this is the power that's in the Word of God. This is the power, the desire that God has for you, that you believe His Word, because he says to you and me as well, be of good cheer. Your sins are also forgiven you. May you exercise faith in the power and the love of God. May you experience the joy of salvation. May you intimately be acquainted with this relationship that God, the Creator of heaven, Earth, is offering each one of us through His Word, communicating to us and us being able to communicate to Him in prayer. We look forward to catching up with you next time. Until then, God bless. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. Or you can send an email to [email protected] You can also contact us on our 3ABN Australia radio Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you.