THE SWORD OF THE LORD

THE SWORD OF THE LORD
Heb 4:12-13
"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than a two- edged sword, it penetrates…." (v.12).

SOME YEARS AGO, I HAD THE OCCASION to visit the famed British Museum in London. I was especially captivated by the exhibits in the Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian sections for they took me back to the times of the Old Testament. I then visited (within the same grounds) the British Library and viewed the ancient manuscripts of the Bible. As I reflected, it struck me that while the works and writings of the world's power blocs then (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon) were now but museum pieces, the Scriptures are found in the homes of millions of Christians and read daily in our twentieth century.

Can anyone deny that the Bible, the Word of God, is imbued with a life of its own? How else can one explain its enduring message and striking relevance to our age? It is living, alive, and life-giving. As we open the pages of the Bible, we are peering at words penned two thousand years ago or more. How could anything written so long ago say anything meaningful to our generation of computer technology, space travel and nuclear energy? Yet, the words spring forth from the pages of the Bible and speak to the hearts of men and women today!

The Word of God not only comes alive, it cuts deeply into our innermost thoughts and feelings. Like a surgeon's scalpel, it slices through the tissues to reach its object. Like a powerful search-light, it exposes everything under its beam. The author uses a most vivid word to express this. The word translated "laid bare" (v.13) comes from the root meaning "neck". It is found only here in the New Testament, and refers literally to "the practice of exposing an offender's face by pushing his head back" or 'the bending back of the head in sacrifice so as to expose the neck".

When God's Word is read or preached, the most vulnerable part of ourselves is laid bare, stretched naked before Him. When we come face to face with the Bible, we stand "before the eyes of him to whom we must give account" (v.13). It is not we who read the Bible, it is the Bible that reads us! So A.W. Tozer once claimed, "I did not go through the Book. The Book went through me."

Today as we open God's Word to read, is there something in our life that the scalpel is reaching and the search-light is exposing? May we have nothing to hide from God, for we can hide nothing from Him.

Is there anything I am hiding from the Lord?