Our Foundation: the very Word of the Living God
Psalm 11:1-3
1 To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. In the Lord I put my trust; How can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain"? 2 For look! The wicked bend their bow, They make ready their arrow on the string, That they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart. 3 If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?
David is reacting to the fact that in his Israel, everything is upside down. The king that should be for God's people is threatening him with death. He hides his parents with Moab, and himself with the Philistines, two of Israel's fiercest enemies. The foundations of his society are being destroyed before his eyes. The reason: the word of God to Saul is being ignored, and Saul is sinking into greater and greater rebellion. Today the foundation of the church continues to be assaulted by disobedient men. This study is meant to reaffirm the ancient truth that every word of God is pure(Proverbs 30:5). If pure, then men must obey it . The foundation of the church has not changed. Jesus and His Word hold us up. Let us hold on to Jesus and His Word.
Introduction: Desiring God's Words
It is the Holy Spirit Who brings the Word of salvation to our hearts. Someone will be preaching or teaching or testifying of personally speaking that word to you, and you will hear it. It is the living Word of God that does the Work, empowered by the Holy Spirit. These two entities cannot be separated, though men try to do it.
As a baby in Jesus you are spoon fed more of the Word, and it feels good to you. You like it, you believe it, you want more. But there comes a time in our natural life when a child or teenager starts examining his food. He wants to know why he must eat this and not that, and more of this but not more of that. If he is wise he wants to know more about this food he is constantly eating. Eventually he will be buying the food himself and he will be taught the wise choices. He will even find that there are certain things he can put into his mouth that are not food at all, and that can actually harm him.
So it is in our walk with the Lord. There comes a time when we all need to examine what we have been eating, and decide whether we will eat this food that we have been told is so good for us. We will see which foods are the best for our growth. And even find that there are foods out there in the "Christian Kitchen" that are not food at all.
I Peter 2:2,3. As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
That verse is like the mom saying to the baby, “Here's your bottle. Drink it up.” And we take the bottle, because we have tasted the bottle before, and we like it. So why not? And we just drink happily. These are newborn Christians. They have had an experience with God. They are so delighted! So when someone puts a bottle in front of them and says, this is more of that same stuff you had when you got saved, we go for it.
Paul has a little stronger word about this. I Corinthians 3:1-3. Paul visited the Corinthians and had to feed them milk. Trouble is, they were way past the age of being weaned away from liquids. They should have been grown by now, but were still babies.
And I brethren could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babies in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food. For until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are not able. For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you... you are behaving like [natural] men.
This passage tells us several things. As with Peter, Paul agrees that we start out with simple food as a newborn. The basics. Those basics are outlined in Hebrews 6:1, 2, by the way.
...let us go on unto perfection [same idea of progress here, from milk to solid food], not laying again the foundation [what I am calling the basics]... 1. repentance from dead works. 2. faith toward God, 3. the doctrine of baptisms 4. laying on of hands, 5. resurrection of the dead, 6. eternal judgment.
Secondly we learn from Paul that solid food is what negates carnality. He had to feed them with milk, the basic teachings, because their carnality would not allow the meat to be digested. The meat then must have something to do with other words from God about bearing fruit. None of the basics talk about character, the real thing that God wants to do in the human life, build you into a holy son or daughter, perfect in every way.
That's what the food is for. It is God's diet for you, your very life-line to eternity. No Word means no growth. You will stay a baby all your lives if you are not able to take into your system the words from Heaven that came through the apostles.
So we examine this Word. This Food. The Word has been speaking to us. Now we respond. We look closely at these meals that have been going into our system. Where did these words come from? If they are merely wise words from wise men, well, there are other wise men who have written wise books. If they are from an enemy, we put them down, we run from them. We'd rather starve than take poison into our souls.
We believe they are from God. Now let us look closely at why we believe that. Can we build our lives on these words? Are they enough? Are they the original words God spoke? Do we need supplements, like a Book of Mormon, or a Jehovah's Witness New World translation of the Bible? Do we need an update and a revision of the revelation, as in the Koran? Do we need commentaries written by men who disagree among themselves? Do we need the Roman Church to tell us what is true in the Book, and what the Book really means? Do we need traditions invented by Rome and passed on down, next to the Bible? How did they ever figure out which books are the Bible and which are not? Other holy books and letters were written throughout Jewish and Christian history? How do we know that the text wasn't somehow corrupted, as the Muslims tell us?
The quick, but very true and real answer to all of this is, the Holy Spirit. Walk with Him and every word of Scripture will be revealed to you in its time.
But eventually I believe the Holy Spirit will lead you to do what we are going to do, and that is examine carefully each of these questions, that we might have a good answer to give to those who question us. We are not afraid to ask questions when they are motivated by faith and not by fear and doubt. We know God has come into our lives. Now Lord teach us more about what has happened, and how you did it, and how wonderful is the Word that you sent us.
