The Word Alone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOkLP6VHtWk

Today I was listening to a message by John Piper. When he opened his message I was thinking "This sounds familiar" and I realized he was saying different passages from memory. His message turned out to be about the value of memorizing scripture. Listening to him emphatically say passages, my eyes were opened to the value of the Word of God. In many churches today, sermons aren't mainly based on the Word but rather on the speaker's interpretation of the Word. I'm not trying to degrade sermons in any way but I feel that we are watering down the true value of the Word of God. It can stand alone. There are times that when we need to make a sermon or speech, we fret and pull hair out stressing about what insightful thing we have to say. The truth is, we don't need anything "insightful" because "heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35). For all those speech writers out there, calm down. Mediate on the Word and don't edit it because, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). There's no need to edit what God has already made perfect.

There are some people that pick and poke and cut and paste the Word in order to fit the message they are stuggling to portray. But realize, the Word of God is what God is trying to TELL us, what He is INSTRUCTING us, so why try to adjust verses to justify your own man-made ideas or actions if God clearly gave us the guidelines to life? The purpose of sermons are to help guide the congregation in their spiritual walk. A speaker, preacher, pastor, minister, achen, evangelist, etc., should not create a message and figure out a way to justify it with God's word, but rather should DERIVE the message FROM God's Word.

As a person listening to speeches and sermons, I'm saying to all us (who are mainly in the congregation instead of on the pulpit) be careful for wolves in sheep's clothing. When you listen to a sermon, open up your heart and mind to understand the sermon but always check it for alignment with the Word of God. When you go home, mediate on the verses the speaker mentioned and look at its context. Many times people tend to use the good part of the verse but not the instructional and imporant part. For example, if I was giving a sermon about prosperity and said, "In Deuteronomy 28:1 it is written 'The LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth,'" I would be depriving you of a key point in the scripture. The entire verse is "If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth." In order to receive the blessing, we must first obey God. Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter filled with blessings for those who obey God. If we are living in disobedience or open sin, we cannot come to God praying, "God, it says in your word that the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, so please let me be better than Billy Joe at the game tomorrow." If we prayed that, we'd be neglecting God's instructional part of His message to be obedient and THEN He will bless us. Not the inverse.

All in all, mediate on the word, memorize it, teach it, and share it but don't edit it. God's word is perfect and it has everything we will ever need :]