HOW TO MAKE THE SCRIPTURES COME ALIVE

I was talking to one of our Parishioners recently who had just started going to a cell group meeting where you are encouraged to read a scripture reading and then share with the others what the scripture is saying to you. She started reading in Genesis and going through the next few books was wondering what all these accounts of battles and of rules and regulations etc had to do with us today. That is why I would like to share to you some of the reasons why the scriptures are difficult to interpret and hopefully give you a scriptural answer to overcoming this.

The Apostle Paul asked the question in (1 Cor 2:11), ‘What man knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? Then he goes on to say that ‘In the same way no-one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God’ he tells us in verse 14 ‘The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned’. In other words you will never be able to understand the Scriptures unless you have the Holy Spirit teach you.

In Isaiah 9:8 says ‘The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it has lighted upon Israel’.  The name speaks of a person’s character and the name Jacob means cheat, supplanter, and twister and after wrestling with the Lord he received a new name, a new character and he was called Israel meaning prince of God. Jacob speaks of the natural man and Israel speaks of the spiritual man. The word of the Lord could not come on to Jacob because the old sinful nature we received from Adam is disobedient to the word of God. Israel speaks of the spiritual man and only that which is born of the spirit can be obedient to the word of God. When Jacob was blessing his sons on his death bed he called them ‘sons of Jacob’ meaning sons of the old natural man but he told them to ‘listen to Israel your father’ listen to the spiritual man the hidden man of the heart.  Likewise we are told that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a 2^nd time because when he received the word from the Lord the 1^st time he rebelled and ran away. In referring to his resurrection Jesus spoke of Jonah in the belly of the whale. And this speaks of life out of death then after Jonah had dealt with his fear he was able to be obedient to the word of God. It means that we will never be obedient to the will or to the word of God as long we haven’t dealt with the old nature.

The natural man cannot understand the word of God. That’s why Jesus could not use any of the Scribes and Pharisees in his own day. They had all the understanding in their heads but they had no heart knowledge. Why didn’t they recognise the Messiah? All the Scriptures pointed to him. It doesn’t matter what theological college you have been to. It doesn’t matter how many degrees or letters you have acquired after your name, because your head knowledge, your intellect and your education will never give you the revelation that you need to discern what is written, for only the Holy Spirit can reveal Christ to you and only the Holy Spirit can enlighten this word to you, otherwise it is just a book of words.

 

Whenever you try to interpret without the Spirit it may say something totally different to what it means. A good example would be the parable of the talents, where time and again we were told that you shouldn’t bury your God given talents or put your lamp under a bushel. It has nothing to do with your talents or your gifts. It’s a parable about service and stewardship. The man with 1 talent did the same as Adam did, he hid because he was afraid and if you try to serve God out of fear, then it will cause you to be bowed over in the presence of God, like Adam there will be a sense of shame  and you will be spiritually impoverished, you will be like the dutiful son in the parable of the prodigal son having a slavery mentality serving God out of a wrong heart, going through all the religious observances but unable to join in the celebrations of the new life that Jesus offers us. I remember one Easter Sunday and our Parish Priest Fr. Pat at the start of his homily saying ‘here we are this Easter morning and we are so full of joy that we can hardly contain ourselves’, and I looked around at the congregation and I thought to myself, who is he talking to, because I had never seen such a load of miserable faces, it looked more like they had gathered for a funeral.

The 1st parable Jesus gave was the parable of the sower and like all the other parables Jesus had to explain them to his disciples. Like the Scribes and Pharisees they had no understanding, because the Holy Spirit had not yet been given. Jesus said that his word was ‘truth’, and in his Priestly prayer in John 16 he prayed ‘When the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth’. Jesus also said that the words he spoke were spirit and they were life. Paul writes that the letter (that is the written word) kills in 2 Cor 3:6 but the spirit gives life  Only the Holy Spirit can bring the scriptures to life otherwise it remains a dead word. The word of God by itself cannot give life but it points to him who can give life that’s why we need to be born again and receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit to make these words come alive.

In the parable of the sower Jesus tells us that when anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, in other words has no depth of character he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.  

The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

Here you have 3 different types of soil that the word of God failed to produce anything. In the parable, God is the sower; our hearts are the ground where the seed of his word is sown. If you were a farmer you would not sow seed on fallow ground, Fallow ground is ground which has once been tilled, but which now lies hard and waste, and needs to be broken up and softened, before it is it is ready to receive grain.

The Bible speaks of 2 outpourings of the Holy Spirit. (James 5:7) mentions the former and the later rain.

And the farmer waits patiently for both the former and the later rain. The former rain speaks of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that birthed the Church and brings us into a right relationship with God. The later rain is different it is poured on the soil in preparation for harvest time.  

First of all the farmer has to prepare the ground and then wait for the former rain to plant his crop.  In order for the crop to take root the fallow ground has to be broken up. Fallow speaks of the hardness of heart that is mentioned in the parable of the sower. You can hear the word of God and reject it. Because of the hardness of heart we cannot receive all the promises of God when we hear it. When Jesus healed the man with the withered hand we are told that he was grieved by the hardness of the hearts of the Scribes and the Pharisees.  

That happened to the disciples; they could not believe even when Mary came and told them of the resurrection, and the Lord rebuked them for their hardness of heart and their unbelief.

If you are having trouble with your faith then it means that there is a hardness of heart.

I remember in Primary school being taught all the stories from both the New and the Old Testament. So like most people growing up we would hear the word being taught in school and read each Sunday at Chapel. The only problem was that you would hear all these stories over and over and even remember them off by heart but they were just stories, they never came alive for me. I was like the Pharisees I had no understanding. I was baptized and confirmed but I believe the day that changed everything for me was Easter Sunday the 10^th of April 1977. I could probably count on one hand the many times I had been to church the previous 7 years.

 Jesus of Nazareth was being shown for the 1^st time on the TV. The previous Sunday showed part 1 and both Arlene and I watched it. On the Easter Sunday Arlene was working and I watched the 2^nd part on my own. When it was over I remember the emotional affect it had on me and I remember saying out loud ‘Jesus you’re my hero’. Without realising it, I was doing what Paul said in his letter to the Romans where he said ‘if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead then you will be saved’. That is the day I believe when my life was turned around. I was living in Coventry at the time but the Lord then started working in the background and through a series of events in my work situation after a period of about 18 months, eventually he got me to a prayer meeting in the North East of England in Sunderland which was 40 miles away from the lodgings I was staying in at Redcar and it was there that I received the infilling of the Holy Spirit when for the 1^st time I opened my mouth and started to sing along with everyone else at the start of the meeting and as I sang the 2^nd verse of Abba Father send your Spirit, the verse was I will give you living water glory Jesus Christ and all of a sudden within me there was a stirring of those living waters like what Jesus had said to the woman at the well, this spring was welling up within me and for 2 weeks I was on cloud nine. Travelling back to Redcar I was as high as a kite. Let me tell you something there is no high like the high that you get from the infilling of the Holy Spirit and you definitely don’t have a hangover. Something had come alive in me, my spirit had been awakened and from then on the Bible was no longer just words and stories, the words were becoming flesh within, there was a new hunger for the word of God and the Scriptures were now coming alive and little by little every now and then I would see some things in a different light and get a new understanding.

So like any seed that fertilises you keep watering and feeding it and eventually it grows.

The Scriptures give us certain ‘keys’ and these unlock or enlighten areas that were once darkness to us. That’s what Peter was saying when he said that we would do well to pay attention to the word, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. In other words keep meditating on it until you get the revelation.

One of the keys to breaking up the fallow ground is mentioned in Jeremiah 4:3 where it says

Men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, do not sow among thorns”

Judah means praise, and as scripture says that praise is like incense and as incense goes up so our praise fills the temple. So when we offer up a time of praise and worship then the Lord is breaking up the hardness of our hearts and is then able to pour down righteousness upon us like the oil on the head of Aaron flowing down upon the body. Praise and worship causes us to keep our eyes on the Lord away from the cares and worries of the thorns mentioned in the parable of the sower thus breaking up the hardness of our hearts enabling us to receive the anointing of his word to penetrate through to the fertile soil and letting the seed take root and then in due course producing the fruit of the spirit in our lives.

Like the farmer you have got to make sure that when the rain does come the ground is prepared to receive the word of God. When we ask and don’t receive then it hardens our heart towards the word of God. If that is you then there is an answer. If you will start praising and worshipping the Lord then the hardness of heart will be broken, the fallow ground will become ploughed.

Hezekiah sent out Judah at the head of the battle.  This is the instruction Paul gave in Ephesians when he said ‘Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord’,

When you start to worship the Lord like that, the hardness of your heart will be broken and what happens is that the latter rain is poured out on you. This is when the seed grows and the head of the wheat forms but it is not ready yet for harvesting.  There is a time for harvesting and that is when the fields become white as Jesus mentioned in John 4:35.  It is when the head of the wheat produces a white flower just like potatoes do, that’s when you know that the harvest is ready.  You cannot reap a harvest before it is ripe because it is not fully grown and you will lose the harvest if you leave it too late. Likewise the Lord wants us to grow to maturity in preparation for his coming, because He is coming for a bride without spot or wrinkle and He won’t come until that takes place within the body of Christ.

 

The bride (church) has to make herself ready for the bridegroom.  The former rain first fell at Pentecost and this started the growth of the Church and ever since the Holy Spirit has been working to bring us to maturity till we grow up with the nature of Christ himself.  In each of our lives it all starts in embryonic form, but it has to grow and develop and mature. 

This is why Paul said: "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."  

 

So if you want the word of God to speak to you then start praising and worshipping him. Worship should be a lifestyle because Jesus said that ‘true worshippers would worship the Father in spirit and in truth’. He doesn’t want us to come to our meetings so that we can start to praise and worship him, he wants us to be a people who are already praising and worshipping him as a normal part of our life, not just when we get to Church. I’m going to say something that might shock you. Jesus does not want us to come to Church so that we can worship him; he wants us to be worshippers coming to Church so that he can dwell in the praises of his people.

So the key to getting rid of the hardness of heart so that the Holy Spirit can plant the seed of God’s word in fertile soil is to start  praising and worshipping the Lord, as Paul said we were to  ‘Be filled with the Spirit,  Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. So that His Kingdom can come alive inside you on earth as it is in Heaven, Amen.