Word of God – Part 2
Psalms119:11 “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
When John the Baptist, forerunner of the Lord, appeared on the scene he had some choice words to say to the religious leaders of his day.
Matthew 3:7-10 “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”
One of the things that the religious leaders were doing was relying upon tradition. Tradition was taking over the Word of God. Later Jesus told them: Matthew 15:3 “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?”
Some years ago I was speaking in a church on the subject: WHAT IS REAL SPIRITUALITY? After the message a number of people came forward and I sensed that they had come into a real freedom. However, I learned later that the pastor was very upset with me, for what I did not know. I felt that I should go and see what the problem was, so I went the next day.
When I spoke to the pastor I first mentioned that if I was saying something that was not biblical that I needed to know so that I might correct it. What he did was he pushed the Bible aside and said: “Let us not get into that right now.” He said the real problem was that in my preaching I had gone against seventy years of tradition. Ah! That was the real problem: I had gone against tradition! This made me wonder how much of our work today is based on tradition and not the Word of God, and how this could be the major problem today in some of our churches.
When I think of our denominations today most of them were started by men and women of vision and some of the things that they did were right on for their time, culture, etc. However, today is a different situation and yet we carry on with many of these things not because we are obligated by the Word of God, but because of tradition. As a matter of fact our tradition has begun to take the place of Scripture.
Why do we do some of the things that we do? Are they biblical? Do they fit in the culture that we live in today? I was preaching in a church in Europe where the pastor had a real desire to go back to the Word and make sure that what they were doing as a church was really based on Scripture, and not tradition.
Later when he wrote to me he told me that there were many blessings and they were praising the Lord for all that He was doing. The only thing that was negative, he said, was that they were kicked out of the denomination they were in. Interesting! But perhaps that is not so negative after all.
Perhaps the biggest issue facing us in the Western world is the rejection of ultimate truth. People say today that we make our own truth. What is true for me might not be true for you. Or, those who have the places of power are telling us what truth is. (Like the U.S. Supreme Court telling us that the Ten Commandments are not ‘constitutional’ and cannot be hung up in our court rooms throughout the land.)
Reformation brings us back to the ultimate truth: the WORD OF GOD.