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Sermon Manuscripts
The Enemy of Bible Study
a sermon in the series,
Hebrews: An Epistle of Encouragement
A sermon delivered
Sunday Morning, March 18, 2001
at Oak Grove Baptist Church, Paducah, Ky.
by S. Michael Durham
© 2001 Real Truth Matters
Hebrews 5:11-14
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Let’s get real. Bible study is not the easiest thing in the world. Not only does the Bible contain some things that are very difficult to understand, but also there are other obstacles that we meet with when trying to study God’s word. The enemy of God, Satan, will oppose us in our effort to try to understand God’s word. He will develop one disturbance after another when you begin to reach for your Bible. I am sure you have noted that. Then there is the spirit of this world who works against us and against our minds. We seem to enter into a conflict with this world when we study God’s Word. The world tries to convince us that we are too busy to take time to study our Bibles, there’s too much to do. As if it wasn’t enough to have Satan and the world laboring against us, we also have our own flesh that seems to resist, kicking and screaming every time we open up our Bibles to study.
But there is another enemy that is not commonly identified. It is called dull hearing. Dull hearing is the mind’s ability to tune out whatsoever has become commonplace to us. Dull hearing is a malady we all face, not just sinners. There is no immunity against it besides being aware of it and being on guard against it. The writer of Hebrews seems to be very sensitive to the subject of hearing the spoken word of God. All throughout the book of Hebrews he mentions this. For example, in Hebrews chapter one verses one and two he writes, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” In Hebrews chapter two and verse one he says “we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard.” He says in the following verses two and three, “For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?”
In the next chapter the writer continues his emphasis on hearing God’s word. In chapter three and verse seven he says “Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith today, ‘If ye will hear his voice.’” In verse fifteen of the same chapter he says, “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” In Hebrews chapter four and verse seven, speaking of David, he says, “Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” In the same fourth chapter and verse two it reads, “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Over and over and over again the writer of Hebrews stresses to us the necessity of listening when God’s word is being read or spoken. He emphasizes the way you hear is by hearing through ears of faith. You have to be able to trust what God has said to you.
In our text Hebrews chapter five verses eleven through fourteen, the author stresses the importance of hearing and warns us against the enemy of dull hearing. If you will learn the principles I will share, you can revolutionize your time alone with God and His word and your time spent in the hearing of biblical preaching. In this passage I think three things are critical to opposing the enemy of Bible study, which is dull hearing, and to help your Bible study to become a time where you meet with God.
The first is to clearly understand the enemy and its tactics. According to our text, the enemy of Bible study is a poverty of listening skills. The writer of Hebrews in speaking to a church full of people not unlike our church and churches half way across the world, as I have discovered these last two weeks. All of us are susceptible to poor listening. None of us are born listeners. Rather we are born with a poverty of good listening skills. A deficiency in proper listening skills results in various problems. Some of which the writer alludes to. First, poor listening produces difficulty for the teacher. So says verse eleven.
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. (Hebrews 5:11)
The writer was saying, “I want to say so much more about my Lord Jesus, and I want to use things that are deep in the word of God, but they are hard to be uttered or explained because you are dull of hearing.” Please notice that he does not say that they are difficult to explain because they are deep and difficult to understand truths. He says they are difficult to explain because, as a congregation, they had ears that were not perceptive to deeper truth. They had allowed their hearing to become dull when it came to the word of God. They had lost interest. Attentiveness is extremely important to good listening. Even now some of you have tuned me out; I can see some of you fast asleep. Some of you have said, “Well, it is time for him to preach again, and so for the next forty, forty-five minutes I can think about other things. I can allow my mind to wander and drift.” When that occurs, in the dynamics of God, something happens spiritually, and it is not to your benefit.
I have always maintained that a good congregation will make a good preacher, I don’t care how weak a preacher he is. Place such a pitiful preacher in front of a good congregation, a congregation that loves the word of God, that is hungry for the word of God, and the preacher will come alive. A good congregation is one in whom you can see the glimmer in their eyes as you begin to give them nuggets of holy truth. They act like little children in a candy store. Such a congregation will take the worst of preachers and make a Charles Spurgeon out of him. He will preach harder. He will study more. He will do his absolutely very best, and he will pray that God will give him unction from Heaven that will lift you into the third Heaven. There is something reciprocating when a preacher stands in front of a congregation that has attentive, sensitive hearing and not is diseased by dullness.
The writer of Hebrews was preaching to this congregation. His ability to teach them was severely restricted simply because their hearing was not right. Now, using this text, it would be easy for me, being a preacher, to blame all my poor preaching on you and the congregations that I stand before. I certainly would not do that. But I can sympathize with the writer of Hebrews; I think I know what he is talking about. There have been times, friends, when you have preached me on and there have been other times I have felt like I was harnessed to a plow. I was pulling the plow and the plowing was hard. Poor listening produces difficulty for the teacher. Sometimes our ability to comprehend deeper things is hampered not because of the inability of the teacher to express it clearly. It is because we have glossed over our hearing with dullness.
The second result of the poverty of good listening is that poor listening produces the inability for the hearers to become teachers. This is the writer’s reprimand of his audience in verse twelve.
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which [be] the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. (Hebrews 5:12)
Here the writer of Hebrews says that every born again Christian ought to be a teacher of the word of God. This is a fundamental truth found in the New Testament. God calls special people to the gift of teaching, but He does not exclude any Christian from being able to teach. This verse speaks clearly that God hates stagnancy. He is grieved when a Christian becomes stagnant. God does not intend for you to just be saved and no more. He intends for you to develop. In this verse the writer of Hebrews says by this time his audience should have developed, but the development had not occurred. They still needed for him to repeat the fundamental lessons of the faith. It is obvious they had not grown in their understanding of Scripture.
Friends, you should never be satisfied where you are right now, not only in your relationship with Christ but in your ministry for Christ. Teaching does not necessarily mean public speaking like I am doing right now or for you to be a Sunday school teacher. But it may mean something just as simple as evangelism and being able to know how to share what Christ has done in your life with someone else. Teaching is not as complicated as we make it. It is sharing something with someone who does not know what you have learned. No doubt you can find someone out there that doesn’t know everything that you know. You can share something with them that they have not yet learned about God. Why! there are enough sinners for us to share the gospel with; no shortage of sinners to found.
In Hebrews chapter eight and verse eleven the writer uses the word “teach” again in respect to evangelism. He considers every time you share your faith that you are actually in the role of a teacher.
And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. (Hebrews 8:11)
Although in the New Covenant, Christians will not need to teach others to know the Lord, since all who are saved know Him, it is clear that the writer of Hebrews views the word “teach” as more than a tool to train believers, but also as a tool of evangelism. So when you communicate Christ, you become a teacher.
When fathers instruct their families, are not they acting as a teacher? You don’t have to be a seminary professor in order to teach the word of God. Gather your family together on a daily basis and teach them the truths that God has taught you. You are to be a teacher. So many fathers feel so inadequate in leading their families in devotions because they wrongly think they must be Bible scholars. Again, simply teach your children what God is teaching you. But, dear dad, if you are not listening to the Lord, then what shall you give your children? What heavenly morsels will drop into their hungry hearts? You cannot teach what you have not received.
Sharing with a fellow believer what the Lord has shared with you is considered teaching. If God just places a Scripture on your heart and it changes your life, if you share that with one person you have become a teacher of the Bible. It is just that simple. God does not complicate these things. We do. We look at trained men like me who have given ourselves to the ministry of teaching and preaching, and we say that is what teaching is, that is what preaching is all about, and I can’t do that. You are wrong. Your false view of teaching is crippling you and your ability to glorify God. If God has done anything for you, and He has, you have something to share with someone. If He has taught you anything from the Scripture, and He has, then you have a responsibility to find some dear soul that does not know what you have learned and share with him or her. John says in his epistle that you need no man to teach you because you have the Holy Spirit in you teaching you. If the Holy Spirit has shown you something about the Lord God, you must do your duty to take what you have learned and teach it to others. You have no right to keep that to yourself. God did not give it to you just for you. I am confident of this fact, that if God ever shows you anything from His word, He means for you to share that with someone. Sooner or later He will bring across your path that somebody and you will be so blessed as God moves through your life and touches them. Many of you already know what I am talking about, because it has happened to you. It is a great joy.
In the church to which the author of our epistle was writing, listening was not occurring, and, therefore, they had become stagnant. They needed to be taught again. Poor listening produces such. You are not growing in your understanding of the word of God. You can’t hear God teach you anything new, because the ears have shut themselves down and cannot discern the voice of God. Poor listening to God’s word robs you of the ability to have anything to share. Poor listening causes you to have to be re-taught again and again. Oh, how scathing a rebuke does the writer of Hebrews give, “I need to go back before I give you any new information, and teach you those very basic foundational truths again.” Does the sting of his rebuke reach across the centuries and smite your heart? Or are you so dull of hearing that if the same man who penned these words were to be raised from the dead and speak them to you from this pulpit you still would not discern his message?
A preacher or Sunday school teacher should not be surprised when he teaches the same thing again and again and the people do not understand. My daughter, Victoria, because of Downs Syndrome, cannot grasp a concept the first time she hears it. She must hear it over and over and over again. Sometimes she finds it difficult to master two concepts at the same time. For example, for over a year and a half she has been able to say “daddy” but not “mommy.” When I returned from Romania last Friday evening, I found that she had finally mastered the word “mommy.” Now, she no longer says the word “daddy.” She now has to be re-coached into saying “daddy.” That is because she has some severe learning disabilities. Spiritually speaking the same is true about some of us. We have some spiritual learning disabilities. The writer of Hebrews is exposing this disability. Over and over you hear truth but it does not find permanent lodging within your heart, all because of your dull hearing.
A third and closely akin result of poor listening is unskillfulness with the word of God. Verse thirteen,
For every one that useth milk [is] unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. (Hebrews 5:13)
Doctors and dieticians will tell you that milk is perhaps necessary for children. But, when your body reaches a certain age of maturity, milk is no longer necessary, it can be actually be harmful to your body’s system. The argument of the writer is that spiritually speaking something is wrong, for by this time the Hebrews should no longer require milk. Milk should be distasteful to them and they should be desirous of something of more substance. He in essence is saying, “Your spirit should be craving something more substantial. But you still need milk. Therefore, you must be very immature.”
Look at the word “righteousness.” I think it to be a key word here. Poor listening keeps you from being skillful with the word of God. Notice what he calls the word of God, “the word of righteousness.” Can we not also conclude that along with your immature handling of God’s word that your skill in righteousness is also severely hampered? Do you see that or am I leaping across a huge canyon and falling short? I do not think I am stretching to make such a conclusion. Your ability to grow in righteousness is severely limited because of the small amount of the word of God that is in you working to conform you to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said that we are sanctified by the truth. Sanctification is the process of making you act, talk, and look like Jesus. Therefore, if we are sanctified by the truth, then the truth is the tool that the Holy Spirit uses to develop righteousness in our lives. Herein is one of the reasons why so many are defeated. Satan has gained a stronghold in them and they for years have struggled to gain the victory. The word of God has not been applied to that area where Satan’s stronghold is allowed to exist. There is no work of righteousness because the sanctifying work of God’s word has not been appropriated. Well, that is the negative. Let’s look to the positive.
Let us move to the second strategy to resist the enemy of Bible study, and it is to develop good listening skills. Let’s examine the wealth that can be ours if we would develop good listening skills. First, the writer says good listening produces a stronger ability to ingest truth. This is an emphasis of verse fourteen.
But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, [even] those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
The more you are able to discern God’s word, the more you will be able to ingest stronger truths. You do not give a baby steak, you wait until it is able to chew it and to digest it. When you take elementary truth and you ingest it, it becomes a part of your life. You are now able to take stronger truth, because each time you take in truth you grow.
Second, good listening produces maturity. The way to grow in Christ is through the word of God. The third benefit of good listening is the production of teachers in a church. As people receive teaching and disseminate it to others, the church grows in maturity. The more who learn how to share what they learn with others, the more the number of people who can be ministered to increases. Such maturation is what the Lord intended when He built His church. The body of Christ is not to be an ingrown and self-saturated group of people but an outgoing (literally going out into the fields of harvest) and selfless group that continues to develop a cycle of maturity.
The Jordan River runs into the Dead Sea, but there is no outlet. There is no exit, so it grows stagnant and nothing can live in it, therefore, it is called the Dead Sea. I believe that the same is a spiritual principle that is valid in the Christian life. If you continue to take in truth, and you do nothing with it, you actually harden your heart. The way to change that is to take the truth in and begin to share it with others and thereby become a teacher of the word of God. When this cycle is occurring, then maturity as individuals and as a body, is going to happen.
The writer makes an interesting statement in verse eleven.
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. (Hebrews 5:11)
Specifically, the Authorized Version says, “ye are dull of hearing.” The word “are” is a Greek word that means, “you have become.” He is saying that they have become dull of hearing. This would imply that they had not always been that way. He repeats that again in verse twelve. In verse twelve he uses the phrase, “and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.”
The word “become” is the same word that is in verse eleven. Evidently the Hebraic church had grown beyond immaturity. There had been a time when they were growing, they were taking in the word, and they were excited with God’s word. They could not wait to hear it taught and preached. But something had happened to them that now they had become like babies again. They had reverted; they had regressed rather than progressed.
Beloved, let this be a lesson to you and me that in the Christian life there is no plateau where you can just level off and maintain. The law of the Spirit is if you do not go forward, you are going backwards. This verse proves that. What would have caused these believers to regress rather than continue in progressing in maturity? Why must the author of Hebrews accuse them of dullness of hearing and consequently immaturity? What can take a Christian who is mature and make them immature again?
I think verse fourteen gives us the answer. They were no longer practicing what they heard. Listen closely. Application is necessary in order to keep the hearing sharp and to become seasoned in handling the word of God. There are a lot of Bible teachers out there that are sharp in what they know, but they are not worth a “plug nickel” spiritually. They are just men who are empty vessels. They may know a great deal of information, but they do not experience the power of the Holy Spirit. It is nothing but head knowledge; there is no application in their life. Application, he says, is essential. This leads us to our third and final means to combat the enemy of Bible study. Once again let us return to verse fourteen. The text says that strong truth belongs to those who are mature and that the mature are those “who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
Allow me in the remaining time to share how application is the antagonist of the enemy of Bible study. Truly application of God’s word is a remedy to dull hearing. First, application requires usage. The writer employs the word “use.” Herein he describes how one achieves maturity, and it is by reason of using. But using what? The word of God that they have already received. If you only hear the word of God and you don’t apply it to your life, there is no hope but that you will eventually become dull of hearing. It is here that a hearer of sermons can be entangled in the trap of dull hearing, and it is why sermons can become boring. Everyone expects the preacher to make application to them, the listener, but this is wrong. It is not the responsibility of the preacher to make the application, although, this is taught in Bible colleges and seminaries. Students in such institutions are taught how to weave emotionally moving illustrations and stories into their sermons that will apply the Scripture’s truth to hearer’s lives. Again I say, wrong. Although, I think it is good and I try to do that every sermon, as I am trying to do right now, according to this text, it really is not my responsibility. It is your responsibility to see how this applies to you by appealing to the Holy Spirit. The truth might apply to my life differently than it does to yours. It greatly depends on the circumstances you are going through. The truth has not changed, for truth is always the same, but how it is applied, to you meaning how it works in your life, may vary from person to person. I cannot believe that they are many interpretations to a particular text. There is only one interpretation, and it is the meaning that the author intended. But that does not mean that the truth that is spoken in the text may not apply differently to two different men.
For example, in Philippians chapter four and verse four it says, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” Now to a man that is experiencing great blessing, he reads the text and applies it to his life to be thankful for all that God has graciously bestowed upon him. While a man who is enduring bitter and hard times will read this text and apply it to his life that in spite of his adversity he should yet rejoice. The truth does not change in either man’s case, but they find the application different depending upon their circumstances. As you are listening to this word right now you ought to be asking, “Father, how does my life match up to what is being said right now?” You should be asking the text questions like who, what, when, where, and how. What does this have to do with me? How do I do this? Where am I missing this? How am I achieving this? Constantly applying to yourself the word you hear. That is what it means by having good hearing, and it is the opposite of dull hearing.
Application is the difference between listening for information versus listening for life change. A few years ago I read Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and it has changed my idea about sermons. He said sermons are not to fill people’s heads with information. That is not why God created the art of preaching. Preaching is to create the dynamic where the word of God is being preached and the Holy Spirit can take preached word to illuminate somebody’s heart and impact his or her life, leaving them no longer the same. That is the purpose of preaching. But if you are not listening with that purpose, how then can your life experience change? If you will not open your ears and your heart and seek the application of the text to your life, then no matter how clever the preacher’s illustration, application will not be yours. You must ask how can this word change my life? How does this show me Jesus?
It is no wonder sermons become boring and dull. There is no application. It is just knowledge, it is just information. Application requires you to use it. You have to take something that you heard this morning and purposely pray and look for opportunities to use it. This is not a time to let the preacher scratch the itch to preach. Listening to a sermon is to be an encounter with the word of God. The writer says usage is a means to ward off dull hearing, which is the enemy of Bible study. Usage!
Second, application requires practice. The word “use” in our text occurs only this one time in the entire New Testament. The word can be translated habit or practice. In other words, by reason of habit or practice you can have your senses exercised. Friends, it is like learning any type of musical instrument or developing athletic skills, you must practice how to apply the word to your life. But do not be discouraged if you fail in the practice of application. In fact, you are going to fail in the practice of the word. How many of your children immediately began to walk and never fell down one time? How many practicing the piano never struck a sharp note or produced a sour sound? How many practicing their voice never went flat or off pitch in practice? How many of you in the learning of your profession or occupation made mistakes? You put down the wrong formula, you hit the wrong button, you formed the wrong piece, but after practice, and practice, and practice, fewer and fewer were the errors.
The writer is using the word “practice” here. Oh, I am glad he does. God does not expect you to be an Albert Einstein with His word. What He expects is for you to get in there and try and then try again until you develop the skill of knowing how to rightly handle the word of God.
I told someone two weeks ago that I can almost detest cassette tapes of my sermons. Sometimes I say things that are wrong. I don’t intend for them to be wrong but intentions are not all preaching is comprised of. I am to preach the absolute truth of God and nothing else. However, I am but a man, fallible in reasoning, and sometimes I get it wrong, and the cassette tape has recorded it. Time may pass and I will be studying and God in His mercy will point out to me something in His word that shows me I have been wrong and have preached it to you inaccurately. Fortunately, I can come to you and apologize and show my error, but I cannot redo the cassette tape. Some one who does not attend our church may have that cassette and never hear my correction. They may believe what I said because I said it, not applying the exercise of their own research of the Biblical text. I have led them into error. Oh, the heavy burden that belongs to the man whom God calls to be His spokesman! If it were not for God’s grace towards me I do not know how I should be able at times to bear up under the responsibility.
What is my point? There is a silver lining behind my errors of interpretation and hence proclamation, and that is I have grown in my knowledge. My coming to understand my error is a sign of growth. Surely, my friends, if that is not happening to you, if God is not showing you and taking you deeper into His word, you are not growing. One of the signs of growing is discovering that some things you once held on to so tightly need to be released. If this is not happening, you are not practicing the word of God.
The third truth that our writer implies is that application preceedes wisdom. I mean to be understood that before you can have wisdom in God’s ways you must be practicing and applying the word of God to your life. Again the text says, “by reason of use (that is habit or practice) have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” To discern between good and evil takes constant study and application of the word of God to your life. When that happens, wisdom develops.
You are able to discern evil when most people would say there is nothing wrong. You can see unmistakably, because you have the word of God as a “lamp unto your feet and a light into your path.” That is why so many Christians are weak and dabbling in the things of this world. They cannot truly discern the good from the evil. The sense of wisdom has not been sharpened by practice. They are not skilled and practiced in the word of God.
A few weeks ago while preaching from the book of Hebrews chapter three verses seven and eight, I illustrated hardness of heart and dullness of hearing by sharing with you how the brain so easily cancels out that which becomes commonplace. I illustrated that fact using the racetrack that is located a few miles down Oaks Road. When the races first started they were a great nuisance, the noise was so loud, sometimes I thought it would drive me insane. By the time the summer had come and gone I noticed that it was not bothering me as much. My mind unconsciously began to cancel out that signal because it became a common noise to me.
While in Romania we were taken to the Carpathian Mountains. What a beautiful sight to see those majestic, white capped peaks touching the very clouds. Sometimes you didn’t know if it was clouds or mountains you were seeing. I was enamored of their beauty. I always am with mountains. But I noticed that the Romanians never seemed to be terribly excited about them. I thought to myself, what is wrong with them? Why could they not see such beauty and not be raptured in delight like my heart was? Then it came to me that they have seen them so many times that the mountains no longer capture their hearts. The brain says common, ordinary, routine. You ask yourself how can they call such beauty, common, ordinary or routine? And I ask you concerning the book we call the Bible, how can you call such beauty common, ordinary or routine? Oh, if we are not careful, it happens. Our minds will begin to tune out what it considers common.
How do we get back the excitement we once had concerning God’s word? Again, the answer is application. The more you use it, the more beautiful it becomes; the more you use it, the more valuable it becomes. Let me share with you one more illustration about hearing and how the mind works with the sense of hearing. When I was a boy we lived two blocks away from a ballpark where city league softball games were played. Although the noise of the city, like sirens and busy traffic did not bother me, when those crowds would come alive and cheer after a spectacular play had occurred I would hear it, not some of the time, but all of the time. I will never forget on those hot summer Ozark nights with all the windows open, lying in bed listening to the sounds of the ballpark. I would strain to see if I could hear the crack of a bat as it hit the ball. I would imagine myself running around the bases, sliding into home safe. Sometimes when I was almost asleep a big cheer from the audience would awaken me, while sirens and the traffic of the street would not bother me at all, why? Because I loved the game of baseball. I still love it. Once again, let’s think about the racetrack down the street. I don’t like racing. I am sorry to offend any of you racing enthusiasts, but I don’t find it in the least bit fascinating to sit there and watch cars go around in a circle. Around and around and around, it just doesn’t do anything for me. And I am sure for some of you, baseball doesn’t do anything either. However, if I were to get an interest in the sport of racing and begin to attend races and then finally buy a race car and race, the next time I am sitting in the living room hearing the roar of the engines down the street, do you think my brain is going to detect it? Absolutely. Why? Because I have an affection and a preoccupation with racing.
Here is the lesson, if you please, the application. In order to re-sensitize your ears and your mind to the word of God, you have got to fall in love with the word of God again. How might you do that? Bit by bit; here a little and there a little. Don’t go down to Mid-Continent and enroll in a Bible course. That will not help you. Get a little bit of the word of God and begin to meditate upon it. I didn’t say read it. I said meditate on it. Hide it in your heart. If memorization comes hard to you, get an index card or a piece of paper and write down that verse or verses. (I have told you this before, why I am telling you again? Because repetition is a way we learn.) Throughout the day, pull out the verse and read it and think about what it means. Ask it the questions we talked about earlier. During the day, during break, during lunch hour, coming home get out the verse. Roll it around in that head of yours. Think about it, and think about it and think about it some more. And as you begin to think about it, sooner or later God shows up. He takes that small portion of truth and He applies it to your life. You may be driving home from work thinking about that verse and all of a sudden God begins to speak to you from that verse. You may have to pull of the side of the road because the Lord has so touched your heart that tears fill your eyes and you can’t see the road. You have had that happen to you, but it has been a long time, and you need it again. You have become dull of hearing. Once again fall in love with the word by taking a little bit of it and begin to meditate upon it, then God will speak. Do not despair, He, the Lord of revelation, will speak and manifest Himself to you, and you shall find the enemy of Bible study vanquished. Amen. |
