The Word was Made Flesh - By Tim Burkholder

In you're in carpenter work you know some skills are very basic, such as driving a nail. If you can't do that, you had better quit carpentry. Other skills are more complex, such as those required to build a stairway. You have to know how to take tricky measurements and cut miter joints. Sometimes when a carpenter works on a difficult job he makes mistakes, but they aren't always the mistakes you would expect. He doesn't just make poor miter cuts, but he begins to make basic carpentry mistakes.

The same thing happens in football. A team gets behind, the pressure builds, and players begin making mistakes--not on complicated maneuvers but on very basic blocks and runs.

In the Christian life we sometimes want to experience what we call the higher things or supernatural things, but we find ourselves faltering. Only we usually don't falter on the high things themselves but on something very basic. We too often miss the basics.

So in this lesson I want to drill us on one of the basics of the faith, the Word of God. If we miss the basic truths concerning God's Word, we'll falter for sure when we move on to more complicated matters.

John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." We find that God's Word was in the very beginning. Further--and theologians might quibble here about the context--the Word was God. The Word was God's operative, or God Himself. It was the final authority.

The Word remained in authority until sin came and defied that authority, and since then sin has tainted every child born into this world. We were born and shaped and molded in sin, defiant of God and His Word. God wants to restore within us His Word and His authority. We need to realize that the Word is God and we need to let it be God in our lives.

The Word has just what every one of us needs. Children, this Word has something for you. It says that children should obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right. Young men, the Bible says, "How shall a young man straighten his way? By taking heed to the Word." Young ladies, the Bible says that "favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but she who fears the Lord shall be praised." Wives, the Word says to honor your husbands; and husbands, you are to love your wives. And we are all commanded to submit ourselves to the grace of God.

There's not one of us that this Word can't be God to. The Word is, and was, and always will be, for it is God.

The reason our nation has fallen to where it has is because it ceased to regard God's Word as God. We used to not have divorce and remarriage. Husbands and wives loved each other and stayed together. We had modesty and a sense of shame. Sundays were held in honor as the Lord's day. We had prayer in school and in our government. We had more honesty; we used to shake hands on an agreement and that was good enough. Fornication and adultery were frowned on. In fact, if a woman became with child through fornication, she was in a sense put away until after the child was born, similar to the attitudes of Joseph's day when he tried to help out Mary by not making her a public example. And in the days when they respected God's Word they even used to close a day of television with prayer. Sin was sin and the Word was God.

Sometimes when our own lives are falling apart it's because the Word isn't God to us. We may know all about the Word, and like the scribes and Pharisees have everything just right on the outside, but inside we are dead. Jesus called the Pharisees "whited sepulchers full of dead men's bones." They knew the Word but it wasn't God to them. It did not guide their hearts.

We may also be like the Corinthians, who had tongues and interpretations and a lively church, but Paul looked at them and said, "You are still carnal. You haven't learned to operate with love yet." The Word wasn't God to them. I am not downing the things the Corinthians thought important, but we must look past the outside to the inside, to the heart that responds directly to God.

Paul exhorted Timothy to make the Word central to his life. "Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine," Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:13, and in verse 15 he said it even stronger: "Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all." Give yourself wholly to the Word, Paul was saying, and its fruits will become apparent in your life.

In 2 Timothy 3:14-17 Paul continued: "But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

What one word came up the most in those verses? Profit. If a businessman can't make a profit, he has to quit, right? The Bible says the Word of God is profitable. As we invest ourselves in it and give ourselves wholly to it, we find a profitable return.

Think of what we lost in our nation when we ceased to regard the Word as God. When we took the Word seriously we had wonderful, profitable results--wholesome families, low divorce rates, honesty in our businesses, safety in our homes, prayer in our schools. When we look at how much we've lost we begin to understand the profitability of scripture.

The more we give ourselves to what is written in the Word, the more profitable we as Christians will become. Remember Paul had told Timothy to give himself wholly to the Word "that thy profiting may appear to all."

We cannot hide the good results of the Word in our lives. When we give ourselves wholly to being honest, obeying our parents, loving our wives, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, those precious results of God's Word will spill over into the lives of those around us.

It takes time, however, to give ourselves wholly to God's Word and to let it bring forth fruit in our lives. Notice Timothy had studied the scriptures since his childhood, and Paul is exhorting him to continue. Sometimes we want the Bible to be automatic, to change us like a magic wand, all in an instant. But it just isn't that way. We must give ourselves to it and, like a plant, the fruit will come, if we are faithful. In every stage of life we will find new direction and new principles to guide us. As young people we will find strength to walk in purity. As parents we will find wisdom to raise our children. As older Christians we will find hope and the will to persevere.

The Psalms are filled with examples of the profitability of God's Word. In the very first verses we read, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."

We don't go to the world for counsel. The world will always lead us astray. We go the Word for counsel. We steep ourselves in it, meditating on it day and night. Naturally there will be times as we concentrate on our work that we can't be thinking directly of scripture, but I believe what that verse means is that everything that comes our way must be measured by the Word. Everything must measure up to it and fit through it. When someone comes up to you and says, "I think you ought to do it this way," you think, "Wait a minute. Can I or can't I? Is this way honest and wholesome? Does it fit with what the Bible says?" If it doesn't fit, it won't be profitable.

The Reader's Digest once carried a story about a couple that wanted to build a company simply on truth and righteousness. Their goal wasn't to make big money but to prove a business could operate on the principles of the Word of God. It worked. The business is very profitable, financially and every other way, though making big money wasn't even a goal. That's not to say we walk in the Word just to make money, because the profit of the Word is something entirely apart from money. In fact, the Word says to be content with what we have, and the peace of God that results is a big part of the profitability of scripture.

Psalm 1 continues: "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away."

Here we find profit again. Look at the benefit of meditating on the Word of God, and look what happens to those who ignore it. What the ungodly do may look like it's working for a time, but we know in the end their efforts will come to nothing and they will be blown away like chaff. Those who plant themselves by the river of living water, however, will live forever. Their leaf will not wither, and whatever they do will prosper.

Remember the familiar passage in Ephesians 6: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

We know that temptations often come from beyond ourselves, from beyond the physical realm, descending on us with supernatural power. Temptation and sin often inflame our senses as we feel the desire taking hold and choking us. It's a wrestling match, and once the adversary gets the advantage we slip quickly. We must fight the temptation the moment it comes, before it can worm its way inside and inflame our senses.

Because our battle is spiritual, our armor must be spiritual. We stand firm "having our loins girt about with truth," the truth of God's Word. The Word protects us in the spiritual battle. Only the Word can give us the strength we need, because in our own strength we will surely fail.

Have you ever watched weight lifters? Often they wear a belt for support to help them lift bigger weights. We need a belt, too--the belt of truth. We need that strengthener so when Satan descends with supernatural power we have God's supernatural power to turn him away.

Satan knows how to deceive us because he has studied people for a long, long time. He takes the truth of God and twists it to draw false conclusions. To Eve he said, "God certainly wouldn't kill you just for eating the fruit, would he? He's not that harsh, is he?" Or he takes the opposite tact and says to us, "See, you failed today. You certainly can't be a Christian. You must have blasphemed the Holy Ghost." Satan is a master of illusion, and the only way to spot his illusions to be thoroughly familiar with the real thing. We must have our loins girt with truth.

When Satan comes with his illusions we can say, "Wait a minute. That's not the truth about the situation." We must soak ourselves in the truth and keep it familiar in our minds. Illusion binds us, but truth sets us free.

I'm sure you've experienced illusion when you stop at a stoplight and suddenly you think you're rolling backward, only to discover that it's the car beside you edging forward that made you feel that way. The truth is your brakes were on and you were safe, but the illusion was that you were rolling backward and heading for danger. Satan is a master at making us fear dangers that don't exist and making us overlook dangers that are real.

Some scientists performed an experiment using an aquarium with a glass divider in the middle. They put a game fish on one side and food for the fish in the other, minnows or some such. The game fish saw the minnows and went after them, banging his nose on the glass that he couldn't see. He hit his nose on the glass time and time again, until finally he gave up. Then the experimenters took the glass out of the middle, but the game fish still wouldn't chase the minnows. He didn't realize that he could have them if he only went after them.

We as Christians are often the same way. We have been deceived by illusion, and now we make no effort to discover the truth. But the truth is everything, and we must be persistent as we dig deep into God's Word and find in it all we need.

The truth is we have been born again. We are sons of God. We have been filled with the Holy Ghost. And the devil has no unsettled claims against us. We must remember those truths and speak them aloud when the tempter would have us doubt them.

Paul continues in Ephesians 6: "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. . . ." The Word is our sword, an active weapon to use against the rulers of darkness. When temptations come, use it. Jesus did when he was in the wilderness. As a sure defense against every temptation he quoted scripture.

God is looking for people who will tremble at His Word and realize its authority. He wants people who will study the Bible and let its truths sink deep into their lives. I don't know where you are in your Christian growth, but I want to challenge you: are you practicing the basics? Are you daily studying the Word and meditating on its principles? Are you letting it bring forth fruit in your life? If we don't practice the basics we will never move on to the more mature things of the faith. Let the Word be God in your life.