Sunday
Evening Service
October 26, 2003
(Col
3:16 KJV) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in
all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
dwell in – enoikeo – to
dwell in; metaph. to dwell in one and influence him (for good). This is a present imperative – a command to
have God’s Word dwell continually in you.
Lesson
Get God’s Word into you
Let it dwell in you.
George Mueller said this about God’s word:
“The vigor of our spiritual life will be in exact proportion to the
place held by the Bible in our life and thoughts. I solemnly state this from the experience of
54 years. The first 3 years after
conversion I neglected the word of God.
Since I began to search it diligently the blessing has been
wonderful. Great has been the blessing
from consecutive, diligent, daily study.
I look upon it as a lost day when I have not had a good time over the
word of God.”
Michael Billester once gave a Bible to a humble villager in eastern Poland. Returning a few years later, he learned that
200 people had become believers through using it. When the group gathered to hear him preach,
he suggested that before he spoke he would like each person to quote some
verses of Scripture. One man rose and
said, "Perhaps, Brother, we've misunderstood you. Did you mean verses or
chapters?" Billester was
astonished. "Are you saying there are people here who could recite
complete chapters of the Bible?"
That was precisely the case. In
fact, 13 of them knew half of Genesis and the books of Matthew and Luke. Another had committed all the psalms to
memory. Combined, the 200 knew virtually
the entire Bible.
Lesson
Keep getting God’s Word into you
Continuous action.
What makes the difference is not how many times you have been through the
Bible, but how many times and how thoroughly the Bible has been through you.
-- Gipsy Smith
Illustration
D. L. Moody tells of the following incident: “A man stood up in one of our meetings and
said he hoped for enough out of the series of meetings I was having to last him
all of his life. I told him he might as well try to eat enough breakfast at one
time to last his lifetime.”
-- Charles R.
Swindoll, The Christian Life, (Vision House, 1994), p. 93.
Lesson
Let God’s Word impact your life.
richly – plousios –
abundantly, richly
Let it dwell richly
H. A. Ironside told of visiting a godly Irishman, Andrew Frazer, who had
come to southern California to
recover from a serious illness. Though quite weak, he opened his worn Bible and
began expounding the deep truths of God in a way that Ironside had never heard
before. Ironside was so moved by Frazer’s words that he asked him, “Where did
you get these things? Could you tell me
where I could find a book that would open them up to me? Did you learn them in
some seminary or college?” The sickly
man gave an answer that Ironside said he would never forget. “My dear young man, I learned these things on
my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland.
There with my open Bible before me I used to kneel for hours at a time and ask
the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the Word to my
heart. He taught me more on my knees on
that mud floor than I ever could have learned in all the seminaries or colleges
in the world.”
It will impact your life.
(Psa 119:11 KJV) Thy word
have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Illustration
A pilot was flying his small plane one day, when he heard
a noise which he recognized as the gnawing of a rat. Wondering what its sharp teeth were cutting
through, he suddenly realized with horror that it might be an electric wire. Then he remembered that rodents can’t survive
at high altitudes. Immediately he began climbing until finally he had to put on
his oxygen mask. Soon the gnawing sound
ceased, and when he landed he found the rat—dead.
Do you want to destroy the power of evil in your
life? Then read the Bible regularly,
meditate upon its truths, and actively do God’s will. Sinful appetites can’t survive in such
spiritual heights. Listen to the Heavenly Father as He calls, “Children, come
up higher!”
Lesson
Singing the Scriptures
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs – (qalmoiv, the Psalms in the Old
Testament originally with musical accompaniment), {hymns} (umnoiv, praises to God composed by the Christians like #1Ti 3:16), {spiritual
songs} (wdaiv
pneumatikaiv,
general description of all whether with or without instrumental accompaniment).
The same song can have all three words applied to it.
I think there’s connection between God’s Word and the songs we sing.
I think the work of God’s Word in our lives produces music. Songs can also teach us God’s Word.
Illustration
Several years ago a pastor stayed overnight at the home of
a young couple. He was awakened the next
morning by a soprano voice singing, Nearer, My God to Thee. At breakfast he mentioned to his hostess how
pleased he was to hear that lovely old hymn, but that it seemed to go much
faster than he had ever heard it sung before.
“Oh,” replied the hostess, “I guess that’s because I wasn’t paying too
much attention to the words. You see, it’s
a good song my mother used to sing, and I’ve found that it’s a good one to boil
eggs by. Just repeat the first verse
five times rapidly for soft-boiled, and eight times for hard.
Let it teach you more than just boiling an egg.