Classic Sermon #6054: Living and Active

Deuteronomy 11:18: “You shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be as numerous upon the land that Jehovah swore to your fathers that he would give them, as the days of the heavens above the earth. For if you carefully keep all these commandments that I prescribe to you, to fulfill them, and if you love Jehovah your God, walking in all his ways and holding fast to him.”

These promises are for today, my brother, and if you walk in this way, carefully keeping these commandments of the Lord, loving God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, Jehovah will also drive out all these nations from before you—that is, we might say, all the enemies of the people of God—and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. From the wilderness to Lebanon, from the Euphrates River to the western sea, shall be your territory. No one will be able to stand against you. Jehovah your God will put the fear and dread of you upon all the land on which you tread, just as he has told you.

Say amen. Brothers and sisters, here we are hearing words from Jehovah to his people, Israel, at a crucial moment in Israel’s history. The people had spent 40 years in the wilderness. God had brought them out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, the Bible says, and had performed great miracles for them. The Jewish people had spent 40 years enduring all kinds of vicissitudes, problems, setbacks, and obstacles. An entire generation had died in the wilderness. All the men and women who came out of Egypt died, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, because they had a different spirit. And all those who had been born in the wilderness were able to remain alive and enter the land God had prepared for the Jewish people, because that other generation did not have God’s vision, did not have faith in God, did not honor God, and did not keep God’s commandments. They harassed God until God grew weary of them, and Moses had to come and intercede again and again so that God would not violently destroy them. But God said, “At the very least, I will not allow this kind, this lineage, to enter the Promised Land. They will all die, and only a new generation will enter.”

Just imagine: 40 years of history, experience, preparation, and expectation concerning that land, which was not very far away at all. It was, let us say, like us being in Cambridge, as we were, and coming to Boston. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, one reads the Old Testament and thinks about these countries, about Egypt, and about how the people left Egypt and were in the wilderness, and then crossed the Jordan River and entered Canaan, and one imagines vast stretches of land, immense expanses of territory.

Do you know that these dramas of the Old Testament unfolded in a territory about the size of Texas? That is all. All these countries were contained right there, more or less. And though they were actually that close, God had not given the Jewish people permission to enter the Promised Land. They were wandering around, and those nations, full of strength and power, were there, merely waiting for the Jews to cross the river so they could cut off their heads. And the Jews could not cross because God had not moved his power on their behalf so that they could enter this land.

Finally, after 40 years of waiting, preparation, and so many preliminary events, the day comes to cross the river, and everything is ready. The priests are in their places, the people are behind the priests, and Joshua has been called to replace Moses. Then God calls the people and says to them, “Okay, before you cross over, before you can enter that for which you have been waiting for 40 years, I want to give you certain warnings and make clear how you will succeed and how my promise will be fulfilled in your lives.”

Imagine that, at a moment as sublime, solemn, and momentous as that one, what God was going to say had to be something very important, crucial, and fundamental to the life of that people. And what does God choose to point out to them at such a historic moment for that nation? It was, we might say, almost the moment when this people was founded, because the Jews celebrate their return to Jerusalem and the founding of the Jewish nation in 1948, and for them that is an extremely important day.

Now imagine the first day of that nation entering into its inheritance, and look at what God chooses to point out to them, because that helps us understand how important to God is this matter I am talking about. What does God speak to them about at this foundational moment in the life of his people? He speaks to them about his Word: about keeping his Word, meditating on his Word, ingesting his Word, and obeying it in everything. He speaks to them about keeping God’s law in their hearts and loving Jehovah.

That was going to determine the future of that nation. And brothers and sisters, let me tell you that it is no different today. What determines a believer’s success, what determines the degree of blessing a believer receives, what determines his effectiveness in the Kingdom of God, and what determines his ability to be happy and successful is his relationship with the Word of God. The Holy Spirit says to you again today, “Evaluate your relationship with my Word. How important is my Word to your life? When you come to my house, what brings you to my house? Is it simply a social, religious ritual, or do you come hungry and eager to hear my Word, to learn from it, to receive instruction, to put what you learn into practice, to have an intimate relationship with my Word, and to be a man or woman who displays an intimate friendship with my Word?”

This, brothers and sisters, is the difference between a merely halfhearted, lukewarm, religious believer and a believer who is radically committed to the Kingdom of God. That is why, no matter how sophisticated we may become, brothers and sisters, I will always love seeing people enter the house of God with a Bible in their hand or tucked under their arm, because we are the people of the Word; there is something important about that. But people do not get into the habit, and sometimes they are even embarrassed to be seen with a Bible in their hand, so we lose this character. I think it is a beautiful thing for people to see God’s people with their Bibles in their hands and for our young people to have their Bibles, even though sometimes they leave them lying around and we have to call them to come and get them. Just kidding. Sometimes adults do it too, and I believe there are Bibles lying around whose owners do not even remember that they left them three months ago.

I believe it is a symbol: we are the people of the Word of God. And do you know something, brothers and sisters? Think about this: the Jews spent two thousand years without returning to their land. You have heard the expression “the Wandering Jew.” The Hebrews spent two thousand years outside Israel. In the year 75, they were expelled from their beloved land, and from then until 1948, they never returned as a nation to visit the land or to live in the Holy Land. The Jews were taken throughout the world and across Europe; they were persecuted, burned, and reviled. And two thousand years later, just like that, they returned to take possession of their land again, and there is the nation of Israel, alive and well and doing incredible things.

What has enabled that people to exist as a nation and maintain its cultural and religious identity for two thousand years? What kept the Jews from vanishing, from disappearing off the map, so that, as with so many other cultures throughout history, the only things remaining would be archaeological records and remnants of that nation and culture? What saved them from cultural extermination? People have tried to exterminate them physically—the Nazis, the Inquisition, and so many other groups throughout history. What has enabled this people to endure? The Word of God. Their love for the Old Testament.

And let me tell you that even the most secular Jews have been taught to respect the Bible, if only culturally. I had a most interesting conversation with a Jew who is a pianist, a man of tremendous artistic talent. I did not know this man was Jewish; I knew he was Russian. We began talking at his business this week, and at some point I realized that the man was Jewish. We had a conversation lasting about an hour and a half. He was a tremendously cultured man, and I discovered that he is an excellent pianist who plays as a musician in a Jewish synagogue. But when we began talking and I had one of those deep conversations with him, I started to realize that this man does not believe in anything at all, as the saying goes. He began talking to me about how human beings are animals—and there are many men to whom that description certainly applies very well—and then he began telling me that there is no difference whatsoever between animals and the human race. So we entered into a very interesting conversation about this.

At one point, when we had developed enough trust, I confronted him about it. “Look,” I said, “you are Jewish, aren’t you? And you play in a synagogue.” Then he told me about his father. His father taught him the Word—the Bible, the Old Testament—in Russia when the Marxists, Leninists, and Communists were in power. He told me that when he was a child, his father, who was a cantor in a Jewish synagogue, taught him the Old Testament, the Torah, the Pentateuch—the whole Bible. He said that at home he received instruction in the Old Testament, and then he would go to a Russian school where they taught him that God did not exist, that man had to be an atheist, that matter is the only thing that prevails, and that there is no such thing as spirit, because it is an invention of men. One moment this man was reading the Bible, and the next he was receiving a diabolical doctrine. And I asked him, “Which of the two won?” Seeing what has now happened in Russia, where is the Marxist-Leninist empire? Where is dialectical materialism now, discredited as it is? Look at Russia: rubble.

But what captivated me about this man was that, with all his intellect and all his culture, the dramatic thing was that despite his total unbelief, he had been shaped by his father from childhood. Even as an unbeliever, he was still working among his people, playing in a Jewish synagogue, and listening to the Word of God. He had not been able to escape; he had not been able to break free from this heritage.

Hello, God bless you. This is Pastor Roberto Miranda speaking. Thank you for listening to our messages. It gives us great joy to know that this program is being a blessing to your life.

I want to leave you with Moses’ words of blessing to the people of Israel: May Jehovah bless you and keep you. May Jehovah make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May Jehovah lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

It is a privilege for me to be part of your life. I hope you will keep tuning in to our program, “An Appointment with Christ.” I bless you in the name of Jesus.

And although Jews today do not believe in the Bible, or in the Old Testament, as we believe in it, they at least go to the synagogue and sing the ancient psalms and Hebrew songs. They love the teachings and stories of the Bible, celebrate Passover, and celebrate the different festivals. And Jewish culture, despite being an eminently secular culture in Israel, is bound to this book. This book has preserved the Jewish people from cultural extermination.

Notice the power of the Word. It is even like the bones of Elisha. Scripture says that after Elisha died, a man was fleeing, and they threw a dead man into Elisha’s tomb, and the dead man came out alive. Even Elisha’s bones blessed that dead man. The Bible, even when it is treated as a mere cultural document, still blesses people. How much more will it bless us, who accept it as the Word of God? That is what I mean.

If that document, which is a skeleton in the hands of cultural unbelievers, can still bless humanity, how much more can it bless us, who through faith are feeding on its marrow, its blood, its life? And that is why, brothers and sisters, we must be the people of the Word, because this Word possesses something mysterious, something marvelous.

I have read hundreds and hundreds of books in my life, but I have never seen anything like it. If I were told that I was going to be on a deserted island and asked which book I wanted to take with me, without hesitation I would say, “Give me a Bible,” because there is no book that blesses like the Word of God. Why? The Bible itself says in Hebrews 4 that the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It says that it discerns, that it divides soul from spirit, and that it discerns the thoughts of the heart. And it says that there is no impulse of the human soul, however intimate it may be, that the Word of God does not discern, illuminate, and shed light upon.

The most psychoanalytic book of the entire human race is called Scripture; here the human heart is structured, drawn, dissected, and studied in all its ramifications. The word of God is alive. And that is why, when you feed yourself, when you plug your life into the word of God, you are receiving not mere knowledge, not mere theory; you are receiving electricity, life, energy, power. Because the Bible has something that I believe is a magical configuration of its letters, which, when joined together like this and blessed by the Spirit of God—when you read that word and that word enters through your mind and your brain—it blesses you, because it is the very life of God entering into you. No other book can do that, because no man can produce life; but God, mysteriously, has enclosed all the secrets, all the mysteries of the universe, in a finite book. The infinite is contained in the finite. Only God can do that; no one else can.

I believe that all the secrets of the universe are compressed here in this book. Computers nowadays have developed the ability to take the information within them and compress it so that a limited space can contain more information. God is able to do that infinitely. And in this little book, relatively speaking, God has compressed all the secrets of the universe, all life, all the knowledge of the human race, of the future, the past, and the present; it is all in this beautiful, mysterious, magical book that is the word of God.

That is why, no matter how many books you read, and no matter how anointed the meditations and the accounts of men may be, the bare word, the Bible itself, will always have something the other books do not have. Reading secondary meditations should never be a substitute for going directly to the fruit picked from the tree, which is the word of God. It is the difference between eating canned vegetables and eating them fresh from the earth, with their minerals and nutrients intact. Never go to a man’s book when you can go directly to the word of God. Men’s books are good, interesting, and insightful, but the word of God has something very special.

And let me share something very personal; perhaps I have said it before, and I say it as a tribute to my mother. Some of the most beautiful memories of my life are of waking up early in the morning to the smell of coffee in my country, the Dominican Republic, when I was a child, and getting up and seeing my mother sitting at her table reading the Bible. I grew up with that image, and I have kept it as an inspiration throughout my entire life.

And despite all the twists and somersaults my life has taken, that image remained bound to me, and I to it, through the years; and when God’s time came, I had to return to His calling. And I still keep my mother’s Bible from many years ago, all worn out and torn apart and marked up, its pages loose from so much use; and I hope to be able to keep it for many, many years and have it be an inspiration to me because, brothers and sisters, there is something wonderful about the legacy you can leave your children. I thank my mother for the blessing she has been throughout my life, for the inspiration, for that attachment to the word of God. She transferred it to me. It is an inheritance she has left me and will leave me throughout all the years.

My brothers and sisters, what greater blessing can you leave your children than the memory of a father or mother who loved the word of God above all things? You may leave them millions of dollars, and you may leave them degrees and other things, but I hope you leave them the image of a father or mother who revered, studied, knew, honored, and obeyed the word of God, because this will pursue them throughout life. Even if they stray and wander around out there, whatever the case may be, this image will be like a bloodhound that will keep searching for them, searching, searching, until they surrender and say, “Okay, I give up,” because the Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

This is a time bomb that you place deep within them. It may take years to explode, but one day it explodes and envelops their entire being, and that person has to fall at the feet of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, we must love the word of God; we must revere the word of God. That is why God placed so much importance on it, because He knew that what He was giving them was life, that God was enclosing His life, His Spirit, His revelation in the very substance of the word, in the very Word He was giving them. He was giving them all the secrets and all the nutrients and all the laws of the universe. And when they entered into an intimate, personal relationship of faith with that word, what that word declared became real and gave them life.

Then God tells them there, “When you enter this land that I have promised you, to wage war against nations far more powerful than all of you, these nations could eat you alive and not even realize they had swallowed you, so powerful are they. When you go in to wage war against these nations, you had better take My word with you; you had better love it, study it carefully, and absorb the strategies contained within it, because that is what will ensure your victory when you cross the river. And it will ensure that your national life is fruitful and positive, a life of progress and blessing.”

Why do nations decline? Why did the great Russian empire, with all its power and all its weaponry and its vision so precise and intense—why did that empire, the vastness of the Russian empire, which you cannot imagine, thousands and thousands of miles, covering not only Asia but also other countries they reached, part of Europe, parts of Latin America, Africa, stretching everywhere—where is the famous Russian empire today, with all its greatness? Rubble, destruction, death, mourning, repentance. What is the Russian nation today? A Third World country. Why? Because they dared to raise their pride against the word of the Most High, and nations prosper as long as they remain aligned with God’s revelation. “It is hard for you to kick against the goads,” says the word of the Lord. It is hard to attempt to live life according to a structure different from the one God has established through His word. God has declared His word, and His word reverberates throughout the universe. There are circles and secret channels governing this universe, and human beings can prosper only when they operate and function in accordance with those secret waves that God has established for human life and for the universe. Whoever violates that is going against it and will have to fail, will have to be destroyed sooner or later. What God wants is for you to align yourself with your word. And how are you going to align yourself if you do not study it, search it, and read it? That is why God tells them, “Therefore you shall lay up these words of Mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand; they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when they sit down, when they rise, when they walk along the way, and when they lie down. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gate.”

That is what God wants. Brothers and sisters, let us renew our love for the word of God today. Let us promise Him that we are going to be lovers, enamored of the word of God, because that word holds so many things. The word of God gives direction and illumination. The Bible says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” The word of God will give you counsel when you face dilemmas, when you have problems, when you encounter difficult situations. Go to the word of God; it will give you a path to follow. It will open your understanding; it will tell you what you have to do. It gives direction, it gives illumination; the word of God gives intelligence and wisdom.

The psalmist says, “The entrance of Your word lights up the face.” Many of us have not attended school; perhaps we are even semi-illiterate, and we did not go to high school. But do you know what? Many of us look like professionals and even as though we have doctorates because we have spent years working with the word of God. You can see how evangelical people, by continually studying the word, make progress; their children are blessed, and they become intelligent people who project more authority than they actually possess according to the degrees or academic experiences they have had. Why? Because the word of God enlightens them. By continually listening to sermons like this one, listening to classes, handling the Bible, reading, and doing all these things, it lights up their faces. They look like intelligent people even if they are not—I am joking. But it enlightens you. An educated person has something—a certain configuration, something in the movement of an eyebrow, the turn of the mouth, something that expresses the wealth within. You are rich in the word of God; we are rich in the word of the Lord. That lights up the face, gives intelligence, and gives wisdom.

The word frees us from bondage, prejudice, and fear. The Lord Jesus Christ said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” People live imprisoned by all kinds of psychoses, neuroses, complexes, fears, and anguish. Brothers and sisters, there is deliverance in the word of God; chains and yokes are removed. And faith comes by what? By hearing. But you will not be able to grow in your faith if you are not growing in the word. How much time do you spend reading the Bible? During the week, how many times have you picked up that book and sat down with it to read it, study it, savor it? How much? I do not say this to make you feel guilty. Or yes—feel guilty; that is fine. I say it so that when you leave here and go home, you will make a covenant with God: “I am going to take the word more seriously, and I am going to devote time to it.”

No one has time, I know, but look, sometimes you do not even have time to breathe; nevertheless, you do it, don’t you? Because you know what the consequence of not doing it is. Well, the word of God is even more important. It helps us know ourselves, because that is what it says: it discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. There is nothing—men and women live with neuroses and problems because they do not know themselves. The Bible is the best instrument for knowing oneself.

Through the Bible, as you see David in his troubles, Peter in his tribulations, Abraham in his failures, and Jacob, you are going to know yourself because you will see yourself portrayed in different ways, from different perspectives, and you will come to know yourself—the springs that move your soul, your mind, your subconscious. The Bible is a tremendous book of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and introspection. When you know the Bible thoroughly, you will know yourself as well.

Finally, the Bible assures us of success in life. As you see in this passage here, God tells the Jews, “If you do this and do that, I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain; you shall gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil. I will also provide grass in your field for your livestock; you shall eat and be satisfied.” Many of us eat and are not satisfied; we are spiritually and emotionally hungry because we do not have the word of God. But God wants to assure us of success in life.