What I would like to speak about today is something that I started talking about a few weeks ago, some time back in January. I did not get to finish what I was saying at that point, so I figured I might take the time to finish it up today.
I was saying last time that as the new year begins, we should spend more time in God’s Word, the Bible. We know that time is quickly coming to an end; therefore, we could never go wrong reading the Bible and spending time in prayer before God. If ever there was a time when we should desire to spend more time, to make the time, to take time out of our schedules to sit down and read the Bible, it is now. We should read and read the Bible; because whenever we are reading in the Bible, it is God who is speaking to us.
So what better thing could we do with our time? We should turn the TV off, we should put away these things, and we should just simply read the Bible. And while we are reading the Bible, what should we be doing? We should be praying for obedience.
It would be so good for us if we were to read the Bible and to read the Bible and to read the Bible, because this is how God operates. He tells us in Romans 10:17:
…faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
If He is going to save a person, He is going to apply the Word of God—however He does that—to the heart of that person. This is how God operates. So we cannot go wrong just simply reading the Bible and reading the Bible and reading the Bible. For those of us who are a child of God, God has given us this desire. We want to spend time reading the Bible. If we do not read the Bible, we just know that something is not right; we enjoy the Bible.
In Psalm 119:97, we read:
O how love I thy law!…
This is representative of a child of God.
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
Can you see how the child of God is? God has given us a love for the Bible. However, this does not mean that we are going to understand everything that we read in the Bible. No, but we love sitting at the feet of Christ and listening to the Bible because we know that it is God who is speaking to us. This is what the true child of God desires. He desires to hear from God, the Bible, which is how He speaks to us today. He speaks to us through the Bible.
Continuing in Psalm 119, we read in Psalm 119:98-104:
Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
We can see that the child of God is meditating on the Word of God. He is thinking about it because God’s Holy Spirit now indwells him and he is going to desire the Word of God. He is going to think on it and he is going to meditate on it each day.
I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
We can see the attitude of the child of God to the Word of God. He loves it; he loves it.
No one has to remind us to read the Bible. This comes naturally to us because, remember, God has given to us “a new heart.” He has given us a heart like Christ; therefore, we are going to desire the things of God.
So that is what we should especially be desirous to do with our time. However, around this time, the people of the world make a lot of New Year’s resolutions: they want to lose weight, they want to do this, they want to do that. But no; the child of God has different priorities in life. He wants to spend time in God’s Word and he can never spend enough time. He is either studying a verse or reading the Bible or thinking about spiritual things.
We could never spend enough time reading the Bible. We could read the Bible eight hours a day and it would not be enough, so this is what the child of God desires. He just simply wants to listen to the Bible.
This is the same great truth we find as we read through Psalm 119, this same great idea. Look at Psalm 119:160; here we read:
Thy word is true…
“Thy Word is true.” Who is truth? Christ is truth. God’s Word is the absolute truth. Whatever God has said, He will bring it to pass. There is no other book like the Bible; no other book in the whole world is like the Bible. The Bible is above all books and it is true because it is from God.
Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.
And it goes on in Psalm 119:161:
Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.
As God opens our understanding to the deeper things of the Bible, we just stand dumbfounded. We see how God is merciful, He is gracious, He is patient, He is kind, and we see the wonderful salvation that He has laid out for us in the Bible.
If we are a child of God, how can it be that God would do this for a wicked human being as all of us are by nature? What He has done for us! God has taken on and paid for the sins of His people. When you reflect on your own life and see all of the horrible things that you have committed and yet God has forgiven you of it; indeed, that is amazing grace! We never tire of knowing this.
Then in Psalm 119:162, we read:
I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil.
That is how the child of God responds to God’s Word. He rejoices at the Word of God. The world, when they win the lottery, they just light up. But no; the true believers stand in awe of God’s Word. How gracious and merciful He is!
Then in Psalm 119:163-165, we read:
I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.
Do you see how wonderful the Word of God is? And this is what the true believers are desirous of doing. We simply desire to spend time to just study the Bible. As we study the Bible and read the Bible, God opens up a little bit here and He teaches a little bit there and we begin to see how wonderful God really is to us. This is why we have to be desirous of each day to study God’s Word.
Especially as I said earlier, people make New Year’s resolutions. But in the life of the believer, the biggest desire in our life needs to be for spending more time reading God’s Word, the Bible. This is because all of the things that we spend our time on that are of this world are really nothing more than vanity. Yes, I know that we need a job, we have to do this and we have to do that; but while we are doing these things, we could be thinking about the Word of God. We could be meditating on the Word of God as we are doing these things. The child of God never gets tired of it.
Let us look at another familiar passage in Jeremiah. Let us turn over to Jeremiah 15:16. There we read as God says to us:
Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.
Do you see how it is the joy of the true believers heart to spend time listening to the Bible? We rejoice in this because we know that the Bible is absolute truth. It ought to make us thrilled to no end that we have the very Word of God in our hands. This is a wonderful thing. It is something for which we cannot thank God enough for in giving us His Word. The new heart that God has given to us is just going to enjoy these spiritual things.
As I said, all other things are just vain and empty and bring no happiness. The things of this world are all a delusion and they do not bring happiness; they do not. Unsaved man thinks that they do, but they do not; they do not make you happy.
When we become truly happy is when God saves us and gives us “a new heart.” This is when we become happy. If you ask the world what makes them happy, they will start to list a whole bunch of things, but they never talk about salvation. We become truly joyful and happy when we know that our sins are forgiven, when we know that we are not in trouble with God any longer. This is when we are truly happy. That is when we begin to rejoice. We know that we will not be destroyed in a couple of years. God has given to us eternal life and this is what makes the child of God happy. But for the world, it is a completely different thing, completely different.
I will read this verse again. It says here in Jeremiah 15:16:
Thy words were found, and I did eat them…
How do we eat the Word of God? God says here:
Thy words were found, and I did eat them…
How do we eat the Word of God? Well, we know in the Bible that Christ says what? He tells us that He is “the bread of life,” does He not? In John 6, God tells us that Christ is “the bread of life.” As we are feeding on the Word of God, we are spiritually eating “the bread of life,” which is Christ.
Let us pick up the context of John 6 in verse 30. John 6:30-33:
They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
So “the bread of life” is a person and it is Christ. He is “the bread of life.”
Let us look at verse 41, John 6:41:
The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
Then it goes on to say in verses 42-44, John 6:42-44:
And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Now let us drop down to verses 47-51, John 6:47-51:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
So this is the “bread” that we eat, spiritually speaking. As we are reading the Word of God, we are eating the “bread of life.” We know that this is Christ Himself. We know that He is the “bread of life”; and as it said in Jeremiah 15, we eat spiritually of Christ when we become a child of God.
Therefore, what better thing could we do than spend our time just feasting on the “bread of life,” Christ Himself? Each day we should take time out of our schedule to sit before the Word of God and just simply listen to the Word of God. As He speaks to us, we need to just listen to what He is saying. As we listen, we need to pray that God would open our understanding to truth. But also and more importantly as we read the Bible, we need to pray for obedience. This is my next point: obedience.
We are to spend time reading the Bible, reading the Bible, reading the Bible, reading the Bible, and reading the Bible. But also, we have to pray for obedience. We have to do what God says. We have to do what He commands us to do.
Many people spend time just reading the Bible, but they are not being obedient to what God has commanded them to do. Many are being hypocritical. Intellectually, they know what the Bible says, but they are not doing it.
We hear comments that we should read the Bible in order to be able to be obedient, to do what He says. Throughout the Bible, we see this same great truth: do what He says, do what God has commanded you to do.
God says to children, “Children, obey your parents.” If you know this and you are not doing it, then are you being obedient to God’s commandments? No.
He says, “Husbands, love your wives.” If you are not loving your wife, are you being obedient to His commandments?
You could be saying that you love the Lord. If so, you must obey Him. You do what He says to do, no matter what the situation.
We know that we do not love our wives because they are good cooks, or whatever the case might be. We do this because it is a command of God. He commands the worker to obey his boss. If someone is truly saved and a child of God, they will want to do these things. You see, we have to do what He says.
If we go back to Genesis—remember, right there in the Garden of Eden—did God not give our first parents the command to obey Him? Yes, He did; but they did do it? Remember, the whole Bible is the Word of God. In Genesis 2:8-9, we read:
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
See what He did? Go over to verse 15, Genesis 2:15:
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
He had to work. God gave man a responsibility to take care of the Garden.
Then it goes on in verses 16-17, Genesis 2:16-17:
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying…
Is this not the Law of God? God’s words are our commandments. They are His judgments and His precepts. They are these things. He commands them; therefore, they are the Law of God, and He told them to do something:
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it…
This was a commandment that they should have obeyed. They were not to do this.
…for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
God lays His commandments down, His Word down, and tells Adam and Eve how they are to obey Him. As we know, they did not obey. This is just as He tells us what we are to do and how we are to obey Him. By the mercy of God, He also tells us the result of our actions if we break His commandments. He warns us, as God lays this out in Romans 6:23. He says:
For the wages of sin is death…
If you break His commandments, you are going to be destroyed. You are going to die.
Of course, we know that Adam and Eve did not obey. They rebelled against God’s commandments, which is the reason why we are in the situation that we are in. Man is now in trouble with God because of our sins, because of man’s disobedience.
Adam and Eve did not obey God’s commandments; and in our day as we see sin multiplying, mankind is rebelling and rebelling against God to no end. The world does not care about being obedient to God. They care about doing their own thing.
Sin is very destructive. Sin is ugly. It destroys lives. It destroys families. It destroys society. It destroys and destroys and destroys. We know that sin brings certain pleasures to us, or else we would never commit them. Sin satisfies the flesh. Although our sin is sending us to hell, by nature, we do not care. We live in a society which says, “If it feels good, do it…no matter what the cost.” This is what sin does. It supposedly looks good, but the end result of sin is eternal death. Sin is working something out in our lives and though it is going to destroy us, destroy mankind, we do not care and we continue to do it.
So here in the Garden of Eden, God tells them, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” He tells them that this is what is going to happen to them if they do not obey His commandments. If we venture out on our own, God has forewarned us.
Let us say that two people are going to get married. God has rules that He has laid down concerning this. He tells us that we should not be “unequally yoked.” Let us say that someone fully knows this and yet they marry someone who is not saved. Once they do this, they are in trouble and they are on their own. They are disobeying God’s commandments. We cannot expect God’s blessing to be on this type of marriage because they have disobeyed God.
That is what breaking God’s commandment is. It is when we are totally going our own way and doing our own thing. God is not going to hit us over the head and say, “Do not do this.” He has laid His Law out and He is not going to change it to accommodate our sin. He has told us what to do. Once we go contrary to God’s Word, we cannot expect the blessing of God.
So we see here in the Garden that man disobeyed God. This is why we are in this predicament that we are in. We are in a lot of trouble with God.
Let us look a little bit at what we read about Israel in Exodus 19. We have to be careful with this because we are not to look down our own long noses at Israel, “Look at Israel! Look at what they did! If I had been in that situation, I would never have done that!” No, we should never do this. We are to read this to learn from their example.
In Exodus 19, God is moving Moses to speak to the people of Israel. God has given them commandments, so let us look at what Israel did. Many people do this same thing today, the very same thing. It says in Exodus 19:5-6:
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
So God is commanding Moses to speak these things to the children of Israel. Then we read in verses 7-8, Exodus 19:7-8:
And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do…
Do you see what they said? They said, “Oh, whatever God tells us, we will do; we will do it.” But did they?
You see, we have to understand this in order for us to obey God in a God-glorifying way. God has to give us “a new heart.” Mankind can say anything at the mouth. We can say anything; but if our heart is not changed, if God has never given us “a new heart,” we cannot do it. Intellectually, we can understand it and we can aspire to do it; but if we still have a rebellious heart in us, then we cannot obey.
So hear what Israel is saying, “Oh, whatever God says, Moses, we will do it; we will do it.” There was never a nation like that of Israel, a nation who heard the voice of God. If ever there was a time when we would think that a people would have believed God, it was when God came with “thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud.” At that time, “Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” God tells us “all the people that was in the camp trembled.” They were frightened out of their skin.
So we figure that if ever there was a time when faith could have come by seeing, they would have believed. If ever there was a time when we would think that they would have bowed before God and cried out to Him for His mercy, it would have been at this time; but they did not.
Faith does not come by seeing. The Bible tells us, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” God has to give us “a new heart.” This is why these people could see all they wanted, and yet not become saved.
It is like when people say, “Well, if I could see that they have found Noah’s ark—if I could just see this or if I could just see something else—then I would believe.” But no, if Israel did not believe God when they saw all of these things going on, then, you see, why would they?
So, you see, faith does not come by sight. God even tells us that they perished in the wilderness “because of unbelief”; they did not believe a thing. And we know that they murmured and murmured and murmured. God would do all of these things to them and then they would say, “O Lord, we are sinners; come back.” Then we know that the Lord God would show them mercy again. After awhile, their leaders or their prophets would die, and then they would go right back to their sins again. Therefore, we know that they did not believe. They saw all of these miraculous things and they professed out of their own mouths, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do.” But no; they did not.
Let us turn over to Leviticus and we will look at this same idea. We are going to read about, basically, the same thing. In Leviticus 26:1-5, it says:
Ye shall make you no idols…
God is giving this command:
Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments…
See God says, “Obey Me. Obey Me and do what I say”:
…and do them; Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
God is telling them of all these blessings that He will give to them if they will obey His voice. He is speaking about obedience. If you read through the whole chapter, you will see all these things that God said that He would give to Israel if they would obey Him; but we know that they could not.
Now let us look at Deuteronomy 5; we will start reading in verse 1. Deuteronomy 5:1:
And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.
Do you see how God is stressing obedience to them? He is telling them that they should hear what He is saying and then do it. If you read through the whole chapter, this is what you will see.
Now go to verses 24-25. In Deuteronomy 5:24-25, we read:
And ye said, Behold, the LORD our God hath shewed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth.
They heard all these things. They heard the voice of God.
Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, then we shall die.
This is talking about how they are being fearful.
Then we read in verses 26-27, Deuteronomy 5:26-27:
For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? Go thou near, and hear all that the LORD our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the LORD our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it.
Do you see what Israel is saying? They are saying, “Oh, we will hear it and we will do it!”
Then He goes on in the next two verses 28-29, Deuteronomy 5:28-29:
And the LORD heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the LORD said unto me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken.
Why could they not obey God? God is still speaking here and says to them:
O that there were such an heart in them…
Do you see what their problem was? They were not saved. They did not have “a new heart.” This is why God finally said:
O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!
This is why Israel could not be obedient to God. They did not have “a new heart.” Although they heard and saw all of those things that God had done, those great miracles that God had done, things that no nation had ever seen, they did not have “a new heart” and so it did not convince them; it could not.
Someone could say all of these things, “I am going to do this and I am going do that,” but if God has not given them “a new heart” to be obedient to Him, then they will not obey; they cannot. They can try all they want—they will try for awhile—but, eventually, they are going to fall back into the world because God had not given them “a new heart.” That heart that is in them is not saved; therefore, it is going to be lusting after other things.
In order for us to be obedient to God, God has to create within us “a new heart.” Intellectually, we can try. But remember the seed of the sower. Some people hear the Word of God. For awhile, they will try to do things God’s way. Then after awhile, what happens to them? They fall right back into the world again because God had never given them “a new heart.”
There were four seeds there and only one of them was truly saved. Some hear the Word of God, and yet the cares of this life come in. They will try for a week or two, and then they will go right back into their old sins, their old ways, their old habits. This just goes to show that they were never saved.
The church tries to talk about a “carnal Christian,” but there is no such thing. You cannot have one foot in the world and one foot in the Bible. So here God is telling us this by using Israel as an example. If ever there was a nation whom we would have thought would have really served God with all of their heart, it would have been the nation of Israel. All the things that God had done for them, and yet we read in the Bible that they did not believe; they perished “because of unbelief.”
So, you see, we have to beseech God that He may give us “a new heart” and cause us to walk in His statutes, that He may work in us to will and to do of His statutes. God has to do it. He has to work in us. He has to do all the work and He has to cause us to do what He has commanded us to do. We cannot do it. We can try, but it will be to no avail. Mankind can obey God, to a certain degree; but actually, doing things in a God-glorifying way requires God to give us “a new heart.”
Let us look at Jeremiah 11 where we will see this same idea. In Jeremiah 11:1-3, we read:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; And say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel; Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant,
Do you see how God is telling us that we are cursed if we are not obeying God’s Word? Those who are not saved are under the curse of God because they cannot be obedient to God’s commandments.
It goes on to say in verses 4-8, Jeremiah 11:4-8:
Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God: That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O LORD. Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.
So God is insisting on obedience to His commandments:
For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and protesting, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.
At the end of the day, those who are not saved are all of those whom these curses are going to be brought upon because they are being disobedient to God’s commandments.
Throughout the Bible, we see how God stresses this fact. There are a whole host of verses we could look at to see how God stresses obedience to His commandments. There is just no way around this. We cannot live the way in which we want to live and then think at the end of the day that God is going to show us any kind of mercy. God stresses obedience and we have to do what He says.
If we look at John 14:15, which is another familiar verse to us, God simply tells us there:
If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Do what He says. As I said, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We could know all these things in our minds about the Bible; but if we are not doing what God tells us to do, we are being hypocrites and we are being hypocritical to God’s Word. We can know these things; however, if we are not doing them, then we are revealing to ourselves where we are.
Look in the same chapter at verses 21-24. It says in John 14:21:
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me…
God says that if we are keeping His commandments, it is revealing that we love Him. If we are not keeping them, it reveals that we do not love Him at all.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
He manifests Himself to us through the Bible. Let us read on in verse 22, John 14:22-24:
Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words…
We will keep God’s commandments and do what He says:
…and my Father will love him…
In being obedient to God’s Word, God is telling us that He will love that person.
…and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
God spells this out very clearly to us. If we love God, we are going to do what He says. If we do not, we will not.
Look at John 15:9-12. It says:
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments…
Keeping God’s commandments is being obedient to Him:
…ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
And God goes on.
Do you see how God tells us these things? So how about us? Are we being obedient to God’s commandments? This is the question that each one of us must ask ourselves.
In 1 John 2:1-6, we read:
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
If we keep His commandments.
He that saith, I know him…
If someone says, “I know God and I love Him; I am born again,” but:
…and keepeth not his commandments…
We can hear what someone is saying out of their mouths, “Oh, I know God; I am born again; I am saved,” but yet he is not keeping God’s commandments, what does God say about that person? He says that he:
…is a liar, and the truth…
We know that Truth is Christ:
…is not in him.
So we can say anything we want to; however, if in our life we are showing something else, then God calls us a liar and says that we do not love Him.
And He goes on:
But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
So if we are saying that we are born again, then our lifestyle, our very life, ought to demonstrate the Gospel. Our lifestyle itself should be showing that we are a child of God. It does us no good to say with our mouths that we love God, yet in our lives and in our hearts be going contrary to God’s Word. If we do this, we are being hypocritical.
Let us go to one more verse. In Revelation 1:3, God tells us:
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear…
The only way that we are going to hear the Word of God spiritually is when God has given us ears to hear. All sorts of people hear the Word of God, but here it says:
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep…
We always see that word “keep” in conjunction with the word “obedience”:
…and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
We are to be keeping God’s Word and being obedient to what He says. This is a wonderful thing for us to do, to just spend time reading the Bible, and we have to pray for obedience to do what He says we are to do. The only way we are going to do it in a God-glorifying way is when God has given us “a new heart” to keep His commandments, else we are going to continue falling back.
We hear some people use the term “backslide” in reference to constantly backsliding. Yet to behave in this manner means that they were never saved; because once you are truly saved, you are saved eternally and you cannot lose your salvation. Once saved, we are always going to have the desire to do it God’s way, to be obedient to His commandments. No matter what and in every situation in life God has placed us, we are going to obey His commandments. This is the desire of the child of God. We desire to do God’s will.