Trusted with God’s Words II: Leave No Ground Unplowed

Being Trustworthy with the Word of God in a Noisy Age

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder. And this week, and for the next few weeks, I have gotten Teddy to agree to sit across from me. It's not Teddy's favorite place to be.

No, I'm definitely under duress.

Yeah. So we're looking together at the theme of being trustworthy with the Word of God. And there are some reasons that we're looking at it in the beginning months of 2024.

Yeah. So Jon, one of the things that you had mentioned last week are, we are in a unique time and it's all, we want to be careful when we say that, but we are in a unique time in that we have in today's world, more opportunity to listen and we can have both good, but also very bad teachers that just can come into us, whether it's through our YouTube feed or whether it's through our podcast or listening to sermons, but these things are more accessible to us.

And there's more, I think, noise than there has ever been in human history. So we have to be careful, not just what we listen to, but how we listen to it.

Yes. And so as a believer, when we think of the fact that the Christian is the only person on the planet that belongs to a God that speaks, He has spoken through His Word and the Spirit of God continues to work through that book to bring these words from the page to the soul and from our lives spread throughout our world.

But if we want to be people in a day when there are so many voices available, if we want to be people that are listened to, the key is that we should be people that are the best listeners. Or if we want to be people that God gives authority to our voice, gives weight to what we say, whether it's talking to your kid on the side of the bed at night, or a coworker on Monday who has just, you know, blown a weekend with, you know, self-indulgent living, or to a neighbor whose marriage is on the rocks.

When we speak to them on behalf of the Lord, we want there to be authority, weight, effectiveness in what we say. Or as Peter says in 1 Peter 4, we want to speak, as it were, the utterances of God by the working of God.

Who can God trust with that kind of authority?

Reading Scripture Relationally, Not Merely Academically

Yeah. And one thing I think that's really important there is to draw the distinction that it's not just the pastor who speaks for God or who God uses to speak a word, but it is the everyday Christian.

Speaking the truths of God is the experience of the everyday Christian. And I think that's one of the things that we so often overlook. And it's one of the things that we, it's so easy for us to believe the lie, oh, that's not my job.

That's not my role in the kingdom. No, if you're a believer, you are a messenger of God and you are to speak his word.

I remember reading a biography on Luther, and right now, which biography it was slips my mind. Um, it, it spoke about Luther and the fact that there were many men, many academics, many religious men, priests, pastors, uh, who were beginning to be bothered because as they looked at the scriptures and they looked at the Roman church at the time, they were deeply bothered by what they felt were abuses.

And of course, Luther's 95 theses nailed to the door of the church, 95 statements that needed to be considered, you know, by those who cared about Christendom. Um, those were extraordinary and God used Luther as the spearhead.

And the question that the biographer raised was why Luther? Why not one of the other men? And his answer struck me, um, because I think it's, it's quite a convicting answer. His answer was that while many men could recognize the problem, Luther was a man who could be trusted with the answer to the problem by God.

And we saw that Luther was trustworthy, risks his life, labors the rest of his days to get the word of God into the hands of the people. So my question for myself, when I read that is, am I the kind of man that can be trusted with what needs to be said, uh, of all the scriptures, what needs to be said at this moment in this way?

Um, and so in order to do that, we want to approach the Bible as our, as listeners in a way that the Bible requires us to approach it. Um, it's not enough to have a great library. It's not enough to have a good theological hermeneutic or a good approach to how you interpret texts of the Bible.

There's something more, there's a, there's more required than just that. And the Bible does give us that, uh, in specific passages. But before we look at those, Teddy, why don't you kind of start us off by looking at an overarching reality that sums up really what we're going to talk about in a few minutes.

So I think in, in just kind of a, uh, a way of summarizing is to say that we have to read the scriptures and come to the word of God relationally and not just academically.

Yeah, there, there is a different cost. Um, I, I remember reading a biography on Amy Carmichael when she was looking at the, um, the state of India in the late 19th century, and she wanted to write back to the European churches to explain just how dire the spiritual situation was.

It was at the heyday of the, um, uh, of the missionary movement. And there were a lot that were reporting back home, the, you know, these amazing numbers of conversions. And, you know, so that the European churches were thinking, well, it's just going to be, you know, a few decades and India will be the most Christian of nations.

And Amy Carmichael wrote to say, that's not exactly what's happening. Um, that may be what looks like on the surface, but underneath there's some troubling things. She asked God for fire words is how she described it.

She said, I need words that will get through kind of the armor of the European Christian. I need fire words. And she said that she felt the answer from the Lord was, I will give you fire words, but they will burn you first.

They will enter your soul like lava, you know, and they will run through you and it will cost you to be able to say things like that. If you've ever read Amy Carmichael, her books are quite, uh, fiery, not just, you know, but not shock jar, not shockingly fiery, not, not in your face fiery, but that, you know, much like Tozer, but in many ways beyond Tozer, they're just so penetrating.

They bother me, they haunt me and they're effective. So we need to understand there will be a cost in reading the scriptures. It's relational. There is no cost to reading many of the other books in our life.

So I was thinking about, you know, textbooks, um, in college, I didn't take any mathematic classes, mathematical classes. I took, you know, some sciences, only what was required so I could get onto the stuff I wanted to.

But in high school, you know, I remember calculus books and trigonometry and geometry, and I did terrible in every one of those. I told myself I didn't need it. And I was a lazy student. This was all pre-conversion and I definitely demonstrated it.

But I remember that in looking at math books, I never knew and still don't know the name of any author of any math book I had throughout my life. I did not need to know that author. I did not need to like that author in order to benefit from what he wrote in his book.

But when it comes to scripture, I have to know the author and how I'm relating to the author presently, whether I'm having an argument with him or walking in sweet submission, trusting him, that greatly affects how that author will use this book in my life and through my life.

The Authorial Relationship That Shapes How Scripture Speaks

Yeah. And I think that that's such a.

Great illustration coming from a literary background. Um, you know, I've always had a love and appreciation for literature and, and it really does what you think of the author impacts how you read a book.

Um, so when it comes to reading novels and works of literary past, I have found that if I understand a little bit about the author, I'm actually a fan of authorial intent when it comes to literature. And so if I know a little bit about the author, it helps me to understand what he's trying to say in his book.

This, when we're coming to scripture, if we know the author, the words will have so much more weight. Whereas if we're reading something, um, if we're reading the scriptures and we know nothing of God and we don't know God, we have no relationship with him.

We have no communion with him. It might as well be a math.

Textbook. Yeah. And, and that's describing half of that, the dynamic, uh, our response to the word, but there's the other half God's dealing with us. Um, not just what we think of the author, but what does the author think of us?

Does the author see us as the kind of person he can trust with his word? Um, well, we could say so much about this. I think probably what we want to do is go right to some biblical texts, which speak of people who can or cannot, who will or will not be trusted with God's word.

Um, so let me give you the, uh, first Psalm 111 and verse 10, Teddy,.

I see you got your Bible open at 111. Read that for us. So from the ESV, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding.

His praise indoors forever. So there's a connection in that passage. Those who do his commandments are those that understand his commandments. Uh, it reminds us of the, uh, end of Hebrews chapter five, where the writer of Hebrews says, you know, um, you ought to be in chapter six, you ought to be moving beyond these basic ABCs of Christianity, but you're not.

Why? Because you have not had your senses trained to discern good and evil because, because you're not doing, you're not applying the word of God. So there is that dynamic. Those that obey are taught those that listen and are not responsive in obedience are not taught.

And we could say it this way. God teaches us today, largely based on what we did with the things he said to us yesterday.

Passive Listening Versus Active Obedience

Yeah. And I have found that to be true in my own life. And there's a, a note that I'd want to make in this. If you are kind of examining and saying, okay, the Bible is silent to me now. It is a good opportunity to stop and to think, okay, what has the Lord shown me that I've not applied?

What have I left unapplied in my life? What are the areas of my life that I have said, okay, Lord, you can come this close, but no further. Open those up to him and apply that there's repentance that needs to happen.

And we'll, we'll talk more about that when we get into plowing. But, but I think that, so let's stop for just a second. And someone says, okay, I know that there's truth unapplied. What do I do now? What does repentance look like in that?

Yeah. I think that being careful listeners has to include really aggressively, you know, very intentionally, doggedly going against the grain of the kind of the normal way we listen. We were talking before the podcast about being passive listeners.

And you can, you can kind of give your thoughts on that in a second. The, if we're passive listeners, if we think that what God wanted from us was just that we would listen, understand and appreciate, you know, emotionally appreciate.

I appreciate that concept. I really do. Like you're reading a Moby Dick or something. Even a believer in church, you know, I really love that reality, but I am not making any changes. It may not be willful rebellion.

You know, it could be a sin of omission, but I have failed to find a place in my life, in my practical thinking and choosing my time, my money, my family, my relationships, my work. I'm not finding places that these words of God fit.

And so it's a very lazy, everything kind of stays on the surface.

Yeah. And it's what you had just mentioned earlier. I think that part of the reason that it is so easy for us to do that, particularly in today, is because we are training ourselves to be passive listeners.

And what I mean by that is this, when you get into your car or when you're washing dishes or whatever, you know, kind of menial task it is that we do that are necessary, they're good things. I find this when I'm folding clothes, particularly, we have a little...

TJ, I don't believe you fold clothes.

I fold clothes. I am wonderful at folding clothes.

I think that you just lied in podcast land.

So my wife will leave a comment on YouTube.

Okay. Are you going to tell us about when you train for a marathon?

Oh, yeah. No.

Okay, go ahead.

I know better than that. But one of the things that I do, so we fold in our bedroom and it's at the back of the house and it's kind of a quiet area. So I'm able to put my earbuds in and I'm listening.

Maybe it's a podcast or maybe it's a sermon or an audio book, but I am listening passively because I'm listening while I'm doing something else. And one of the things that in preparing for this podcast that I have been personally so convicted about is that two things.

One, I am training myself to listen while doing. So, you know, it's harder for me when it comes time to sit and actually focus on what I'm listening, something I am listening to, um, whether that's Sunday, a Sunday sermon, or whether that's even in a conversation, I find myself, my hands fiddling or wanting to do something else.

And so we are training ourselves to think that because we can do multiple things at the same time, that's what I should be doing. And no, because it actually does hinder our focus. But the other part is that we're training ourselves against the practice of active listening.

And the active listening is when we are listening, particularly to a sermon and we're saying, okay, I'm not just receiving, but I'm finding those areas in my life where I do apply, where this does fit.

And sometimes that requires the work of the listener after it has been listened to, after a sermon has been heard, after a book has been read, where we stop getting input. And we stop listening to something new until we have found where this fits and how I live upon what I was just taught.

The Danger of Passive Hearing in Daily Life

Yeah, I think that's a good point. You.

Know, if you're listening while you're doing something else, generally, you don't have the leisure to stop whatever else you're doing and really think through how am I going to put this into action? So I guess you learn by habit that what I'm supposed to do as a listener is to comprehend and agree or disagree, you know, appreciate or not.

And that's it. That was the end of the journey rather than I have to stop what I'm doing and I have to change because of what I've just heard. So passive listening is always a danger. Samuel Rutherford, my favorite Scottish writer, when he had been released from prison, he was put there because of what he was preaching.

In the 1600s, he, toward the end of his life, he became the professor of systematic theology and pastoral theology for students training for the ministry in the city of St. Andrews at St. Andrews University.

And one time his students asked him how he would direct them, what he would advise if they wanted to become really good, precise theologians. Now, in 1600s language, the question is how they might be a deep divine, a divine like is a theologian, a deep divine, a deep theologian.

Rutherford's answer, I think, is just so great because Rutherford was very precise about doctrine. They think that the Westminster Confession might have been based on his ideas. They found in Rutherford's writings, a sketch of what he thought a confession should be.

And the Westminster resembles that very closely. So perhaps he had a very formative influence in that way when he was there with the rest of the theologians. So Rutherford is a man that believes that precise theology is important.

But his answer to the students about being good theologians was this. If you would be a deep divine or if you would be a good theologian, I recommend to you sanctification. Or we could say obedience. God will teach the son or daughter who intends to do.

Let me give you one illustration. If we think of God speaking to us, let's say our last Sunday that we gathered with believers, and whether we preached or whether we listened to a sermon, we were there before the word of God.

How much of that found its way into our practice since then? This is Tuesday for us. So I can think, well, I preached Sunday. How much have I applied? I have thought about the things that I preached and I have thought, John, is it going to change how you're acting in the little small things throughout the week?

So I've been thinking, how does that change things? But if I were to say how much of that truth actually got into John's life, would I say, for example, it was a five gallon bucket worth? Or would I say it was a quart?

Or would I say it was a teaspoon from my wife's measuring spoons in the kitchen? Now, however, we would assess ourselves for the sake of this illustration. Perhaps it would help us to take active listening, obedient listening more seriously if we were to say, okay, only a teaspoon actually made it into the way I'm living.

I appreciated it. I believed it. I've thought about it a little bit, but I definitely wouldn't say I brought into my life a five-gallon bucket worth. So what if I were to say to myself, therefore, I can expect that in my time in the scripture this week and when I gather again with believers next Sabbath, I expect to get a teaspoon from God when the person sitting next to me is getting a five-gallon bucket because Mrs. So-and-so seems to be always so humbly, hungrily, desperately taking in what is said from the word and finding.

Ways to apply it. I think one of the things you just brought up is so important in this equation. It is the persistent practice of, if the only time that we were trying to feed ourselves on the word of God was Sunday, we're starving and there's going to be a lot of things we don't apply because we don't think about it.

If the only time that we think of coming to scripture, so it is that also daily listening. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier in the relationship that we have to have. If you don't have a conversation with your spouse, but once a week, you're not going to be talking much and you're not going to be hearing much.

But it is that daily, ongoing, regular, pray without ceasing that has to be a part of this equation.

Daily Communion, the Parable of the Talents, and Receiving More Light

Yeah. And take the spouse illustration, the dynamic of love between a couple. If when you are with your spouse and you have an opportunity to talk, if you listen to very little that she says, then you shouldn't be surprised if next time you're with your spouse and you have a chance to talk, if they have less to say and less and less.

We see it in marriages where communication just kind of dies, except for essential things, the bank account, the kids, whatever, your parents, my parents, the house, the car. But as for loving, opening up of the heart back and forth, that dies quickly if we are not really listening or responding to what they say.

So with the Lord, the word of God is the word of God. But how much we benefit from it, even in our daily quiet times and personal study, it is affected by how we have applied or what we've done with the last thing that God said.

If he gives us light and we live in that light, he gives greater light. If he gives light and we ignore it, then we can expect that even that little bit that we were getting seems to disappear. Which goes to, I think the next.

Point that you have on here is, you know, from Matthew 25, the parable of the talents.

Yeah. It's a shocking parable, isn't it? A business owner hands money. Talents doesn't mean, you know, I can sing, I can play piano, you know, I can preach, I can whatever. I'm good with kids. I can fold clothes.

There you go. You can fold clothes. I'm still, I have big doubts on this. I think we need a whole episode of your wife filming your clothes. Because I used to think I could iron and I ironed in front of somebody and they said, give me the iron.

That's terrible. Okay. So talents is not abilities. It's talents of gold. It's a measurement of wealth. So to one man, he gives, you know, 10 talents and then to another five, to another one, a lot of money to invest, you know, medium amount, and then a very small amount.

And the businessman goes away and the owner comes back later. And the man that was given 10 invested those quite aggressively and he made a hundred percent return he had. And so when the owner saw that, he gave that man much more, you know, obviously, if you're going to make that much money out of my money, I want to give you more money.

Now, the man that was entrusted with five, he also did well, maybe not as well as the first one, but he did well with what he had. And he made money for the owner. And then the owner said, I want to give this guy more money too.

And then the man that was given one said, uh, I knew what kind of owner you were. You're hard. You know, you expect stuff where you don't even help give. Uh, so I just buried it because I didn't want to lose it.

I didn't want to invest it and it'd be gone. So let me go dig it up and bring it back to you. Well, of course, you know, in the business world, that man's money should have been making money. So he, he is losing money by trusting that man with it.

And he takes that man's and he gives even what little he had to the man that invested wisely. The believer that comes to the word of God, hungry, needy, lovingly, submissive, actively applying will be given more and more and more truth.

And the one that just says, well, I, I, I came to church Sunday. What did you do with it? Well, I just kind of set it aside. The things I learned, you know, I put it aside one day, maybe I'll get to it.

Even the things that, you know, we can look back on and say, I remember this being taught this and this it's as if even that is lost and are, are coming to the scripture. It becomes a dead book to us.

And we think it's the Bible. We think it's the preacher's fault, but it may be ours. We may have not handled truth carefully. Let me, let me point out a second way. And then we'll, we'll end this episode and then we'll pick up next episode with the others.

When we study passages of the Bible, we need to realize that each fresh application of God's truth to our life will require not just good intentions and zeal and intentionality, but we will have to plow before we plant.

Break Up the Fallow Ground Before You Sow

In Jeremiah chapter four, God speaks to a nation through the prophet and the nation is drifting. Israel is drifting, Judah. And so he says, thus says the Lord, Jeremiah four, verse three, in the first verses, he says, if you return, return to me, God says, and then he gives them this counsel.

Thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, break up your fallow ground and do not sow among thorns. And that is an agricultural metaphor with spiritual truth. So Teddy, you've done some gardening and what.

Is fallow ground? So it's land that once was plowed, it was productive and it was producing crops and it has been allowed to sit and it's hard. It actually is more hard than ground that.

Was never plowed to begin with. Yeah, we we've all seen it. You know, you may, you do a garden and whether it's very successful or not, maybe you leave it alone. Maybe you get busy the next year and then you come back a year or two later and you think, we need to do a garden again.

That was pretty good. And kids are older, you know, they'll weed now, which is a complete fiction. Don't ever believe that. Yeah. The kids weed like terribly. It's harder for you to get them to weed than for you to weed.

So we'll probably get comments on this about how we don't know how to help our children. So we go back out to the garden spot and it's hard. It's not soft at all. It will have to be completely replowed.

It's not just hard. It's covered in weeds again. So it's hard and overgrown. There are times in the Christian's life when we are careless, that areas of the soul that once were plowed and receptive to the word of God, all it took was someone to talk to us, preach it to us or for us to read it on our own.

And it's like the seed fell and there were changes. There was life. There was growth. Yeah. You know, it affected our marriage was being changed. Our home, our workplace, our thoughts, our bank accounts were being affected.

But if we become proud and careless, we quit plowing up the heart and those areas become kind of hard. The word of God is still landing on the soul, but the seed can't seem to find a place and the weeds choke it.

And the hard ground keeps it from sinking in. And so the result is areas that once were very Christ-like in our life. Now, when we look back, we're ashamed that they have, it seems they've once again come under the weeds of selfishness and what Christian can't think of a season in their life where they can look back and say, there were times in my life where the word of God was affecting this particular area so much more than it is now, even though I'm still reading and attending church.

So why? And the reason is we ignored God. We forgot that in returning to the Lord, we needed to plow so that the seed that landed, landed on ground prepared for the word of God. So what are some practical things that we would do to plow the heart?

Yeah, well, I go back to in the first Beholder of God study, you talked about this and I think it was week one or two, but God has given us everything that we need in order to plow our souls. And that is the means of grace.

It is prayer. It is meditating on scripture. It is fasting. It is worship. These are the things that God has given us, but it has to begin with repentance. We have to first really examine ourselves and see the fallowed ground.

If we don't see the fallow ground, we'll never bring the plow to it. So we have to stop. We have to see, and then use the means of grace that God has given us.

Repentance, Hope, and the Means of Grace

Yeah. And I think that sometimes it's hard to see ourselves accurately. Sometimes we're too hard on ourselves. You know, we look at our life and we say, well, I'm not even a Christian at all. Other times we look at ourselves and we say, I'm doing, I'm doing pretty good, not perfect, but pretty good.

So if you have a spouse that's godly, if you have older, you know, adult children that are godly, if you have close friends that are godly, a pastor, you know, someone in the church that you trust that will tell you the truth, which is hard to find in church, people don't like to say unpleasant things, but if they love you enough and love the Lord enough to tell you the truth, you could say to them, you know me pretty well.

You see me day in and day out. What areas in my life would you say once were productive of Christ likeness and now are not? And they may be able to say, you've become careless with entertainment. You've become, you've become sluggish in prayer, perhaps, you know, you used to make extra time.

Now you don't. Now you're kind of late to the prayer meeting or you miss it easily. You used to lead out in Bible studies. Now you kind of hang back. So Christ likeness, where is it not flourishing and preparing the heart for the word so it will flourish again?

One thing, but let me jump in with this because it is so easy for us to be discouraged in ourselves and we have to remember who it is we're returning to. We are returning to the God of new mercies every morning.

The father of the prodigal son who, you know, picks up his skirt and runs to his son. God is not waiting for perfect repentance in this. All it takes is turning back to him. But the plowing, the turning, we are called to do that.

And we may cry out to God, cause my heart to turn back to you. Cause me, I mean, the psalmist cries, seek my heart, know me, show me where I have sinned. And so there are those cries, but even desiring for those cries is a gift from him.

So don't despair is all I mean to say. We have a God.

Of new mercies every day. Yeah. I think it was Calvin that pointed out that threats in the to be promises as well. It's hope that causes us to really, you know, wholeheartedly seek him. We must believe he is, and he's a rewarder of those that seek him.

Even in repentance, it is the hope that the father will receive me, that the father does amazingly still love me, will seek me. And as you mentioned, even the yearning of my heart is evidence of God seeking us.

So hope, faith, and repentance always running together. Tozer mentioned in one of his chapters in the book, The Pursuit of God, he mentioned that there are times where bad habits die hard. None of them go away easily.

And he said in a wonderful way, you have to go back to God again and again in prayer. And you just have to talk with him about the fact that you want these areas of life to be plowed again, that you are not, you don't want to be satisfied to throw seed out and then walk away and not look and see, did any of the seed take root?

Did any fruit, did any changes occur? You know, it's not enough to have my daily Bible readings. It's not enough to be faithful to small group studies and church services. For a living God, we want a life that's being altered by those truths.

So we go to him and Tozer just said, go to him again and again and again and again and again, saying, God, I don't want to be satisfied until this passage finds room in my soul. And whatever has to be moved out to make room for that truth, I'm asking you to help me, show me, stir me, encourage me, strengthen me, but don't let me just go on, you know, with life as normal.

So understanding the word of God is wonderful. It's not plowing. Reading the word of God, it's wonderful, but it's not plowing. Explaining and teaching the word of God to other people is not plowing. Plowing is when we do the hard work of breaking up any part of my existence, any area of my life that seems reluctant to really respond wholeheartedly to God, to obey, to change and working it until it becomes receptive.

And the truth of God produces Christ likeness. Well, we've run our time now. So next week, we're going to pick back up with the theme of being trustworthy with the word of God. Who will God trust with his word?

Who will he not? And we're going to look at a passage from Ezekiel next week, a couple of them, actually. We're going to look at two from Ezekiel and one from Colossians, the kind of people that God delights to give his word to and the kind of people that God withholds his word from.

But we'll look at that next week.