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-57-
God Hath Spoken
Come With an Appetite and With a Tender Heart
We need to come to worship with an appetite, and not to be entertained. We need to come with a tender heart, a heart made willing by God to submit to the Word of God. God's Word certainly deserves our attention. Human experience has taught us that we are prone to forget, and that the only way to retain what we have learned is to refresh our memory.
There will be people who whether knowingly or unknowingly will be used by the Destroyer, to distract our attention from the Word of God. Someone may need to use the rest room, and if the Devil can use the movement to cause inattention to the Word of God, he will do it. He may use gaudy or immodest dress. We need to fight distracting thoughts and one thing that will help immeasurably is to come with an appetite to hear the Word of God.
We are not to go to church because of business contacts, or to feel good: we go to church because we have something to do there. We have the duty to worship the Lord, and to provoke one another to love and to good works. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching" (Heb. 10:25). The more evidence we see of the day of Judgment approaching, the more we need to labor with all diligence to encourage the household of faith. We do this by maintaining our attendance upon public worship.
Receive the Word With Meekness
We need to receive the Word with meekness. Instead of arguing with what the Bible says, we need to receive it. Someone may object by saying, "That is not the way I was taught." Receive it anyway, if that is how the Scripture reads. If the context demands the interpretation, receive it. "Search the Scriptures," but with all our searching, we need to receive it with meekness. The Bereans "were more noble than those in Thessalonica" because they "searched the Scriptures daily," whether the things Paul preached were so.
Apply the Word Personally
Then we need to apply the Word personally. It does not do any good for us to apply it to Aunt Sue; or to say, "I wish so and so was here today, because he needed to hear that." What about our own needs? Was it not God who brought us to hear the message? Sometimes God does not allow people the privilege of hearing a certain message. It is an awesome thought with severe ramifications.
We need to labor to remember the Word of God, because if we allow it, Satan will steal the precious seed out of our hearts. We need to practice the Word, and then beg God to bless His Word in our life. The effectual working of the Word does not happen by accident. Humanly speaking, it results from a determination and a diligence to profit from it. How foolish are they who think all they have to do is to hear the Word of God! that then, they may forget it, and that is all there is to it. But the Word of God will call us into Judgment. "The word that I have spoken," Jesus said, "the same shall judge [you]" (John 12:48).
Study the Word Intensely
We ought to study the Word as if we were searching for a treasure hid in a field. Some will say, "That is too deep for me." It need not be. Do we want quartz or gold? slate or silver? If we want to find the precious Word of God, we are going to have to be willing to seek for it; and we may have to dig for it. But if we do not care enough to search for it, we do not prize it.
We ought to search the Word critically, not like the Higher Critics who cannot find out whether Isaiah wrote the book of Isaiah: we will leave them to the judgment of God; but we ought to come before the Word of God searching it with great thoroughness, and scrutinize it as if we were looking at a Pearl of great price.