Be Doers Of The Word

As I often do, I want to read the whole passage, beginning in verse 19 down to verse 27. Please follow with me in your Bible.

James says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness…”—the King James has “superfluity of naughtiness”—“…and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

What are the marks of a mature Christian? What is it that characterizes a Christian who has a strong, vibrant, active faith? We’re learning that in the book of James. Number one, a mature believer has joy in the midst of trials. One of the indications that you’re growing in your walk with God is that when things go wrong in your life, you still have the joy of the Lord. Your joy is an artesian well. It’s not dependent on outward circumstances; it’s dependent upon the relationship you have with the Holy Spirit, springing up within. So we learn we can have joy in trials.

Secondly, the mark of a mature believer is that they are triumphant in temptation. Rather than being the victim of temptation, they are the victor over temptation. They learned to “walk in the Spirit, so they’ll not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” That doesn’t mean they have arrived at perfection—we still stumble and fall—but it means they’re growing and maturing. So they’re joyful in trials, and they are triumphant in temptations.

Today we look at the third mark or characteristic of a mature Christian. A mature Christian is a doer of the Word. So there are three marks of the believer: they are joyful in trials, they are triumphant in temptation and they are doers of the Word. You cannot be a mature believer without a right relationship with the Bible, God’s Word. I am a Bible-thumpin’ preacher. That’s what I am. I believe in the Bible, I preach the Bible and we need to live by the Bible, God’s Word. Every word is true. God speaks through what He has spoken. The Bible says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for how to live our lives.” Because of that, you can’t grow without being rightly related to the Word of God.

You say, “I’m a Christian. I’m a mature Christian, but I don’t read the Bible.” You’re deceiving yourself. You might even say, “I read the Bible,” but if you don’t obey the Bible, if you’re not a doer of the Word, but a hearer only, James made it pretty clear in this text that you are self-deceived.

I want you to notice that we are to do three things in relationship to the Bible. We’re going to look at them individually, but they all go together. The first thing is that we must hear the Word. Verse 19 says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear.” Mark the word “hear.” The second thing we need to do is receive the Word. Verse 21 says, “Receive with meekness the implanted Word.” Then the third thing is do the Word. Verse 22 says, “Be doers of the Word.” So we have three references there: we are to hear, verse 19; we are to receive, verse 21; and we are to obey God’s Word, verse 22.

By the way, all three of those are imperatives in the Greek. That means they are commandments. These are not optional; God is commanding us to hear His Word, to receive His Word and to obey His Word. He tells us in a very important way that without that, we’re not going to mature, be blessed and grow as believers.

What is your relationship to the Bible? What is your relationship to the book we call the Bible, to God’s Word? First, we are to hear God’s Word. Verses 19-20 say, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath…”—He gives us the reason—“…for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Notice that verse 19 starts with a “so” or a “wherefore” or a “therefore.” You know the drill: whenever there’s a therefore, find out what it’s there for. It’s there because of verse 18, which says, “Of His own will begat He…”—that is, “God begat”—“…us with the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.”

We looked at that two weeks ago. God, by His Spirit, through His Word, gave us new life. The theological term is “regeneration.” We call it “born again.” A Christian is a person who has the life of God in their soul. They’re been regenerated. They’ve been given new life. They’re born of God. The thing that brought about that rebirth is the Word of God and the Spirit of God; they came together and there was the rebirth into the family of God. So we have the Word being like seed planted in the womb, bringing forth new life.

Because verse 18 says that “We were born again with the Word of truth,” therefore, he begins to speak in verse 19 about hearing the Word of truth or hearing the Word of God. So the Bible is called the engrafted Word, the perfect law of liberty, and this is what we are to listen to. We are to listen to the Word of truth, the engrafted Word and the perfect law of liberty.

Notice again that in verse 19, James is speaking to Christians: “So then, my beloved brethren….” It’s very clear that this passage commands believers. He’s not talking to unbelievers; he’s talking to believers. He tells them three things: He says you need to be “swift to hear,” you need to be “slow to speak” and you need to be “slow to wrath.” All three of these are commandments. Be “swift to hear” means a readiness or eagerness to listen to God’s Word.

You remember that story of the little boy, Samuel, in the Old Testament? Hannah, his mother, gave him to the Lord, so he went to live, at age five, with the priest, Eli. Eli put him to bed that first night, he was lying in bed and Samuel heard the Lord—he didn’t know it was the Lord—say, “Samuel, Samuel.” So this little boy, five years old, jumped out of bed and went to Eli’s bedroom. Samuel says, “Yes. What do you want? You called me?” Eli says, “No, I didn’t call you. God back to bed.” “Go away, kid, you’re bothering me” kind of a response. Samuel went back to bed and Samuel hears the voice again: “Samuel, Samuel.” So Samuel gets up thinking Eli is calling him and goes back to Eli. Samuel said, “Yes. What is it? You called.” Eli said, “No, I didn’t call you.”

But then Eli, as perceptive as he was, realized that God was calling Samuel. So Eli said to Samuel, “The next time you hear those words calling your name say, ‘Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.’” Samuel then went back to his bed, but he’s not sleeping now; his eyes are like saucers. He’s freakin’ out. The blanket’s up under his chin and he’s shaking. The Lord spoke again to Samuel saying, “Samuel, Samuel.” I love his reply: “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”

May I suggest to you, that should be the prayer of our hearts when we open the Bible, when we hear a sermon, when we hear God’s Word. Should we not, like young Samuel, say, “Speak, Lord. I am listening.” We come to church so often that we kind of go through the motions, or we read the Bible and we don’t really “hear” the Bible. Have you ever read a chapter of the Bible, you close the Bible and then you think, What did I just read? It kind of goes in one ear and out the other. This is a call to listen with a receptive earnestness. When we read the Bible, we need to read it with listening ears. Are you listening to God speak through His Word?

Did you know that the Bible is a love letter from God? The Bible is written about God for you so you can know Him. This is a self-revelation of God. God cannot be known apart from Him revealing Himself, and the chief way by which God has chosen to reveal Himself to us is through the Bible. You want to know God? Read the Bible. It’s God’s autobiography.

Not only should we be hearing the Word, but we should be “slow to speak.” One of the problems in our culture today is that we like to talk. We like to hear ourselves talk. Have you ever had a friend who dominates the conversation? You can hardly get a word in edgewise. It’s kind of hard to maintain a friendship if it’s all one-sided conversation. They’re always talking about themselves and not asking about you. They’re not really listening. We’re kind of that way today. We just want to talk and not listen.

The Greek philosopher, Zeno, said that “We have two ears and one mouth, therefore, we should listen twice as much as we speak.” Good advice. You think God is trying to say something? He gave us two ears but only one mouth. We should listen twice as much as we speak.

I heard the story of a monk, who joined a monastery, and took a vow of silence. He could only speak two words every five years. At the end of his five years, he said two words: “Food’s bad.” At the end of the next five years, ten years later, he said, “Bed’s hard.” Fifteen years down the road he spoke another two words: “I quit.” The head monk said, “It’s no surprise; all you’ve done is complain since you got here!”

It’s funny how much we complain and gripe and talk. We’re going to be learning a lot more if we are quiet and listen. You don’t learn when you’re talking. You learn when you listen. God wants us to hear His Word. Proverbs 10:19 says, “He that refrains from his lips is wise.” That’s so good.

Thirdly, in verse 19, we are to be “slow to wrath.” So we are to be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” The word “wrath” here means a “harboring of angry, resentful feelings.” The word doesn’t really emphasize the explosion of wrath, which is a bad thing as well, but it’s talking about the harboring of resentful feelings.

A lot of people aren’t receptive to the Bible, because they’re just angry. They just go through life angry. They don’t want to listen to anyone, let alone God. When they hear God’s Word, they get angry at God’s Word. The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wife.” They say, “I don’t like that verse.” The Bible says, “Wives, submit to your husbands.” They say, “Oh that verse is of the devil!”

I had a woman come up to me once who said, “I don’t agree with Paul.”

“Really! Well, you can straighten him out when you get to heaven.”

“Paul hated women. That’s why he told wives to submit. He wasn’t married, and he was a male chauvinist who hated women. That’s why he put that in the Bible.”

I don’t think so. We come up with these clever little arguments to keep us from obeying God’s Word. When God speaks, we must obey. God tells us how to live in our marriage, how to live in our family, how to live on the job, what our attitudes should be. We need to listen and be receptive. Don’t show wrath. Put wrath far from you. It keeps us from hearing and receiving God’s Word.

Notice James tells us why we should be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” in verse 20. “For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” If you’re living with anger in your heart, you’re not producing the righteousness of God. So we need to be “swift to hear.”

I want you to notice the second thing we need in our relationship to the Bible. We need to receive the Word, verse 21. The Word of God demands our hearing and it demands our attention and our receptivity. Verse 21 says, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness…“—So we need to get the weeds out of our life, if God’s seed or Word is going to be planted in good soil and bring forth good fruit—“…and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls” or “bring blessing to your life.”

I want you to note the command in verse 21: “Receive with meekness the implanted Word.” That is God’s command to you and me today. “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.” Whether you hear it, you’re reading it or it’s being preached, we want to be receptive to God’s Word. It speaks of a welcoming and appropriating reception. It means to embrace, to make it your own. It was used of the Bereans in Acts 17:11, who “received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” We use that expression today: “Let’s be Bereans.” That means, “Let’s study the Bible. Let’s be open to the Bible. Let’s search the Scriptures. Let’s discern. Let’s see if those things are so.”

It’s also used in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, where the believers in Thessalonica received the Word, “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” Do you know that the Bible will work in your life? I hear people say, “Well, I read the Bible, but it doesn’t work.” The problem’s not the Bible; it’s your receptivity. The problem is you need to hear and you need to receive and you need to obey. Several times in the Scriptures you read that “Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear.” It’s talking about spiritual ears to hear what God has to say in His Word.

Remember that Jesus told the parable of the sower and the seed? It’s actually a parable of the soils, representing man’s heart. Jesus said, “The sower went out to sow seed.” This is a heavenly story with an earthly meaning. The seed actually represents the Bible, the Word of God or the Gospel. The seed first landed on a hard path or a hard heart. It didn’t penetrate and the birds flying overhead—representing Satan—swooped down and stole the seed. So you’re sowing seed, and it lands on the sidewalk or concrete, and the birds are able to eat it up off the concrete, because it doesn’t penetrate. A lot of people’s hearts are like concrete. They are like a hard, beaten path. They hear the Word of God, and it doesn’t penetrate. Satan comes along, and he steals that seed that was sown.

The second soil is the shallow heart or shallow soil. It’s a thin layer of earth with rocks underneath. It lacks depth of soil. So when the seed is sown—representing sowing into men’s hearts—it takes root, but the roots cannot go deep. As a result, when the branches come up and the sun beats down on them, because it lacks depth and it can’t draw moisture, the plant withers and dies. This is the emotional hearer. There are those who don’t even get it, and there are those who respond with emotion, but after a time when trials and temptations arise, they get wiped out.

The third category of hearers is the crowded heart. A lot of Christians fall into this category. In the crowded heart, the seed is sown, it lands in the soil, it takes root and starts to grow, but there are weeds that choke it out. The plant becomes unfruitful and dies. A lot of times people let things get in the way in their lives, and they choke out the Word of God. They watch too much TV, too much social media, too many activities. Maybe work is a great thing, but maybe you’re working too much, and you ought to send more time meditating on God’s Word.

You’re to be commended that you’re in church today listening to the Word of God, and my commitment is that when you come to church, you will always hear the Word of God. You’ll hear it read, you’ll hear it expounded, explained and applied to how you should live.

But the question is, “How are you listening?” It’s not a matter of how I’m preaching but how you’re listening. It’s possible to come to hear the Bible every Sunday, but your life doesn’t change. There are still those problems in your marriage, you still have those issues in your life, you still have those attitudes and the anger, and it’s keeping you from being receptive to the Word of God. You have a crowded heart. The “cares and deceitfulness of riches” choke it and it becomes unfruitful.

The fourth heart represented in the soil I call the fruitful heart. It’s soft, not hard. It is deep, not shallow. It is clean, not cluttered. The seed takes root. Thank God for these individuals. Thank God if you’re this person today. You hear God’s Word, you receive God’s Word, God’s Word takes root in your life and it changes your heart. It’s changed your attitude, your actions and your words. It’s changed your marriage, your home and your family. It’s changed everything about you. The Word of God has power to change our lives. That’s a fruitful heart.

I want you to notice the condition for receiving God’s Word in verse 21. “Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness.” In order words, we have to get the weeds out. I hate weeds. How many people love weeds? If anybody here loves to pull weeds, see me after church. I’ll give you my address. Don’t you hate to pull weeds? I pull a weed and another one’s gonna come! Don’t you wish you could weed your yard and never, ever have to do it again? But they just keep coming. I’m not a fan of weeds. But if you’re going to plant a garden—which I don’t do. I’m not into gardening—you first have to get the weeds out.

So if God’s going to plant a garden in your life, He has to first get the weeds out; all the wickedness, the things the Bible condemns must be forsaken. You can’t grow as a Christian if you are unwilling to give up the sins the Bible condemns. When you read your Bible, you need to ask yourself, “Are there any sins I need to forsake? Is God speaking to my heart? Is God saying something to me?” If I see something that God is convicting me of, do I skip over it? “Well, let’s go to the next chapter. That one’s on marriage. Let’s not go there. Let’s find something about God loving me. He wants me to be happy.”

You can’t pick and choose. This is not a smorgasbord. As you’re reading the Bible, if you don’t repent when God speaks, He’s not going to give you more light. He’s not going to give you better understanding. The key to going deeper in the knowledge of God’s Word is responding to what God has already revealed to you. You want more light, but you haven’t responded to the light He’s already given you? It’s not going to happen. You’re stuck. You’re in a rut. You can’t grow.

We need to say, “Lord, I’m listening. Lord, have Your way. Lord, change my life.” Then we need to respond accordingly. You need to get the weeds out of your heart and life, so that the garden can grow.

Notice in verse 21 the manner by which this seed can be received into your heart: “with meekness.” Meekness is not weakness. Jesus said, “I am meek and lowly in heart.” Meekness is power under control. A horse that is obedient to the rider when he pulls on the reins is referred to as a “meek horse.” Not a weak horse but a meek horse. Of course, when I’m on a horse, it never does what I want it to do. That’s another reason why I don’t do gardens, and I don’t do horses. They scare me to death. What if it steps on me? They can tell when I’m on a horse that they have a scared pastor on their back. The horse just does whatever it wants.

So we are to be meek when we hear God’s Word. What it means is that we don’t resist it. Do you resist certain passages in the Bible? Things that God shows you that are wrong?

Notice the reason we are to receive God’s Word, verse 21. Because it “is able to save your soul.” Don’t miss that. Do a study on the ability of God’s Word to change and to bless a person’s life. What does “save your soul” mean? It means save your life. From the word “soul,” we get our word “psyche.” A lot of people are spending a lot of money going to psychologists and psychiatrists and laying on the couch and talking to them. Just get on your knees and talk to God, and then open your Bible and let God talk to you. Let God speak to you words of comfort, encouragement, rebuke—whatever it might be.

In Acts 20:32, it says that the Word of God is able to “build you up” and give us “an inheritance among” the saints. The Word of God welcomed in the soul and in the heart can bring fruit: salvation, sanctification and service. I am so convinced that if a person simply hears God’s Word, receives God’s Word and then is a doer of God’s Word, as the Bible says, that person will be blessed in all that they do.

So verse 19, “hear”; verse 21, “receive”; and verse 22, “do.” Here is my third and last point, verse 22: “Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” That’s the command, and it’s actually an imperative in the Greek. True hearing and true receiving must result in obedience. If you are only hearing and not doing, you are self-deceived, verse 22.

How many people are like that? They hear the Bible, they might even believe the Bible, but they haven’t “done” the Bible. That’s where we circumvent what God wants to do in our lives. Maybe you’re not growing or maturing as a Christian because of this third phase. “Oh, yeah; I hear the Word. I read the Word.”

“Okay. Are you ‘doing’ the Word?” That’s the part we don’t like. As a matter of fact, up to this point you probably kind of liked the sermon. You’re kind of hopin’ that I’ll just close in prayer right now and dismiss you. But the text isn’t over. “Doers. Oh! You mean I gotta love my wife as Christ loved the church? That was written before my wife was born. I don’t think they understood my situation.” Yeah. “Thou shalt not covet? Oooh. I really wanted that new car. Oh, the Lord’s convicting me right now.” This is the part we don’t like: “Be doers.”

The book of James is written like a preacher who really tells you like it is. He doesn’t mince words; he says it. You have to “do” the Bible. You have to be a doer of God’s Word. It’s a commandment. If you only hear, you’re deceiving yourself if you don’t put it into practice.

Jesus gave a parable in Matthew 7 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon Jesus ever preached. At the end of that sermon, He talked about two builders. One was wise, and the other one was foolish. A wise and a foolish builder. The wise man built his house upon rock. And when the floods came and the wind blew and beat on his house, because his house was built on a rock, it stood strong. The foolish man built a house just like the wise man, but its foundation was sand. So when the floods came and the wind blew, that man’s house fell over. It was destroyed.

Jesus told us the difference. He said that the wise man is a person who “hears My Word and obeys it.” The foolish man is a man who “hears My Word but doesn’t obey it” or doesn’t put it into practice. I know that Jesus is talking about His Sermon on the Mount, but I think it has a broader, universal application to all of Scripture. You’re either a wise man or a foolish man. You’re either a wise builder or a foolish builder. Every one of us is building, and you’re either building on the rock, which is Jesus Christ, in obedience to His Word, or you’re building on sand. Wise and foolish builders. Are you a foolish builder or a wise builder? Are you hearing, receiving and obeying God’s Word?

James gives us an illustration of the danger of hearing and not obeying in verses 23-25. “For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror.” My King James translates it better as a “mirror” rather than “glass.” They didn’t have glass in those days. Mirrors were polished metal. They would take a piece of metal, polish it, so they could use it for a mirror. Then James says, “For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks…”—It means to stoop down and bend over and look closely and intently—“…into the perfect law of liberty…”—a description for the Bible—“…and continues in it…”—not just a casual glance, but a habitual, continuous, deep look into God’s Word—“…and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

This is one of my favorite illustrations of the Bible: It’s a mirror. Aren’t mirrors brutal? Every time I look in a mirror, it doesn’t do me justice. By the way, the problem’s not the mirror. You say, “Man, I need a new mirror. Every time I look in that mirror, I am ugly. I need a new mirror.” Sorry; it’s not the mirror. Don’t you hate those mirrors that are well lit? Bright lights. You go, “Oh, man! Lord, have mercy on my soul!” I like to dim the lights and say, “Yeah, I’m lookin’ good!” Then someone flips the lights up and “Aah!”

That’s kind of like the Bible. When you look into it, it tells it like it is. It doesn’t lie. Like mirrors, the Bible doesn’t lie. It shows everything. When you open God’s Word, you see your sin and you see your attitudes and you see your problems in life that need to be corrected. God speaks to you through His Word.

But our problem is that we close it, put away the mirror and then we’ll forget what we saw. It’s like a man who looks in the mirror, he’s all messed up, he walks away and forgets what he just saw, the problems in his own life. That’s what it is to hear but not be obedient to God’s Word.

So we need to continue in the “perfect law of liberty,” verse 25, and if we do that—I love this—this man “will be blessed.” Not “might” be blessed, not “hope” to be blessed, but “will be blessed in what he does.”

It makes my heart ache, because I think it’s so important if we would just get it—just “hear,” “receive” and be obedient to God’s Word. As a father, that’s what I want for my kids. I want that for my grandkids. As a pastor, I want that for our congregation. I want you to be blessed. I want you to have joy, and I want God’s blessing on your life. And it will come as you hear and receive and obey God’s Word.

If you’re a young person, there’s nothing more important for you than to get wisdom in God’s Word and spend time in God’s book. The Bible says that if we “acknowledge God in all our ways, He will direct our paths.” So as a young person, as a middle-aged person, as an old person, you can’t get away from this book, the Word of God. Spend time meditating in it day and night, and you will be blessed.

Isn’t that what it says in Psalm 1? Don’t you love Psalm 1? The happy psalm? “Oh, how happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law does he meditate day and night.” Not “medicate.” A lot of people are medicating. No; we’re meditating. It means to “think over and over” on God’s Word. It’s not eastern meditation either, in which we empty our minds. It’s Bible meditation in which we fill our minds and our hearts, and our minds are renewed by the Word of God.

Then the psalmist says, “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper.” It’s a prescription for prosperity and blessing. Save his soul. It’s not talking about salvation or going to heaven. It’s saying that God will save your whole life, that you’ll have a blessed life, if you honor God by obeying His Word.

James puts it into shoe leather in closing, verses 26-27. “If anyone among you thinks he is religious…”—I would paraphrase that, and I think this is the conveyed meaning: “If any of you think you are a good Christian”—“…and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion…”—or “Christianity”—“…is useless” or “empty” or “vain.” “Pure and undefiled religion…”—or “Christianity”—“…before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

This how it all comes together: If we give God’s Word its rightful place—if we give it our attention, hearing it; our reception, receiving it; our application, doing it; it will affect our lives in three ways. Verse 26, your words will be under the control of the Holy Spirit. If you do not bridle your tongue, you are self-deceived. Don’t tell me you’re a Spirit-filled Christian when things come out of your mouth that are dishonoring to God. “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Whatever is in the heart will come out of the mouth. You can tell a Christian by their words—words that are gracious and kind and glorify God. Thoughtful and considerate. Holy unto the Lord. Your speech will change.

Secondly, your works or the way you live your life or your service will change. You’ll have wise words and a loving heart. Verse 27 says you’ll “visit orphans and widows in their trouble.” This is not restricting Christian activity just to orphans and widows, which, by the way, God takes the side of. God is concerned about orphans and widows, and if He is, so should we be concerned about them. What it’s basically saying is that we should have a caring heart. We should be reaching out and be loving and compassionate. This is the mark of a mature believer.

The third area that will be affected, verse 27, is your walk of separation or a holy life. “…and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” If you are a growing, maturing, vibrant Christian—you’re hearing God’s Word, you’re receiving God’s Word, you’re obeying God’s Word—it will affect your words, it will affect your work and it will affect your walk. You’ll won’t be living like the world. You’ll keep yourself unspotted.

Psalm 119:9 and 11 says, “How can a young man cleanse his way?” Here’s the answer: “By taking heed according to God’s Word.” Then the psalmist cries, “Your Word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” I love that.

John Bunyan wrote the famous spiritual allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress, from a Bedford prison. It is said that in the flyleaf of John Bunyan’s Bible, he wrote these words: “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.” How true. This book will keep you from sin, but sin can also keep you from this book. It works both ways.

As Christians, we’re to be men and women of The Book. And here it is in this passage: We’re to hear, we’re to receive and we’re to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. Amen.