The Word of God is living, powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). We like the fact that His Word is living because that means it enhouses His divine life. It is also powerful! That sounds good, too. We like the idea of the Word being powerful against our enemies. Many Christians, though, do not realize that the Word will be powerful against them. They do not understand that their greatest enemy is their adamic flesh nature. Consequently, they often confuse the power of the Word as demonic activity against them. The Word is also sharper than any two-edged sword. Some feel that the Word (Bible) is their two-edged sword to wield against the kingdom of Satan. Not so! The Word is a two-edged sword in the hand of the Holy Spirit to divide between our soul and spirit, and when He begins hacking at your soul life as Samuel did Agag (I Samuel 15:33) it doesn’t feel good. While these workings of the Word are very often unpleasant, they are vitally necessary, for this is God’s way of establishing His Kingdom in us. The kingdom of self must give way to the Kingdom of God.
Ezekiel 2:1-2 And He said to
me, Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you.
2 Then the Spirit entered me
when He spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard Him who spoke to me.
“Stand on your feet, Ezekiel, and I will speak to you.” God had a job for Ezekiel. You notice that God didn’t just say, “Stand up, Ezekiel, I want to talk to you.” The “feet” are emphasized because they are the instruments used to carry out the instructions of the Lord. The feet are made for walking, which is what Ezekiel was going to do. So the Spirit entered Ezekiel and set him on his feet, and then he heard the Word of the Lord. If you really want to hear what God is speaking, stand up on your feet. Get prepared to walk in it before you know what He is going to say. That is true obedience! That is true submission to His Lordship! We are not going to wait to hear what God has to say before we decide whether we want to walk in it. We stand on our feet because we have predetermined to walk in whatever He says.
Ezekiel 2:3, 7 He said to me: Son
of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that
has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to
this very day.
7 You shall speak My words to them, whether they will hear or whether they
refuse, for they are rebellious.
God said, “Ezekiel, you shall speak My words to them.” The Lord emphasized “My words”. Ezekiel probably had some thoughts about the children of Israel himself. After all they were responsible for him being one of the captives in the land of Babylon. Nevertheless, he was not to speak his own words; only the words of the Lord. Man will sometimes speak condemnation when God is speaking mercy, and sometimes he will be sympathetic to what God wants to bring judgment. A ministry must be very sure he is speaking God’s words and not his own.
Ezekiel 2:8-10 But you, son
of man, hear what I say to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious
house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.
9 Now when I looked, there
was a hand stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it.
10 Then He spread it before
me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it
were lamentations and mourning and woe.
Open your mouth and eat what I give you. “Look! A scroll of a book – it’s the Word of God! I’m going to eat His Word.” Not so fast. Do you know what is in that Word? “It’s the Word of God. It is the Word that rejoices the heart and enlightens the eyes; it is sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:8,10). Look again. It is written inside and out with words of lamentation, mourning, and woe. When you eat those words you will experience lamentation, mourning, and woe. What you speak you must first experience or it won’t be the Word of God.
Are you willing to eat what the Lord wants to give you? Are you willing to eat the Word of divine life knowing that it will be a powerful two-edged sword dividing between your soul and spirit? “But, His Word of lamentation, mourning, and woe is for the rebellious.” That’s right. Have you considered the rebelliousness of your adamic nature? Ezekiel had to partake of the Word before he could speak it, and the same thing is true for us. Any rebellion in him had to be purged before he could speak the Word of God to the rebellious.
Ezekiel 3:1-4 Moreover He
said to me, Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to
the house of Israel.
2 So I opened my mouth, and
He caused me to eat that scroll.
3 And He said to me, Son of
man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.
So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.
4 Then He said to me: Son of
man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them.
Notice that God did not tell Ezekiel to memorize the scroll and repeat it to the house of Israel. He told him to feed his belly, to fill his stomach; that is, Ezekiel was to assimilate the Word – he was to become, so to speak, the Word made flesh.
Jeremiah 15:16 Your Words were found, and I ate them, and Your Word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.
Ezekiel ate the Word and it was sweet in his mouth like honey. Jeremiah ate the Word and it was to him the joy and rejoicing of his heart. Many people do not find the Word to be sweet or a joy and rejoicing of their heart. In fact, many Christians do not experience it that way either. Why is that so? It is because they haven’t learned to eat it, to assimilate it into their being. They relate to the Word with their mind instead of with their heart (spirit). If you like to memorize Scripture, then memorize it – but memorizing it doesn’t put it in your spirit. If you want to eat it, then you have to learn how to eat it with your spirit. Many Christians still haven’t learned how to serve God with their spirit (Romans 1:9).
Why did Jeremiah say, “For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts”? When you eat the Word, assimilate it into your being, you become that Word and that Word becomes you. By partaking of the Word oneness is created with God so that you are called by His name. It was that way with the disciples. Their oneness with Jesus Christ was apparent to others. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13. Their oneness with Christ was so evident that they began to be called by His name. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Acts 11:26.
Revelation 10:1-2, 8-11 I saw
still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. And a
rainbow was on His head, His face was like the sun, and His feet like pillars
of fire.
2 He had a little book open
in His hand. And He set His right foot on the sea and His left foot on the
land.
8 Then the voice which I
heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, Go, take the little book which is
open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.
9 So I went to the angel and
said to Him, Give me the little book. And He said to me, Take and eat it; and
it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your
mouth.
10 Then I took the little
book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my
mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter.
11 And He said to me, You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations,
tongues, and kings.
The Apostle John had to enter into a prophetic ministry. John, at this time, was an older man, and he had begun walking with the Lord Jesus at an early age. Had he not walked in a prophetic ministry for many years? Had he not already eaten the Word? Yes, that is true. But now he is to enter into a prophetic ministry of a higher realm. He is to prophesy before many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings. John had already walked in a ministry of establishing the Early Church. Now he is to enter the prophetic ministry of the coming of the Lord. Peter, seeing him (John), said to Jesus, But Lord, what about this man? Jesus said to him, If I will that he remain till I come (while I am coming), what is that to you? You follow me. John 21:21-22. For that reason it was necessary for John to eat the Word for another day. John ate the Word and it was sweet as honey in his mouth and bitter in his stomach. The Word is sweet as you partake of it, but there is bitterness in your inner being as it works its fulfillment in you.
Matthew 16:5-8, 11-12 Now when His disciples
had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.
6 Then Jesus said to them,
Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
7 And they reasoned among themselves,
saying, It is because we have taken no bread.
8 But Jesus, being aware of
it, said to them, O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves
because you have brought no bread?
11 How is it you do not
understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? – but to beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
12 Then they understood that
He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of
the Pharisees and Sadducees.
What you eat is what you become. If you partake of a living Word, then a living Word will proceed from you; that is, the Word becomes flesh. If you partake of the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees, you will become a Pharisee and a Sadducee. Now, why did Jesus tell His disciples to beware of their teachings? It was because they taught from the Scriptures. Surely teachings from the Scriptures would be good, wouldn’t they? Not necessarily! Listen to what Jesus said to the Pharisees. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. John 5:39-40.
It is not the Scriptures that gives life but the Word of God in the Scriptures. Do you understand? The Scriptures are information. The life, though, is hidden in the information. The Pharisees thought the information itself was the eternal life. They did not feed upon the life in them, so their teachings became leaven. It is like Paul said, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (II Corinthians 3:6).
Let me give you one more illustration. The channel that speaks the Word determines whether it is really the Word of God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Normally, we say that correct facts are the truth. Not so in the Scriptures. Truth is the Lord. What someone says may be a correct fact, but it is only the truth when the life of the Lord is in what is spoken. It is His life that makes it truth.
In John 8:44 Jesus said that the devil was the lie. Jesus is the truth and the devil is the lie. So, you see, the truth and the lie is not determined by whether the facts are correct or not. If the nature of the Lord is riding on the words spoken, it is the truth. If the nature of the devil is riding on the words, it is a lie, even if it is correct facts.
After Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The devil spoke Scriptures to Jesus. Were those Scriptures the Word of God? No! They were not, because coming out of the devil’s mouth his nature was in them. That is how many people are deceived. They accept Scripture as the Word of God regardless of who is speaking it.
The Pharisees only partook of the letter of the Word and the letter kills (II Corinthians 3:6). Therefore, the Scriptures they ministered to the people were corrupt; it was leaven. So, you see, Ezekiel ate what God gave him. He didn’t just eat the information; he partook of the divine life. Jeremiah found the Words of God and he ate them and they were the joy and rejoicing of his heart. The Pharisees, on the other hand, did not find the Words of God. They didn’t partake of the Christ in the Scriptures, and their teachings were leaven. There is a lot of leaven today that is portrayed as the Word of God, and too many Christians don’t know the difference. That is why John said that we must learn how to test the spirit of what is spoken (I John 4:1-3).
The Lord is saying to us, “Eat what I give you!” Be sure you are not eating the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Copyright © 2005 by Henry DuBose