Home Pastors Articles for Pastors When God’s People Do Not Live in the Word, Bad Things Happen

When God’s People Do Not Live in the Word, Bad Things Happen

Job said, “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12). Our Lord said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3).

The image of taking in food and having it become part of your being is an apt metaphor for God’s children receiving the Word and assimilating it into our lives. Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Moses said it, Jesus quoted it, and no one has improved on that statement since.

Sadly, too few Christians are living that truth today.

The typical evangelical Christian—in this country especially—has numerous Bibles but rarely takes one down to read.

When we do not live in the Word the consequences are horrendous…

1) When God’s people are not living in the Word, their soul may be saved but their minds remain pagan.

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2).

The uninstructed Christian will approve that which God has forbidden, will teach what seems right to him and will put stumblingblocks in the path of the truly righteous.

2) When God’s people are ignorant of the Word, they become sitting ducks for cults and false prophets and nutty schemes.

“These (Bereans) were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11).

3) When God’s people do not know the Word, they go after everything that glitters, that claims to be biblical, even when it’s a corruption of the Word. They respond to gimmicks, glitter and goofballs.

Up the road a few miles from my house is a flashy preacher living in a multi-million-dollar mansion who preaches a prosperity gospel. And because so many of God’s people know so little about the Word, they fall all over themselves clamoring to crawl aboard his bandwagon.

4) When God’s people are starving spiritually, they turn all their focus on the pulpit and place unrealistic expectations upon the preacher.  They are almost invariably frustrated because the pastor is “not feeding us.”

No pastor can be everything to the people that God intends to be. “The Lord is my shepherd.”

5) When God’s people are not living in the Word, even when they do open it, they cannot find their way around in it. Its truths are mysteries, its riches are lost to them and its instructions go unheeded. They walk in darkness.