If you would, please open up your Bibles to Hebrews 4, verse 12. Hebrews 4, verse 12. For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So as Mickey said, context is everything, right? A text out of context is a pretext for a train wreck, right? Hebrews chapter 4, 12, in the context, I believe the theme of the book of Hebrews is found right at the beginning in verse one, right? Long ago, at many times, or chapter one, verse one. Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. So the book of Hebrews unpacks the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the theme of the book of Hebrews, like the song we just sang, crown him, crown him. You can sing it over and over as many times as you need to and it would never be enough to say how worthy Jesus is of the crown, right? So the author of Hebrews is laboring to show forth the supremacy of Christ. He begins by demonstrating that Jesus is superior to the angels and greater than Moses. He carries on by demonstrating that Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant and that he possesses a superior priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. And by his sufferings, he is a sympathetic high priest who can deal gently with our weakness and our ignorance. All the while, he sprinkles in warnings against apostasy and unbelief. He uses the excellencies of Christ as set forth in the Scriptures as enticements to draw out the heart to faith in Christ and as encouragements to hold fast to that faith. And he also uses God's severity in dealing with unbelief and rebellion to ask the piercing question, how shall we escape if we neglect so great? a salvation. So the summary of the context, Jesus is God's penultimate revelation, the pinnacle of redemptive history, the chief end of God's dealings with mankind, and the goal of human history. He is our Sabbath rest from the impossible labor of dead works by which no man will be justified in his sight. It's in this context that we find the passage before us now, Hebrews 4.12. Now, a word about interpretation. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So how... I'm gonna pull a Bill Clinton, right? Bear with me. How you interpret this passage is going to depend on what your definition of the word word is. All right. Go ahead. Laugh. Right. All right. So John Owen and a great many other giants of the faith, the theologians like himself, interpret the word word here for the word of God as the incarnate word, the Lord Jesus Christ. But then on the other side of the coin, you have John Calvin, and he would put forth many great and convincing arguments that the word word here is the written word of God, the inspired scriptures that are laid down for us in these 66 books of the Bible. Now, whenever two great Presbyterians named John disagree, we look to the great Baptist Charles, Spurgeon, and he'll set us straight. So, Charles Spurgeon in his sermon on this verse says, it may be most accurate to interpret this passage as relating both to the Word of God incarnate and the Word of God inspired. Weave the two into one thought, for God hath joined them together, and you will then see fresh lights and new meanings in the text. The Word of God, namely this revelation of Himself in Holy Scripture, is all it is here described to be because Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, is in it. Right? The Word of God is all the things the author of Hebrews tells us it is because Jesus is in it. The Christian must understand that the whole purpose of all scripture is to set Christ before us. Right? So along with the people in Nehemiah, when we can say, give us the book, we can also say, sir, we would see Jesus. Right? This day, set Jesus before our eyes because that's what's going to help us. That's what we need above all things and the Word of God is all of these things because it has Christ in it. Whether implicitly in types and shadows or explicitly in messianic prophecies, the gospel and the epistles, all of scripture points to Jesus. So, the preceding verse urges us Let us therefore to strive or strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience, the disobedience of unbelief in the wilderness, right? Faithlessness, unbelief, and rebellion. The preceding verse urges us based on all the glories of Christ and the precious promises of God and his severity in dealing with unbelief and rebellion to strive to enter the rest offered us through faith in Christ. And then we're given further encouragements and warnings based on the characteristics of the word of God, both inspired and incarnate. Now I've got two minutes left. Let's get into the text. Living. The Word of God is living. The written word is a living word because it reveals to us a living Christ. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead carried men along as they penned these sacred scriptures. And that same spirit is the spirit of wisdom and revelation enlightening the eyes of our hearts that we may know what is the hope to which He has called you, and what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. And that same Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and He illuminates the Word of God to us and gives us understanding. The Word of God is a living Word because it contains a living Christ. Number two, it is active or effective and powerful. Because the living word contains the living Christ, it is an active and powerful word. The gospel, the word of God declaring the good news of Jesus Christ is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. And the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. I've got too many notes, and I'm trying to jump ahead. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. And faith is we're saved by grace through faith. And faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, right? It is sharper than any two-edged sword. I'm out of time, but I've got to finish. Sharper than any two-edged sword, the Lord Jesus, who so frequently perceived the thoughts of His opponents, and who knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in man is sharper than any two-edged sword. The written Word of God is no different. To quote Spurgeon again, the Word not only lets you see what your thoughts are, but it criticizes your thoughts. The Word of God says that this thought, it is vain, or this one, it is godly, right? And so the Word of God is such a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart that when men twist about and wind and wander, yet, it tracks them. The Lord Jesus, sharper than any two-edged sword. The Word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword. Now, I think it's important that we bend the rules a little bit. I'm already doing it, going over time. But I'm going to jump ahead one verse for the conclusion. And the Word of God, we're given this warning about the Word of God, right? Don't fail to enter the rest. Don't be an unbeliever. Don't rebel against God. For the Word of God is quick and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. And no creature, this is where I kind of tend to agree with Owen, the Word of God is quick and active and no creature is hidden from His sight. But all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. the one to whom we must give an account, you guessed it, the Lord Jesus, right? Again, he says, all judgment has been committed into my hands. He will either raise us up on the last day because we who were weary and heavy laden have come to him for rest, or he will order us to depart from him into everlasting darkness because he never knew us. So let us strive to enter that rest by faith in the Son of God and in His finished work, in His atoning death for the forgiveness of sins, and in His resurrection for our justification. For how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?