Go back to the New Testament to Hebrews 4:12. Remember, all of this is being expended in His creative effort to bring us into His family, in His image.
Brethren, this only happens in the lives of those that He has called. His Word is not having an impact on the world. It is because God is enforcing them in us.
They do not get it, because God, by His Spirit, has not tweaked their minds to enable them yet. Their time will come later, ...each in his own order, according to I Corinthians 15.
Now the words themselves, brethren, are not magic. They are nothing but symbols. The power lies in their use and the authority of the One whose words they are. He enforces what they symbolize in the hearts of those that He has called. But what if we do not trust them?
Suppose you were given word-for-word directions on how to build a hydrogen bomb, and with those words came all the tools and equipment necessary to accomplish the task. If you did not trust the directions enough to follow them, or if you did not use the tools or equipment, you could never unleash the power contained in those directions. The hydrogen bombs destroy, but God's directions are designed to emancipate us from the greatest of evil to the greatest of good, to emancipate us from poor relationships to the best that there can be. God supplies the directions and all of the tools and the equipment and the power needed to do the job. Our job is to trust and to yield.
The beautiful feet is actually a quotation from Isaiah 52:7, and it refers originally to those messengers who brought the exhilarating news to the Jews in Babylon that they were to be released in order to return to Jerusalem. But now you have read Nehemiah and Ezra. Not everybody accepted. In fact more people stayed in Babylon than went back to Jerusalem. Verse 17 is a summarizing statement. It means so therefore, or consequently.
Faith comes by hearing, but it is the hearing of the Word of God, the Word of Christ, the gospel. But as we are seeing all over the place, that faith only comes to those whose minds God has opened to receive it. Flesh and blood think that it is foolishness, except for what God has done.
I have a compilation here of quite a few commentators. But, before we get into that, this book was written to a church that was letting down in the calling they had been given. They were in danger of losing their salvation and the future that God had slated for them to have. And the apostle Paul (we think probably wrote this) was trying to warn them - to turn them around and to cause them to know that God could not be fooled by whatever little devious things they might be thinking of. God saw their hearts; and they would have to give an account of themselves for the way that they lived. Paul wanted them to fully understand it.
From the commentaries:
The design of this, and the following verses, is to show that we cannot escape complete examination by God. All insincerity, unbelief, hypocrisy, sin, laziness, wrong thoughts and attitudes will be detected by Him. And, since our hearts are completely open before Him, we should worship Him in Spirit and complete truth - never trying to fool Him, or to justify our wrongs before Him. The sense is that the truth of God is totally penetrating and searching; and that the real thoughts of the heart will be brought to light. If there is any insincerity and self-deception, there can be no hope of its escaping being detected.
The Word of God is fitted to detect hypocrisy and to lay open one's true feelings, so that there can be no escape for those who aren't correct before God. God's Word is designed to show a man (or a woman) what he (or she) is.
The apostle Paul found this out. You read about that in Romans 7. He kept the law perfectly, physically; and then, when he saw the intent of the law, he found that he was a dead man.
God's Word is sharper than any two-edged sword; and this literally means two-mouthed sword. It was to picture that all would be devoured before it. The idea being presented is that God's Word reaches the innermost reaches of our heart. It shows the deepest, most well hidden thoughts we have. It reveals our most subtle intents, and exposes our real character to God.
This rendering of the principle that is given there in I Samuel 16:7 is much more profound because it shows that there is absolutely no possibility - that it is absolutely vain to deceive ourselves - into thinking that we can somehow escape the notice of God. All insincerity, unbelief, and hypocrisy will be detected by Him.
On the more positive side, we are meant to understand that since are hearts are perfectly open before Him, that we should be sincere and make no attempt to deceive others, because that sin is in reality against Him. All sin is against Him because it is His law that is being violated and all of us are His creation. Everything belongs to Him.
Suppose some little girl had a little doll and you destroyed that doll. On one hand the sin is against the little girl because she lost a cherished item, something that was close to her. But even more so, the sin was against the little girl because the doll belonged to her. Though some damage is against the doll, the greater damage, the greater sin is against the one who owned it.
That is the way it is with us and our sins. People get caught in our sins, but the real sin is against God because He owns us, all of us, the whole creation.
Let us add another thought here. Do not lose your place here in Hebrew 4. We are just going to add something to it out of the Psalms. It is another thought that reinforces the thought that is there in Hebrews 4.
God has given us His word to evaluate ourselves with, to discern how, in what manner, when we need to put the guard up on our heart. The word thought appears in there. It appeared in Isaiah 55:8-9. It is defined as the process of using the mind actively and deliberately. Intent - the thoughts and intent - is the mind's aim or purpose in thought. A Protestant commentator by the name of Wuest says in his commentary in regard to thoughts and intents…he has translated it in a way that you might be able to relate to a little bit better: The mind's reflections and conceptions. Its reflections, meditations and conceptions.
Another way of putting it would be, the heart's meditations and ideas. The sense is this: This is where conduct and attitude begin, and it is right here that we either permit it to develop it or to stop it by analysis and evaluation, using the word of God as the standard. And so, if our conduct is going to be the right choice, this is where you stop it - in the heart.
