Is Bible Reading Dangerous?
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Read Hebrews 4:1-13
When reading your Bible, you may sometimes experience unspeakable joy and peace. The Word of God can be sweeter than honey; how precious the precepts of the Lord are! But the Bible also has a dangerous element, for it comes to us as a sharp two-edged sword. It is so sharp on both sides that it is able to pierce right down to the center of your and my existence, even to the depths of our thought processes.
The Lord knows everything—including our thoughts that are hidden from our friends and family. When you hear a sermon or read God’s Word, He knows exactly what your thoughts are. How painful it is when the Lord touches a putrefying wound in your life and your sinful desires ooze out of it. How grievous when the Lord lays His sword upon a bosom sin to which you are so attached!
Realize that Bible reading does not always provide comfort. In a similar way that your doctor must deal with an open wound in your body, the Lord also deals with sin in our lives. Although painful, it is for our own good! We can try to avoid God’s sword our entire lives, yet all things lie open and bare to Him to whom we have to give an account. The sword of the Spirit is a sword that brings true life by giving a deadly blow to sin and the old man within us. It is therefore all of grace when the reading of our Bibles cause us pain.
Thought: We are spiritually dead if Bible reading never causes us pain.
Psalter 244:3,4 (based on Psalm 90) In Thy wrath our spirits languish, Sinful ‘neath Thy searching eye; All our days are passed in anguish, In Thy wrath we pine and die. Three-score years and ten we tarry, Four-score years the strong may stay, Long the load of grief to carry, Till at last we fly away. Who can weigh Thy just displeasure, Who can fear Thee as he ought? Teach us now our days to measure, And to wisdom turn our thought. Lord, return, regard our sadness; With Thy servants now abide; Fill our days with joy and gladness, With Thy mercy satisfied.
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