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saints.” So, when we read the Bible we must ask the Lord to open
our eyes.

I would like to set this truth of revelation before your
heart by looking at Jesus as the Word of God. We know He is
the Living Word and we know this is the written word. We study
the written word to see the Living Word. Let me spend a few
minutes talking about the word. After we do that I want to take
you to Peter’s testimony just before he died. Peter looked back
over his thirty years of life and he said, “I remember this.” Let
me begin with Jesus as the word.

What is God communicating when He says, “The word?”
The prologue, the beginning, the introduction of John 1, “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” It begins
with verse 1 and ends in verse 18, “No man has seen God at any
time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father.
He has explained Him.”

Words are for communication. John 1:1 says that He is
the Word and John 1:18 says that God has explained Him. I want
to start very simply with what is a word? It’s a sound that has a
meaning and you can’t understand it apart from its context. I can
think a word in my mind but you won’t know what I’m thinking.
You might say, “I can tell by the look on your face; you are
surprised or you are angry or you are discouraged or you are sad
or you are happy or you are hungry.” But unless I speak a word,
you don’t know what I’m thinking. Sometimes one word is not
enough. Sometimes you need a sentence. Sometimes you need
a paragraph.

We have an expression, “In other words.” So, when
Lillian wants me to really know what she is saying, she will give
me her command and then she’ll say, “In other words,” and she’ll
restate the same command. Sometimes when the house is on fire
and someone says, “Jump!” you understand one word. If a
missile is flying toward your head and someone says, “Duck!”
you understand one word.