Be Like a Sponge to the Word of God

Be Like a Sponge to the Word of God

1/8/18

One of the common questions that people have concerning the Bible is about its content and what it means to the people of the world and more specifically you’re (my) life.  These types of questions should be a snap for Christians to answer yet for many the questions being asked cannot be answered, thus proving to the unbeliever that the Word of God is not worth fighting for or dying for either.  It is continually being proven each day that just reading the Bible is not enough for reading it does not provide the knowledge to defend against the wiles of the Devil.  Only when we study the entire Word of God and absorb every word can we then live through its content as it was supposed to be lived, then God can use our lives for such the mission that Jesus commanded us to take.

What does a sponge do?  I mean, what is the job of a sponge?  First of all, do you know that sponges are actually alive when they are in their natural state?  I have to be honest and say that until I took a class in Zoology I had no idea that sponges were alive and that they are classified as an animal.  They have a circulatory system and have a specific function just like a sponge that you and I use inside our homes or when we wash our cars, the concepts are the same.  They absorb water and through this absorption process, they obtain the food and nutrients that they need to survive.  Also, when they are in our hands they are used to hold in water to help rinse something off or to provide a soapy surface so that the surface can be cleaned.  This also means that since they have all of these systems that are active, they filter nutrients and other needed particles through their circulatory system, so the next time you squeeze a sponge, you might want to thank it for allowing our hands to complete a job that would be difficult to complete if it was not present.

I have found it amusing at times when I watch a sponge “do its work”.  I can place the sponge into a bucket of water and let it sit in there for a few minutes and then pull it out and it will be so full of water that the water cannot be held any longer by the sponge and it just begins to pour out of the sponge.  I used to continue to do this dipping and pulling sequence over and over when I was a kid; then mom or dad would get on to me because I was playing more than I was working, oh to be back in those times again.  At that time I had no idea of what kind of concept I was creating for myself and that one day decades later that I would use that play time as an example of how we are supposed to study God’s word and how this soaking up actually would eternally feed people.  But are we supposed to rely on a bunch of parables and old stories about a people who lived so long ago?  Yes, for those people did live just like you and I do today and no matter what it takes to reach the lost it is our job to ensure that everyone around understands the importance of this truth.

When one stops and thinks about things that we come into contact with, they should represent a pattern of life that we can relate to in some way when applied.  Some people like to read fiction books while others stick to nonfiction categories.  Manual labor is a common thread in our society but without certain helping mechanisms that process can become almost impossible to complete thoroughly and satisfactorily.  Anyone who is reading this article can think of a helping agent in their line of work that they need in order to complete their duties, so in other words, these helping agents can also serve as a sponge in like manner for without its experience and expertise the human cannot adequately fulfill their commitment to others.

Any topic at hand can be used in such a manner and these helping sponges do not need to be just in the physical.  How many have heard someone speak at a conference or in an interview that said something that really meant a great deal to you?  I have attended lectures, conferences, demonstrations, and all sorts of informational meetings that I have either received a great deal of information that will help me, or they have hindered me by not providing the adequate information that suited my needs at that time.  Either way, the people giving these talks believed that once I sat down in their presence that the information they had for the participants would be helpful.  Even if I did not personally receive any helpful information it does not mean that the person sitting next to me didn’t either and it is this principle we must consider even when we are presenting the Word of God to others.  Here are no flops in sermons that God has given to ministers, musicians, or writers for each one of us has a certain mechanism that we understand while others do not, which serves as the foundation of this topic for when the entire subject is absorbed and then given out for a purpose something shall benefit and this case that information is needed for a person’s eternal placement.

I have run across many people who claim to be a Christian yet knows absolutely nothing about the Word of God and what it stands for in our lives.  I am not talking about those who have just accepted Jesus as the Lord and Savior but those people who have been born and raised in the church and have sat and listened to sermon after sermon and have not applied anything of what they have heard to those who are spiritually dying.  There are many examples that can be used as illustrations here but the best one comes to us in Matthew 25: 14-30 which many know as the Parable of the Talents.  I do not believe I have ever heard of this passage being used for such a topic, many times heard for other settings but not for soaking up the Word of God so that we may use its contents for others.  But stick with me for god has a great lesson for us to understand about how important it is that we do not hide His Word in our heart and do nothing with it or not to use it properly as He designed it to be used.

In the first portion of this parable, we find a man who is willing to share a portion of his wealth with a few others but had one condition and that was for the ones who he gave the money to for them to invest it and do not let the gift just lay idle.  We come to the first man who was given some money and we find that he understood his commission and was given five talents to invest to which he doubled his investment to ten talents.  The second man understanding his commission from the lender was given two talents in which he too doubled his money to four talents within the allotted time that the lender stated.  Lastly, the third man was given just one talent and knowing the commission that was before he changed course and hid the talents in the ground and did nothing to increase his lending.  When the allotted time was up, the third man dug up his single talent and gave to back to the lender without any increase.  Now, stop and ponder on this story for a bit, for it brings into great detail of how the Church is functioning today and has functioned for as long as many of us can remember.

Each one of us represents the Church and none of us represent ANY church building or even denomination for that matter.  For so long we have included ourselves and prioritized ourselves for a specific pew inside the comfortable space we call church and it is this action that places us as the person who was given a single talent for we have buried the truth of God’s Word into our hearts and have sat on it on the pews.  How can I say this?  Well, first off, I am not saying this God is and it hits us square in the chest because when we look at the church today we have become so concerned with not offending anyone by accepting people in their sins and then NOT doing anything thing about it.  We do not have the guts enough to get off of our seats and teach the truth to those that are lost and if they die today would face God in their sins with no blood covering at all.  Why?  Because we have intentionally buried God’s Word in our own hearts and not gone out and invested His Word into the world.  This is a gross distortion of what Jesus meant by going into the entire world and preaching the Gospel.  That is only absorbing the content and then letting it dry up within us, that is NOT what a sponge is to be used for.  In this example, the sponge has done only ½ its job and the portion of the job that it has done means absolutely nothing.

When we look into the portions of this parable that deal with the people who went and used their talents we see a complete picture here of a sponge being given the adequate information and then using it to ensure a reward afterward.  These two people did exactly what the lender wanted them to do, they took a risk and knowingly invested the money as they should have and their work was returned doubled.  It is this concept that the sponge should operate as well for if we place the sponge into a bucket of water and it soaks up the water it has been given the talents but cannot be useful until fully squeezed.  These two people had the full sponge and then grabbed it from the bucket and properly squeezed its contents out into the arena that was available to them and through their actions reaped a great reward.  The people literally shared the talents with others in order to obtain the invested rewards, a concept that should be practiced by EVERY person who considers themselves to be a Christian.

There is no question that the three men who were given money knew what to do with it for the person giving them the money told them exactly what to do with it.  But did all of them comply with the wishes of the lender?  When a bank gives out a loan it believes that the person or group being given the money shall do a fair amount of improvement to the project at hand for it would not make too much sense to hand out a great deal of money for it to sit in another bank and reap no tangible growth.  Many of us who sit in the pews of a church building and do not have the guts and faith enough to go out and shout at the world about Christ is doing the exact same process as the man who received a talent and buried it.  I find it quite intriguing that he buried the talent in the ground for all of us originally came from the ground.  We bury the truth about God and His Word in our hearts and keep it there when we perform such a vile act of sitting in the pews.

When asked about why the man with one talent did nothing with it, his response was priceless because it is the exact same excuse that we give when asked about why we are not out on the streets telling others about God and His Son Jesus.  Matthew 25:25 states: “ I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.”  Big whoop!!  Hello!! The lender already had this talent, it was his, to begin with and the Bible is the exact same talent setting for God already has His Word but He has given it to us to tell others about Him, the lost and dying, you know, the ones who shall spend eternity away from God are the potential investments!  God has given His Word to us to invest in others, not through sneaky deals or through spiritual Ponzi schemes in order to post gross earnings, but that is what we have done.  How can we deny this?  Look at the Church and what she is preaching today.  All three men who received talents understood their commission, the Bible tells us this yet not everyone who was given talents did what was asked of them.  It is our love for God and the witnessing to those who are lost that demonstrates our acceptance of being a sponge to the Word of God for when we have this burden for the lost we shall share God’s talents with those who are in need.  We will know who is seeking and who is truly searching for help and we will give His talents to them and we shall see the rewards that they bring.  Receiving in of God’s Word and then squeezing its contents out is what it means to be a sponge for God’s Word and how to use it as well.

Do you want to know why the lord in Matthew 25:26 said to this one man that he was a wicked servant?  If you do not understand why the lord said such harsh words then please read Matthew 25:25 again, and again, and again, and again, until you fully understand why the lord said it to this man.  Keeping God’s Word from people is a lie against the very nature and breath of God and it is a direct result of a Church who is weak and scared of what the world shall counter with.  More importantly, it defines the faith of those who call themselves Christians who sit and do nothing with what they have heard over their entire lives, they have none!  Look at what rewards that the two who invested their talents as they were told, for they were given a few but were rewarded with many things.  This is a Kingdom principle that we need to understand and follow for it defines our role in spreading the truth about God and what is at stake for those who need His Word in their lives.

In this parable, there was no questioning that the talents came from the lord who possessed the talents.  The money was his and he was doing what he wanted to be done with it as well.  God’s eternal truth operates in the same motion for God has given us the talents of God (eternal life) and it is our job to spread this truth to those who do not know this truth.  Our finite minds shall always come up with excuses not to witness to other and when these thoughts flash through our minds we should quickly recall this parable for at that very moment we have the Lord handing out His talents to us to invest, and this is the call for our hearts today.  It is this purpose for which we are called to do and from that point of others’ salvation then it is our responsibility to show them the entire Word of God which means discipleship.  Salvation alone shall grab a person into a church pew but it shall not lead them out into the world of the unsaved, for it took a person who was living in discipleship to know how to witness to that person in the first place.  A lead pastor should not be the person leading the congregation in the number of people coming to Christ that is supposed to be our job.

There is none more precious to God than a child that He created that chooses Him as their Savior.  As my life has unfolded in church, I have chosen to accept Christ as my Lord and Savior and as I have watched many others make that same decision over the past decades, most of the time I have heard the minister state that heaven was rejoicing because another person has come home and is now washed in the blood of the lamb.  That is not a simple phrase to be taken lightly for the battle for that person’s eternity just became real and intense.  The reason heaven rejoices at this time is because every being that is in heaven understands that God’s talents have just returned to the Lord and the rewards are eternally sound.  Are we investing God’s talents correctly?  God’s talents are present for everyone but it seems like everyone is not getting the message for some reason, do you have any reasons why this is not being completed?  We cannot get out the talents of God unless we recognize what information we have absorbed for so long and then squeeze the truth out so the children of God can be washed completely and thoroughly as a sponge is designed to do.  Soak up every single word of the Word of God and go with assurance into the world so that others can know the truth.

DLB