The Creative Word - The Living Word, Part 2

Sharon Knotts: Greetings friends and new listeners. I'm Sharon Notts, welcoming you to the Sound of Faith, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Today's message is part of an in-depth study entitled The Spoken Word Series, which includes teaching on the creative word of God, because everything that's created, visible and invisible, God spoke into being. Also, the living word, the revelation of the two-mouthed sword of the Spirit, which is the spoken word of God when we speak what God has quickened to our spirits. This teaching is the culmination of my own personal journey from a place of deep despair to an authorized and dynamized deputy of the spoken word of God. How can we think that this entire universe with its complexity, with its variety, with all of the laws that are perfect, that if if you circumvent them, we would have chaos. Just remove the law of gravity and see what happens.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And you think all of that was just accidental? Of course not. If we wouldn't believe that this watch was made by accident, we know it has a design, it has a purpose, it has a function. Somebody had to design it with a purpose and a function. And it's the same way when God created us. Most of us, the average person, has over 60 trillion cells in their body. And there was a time that scientists thought that the cell was the smallest thing, that that was it. But now they realized that within inside of one cell, there's a little factory in there. In one cell, there's a little factory in there, working and and whatever it's designed to do, it's if you could see it, if you could put on some super microscopic thing like Superman eyesight and look in there. You would see a little factory and you've got over 60 trillion of them.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So when you consider that, you know it cannot be accidental. No, it was framed by the word of God. That's why David said in Psalm 139, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." "And my substance was not hid from you when I was curiously wrought in the bowels of the earth." And you've heard me tell this before, I love the word curious, it's curious. To me, whenever I hear that word, now I automatically think of DNA. And you've seen pictures of DNA. Well, you've seen renditions of DNA. And it looks almost like a chord and it's twisted, but it's on the DNA are all the little chromosomes that determine how tall you're going to be, what color eyes you're going to have, and etc. All of that is in your DNA. Everything about you, whether you're going to be a male or a female, all of that is in your DNA.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And the word curious that used in Psalm 139, it also is used in the books of Moses where he described the Tabernacle and he described them creating the clothing for the high priest and described them making the veil for the temple. And they had to have people that were experts at embroidery. How many know embroidery is very beautiful? You don't see it much because people have forgotten how to embroider. Everything is printed on or stamped on or machines do it. But when you by hand make all those beautiful little flowers and delicate things in different colors. That's an art. And that's the same word that's used when God created us, when we were in our mother's womb. Amen. So we see that God framed the world, the universe and everything in it, on it, above it, around it. By the Rhema, the spoken word of God.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Now, Rhema is used in the New Testament. We'll get into that more next week. But it denotes the operative, all-powerful word of God spoken in a command. It's very, very important, saints, because it's not the written word. It's not the red word. It's not the meditated word. All of those have their place in your life. But it is the spoken word of God. Understand, God opened His mouth and He spoke.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And sound is never lost. That's why the sun, the moon, the planets, the earth remain exactly where they belong because God opened His mouth, He spoke them into being and then He told them where they were to stay. Amen. All right, let's look at a few verses in Psalms. Let's look at Psalm 33. There are a lot of verses, but for the sake of time, I'm only going to read a few of them.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: It would be a good thing for you to do on your own if you want to search further. Psalm 33, let's look at verses 6 through 9. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made." "And all the host of them, by the breath of His mouth." "He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap, and He layeth up the depth in storehouses." Are you getting a picture of this? Storehouses with water stored up in them. It's metaphorical, but it's also literal. "Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him." Why? Why should we stand in awe of this God? Verse 9, "For He spake, and it was done." "He commanded, and it stood fast." That's why I stand in awe of God. God doesn't have to do anything but open His mouth and speak.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And the heavens, and the stars, and the moon, and the planets, and everything comes into being. All He's got to do is speak His word. Amen. He gathers the water by His spoken word. He tells the water where they can go. And He says, "You go here and you go no further."
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: All He has to do is speak His word. When He commanded them, you know this earth is covered, over three-quarters of our earth is covered in water.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And hydrogen power is one of the greatest forces on this earth. How many know hydrogen power is is is very powerful? And yet, considering that three-quarters of the earth is covered with water and hydrogen power is one of the greatest forces on the earth, yet all the oceans stay where they're supposed to stay.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: All the oceans and the seas, they're not overflowing. They're exactly where God put them. Cause He said, "You can go this far and no further." And there are a lot of more verses about that, but I I won't go there. Let's turn over to Psalm 148 while we're in Psalms. 148, let's look at verses 1 through 8. "Praise ye the Lord, praise ye the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights." "Praise ye Him all His angels, and praise ye Him all His hosts." And when you see the word host in the Old Testament, it's referring to God's armies of angels. "Praise ye Him, sun and moon, praise Him all ye stars of light." "Praise ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens." "Let them praise the name of the Lord." Why? "For He commanded and they were created." "He hath also established them forever and ever, He hath made a decree which shall not pass." "Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps." "Fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind." What are all these things doing? Fulfilling His word. Wow. He decreed where every last thing is supposed to be. He put everything, and He's got storehouses of of fire, He's got storehouses of hail, He's got storehouses of snow and ice. And someone, I don't remember who, but someone made the comment that perhaps He's storing them up so that He'll have them ready for the great Tribulation.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Because if you know anything about the Tribulation, you know that these things are going to be poured out on the earth. Amen. So God's in charge of the winds, the storms, the snow, the ice. Now, sometimes we see that the enemy, Satan can get in the midst of these things and stir them up. We know that's true because we know what happened with Jesus and the disciples out on the boat. When the storm came. And what did Jesus do? He rebuked the wind. He rebuked the wind. He didn't rebuke, and when He rebuked the wind, then the waves calmed down. It was the wind that was making the waves act up. And it was the waves that was going to drown them because the wind got into it and called the water to start rising. So Jesus rebuked the wind and immediately the wind ceased, and of course, when that happened, then the waves calmed down and everything was okay. Now, He wouldn't rebuke His Father. He wouldn't rebuke God.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: In fact, what did the disciples say afterwards? They were more afraid of Him than they were the storm. They said, "What manner of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey His voice?"
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: "Who is this guy on this boat we've got?" Even the winds and the waves obey Him. That's why we stand in awe of our God. "Who is like our God?"
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: They had to obey Him. Why? He created them. And He has authority over them by means of creation. Satan is Satan is not a creator.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: He's a created being. He's an imitator.
Audience: Yes.
Sharon Knotts: He is an imitator. He tries to imitate everything that God does. He has a reasonable facsimile.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: But it's not the original, and all he can do is imitate, but he cannot create. We saw that when Moses went down to Egypt and poured out all those plagues, and at first all of the Egyptian magicians, they copied what Moses did, and they did it too.
Audience: Yes.
Sharon Knotts: They turned rods into snakes. Only thing is is Moses' snake ate up their snakes. And they began to, they turned the water into blood and all of that. But when you get to the plague and it says in and you read it, and the Egyptians, they did the same thing. But when you get to where the dust was turned into lice, you don't see where they copied that. Because that is life and they could not create life.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Everything else was things that they were able to do by the devil's power, that Satan gave them power to be able to do those things. And we know that in the Tribulation that the false prophet and there's going to be, you know, we have the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There's the unholy Trinity, which is Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet, and they're going to do signs and wonders that's going to deceive people into believing them. In fact, the false prophet's going to call fire down from heaven. And there's only one person who ever did that. Who was it? Elijah. And so we know that the devil has power and he can imitate, but he cannot create. And because he's a created being, he has no more power over us than we allow him to have.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Now, while we're at, let's in Hebrews, let's go back to Hebrews the first chapter. We read now that the heavens were framed by the word of God. The earth was framed by the word of God. Now, let's go to Hebrews 1:3. You were in 11:3, now we're in 1:3. Speaking again of Jesus, the word of God. "Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power." And right now He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. The word in Greek is "phero," which means to sustain, to bear up, to hold up. So he not only framed everything by the word of His power, but now He's holding it up. How many remember when you were in school when you had to study Greek mythology, the legend of Atlas? How many remember Atlas?
Audience: Yes.
Sharon Knotts: How many don't remember Atlas? Well, some of you are not even here today. Your body is here, but that's it. Well, let me help you out a little bit. Atlas was the guy who walked around carrying the whole world, the globe on his the back of his shoulders. Does that ring a faint bell somewhere?
Audience: Yes.
Sharon Knotts: Okay, that's a legend and that's a myth. But it is in a way, it's a caricature of what I'm trying to say to you, that the word of God is literally holding up everything.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Not only creating it, but holding up everything, seen and unseen. We cannot see gravity. Can you see gravity?
Audience: No.
Sharon Knotts: It's here, it's here, I know it's here because my feet are still on terra firma. Gravity is here, folks. The moment that gravity leaves, I'll be up there.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And your hair will be out to about here. So we know that the law of gravity exists. If you're hard-headed and you got to learn the hard way, go climb up on the roof and jump off and find out it works.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And when you jump off, you're going to find out that gravity is going to pull you right back down to the earth. You can't go out there and fly like Superman. So little children, don't ever think that you're going to do what Spider-Man does or Superman does or the other guys do, because in the real world, there's the law of gravity.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And the moment you jump off of something, I don't care if it's your daddy's chair in the in the den or or the couch or the kitchen table, when you jump off, gravity is going to make you go splat.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So don't do it.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So we know that the law of gravity exists, but when we were kids, we couldn't figure it out. Did you ever try to figure out why those people down there in Australia are not falling off? I understand we're up here, but they're down there. They should be, they're upside down. Why aren't they falling off? Because of the law of gravity. So when God spoke, I said all that to say this to you, you can't see gravity, but you know that it's existing.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: God's word, you don't see it, but you see the effects of it, because He spoke these things into creation and He told them, "Stay where I put you, do what I tell you to do." And they're listening.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And they're obeying. And all these millions of years later, or thousands of years, or however many years it is, they're still being upheld by the original word that God spoke when He created them.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Isn't that amazing? All right, now, I know I work backwards, but sometimes it's better to work backwards because then you better understand. So let's go to Genesis 1. Some of you are thinking, "I don't know why you didn't start there to begin with." Well, I wanted you to see who the word of God was. I wanted you to see that how it all occurred. So now when we go back and read Genesis 1, we're really going to understand it a lot better. Amen. So Genesis 1, we'll just read the first few verses. 1 through 3 for now. Genesis 1. "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,"
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Now, the book of Genesis was written in the Hebrew language. And it's much, much stronger in Hebrew than it is in English. First of all, in Hebrew, there is no let.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: God did not say, "Let there be light." When you use the word let, you're implying that you need assistance.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Let somebody come and light a candle for me. Let someone push the light switch over there. God did not say, "Let there be light." It's not in the Hebrew language. In the Hebrew language, it simply says, it actually says, "Light be."
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: "Light be." And there was light. Because the power to create is in the word of God. His words are alive, His words are active, His words are creative. He speaks, He commands, He says, and it literally occurs instantaneously because He's the word of God.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So, in the Hebrew, it actually says, "Light be." Because in His voice, once He opens His mouth and speaks, creation occurs. Now, let me tell you the Hebrew, and I know you think, well, I I'll forget it, and I won't remember it, don't worry if you forget it. But I want you to see something, and the only way you can see it is if I quote the Hebrew to you. And it's very simple. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Here it is. "Yahi Or va Yahi Or." "Yahi Or va Yahi Or." The word Or is light. Let there be light. And you know, light travels at 186,000 miles a second. When God said, "Let there be light," I mean, I know He spoke Hebrew, so He said, "Yahi Or." When He got that last sound, "Or," it was. That quick light appeared.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Now, something I want you to understand is that God not only spoke His word and it created, but there's another element to it. First, I want to ask you a question. In the Old Testament, what is the name of God?
Audience: Jehovah.
Sharon Knotts: Louder, so we can hear you.
Audience: Jehovah.
Sharon Knotts: All right. In the Old Testament, we read in our English Bible, we read Jehovah. How many read Jehovah?
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And that's the English translation. But in the Hebrew, the J is a Y sound. A Y sound. And so it's actually spelled in the Hebrew YHVH. Four letters, YHVH. Why does it only have four letters? Because the ancient Hebrew language, they did not supply the vowels when they wrote it. Of course you supplied the vowels when you speak it. Try speaking something without vowel sounds. Okay, I'll give you one. Let me hear Hallelujah, but take out all the vowels.
Audience: (Unintelligible)
Sharon Knotts: Anybody want to try it?
Audience: (Unintelligible)
Audience: (Laughter)
Sharon Knotts: Because Hallelujah is Hebrew. You all do know that, don't you? What does it mean? Halal means praise, and Yah is the short name of Jehovah. It's the shortened form of Jehovah. Praise God is what Hallelujah means. Amen. So say it all the time. Say it on your job, say it at the store, say it all the time. Just keep, because most people won't get offended by Hallelujah. They think it's like saying awesome. Cool. But you're saying, "Praise God."
Audience: Hallelujah!
Sharon Knotts: Slip it in every chance you can. The devil knows what you're saying.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: You see people on television, something good happens and they say, "Hallelujah!" Nobody gets offended. Nobody says, "Don't you say that. That offends me," because they they just use it as an expression of something that's radical or good or cool or whatever. But we're saying, "Praise God." So, the vowel sounds are only spoken, but not written. Okay? So here's the thing about it. When he said, "Yahi Or," "Yahi." If you want to take the name of Jehovah and you want to shorten it, you don't want to write Jehovah all the time. Sometimes, and this is an example, in Psalm 68:4, it's shortened to Yah, J A H. They didn't write Jehovah, they just wrote capital J A H, shortened form of Jehovah. You can even shorten the name of God down to one letter. Just one letter. If you really want to just abbreviate, you just take the letter Yud, which is Y. And if it's in the context, and you're writing about God, and you just keep putting Y, Y, the reader who knows Hebrew knows you're talking about God.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So when God said, "Yahi Or," He put His own name in His word.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So He actually inserted His name when He said, "Yahi Or." He not only created by the sound of His voice, but He put in His own name. And what does Jehovah mean? It means the God who is, and was, and shall be. Because God doesn't have a beginning, He doesn't have an ending. When Moses said, "God, what am I going to tell the people when they ask me who sent you? What can I tell them?" He said, "You tell them, 'I am that I am.'"
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So when God said, "Yahi Or," He actually inserted His own name in His word.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And next week you're going to find out what happens when you insert the name of Jesus and you speak God's word.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And if you read in Genesis, you will read like eight times, it says, "And God said, and God said, and God said, Let there be. God said, let this happen. God said, let that occur." And everything happened as soon as God spoke it.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Now, Hebrew is called Lashon Hakodesh, which means the holy tongue. It's the language of creation. There is no other language on the earth that is spoken like the language of Hebrew. Hebrew is a living word.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: There is no reason why we should doubt that when God created the heavens and the earth that He spoke in Hebrew. There's no reason we should doubt that. Moses wrote down what God told him to write. How many know he went up on the mountain twice for 40 days? He wrote the first five books of our Bible. He got it straight from the mouth of God. In fact, the Bible says, "Lip to lip." Moses and God were lip to lip. I don't know if that means God downloaded, "Come here, Moses, let me give you a kiss, brother," and He just downloaded into his brain. I don't know, but he got a lot of information to write those first five books.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: So there's no reason for us not to believe that it was spoken, God created using the Hebrew language. Now, I am going to digress here for a moment. I hope I don't get in over my head because but it's so interesting, I want to just give you a little bit of it. There is something in science called cymatics, C Y M A T I C S, cymatics. It comes from the Greek word "cima," which means wave. Wave. Not like high, but waves. Like sound waves. How many know that we are surrounded by sound waves right now? Because if we weren't, you would be not be able to hear what I'm saying. Can you see the waves coming out of my mouth? Can you see them? I can't see them. Hello. I can't see anything. But they're coming out.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: And so this is the study of how vibrations can generate patterns and shapes and moving processes. And I'm going to go back and see where we said in Genesis, and it said in the earth was without form and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep. This is a picture of chaos. Do you understand? Darkness, black thick darkness. There's nothing yet, there's no light. God hasn't said, "Let there be light." It's just dark. And there's also water, lots and lots and lots and lots of water. But it's a chaotic situation. But the Spirit of God moved. Moved on the waters. Now, what does that tell us? The Hebrew word for "moved," that word means to quake, to move, to flutter, it's not that very far removed from the idea of vibration. So what happened when the Spirit of God began to speak and to vibrate? Here's where cymatics comes in. Now, I tell you what, you can actually go online and you can probably Google this or YouTube this, and you will find, you may have already seen it. Have you seen where they have maybe a table of sand and then they begin to play music? And while you're watching, while the music is playing, it'll create a circle, then another pattern, and change another pattern. Can even change colors if they have color involved. How many have an idea what I'm talking about? Or you may have seen it on a screen, where they'll put it on a screen so you can see it, but it starts with vibrations. We're not talking about electronic here now. Tom is sitting in there and he's he's watching on his little box as I'm speaking, there's something doing this on his box. It's not nothing showing on his box at that moment because I wasn't speaking. But as soon as I start speaking, it'll go like this, and if I get up here like this, it'll go way up here like this. That's all digital, that's all electronic. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about vibrations causing sand that's sitting on a a flat plate, like a flat plate of metal, like an iron plate. Sand sitting on that, and vibrations making the sand begin to move. Now I'm not just talk about, here's a clump over here and here's a clump over there and okay, so it moved, it vibrated and it moved. I can do that. But begin to turn into patterns. Geometric patterns. And they change with the frequency of and the amplitude of the sound. Back in 1787, there was a man who actually laid the foundation for acoustics, and how many knows acoustics is the science of sound. And he found a way that he could make sound waves visible. Not that you can see them floating through the air, but again, it's like the effects. How many have you ever seen wind? But you've seen the effects of wind. When the trees start bowing, you know the wind is blowing, but you can't see the wind, but you see the effects of wind. And that's what he did. And so he had this plate, and he put sand on it. Then he took a violin bow, a bow of a violin, and perpendicularly, he put it on there. And I don't know what he did if he plucked it or whatever, but as he made these sounds, the sand began to form geometric patterns. Now, let's fast forward over 100 years later, in 1967, a Swiss doctor, Hans Jenny, he wrote a book about cymatics. God got onto this and he did some experiments. He actually built his own apparatus called a tonoscope. He constructed it in such a way so that the sand, I should say, would respond to the human voice. Somehow or another, you had an arm on it, and you can see this online too. You can see actual old footage of him doing this. And so he had this apparatus made in such a way that when they would speak certain things, again, the arm would cause vibrations and that would cause the sand to move, but he tried it speaking in different languages. And he decided to have someone speak in ancient Hebrew. And when they spoke in ancient Hebrew, this tonoscope began to draw in the sand the vowel sounds of the words that were being spoken. Now, I don't know what's more marvelous, the fact that this thing wrote the vowel sounds, that could write anything for that matter, but that it wrote the vowel sounds knowing that in ancient written Hebrew, they don't write the vowel sounds. But yet this tonoscope began creating in the sand the vowel sounds. He tested many languages, and it only occurred when they spoke the ancient Hebrew. So this is significant.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Not only because it's marvelous that he was able to come up with an apparatus that let you see the activity of sound waves.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: But it shows you that Hebrew is a living language.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: Now we can understand that when God spoke, why it occurred and why it happened.
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: It is a living language. Therefore, when God spoke His word, and when He added His name in,
Audience: Amen.
Sharon Knotts: We find out that instantaneously it came into being.
Sharon Knotts: Amen. I really hope you're being blessed and spiritually enlightened by this teaching, The Spoken Word Series. This revelation was forged in my spirit during a time of prolonged suffering in my body, which triggered emotional and mental anguish. I had always had a strong spirit of faith, but after being homebound and bedridden, I despaired. And in my distress, I begged God for a word to hold onto. And He gave me John 15:7, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you will and it shall be done." Honestly, I was disappointed. I wanted something more dramatic. But then I began to get this revelation of God's spoken word, and gradually as I put it into practice, I overcame the attacks of the adversary. The foundation is the creative word, the word of God literally spoke everything into existence. He framed the worlds and He upholds all things by the word of His power. The revelation is the authority that Jesus, the Word of God made flesh and dwelt amongst us, had Himself and gave to us to speak the word as a sharp, two-edged sword against the enemy. The literal Greek says, two-mouthed sword. One mouth is God's and the second is mine or yours. When we speak forth the word that God quickens to our spirits, this creates the one weapon against which Satan has no defense. Rhema is not a magical formula. It is the active living word of God, a word from the Word that comes out of our mouth. The application is the illumination of Jesus' own ministry, by which He demonstrated faith in His own spoken word and its unlimited authority over time and distance when He sent His word and He healed them. Friends, I urge you to order The Spoken Word Series. The complete set is a 3D set, offer SK136. That's SK136. Please send a minimum love gift of $15 to The Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, or order online at soundof faith.org, where you may also order an MP3. But to order The Spoken Word Series by mail, send your minimum love gift of $15 to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Request offer SK136. Till next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, "Maranatha!"