The Power of the Word of God

Isa 55:10  "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, Isa 55:11  so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Rom 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The above passages are familiar to all of us but it is amazing how often we all need to be reminded not only of the power of the Word of God but because of this power we don’t need to interact with the world with their reason and logic.  Instead we can rely on speaking the Word to them whether they believe it or not.

I was recently reminded of this when I heard that the ProLife leaders in America who for the most part claim to be Christians also openly state that they refuse to use the Bible or religion as the basis for their arguments against abortion.  The thinking comes down to that since abortionists don’t believe in the truth of the Bible why argue from it because it won’t hold any weight with them.  It is no wonder this society doesn’t take Christianity seriously anymore.

I have to assume that a lot of this type of thinking comes from bad theology that doesn’t realize that God is sovereign and can overcome all resistance to his will and revelation.  But what should be strikingly obvious is that this approach to any issue of sinful behavior fails for at least a couple of reasons.

First of all it reduces the abortion issue and all sin to merely behavior modification.  It says that we don’t care if you repent before God and are saved and we don’t care why you quit sinning and we don’t care if God gets any glory in this or even whether he is involved in this at all; we just want you to change your behavior.  But any action not done for the glory of God is still sin.  It is tempting to say, “Well, who cares as long as they stop murdering babies”.  While that is a good thing, it basically says that God has no part in this, just stop for the babies’ sake but who cares how God fits into all of this.  I believe it is a flawed approach. Because of the second reason such argumentations fail.

The Bible is very clear that when dealing with sin and sinners the only reason we are to demand change is because it is all men’s duty to obey God and live for his glory.  Just because they refuse to acknowledge this doesn’t mean we are to argue from other world views other than the one God sets forth in his Word.  Let me give you three different examples from Scriptures that should prove this.

First of all the OT prophets.  They were sent to a people who did not want to hear God’s Word nor did they accept that they had a duty to obey it.  Because of this the prophets were laughed at, persecuted and killed but God told them to speak exactly what he said anyway and not change a word.  Can you image a prophet saying that because the people wouldn’t listen to the word from God that he would try to reason with them as to why it might be better to turn back to the Lord and quit all their sinning which included at times murdering children.  No, because the Lord wasn’t just interested in the people stopping their sinful actions but the whole point was to return to the Lord and start serving him from their hearts.  In fact he several times makes the point that he would not accept the good deeds they did because their hearts were far from him.  There is no hint that the prophets were to change their approach just because the people were offended and scorned the Word of God.

Secondly we have Paul and all the Apostles.  They didn’t go into a city, even pagan ones like Athens and start trying to get people to change their behavior.  When Paul went into Athens, he spoke to men in the epicenter of human reason, logic and wisdom that still influence the way the world thinks.  Yet he plainly told them that there was a God that had claims on them and it was their responsibility to know and serve him.  Act 17:30  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, Act 17:31  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."  Many laughed at him but he didn’t change the message.

Finally, we look at Jesus who is the supreme example to the Christian in how to serve God.  The Jewish leaders in his day wouldn’t listen to anything he said but he never changed tactics.  It wasn’t that the Jews weren’t living moral lives on the outside but that is never enough for God.  Jesus told them until they get right with the Lord nothing they did on the outside mattered.  This is why he called them “whitewashed tombs”, Mat_23:27  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.  The reason people sin is important to him.

The ultimate example was when Jesus was tempted by Satan.  If there was ever anyone who did not accept the authority of God’s Word it is Satan.  But the only way Jesus would deal with him was by quoting the Scriptures, not by trying to get him to quit doing evil things.  Even Satan only has one option which is to do right because God demands it; any other reason won’t do. 

Understand that I want abortion to be illegal as much as anyone.  But leave it the ProLife people who are lost to use human reasons to argue their case.  Christians are here to change people hearts through the gospel.  That in turn will change behavior.  In the days of the Prophets society was every bit as evil as it is today and the only thing God told his people to do was to lay the claims of their Creator on them that they might repent and believe. 

Christ commissioned the church to go into all the world and preach the gospel and teach them all that he commands us.  He didn’t say that when the world becomes so secular that it pretends that I don’t exists and doesn’t want to hear the gospel then go ahead and try to get them to just be good people by any line of reasoning that works.  God’s Word will do the job or it won’t get done.  Let me remind all of us of Paul’s words above, “The gospel is the power of God”, not clever arguments.  And Isaiah’s, “It will not return unto me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose”.  We aren’t living by faith if we don’t have confidence in the very thing we are to have faith in.