“No word from God shall be void of power.” Luke 1:37.
JESUS the Nazarene had been teaching for hours, and from His lips had fallen the words of the wonderful Sermon on the Mount. His teaching astonished the people; “for He taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” His word was with power and it reached hearts.
As He came down from the mountain, great throngs of eager people pressed around Him. To the company came one uninvited and unwelcome. Forgetting in his longing the imposed cry of the law as he approached his fellows, “Unclean, unclean,” he pressed to the presence of Jesus. The crowd divided as he approached, shrinking from the diseased leper with loathing. The disciples drew back from contact with this living death. Would the Teacher so treat him? This evidently was the thought in his mind as he came before the Master with the half-doubting, half-hoping cry: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” The great Teacher can, but will He stoop to notice such an object?—Aye, He will. The very plea touched the heart of divine love. The plea was for cleansing even more than cure. And Jesus, the Loving and Fearless, put forth His hand and touched him, and said: “I will; be thou clean,” and immediately the power of eternal life passed thru every fiber of his being, and he stood before the Master cleansed from sin, cleansed from the death of disease, cured from his malady. Matt. 8:1-3.
The potent word of Jesus Christ wrought the miracle. So let the sinner come with his deep-dyed, crimson and scarlet sin. There is power in the divine word to wash as white as snow.
Another incident: The travel-dusty Teacher nears the little city of Nain with His disciples on His mission of ministry and life-giving. They meet a throng filing mournfully on in the opposite direction toward the city of the dead. They bear on a bier a young man, the only son of a widow. The heart of Jesus was touched; to the widow He said, “Weep not.” He stopped the procession. The wailers spoke of the dead. Even the agonized mother did not expect that her words of mourning endearment could pierce the ear of the son, fast locked in death’s sleep. But a divinely penetrating voice speaks, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.” And the dead heard, and arose, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Luke 7:11-17. Even so can His word quicken the heart dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. 2:1-5.
He Sent His Word.
Once more, reader: Jesus and His disciples enter Capernaum. The news of His approach had gone before Him, and at the city’s very entrance a centurion meets the Master with the pitiful plea: “Lord, my servant lieth in the house sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. . . . I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. . . . And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And the servant was healed in that hour.” Matt. 8:5-13.
The power and worth of one’s word is measured by his ability and willingness to perform it. In man this is in all cases an uncertain quantity. Sickness, death, untruthfulness, dishonesty, opposition, are always factors to be reckoned with. Not so with God. All that He promises He has power to perform. In Him is life; His word is a living word. “For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Heb. 4:12, A.R.V.
“He sent His word and healed them,” is the record of God’s dealing with His people of old. Who is he that has labored for the salvation of souls that has not seen the very creative power of God pass over a troubled soul’s face by that soul’s reception of the promise, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. The burden of sin rolled away. The despair was changed to joy. The soul passed from the kingdom of darkness into “the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Like the cleansing of the leper, the giving life to the widow’s son, the healing of the centurion’s servant, the new heart and joy was in the creative, life-giving word. “Now ye are clean thru the word which I have spoken unto you.” John 15:3. Not the word of man, nor received as the word of man, will it or can it do the work; but the word of the living God, received as the word of God, “worketh effectually” in them that believe. 1 Thess. 2:13.
And God is eternal. His word has not lost its creative life. It is a standing testimony for the ages that “no word from God shall be void of power.” Luke 1:37, A.R.V. It is still filled with the potentiality of God.
Perverted, deleted, mutilated as it may be in “Christian” lands and “Christian” pulpits, the true missionary of Christ still finds that word effectual in the interior of idolatrous lands, among savage tribes, sodden with superstition. Head-hunters and cannibals, students and soul-thirsty heathen teachers, bow to its claims and acknowledge its power. The Gospel message is life among the dead and dying religions of the world.
Fellow servant of God, preach the word, preach on. It is God’s everlasting promise that it “shall not return void.” Even so shall souls be born of incorruptible seed,” thru the word of God which liveth and abideth. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth: but the word of the Lord abideth forever.” 1 Peter 1:23-25. — ABDIEL.
