TRUTH IN ITS MISSION. “It shall accomplish that which I please,” etc.
1. We may take our first illustration of this mission from the spirit and contents of the truth itself. It; is “the Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Nature is the Word of His power. The Bible is the Word of His mouth. That belongs to the few who have the key or can find it: this is in language vernacular to the race. These two records are equally true in what they teach; but their teaching is in different dialects. Nature is a system of material facts: the “Word is a revelation of supernatural thought. One is a manifestation of being: the other is a declaration of will. The one appeals to the senses and thence to the reason, making science: the other is a voice from within the veil, speaking to the consciousness of faith, creating a religion. Hence, while the teaching of the two records is equally Divine and true, their methods of teaching are essentially distinct. That something is at the back of all the complex and orderly working of nature, accounting for and actuating it, which itself is not nature, is patent to all who think. What that something is, is nowhere apparent. We see only phenomena. But “ the entrance of Thy Word giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple.” The one grand secret that has put the Bible down into the heart of man and made it the most precious, as it is the most potent, of his treasures, is this directness and power of its witness.
2. Then, there is the regeneration the truth is intended to effect. “It is the power of God unto salvation.” It “effectually worketh.” There is a method in this regenerating process. First of all, life is to be infused into dead souls. In the prospective history of humanity as that contemplates a state of future perfected being, we have a still further insight into this mission of truth. Paul, when affirming the scope of his own ministry, enunciates this thought: “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” The one type after which this perfection is to be constructed is “Christ Jesus.” There is this final result. “That we may present every man perfect in Christ”--man in his nationalities, in his generations, in his separate individualities, to the end of the ages, perfected by the truth. This is its mission.
II. THE OBSTRUCTIONS THE TRUTH HAS TO ENCOUNTER. “It shall not return void,” etc. On the magnitude of the conflict depends the greatness and glory of its victory. There are obstructions arising from the nature of the truth itself, and from the disposition of man.
1. Truth is a holy thing; it can fraternize only with what is kindred to its own spirit: man is not a holy being. Hence antagonism. “Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” In the natural world, there are ten thousand things which we cannot see with the naked eye: they can be reached only by an extra-natural sense. So it is in the kingdom of God. “They are spiritually discerned.”
2. Truth is dogmatic in its teaching. It speaks “as one having authority.” It has little consideration for the whims or passions of men. It postulates rather than argues its positions. Against this lofty dogmatism of inspired truth man lifts up his heel of proud contempt.
3. It was said by a distinguished sceptic of the eighteenth century, that if the solution of one of Euclid’s problems could be shown to war against the selfishness or the pride of the human heart, there would not be wanting men to contradict it. A startling concession, and yet a conceivable fact. Euclid’s problems do not touch our moral nature. They provoke no suspicion. It is otherwise with the truth. It reveals what we are shy of discovering. It affirms what we dislike to believe, and therefore wish to doubt. It asks what we are unwilling to yield. It puts in a plea for all rights which place themselves on the side of God; and so makes confession of our wrong-doing a first step in our becoming right with God.
III. UNDER THESE DIFFICULTIES, TRUTH HAS ITS ENCOURAGEMENTS. “As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven--so shall My Word be.” Here are grounds of confidence.
1. There is the relation truth sustains to a purpose.
2. There is the connection of truth with a suitable agency. And this directness of supernatural agency carries over the truth from its relation to a purpose into the efficiency of an act. When the telegraph sends its message through the air or under the sea, there is something more than electricity at work. There is a mind, a personal intelligence, from whose directive will that electricity gets its action. So in the efficiency of truth. It supposes a power not in the truth, not in man, but in God; a power which, however inscrutably to us, works after its own methods--going down to the conscience, and up to the intellect, conquering prejudice, and silencing doubt, and turning men “from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God.”
3. There is confidence in the end which this Word is to accomplish. “It shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” What is that thing? There is the promise of the Father: “Ask of Me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
This is already done in purpose, but not in effect. There is the advent of the Spirit. There is the glory of the Church. There is the millennium of man. There is the triumph of the Cross. God’s time-plan sweeps through our human centuries, making a day out of a thousand years, and a thousand years into a day.
4. There is the calm, dignified attitude of truth in view of opposition. “It shall not return unto Me void; it shall accomplish that which I please; it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Shall it? Then the Divine and the human plans are manifestly in collision. Men say it shall not prosper. “It shall prosper.” Then the fears of the timid and the calm determination of the Divine mind are not in harmony. “It shall accomplish that which I please.” Then the machinations of the adversary must be defeated. “It shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Then man universally shall receive and know and obey the truth; for to man singly, and to man as a race, “is the Word of this salvation sent.” (J. Burton.)
The efficiency of God’s Word
The rain and the snow are sapped into the earth, and then incorporated in the grain, resulting in seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Similarly, the published Word, being assimilated into the human mind, fashions thought, moulds character, regenerates life; and therefore it does not return void to its Author. And even though it should be humanly rejected, it still would not return void; individual hearing creates individual responsibility, and hence leaves no one in the same place. The horizon of hope being unbrightened, the reverse side of despair casts up sooner or later. The operations of the Word are partly visible and partly invisible. Finite creatures observe the former; it wants Omniscience to penetrate the latter. For this reason God only can determine what His Word is really doing. Let us then consider--
I. THE WORD IN ITS PECULIAR REVERSES. These are more apparent than real. The Word of God has sometimes carried His forces up to the heights of actual and visible victory; and at other times they have been allowed to fall back as if into shades of retreat, peradventure beneath bowers of sanctified calm. But retreat does not stand for surrender, though it may appear so to the unspiritual mind. Things are not necessarily what they seem; there are under-currents, silent influences, which demonstrate themselves, in some instances, only after a time. Denominations, associations, Churches, missions, and individual Christians have been known to get down to a low spiritual level; and yet, as if out of the ruins of a once flourishing past, great waves of revival have risen up and borne them into celestial altitudes, where they have gone on their way rejoicing.
II. THE WORD IN ITS ACTUAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS. “It shall accomplish that which I please.” We are here confronted with the Word under four divisions--Promise, Law, Prophecy, Gospel. The outstanding promise of the Abrahamic period that Christ should arise from the seed of Abraham became an accomplished fact when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The law, with its manifold observances, also saw its end and accomplishment in Christ. Prophecy, although it covers a wide range, has waited long enough to see itself come true for the most part; it shall wait a little longer, and then it will see itself worked out in full. Through this treble word--Promise, Law, Prophecy--God was pleased to accomplish what may be summed up as the prelude to a spiritual kingdom. Then there is the further word, the Gospel, which outlines the principles on which the spiritual kingdom is founded and worked. The Gospel is our charter; through it God accomplishes that which pleases Him even now--namely, the salvation of sinners. How far the Gospel has wrought towards the fulfilling of God’s saving purpose up to the present, no one can tell but Himself.
III. THE WORD IN ITS DISTINCTIVE AIM. “It shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” What is that thing? To bring mankind to a knowledge of His will. Whoever has felt the power of the Word within his own soul is himself an illustration of its efficacy. Also, whatever spiritual advancement accrues to believers through perusing the Word, in them likewise it may be said to prosper. But above all, when the mansions of glory are possessed, God may then point to that great multitude which no man can number, and say, “These are they that have come out of great tribulation.” They will be His witness that His Word had prospered in the thing whereto tie sent it. Considering the verse as a whole, it gives out an explicit promise. It contains a fourfold “shall.” What scope for the exercise of faith! (H. Edwards.)
Spring-time in nature and grace
I. DOWN COMING. “As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven.” Our spring begins with April showers alternating with rough winds. So it is spiritually; the down-coming of the Word of God is to our hearts like the falling of the rain from heaven. Concerning this clown-coming, I may say--
1. It is usually unpleasant. We are accustomed to speak of rainy weather, and especially of snowy weather, as “bad ‘“ weather. When we spiritually begin to live, it is usually rough weather, and we are apt to think it is bad weather. Drip, drip, drip, fall showers of repentance. Snowflake after snowflake falls, and buries all our hopes; our joys arc covered, as with a winding-sheet.
2. It differs very much in its method, for rain and snow do not always come down in the same way. Sometimes the rain falls very gently, we can hardly tell whether it is rain or not. Our Scotch friends would call it “a mist.” At another time, the rain, like Jehu the son of Nhnshi, drives furiously. So, there are some to whom God’s Word comes very softly. There are others to whom it comes very terribly.
3. It differs also in time and in quantity. One shower is quickly over, and another lasts all day and all night. The snow may in one season fall heavily for a few hours only; at another time, a week of snow may be experienced. So, the work of Divine grace, when it begins in the soul, is not very manifestly the same in different persons. Some of us were for years subject to the operations of God’s Spirit, and endured much pain and sorrow before we found peace in believing. Others find Christ in a few minutes, and leap out of darkness into light by a single spring.
4. It is always a blessing, and never a curse. If the rain should pour down very heavily, and continue to fall until we might be led to think that the very heavens would weep themselves away, yet, it never can produce a flood that would drown the world, for yonder in the heavens is the bow of the covenant. These rains must mean blessing. And if the snow should fall never so deep, yet not even by snow will God destroy the earth any more than by a flood. So, when God’s grace comes streaming into the heart, it may produce deep conviction, it may sweep away the refuges of lies, it may cover up and bury beneath its fall every carnal hope; but it cannot be a flood to destroy you. There shall yet come a change of weather for you, and your soul shall live.
II. THE ABIDING. “It returneth not thither, but watereth the earth.” So is it spiritually; when God’s grace falls from heaven, it comes to stay.
1. When God sends His grace from heaven, you may know it by this sign, that it soaks into your soul.
2. It fertilizes it, it makes the soul bring forth and bud. The metaphor of my text cannot set forth the whole truth, for this Word of God, which is the rain, is also the seed. What should we think of clouds that rained down the seeds? The Word of God is the incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth for ever; and whenever that seed is sown, God’s Word comes soaking into the soul, making the soul to live.
3. It works in the man whatsoever God pleases, all His Divine purpose. “It shall accomplish,’ etc.
III. THE RESULTS of the down-coming and the abiding. What happens?
1. It makes the earth to bring forth and bud. There is nothing more beautiful than the rosebud; it is more charming by far than the full-blown rose; and the buds of all manner of flowers have a singular charm about them. But when the grace of God has come into a young man’s heart, we very soon see his buds; he has gracious purposes, holy resolves, the beginnings of prayer; he has the makings of a man of God about him.
2. If you are what the Lord would have you to be, you will not long be content with buds. If you serve the Lord, and the Lord continues to visit you with showers of blessing, you will soon bring forth seed for the sower. You yourself will become useful to others; your experience, your knowledge, your service, will become the seed of good for other people.
3. Grace also makes us produce bread for the eater. If you consecrate yourselves to Christ, and come under the saturating influence of the Divine Word, you do not know how many lips you may feed, nor how many your word may convert to Christ.
4. The result of Divine grace upon the heart is very singular, so that I can hardly bring it under the metaphor of rain and snow, for it works a transformation. When rain falls on a plot of ground, if it is covered with weeds, it makes the weeds grow; but in the spiritual realm, the rain that comes down from heaven itself sows the ground with good seed. What is more singular, where it falls, it transforms the ground, and the plants that come under its influence change their nature. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree.” When the grace of God comes into the soul, it takes the obnoxious things in us, and transmutes them into blessings.
IV. THE REJOICING. The music of the year is full in spring-time.
1. In spring-time, one cause of happiness is new life. We have come into a new life; the Holy Ghost has breathed upon us.
2. Another source of joy in spring-time is to be found in our happy surroundings. It is beginning to be warm; we hope soon to be able to sit out of doors in the sunshine. And is it not so with us spiritually? We are no longer in bondage and fear. Reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ, we joy in God.
3. Spring-time is peculiarly pleasant because of its large promise. We are thinking of the hay harvest and of the fruit of the field. We are reckoning upon luscious grapes, and upon the various fruits which faith sees to be hidden within the blossoms. But may not our hopes be disappointed if we reckon upon earthly fruits? But you and I have come, by grace, into a land of hope most sure and steadfast. We have hopes grounded on God’s Word, and they shall never be disappointed.
4. In spring-time there always seems to me to be a peculiar sense of Divine power and Divine presence throughout all nature. It is as if Nature had swooned awhile, arid lay in her cold fit through the winter; but now she has been awakened, her Lord has looked her in the face, and charmed her back to life again. Some say that there is no God. We have had dealings with God, personal dealings with Him, as when the sun, though it be ninety-five millions of miles away, has commerce with the earth, and the bulbs that sleep beneath the black mould begin to swell and upheave, and by and by the yellow cup is held up to be filled with the light of the sun. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
God’s Word productive of good
A distributor gave a tract to a young man, accompanying it with some words expressive of a serious and affectionate desire for his salvation. The young man, upon the departure of the missionary, threw the pages into the fire; but as they curled up in the flame, his eye caught the words: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” As these words turned to ashes in the fire, they turned to firs in his mind. He found no rest, until he found it in the blood of atonement. This was an actual occurrence. (G. T. Shedd, D. D.)
