WORDS

Word, like arrows, carry weight that can change the way things are. But not all words carry the same weight. A president’s word has greater impact than the same word spoken by an obscure coal miner. Words spoken from God carry more weight than all the words of men combined. That is not to say that man’s words are not powerful. Human words can move masses, inflict pain, solve problems. But there are many words of men that flitter out into the vacuous air never again to return. They accomplish nothing. A drunkard’s slurred bluster in the middle of a dark alley is an example of useless sound waves that dissipate into the outer darkness. God speaks nothing vain. He speaks with perfect purpose and economy. He casts His words upon the waters and they must return after many days. When God speaks, creation listens, whether it wants to or not. The Good Book begins with God speaking and we know the result. And the creation that results has now become the greatest advertisement for the power of God’s words. The stars are constant megaphones that amplify His voice, as are the winds, the snowy showers, human relationships, chirping crickets and the billowy seas. Yet no words are more powerful than when God speaks directly from heaven. On the Damascus road God spoke without an interpreter to a fire-breathing zealot. His words caused a very stubborn man to fall flat on his face as if his legs had been instantly cut from beneath him. The outer glare of God’s words blinded him and terror filled his soul. All this because of God’s words. Hundreds of years prior God had spoken from the Temple to a godly prophet. The man not only listened with riveted intensity but was compelled to acknowledge that as the words pierced his soul he began to disintegrate internally. God rarely speaks to man this directly for obvious reasons. This fact makes it all the more shocking to find that one day God decided to no longer speak to man, but as a man. Whenever Jesus of Nazareth spoke, it was God speaking through divinely enfleshed lips. For the most part Jesus spoke words tempered by his own voluntary condescension. No wonder that few really understood that this was God speaking. Man expects God’s words to be terrible. Jesus’s words were not. Yet, in rare moments Jesus spoke with Damascus-like power. When the Jews attempted to arrest Jesus in the garden His simple words, “Whom do you seek?” knocked an entire Roman cohort back on its rear end. When God wishes to shed His protective wrapping of humility watch out. And this reminds us that God will not always speak to man through the muffled veil of a kinder and gentler Jesus. In this present age, however, God continues to speak through weak human flesh. Not merely through Jesus but through fallible men everywhere. And here is the mystery; even when God speaks through imperfect men, His words still bear unmitigated power. I dare not explain this mystery but I only assert that it is true based on the Bible itself and human experience. When a man of unclean lips speaks the word of God these words carry a weightiness that cannot be explained by science or acoustics. The Old Testament is full of examples of normal, everyday men and prophets speaking God’s words. And in each case they moved men and mountains, kings and nations. Peter, for example, spoke God’s words on the Day of Pentecost and three thousand unsuspecting men instantly bowed the knee to Jesus of Nazareth. In contrast, when mighty men try to move the world by their own words, their arrows lodge into a temporary target and do nothing more than alter human opinion. The great need of this hour, therefore, is that men would once again begin to speak God’s words. The world will perish in darkness unless God-speech comes flying down from heaven and passes through the lips of mere mortals. Our only hope as a race is to hear from God else we are forever ruined. Not only must the world be accosted by divine words, but there is a great need for these words to flow through the lips of godly men and women. Yes, divine words spoken by a rogue or an atheist may have impact simply because the words belong to God. But how much greater the impact if the vessel is clean. Water running through a rusty pipe may slake thirst, but how much more salutary is water that runs through a clean conduit. So the question really boils down to this: do we believe in the power of God’s words? And do we believe that for reasons unknown to us, God has chosen man to be the primary bearer of His words? Knowing these things are we willing to speak to our generation, not just any words, but God’s words? The hope of a degenerating creation is not to devise new policies of human wisdom to thwart the world’s inevitable demise. But to simply go back to the book and speak the very words that God has already given us, words that can change climates, nations and philosophies, yes, but more importantly words that can change human hearts that once hated everything good to those that love the Creator to whom their souls will invariably return.