About this sermon
As rain and snow water the earth and bring forth seed for the sower and bread for the eater, God’s word goes out from his mouth and accomplishes what he purposes; it never returns to him empty. The word often works slowly and beneath the surface. It brings the elect to conversion and growth, and it confirms the impenitent in the hardness they choose, as Paul calls the gospel a fragrance from life to life and from death to death. That confidence should make the church bold in evangelism when its witness seems to fall on deaf ears. Verses 12 and 13 picture the exiles’ joyful return and point beyond it to the new creation Christ secures, where cypress and myrtle replace thorn and briar as an everlasting sign for the Lord’s name.
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. consideration of various passages from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and this evening we consider Isaiah 55, verses 10 through 13. Isaiah 55, verses 10 through 15. You’ll find that beginning on page 731 in your pew Bibles. I’m gonna begin reading at verse eight to kind of remind us of the broader context here, but our focus will be on verses 10 through 15 of Isaiah chapter 55. This is the Word of God. Hear it with reverence and awe. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 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, 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.
For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth in singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle. And it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word. Our Lord and Father in Heaven, we thank you that you have given us a sure and certain word in the Holy Scriptures, for they are your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word, a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path.
We would ask, Heavenly Father, that You would grant us the grace to hear Your Word with faith so that we might, by Your grace, be doers of the Word and not hearers only. We pray that by the power of Your Spirit, You would also grant unto me, Your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth Your Word with clarity, with power, with the assistance of Your Spirit for the edification of Your people, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of your holy name. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is God’s Effective Word. And the young people can be listening for two key words tonight, the words word and deliverance. Well, dear friends, as many of you know, throughout the history of fallen humanity, God’s Word has been incessantly mocked, ridiculed, denied, attacked, and more subtly often reinterpreted to fit in with the worldly wisdom of unbelieving culture and unbelieving philosophy.
Of the many biblical doctrines that are routinely attacked by the forces of skepticism, unbelief, and compromise, a central target of skeptical attack is often doctrines connected to the Bible itself. Doctrines clustering around what the scriptures teach about itself. Doctrines such as the doctrines of the inspiration, the authority, and the inerrancy of Holy Scripture. Now friends, historically reformed and evangelical churches and theologians have often been at the forefront in courageously defending and upholding the Bible as God’s inspired, God-breathed, authoritative, inerrant word. By the grace of God and in his good providence, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, in her witness for Christ, has been part of this noble tradition of defending and upholding the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of Holy Scripture. Indeed, the OPC was founded due to the efforts of faithful churchmen, such as the late Dr.
J. Gresson Machin, to defend and uphold the supernatural redemptive Christianity revealed in the Bible, and to defend and uphold the authority of the Bible against the forces of theological liberalism and doctrinal indifferentism, both of which had spread their tentacles throughout the mainline churches, including the mainline Presbyterian Church. But while evangelical and Reformed churches have done a noble job in bearing witness to and maintaining the truths of the inspiration and authority of God’s Word, arguably one possible weakness among otherwise faithful churches today is a neglect to uphold the power and the efficacy of God’s Word. Do we really believe that this this book that we confess to be divinely inspired, breathed out by God, authoritative, divinely authoritative and inerrant, do we really believe that this Word is powerful to do that which God has sovereignly decreed for it to accomplish?
We in the OPC confess and uphold the truth that scripture as God’s word is indeed divinely inspired and inerrant. But do we also uphold and confess with equal clarity and equal firmness the efficacious power of God’s word to accomplish all that which our sovereign God decrees for it to accomplish? You see, friends, our passage for this Lord’s Day evening not only assumes the divine inspiration and authority of God’s Word as that Word is conveyed through prophets like the prophet Isaiah, our passage for this evening also forcefully declares and presents us with, in beautiful and poetic fashion, the truth that the word of the Lord through the prophets is God’s effective word. A word that serves as a messenger from the Lord, which is sent forth to actually accomplish his sovereign, holy purposes. As we read earlier in this evening’s service from Hebrews 4 verse 12, we are told in that passage, for the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit. of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
And of course, God’s written, revealed word is able to do that because it reveals Jesus, the divine Logos, the living word of God. And so, as we turn our attention to our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, we are first of all confronted here in this passage with a powerful Word. That’s the first point in your sermon outline as we consider the Scriptures as God’s powerful Word. Listen again to verses 10 and 11. Isaiah writes, 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, 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.” Again, Isaiah is using figurative language and he’s speaking in the language of observation, ordinary everyday observation.
He’s not speaking in the language of technical science, but what he is saying is true, that indeed the rain and the snow come down from heaven and they produce a harvest. Now, friends, as we seek to understand this passage in its context, we need to remember that through the Holy Spirit, the prophet Isaiah had predicted the Babylonian exile of the people as a divine judgment against them for their faithlessness and for their rebellion against the Lord. But in this latter section of Isaiah, the prophet he foresees in this section that started back in chapter 40 and goes through this chapter, he foresees in this section a time beyond the Babylonian exile. Ultimately, he prophetically foresees the Messianic age, the age that we now live in. In this chapter, the Spirit through Isaiah issues a gospel call for the people to come to the waters provided by the coming Messiah, and also to prepare for Messiah’s coming by seeking Yahweh their God, forsaking their idolatrous ways, and returning in faith to the Lord their God, to Yahweh their God.
As we considered a number of weeks ago, as we considered the opening verses of this chapter, we saw that those verses are a gospel call given in Old Covenant language as The Holy Spirit through Isaiah says in Isaiah 55 verse 1, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money, without price. It’s by grace. Jesus the Messiah through His Spirit in this passage invites sinners to faith in Himself, the One who is the living waters. And we also saw in verses 6 and 7 recently, we saw that the Lord calls the people to faith and repentance. As it says, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. And so the thrust of this entire chapter is a thrust of mercy and grace. This is a word of mercy. There have been plenty of examples of words of judgment coming from the Lord, but now we have a word of mercy. And this word of mercy to rebel sinners runs counter to the ways that we tend to think about justice and about mercy in our own fallible, fallen human wisdom. Perhaps that’s why the Lord reminds us that His ways and His thoughts are not like our ways or our thoughts, as we read in verses 8 and 9, where the Lord reminds us as His people, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. This context, my friends, underscores the truth that the Lord’s word referred to in verse 11, where the Lord says, my word that goes out from my mouth, this word is a gospel word. It is a word of grace and forgiveness, a word of restoration and ultimately new creation. And we see that in the language that he uses here. As it says in verse 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, and so forth. Think about the language that he uses here. He references rain and snow and seed to the sower.
In this verse and throughout this entire section, Isaiah employs illustrations and analogies from the created natural order, and he does so in order to illustrate spiritual truth, in order to illustrate, in this case, the power and the efficacy of God’s Word. The rain and snow that water the earth have an inherent power in them to bring forth a harvest from the earth. And in a similar manner, God’s word has been infused with an inherent power to accomplish God’s sovereign purposes. Whether we’re talking about his purposes of justice, judgment, and wrath on the one hand, or whether we’re talking about his purposes of grace, salvation, and mercy, as is the case in the context of our passage for this evening. As one commentator puts it, God has given an energy to his word, an energy of its own, as he has to rain and snow, and it will fulfill its purpose as they do theirs.
And of course, all of this, my friends, is by God’s sovereign design and ordination. So as he uses these very earthy illustrations to demonstrate, or to display rather, the power and efficacy of God’s word, he goes on to say in verse 11, as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and so forth, so shall my word be that goes out from what? That goes out from my mouth. And we know that God does not have a physical mouth. But the mouth is connected with speech. And if you speak something from your mouth, it comes from you, not from someone else. There’s no ventriloquism going on here. 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.
Imagine how this would have impacted Isaiah’s contemporaries. Now his contemporaries lived before the Babylonian exile, but they had been hearing all of these fearful oracles of judgment, and perhaps some of them who were faithful among the faithful remnant, perhaps they were trembling with fear and wondering, is the Lord abandoning us? Is he abandoning his sovereign purposes? Is he betraying his covenant? The answer is no. There is hope and there is salvation beyond the exile. But this would also be a very encouraging passage for the exiles themselves as they awaited deliverance and a return to the promised land. The Lord is telling them, my word is effective. My word that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty. And again, this is a word of restoration, a word of salvation, a word of grace.
But notice again the language. Isaiah says, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. You see, even though God communicated His Word through human instruments, such as the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New Testament, even though God communicates His Word through His prophets and apostles, ultimately His Word originates not from the human prophet or the human apostle, though they are used by Him to convey His Word. but ultimately the Word comes from God’s own mouth. We need to remember that as we read the Scriptures and we read the different portions of Scripture. We see that the human authors express God’s Word in different manners. They each have, you know, you read Mark, Mark has a different writing style than Luke and so forth, but these were holy men of God carried along by the Holy Spirit so that they wrote, though they wrote their words, they wrote ultimately from the mouth of the Lord.
They were carried along by the Spirit to write precisely what God wanted them to write. And so, though prophets like Isaiah communicated the divine word, the word that they spoke and wrote did not originate from them, but from the mouth of the Lord. Talk about a high view of scripture. Isaiah is saying, look, these are not my thoughts, my speculations, my ideas, no. Isaiah is, in essence, saying, what I’m writing, this comes from the mouth of the Lord. This is the Lord’s word. Ultimately, it is divine speech. And as divine speech, it carries with it divine power and divine efficacy. Just like God’s speech at the beginning of creation. You read Genesis chapter 1. How does God bring about his creation order? By speaking. God spoke and it came to be. Likewise, when it comes to salvation, God speaks His word of grace in Jesus Christ, and it comes to be in His time and in His way.
As God says in this verse, verse 11, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose. Friends, God’s word always accomplishes its intended purpose. But some might scratch their heads and say, wait a minute, Pastor. There’s many times when folks hear the Bible, they read the Bible, and it seems to make absolutely no impact upon them whatsoever. As our evangelist Isaiah was sharing with us this morning, in the case of unbelievers who love the praise of men more than the praise of God, the word goes in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t seem to make any noticeable difference in their lives. Well, again, it might appear in the short run that in certain cases, the Word of God fails to accomplish the divine purpose, especially if it doesn’t seem to bear immediate fruit.
But friends, here’s where the analogy of the rain and the snow is helpful. The rain and the snow that God sends to water the earth do not immediately suddenly produce a crop. It isn’t like it rains and all of a sudden, poof, There’s a field of corn or a field of grain. No, there’s a process that goes on. It’s ordained by God, but it takes place in due time. So gradually, mysteriously, and over time, as God waters the earth, The seed sprouts, and in due time, a well-watered field produces an abundant harvest, provided there are no hindrances to that harvest, like bad soil or pests that eat up the fruit, and so forth. Well, likewise, the message of the gospel often seems to fall upon deaf ears and appears to make no immediate impact. But sometimes the word of God is working beneath the surface in ways that you and I cannot detect.
In the case of God’s elect, the seed of God’s gospel word eventually does take root in the heart. And as that seed is watered by the word, over time, the spiritual fruit of effectual calling and conversion and sanctification eventually occur. And even in the case of the non-elect, who in their sin hardened their hearts and refused the gospel, even in their case, God’s gospel word still accomplishes God’s sovereign purposes. But in their case, it is a purpose of confirming the unrepentant sinner in his freely chosen sin, confirming the unrepentant in his hardness of heart, and thus ripening the reprobate wicked for the judgment. But either way, God’s Word does not return void, but it accomplishes His sovereign purpose. God’s Word never fails to accomplish that which He ordains for it to accomplish. This reminds me of what the Apostle Paul wrote about the gospel. in 2 Corinthians 2 verses 14 through 17.
And again, it’s a different context and Paul is dealing with some different issues, but he says this. If you turn to 2 Corinthians 2, let me just read verses 14 through 17. Paul talks about how the Lord leads us in triumph in Christ, and he talks about the gospel and the spread of the knowledge of the gospel. He says this, but thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are, we, we apostles, we who spread the word, we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. And he reflects upon this heavy calling and he says, who is sufficient for these things?
For we are not like so many peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.” Again, Paul clearly believed that the word of the gospel was a powerful efficacious word, even in the case because it spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ. Unto those who are being saved, it’s a knowledge of life unto life. Unto those who are perishing, it is a knowledge of death unto death. But it is still the knowledge, the aroma of Christ, and God’s purpose does go forward. Well, what are some of the lessons or takeaways that we can glean from verses 10 and 11? Well, friends, this passage not only reveals the power and efficacy of God’s Word, as I’ve repeatedly said thus far, but think about it, this passage also underscores the great wisdom of our God.
Our God is so wise in how He communicates to us, His creatures. Think about it. Water and snow, mountains and hills, trees and briars, the human agricultural activities of sowing and reaping. All of these things are features of the created order and of natural life. These are things that the ordinary person is familiar with, especially in the context of Isaiah’s contemporaries in their agricultural setting. They would have been very familiar with the sowing and the reaping, and they would have been very tuned in to the rhythms of nature in terms of rain and sunshine and so forth. How wise our God is in teaching us His truth by means of simple illustrations and analogies taken from the created order, from nature itself. This passage, and many like it, is a very earthy passage. And our God, not to be shocking or blasphemous, it’s not intended that way, but there’s a sense in which our God is a very earthy God.
He created not only the spiritual realm of angels, but He created the dirt. that gets under your fingernails. He is a God who is willing to get down to our level to communicate His truth to us, and He does so with great wisdom and great beauty as well. Passages like this one underscore the truth that God intends His Word to be understood not simply by highly trained theologians and academic scholars of the Bible. He intends for His Word to be understood by the ordinary, everyday believer. the one who understands these simple illustrations of rain and snow and sowing and reaping and sprouting and so forth. Praise God for that. Praise God that you can be a believer in Christ and be in a saved condition without having to be a Bible scholar. Now we praise God for the gifts that He raises up in His church for those who are gifted as theologians and Bible scholars.
We benefit from the fruits of their gifts and the fruits of their labors. But praise God that it is simple faith in Christ, childlike faith, that brings us into union with Christ. Indeed, it is union with Christ that brings us to that faith and enables us to believe, and even a child can be called into the kingdom. So again, this passage extols and reveals the wisdom as well as the kindness of our God and his great and gracious condescension to us. But again, We also learn from this passage that this truth, that God’s word is efficacious, this truth, beloved, should give the church boldness in its evangelism as well as encouragement when it seems like our testimony to the word isn’t making an impact. It is frustrating, isn’t it? You’ve had perhaps opportunities to share the gospel in gospel conversations with unbelieving family members or friends or co-workers, and so often you share the word and you can just see their eyes glaze over.
You can see they’re just checking out. They’re not with you anymore. It doesn’t make an impact. Well, again, It may be making more of an impact than you realize. The spirit works mysteriously and secretly in his timing according to his will. And this should give us great boldness. It should encourage us not to give up but to keep persevering as we bear faithful testimony to Christ and as we confess him before men. So let us be encouraged and let us be bold as a church in fulfilling our mission. But as we move on in this passage, not only do we see that the word of the Lord is a powerful word, we also read here, especially in verses 12 and 13, of desolation reversed and deliverance secured. Desolation reversed and deliverance secured. Verse 12, Isaiah writes, for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Again, clearly he is using poetic, figurative language.
Trees don’t have hands to clap and so forth. But the point of this illustration is that all of creation will be renewed. in the end. Now, what is the historical background that serves as the backdrop of what Isaiah is writing here? Well, very, very likely the historical background to this passage is the anticipated return of God’s people from their exile in Babylon back into the promised land. And certainly, in the case of the returning exiles, they shall go out in joy. There was great joy among many of them as they were able to return to the promised land. Such going out from Babylon would indeed fill hearts with joy. But the redemptive historical event of the people’s return from Babylonian exile and the joy that it would produce point forward, beloved, to an even greater deliverance and therefore an even greater joy.
Ultimately, friends, this points to the salvation that would be provided by the one who provides the living waters, the promised Messiah. Ultimately, this points to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the joy of eternal salvation that would be secured by the redeeming work of the promised Messiah. And then it goes on to say, in verse 13, Isaiah writes, instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Again, as we’ve seen in our study of Isaiah, Isaiah in numerous places had predicted desolations against God’s wayward, faithless people. Just to give you a few reminders of that, let’s turn back to Isaiah 5 and let me just read again. from the Song of the Vineyard, verses 5 through 7.
It’s been a while since we’ve been in that earlier section of Isaiah, but remember these words of judgment, this oracle of judgment that the Lord, through Isaiah, had delivered to his faithless people. It says, and now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured. I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste. It shall not be pruned or hoed, and briars and thorns shall grow up. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. Notice the references to briars and thorns, rain and no rain, and so forth. Verse 7, for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant planting.
And He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed, for righteousness, but behold, an outcry. And then skip ahead to chapter 32, verses 12 and 13. Isaiah 32, 12 and 13. where again, this is an oracle of judgment against God’s faithless people, addressing the complacent women in particular. Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briars. Yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city, for the palaces forsaken, The populous city deserted, the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks until the spirit is poured upon us from on high and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. You see, the spiritual desolation that occurred among God’s faithless people as they broke the covenant, wandered after the idols of the surrounding nations, and compromised their allegiance to the Lord.
That spiritual desolation is pictured as impacting the created order itself. And often in scripture, God’s judgment is pictured as a reversing of the original created order and a returning of creation itself to a state of primal chaos. Remember in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and it says, the Spirit of the Lord hovered over the waters. And he brought what? He brought order out of the original chaos. Well, oftentimes God’s judgment is pictured as God throwing the creation back into chaos. plunging creation itself into the chaos of his judgment. But here in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, the desolation wrought by God’s judgment will be replaced by the majesty, the beauty, and the order of the new creation. And this is pictured here by the replacement of worthless growths like the thorn and the briar with the cypress and the myrtle.
In the words of Dr. E.J. Young, the noble trees take the place of useless and offensive plants. God’s deliverance of his people through the Messiah will be the beginning of a new creation, a restoration of order after the chaos wrought by sin. And what will be the result of this glorious new creation, this glorious salvation that the Lord will accomplish through his promised Messiah? Well, it says, in verse 13, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. And of course, ultimately, that everlasting sign is the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We remember His cross work. We celebrate His gospel. Two thousand years later, we’re still talking about what Jesus did to save us from our sins. This is indeed the everlasting sign and the memorial of God’s gracious and great liberation and his restoration of order after the chaos of the Adamic fallen world.
So friends, just a couple of closing applications here. The scriptures indicate that we believers, we groan inwardly for the new creation to be consummated. We have the beginnings of the new creation in our hearts by the spirit for after all, the Bible says we are new creatures in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are already a new creation. You have already tasted the glories of the age to come and yet you still thirst for that to be consummated because the new creation has broken into this present age in principle at a spiritual level, but then we still see the effects of having to live in a fallen, sin-cursed world. But praise God that the consummated new creation has been secured by the saving work of Jesus the Messiah. And though we groan and suffer in this present age, we await the adoption as sons at the day of resurrection.
The Apostle Paul reflects upon this reality in that familiar passage in Romans, chapter 8. Let me just read Romans 8, verses 18 to 30. Paul reflecting upon his sufferings, and the Apostle Paul was very familiar with suffering for the Lord. He says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, He also glorified. Again, speaking of the entire salvation process, including future glorification, as if it’s already happened because it is so certain to happen. Do you, dear listener, have this inward groaning, this inward longing? Have you come to the living waters to the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation from sin? If you are finding yourself hungering and thirsting for righteousness, go to Jesus. And even if you’re not, call upon the Lord to have mercy upon your soul and give you that soul thirst for the Lord Jesus.
Come to him who was crucified for the forgiveness of our sins and raised from the dead for our justification so that all who believe in him might not perish but have everlasting life. Come to the waters of life. Come to Jesus. I began this sermon this evening talking about the importance of confessing and defending the inspiration and authority of the scriptures. And I hope that we will continue, by the grace of God, to do so. But friends, as we confess, uphold, and defend the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of God’s Word, let us also with equal vigor make it our aim to confess, uphold, and defend the efficacy and the power of God’s Word to accomplish all that which God ordains for it to accomplish. And in that confidence, let us live lives of confidence in the power of God’s Word.
Amen. Let’s pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we are thankful and we praise you, God, for the power of your Word and that it is indeed powerful not only to bring us salvation through the work of the Holy Spirit, but powerful to edify us and build us up in faith that we might grow in the knowledge and love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grant, O Lord, that your word of grace would indeed effect grace, salvation, and growth in all of our hearts and lives. Starting tonight and continuing through the rest of our lives. We pray these things in Jesus name and all of God’s people said Amen As we close our time of worship together, let’s rise and we’ll sing together Psalm 119 e teach me O Lord your way of truth 119 e
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