The Fruitful Word of God

Exeter Temple Bible notes:  Sunday 13th October 2013

Bible Reading  Isaiah 55:8-13

In Isaiah 55 the prophet deals with the fact that there is a huge contrast between human beings and God.                                                                             

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways.” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are above the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (v8-9)
1.            The Contrast
a)            He is more powerful
The promises of God are a way of referring to everything God has said.  According to the OED a promise is: an assurance that one will do something or that something will happen.  As human beings we only have limited authority to state something is so or can be so regardless of how much we might want it or plan it.  But this is not true of God.  He is all knowing, he is all powerful and he is everywhere.  As a result when God declares something is so or can be so, it is.                                                                                                                                                                                  “My word will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  (v11)
“The word of God is creative; every time God says something it happens. His word is his agency for action.”       (Carlton Williams)                                                                                                          

Every word God has ever spoken has significance. His words are always productive and they never stop working.                                                             

V 10  “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater so is my word that goes out from my mouth.”   
Nature illustrates the way in which God’s word operates.  It doesn’t disappear, it is conserved. As recycled rain is part of our ecosystem that cause plants to grow so the eternal word of God  it appears again and again to transform and bring life to hearts and minds.  This means that the words spoken by God in his word have relevance for every generation.
b)            He is more effective
Man’s world is filled with himself, his importance, his achievements, his advancements.
“When they measure themselves by themselves they are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10:12)
“The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.” (Isaiah 59:8)
There are 3 basic human needs

Significance                       Security                               Satisfaction

When those needs are not met we have no peace and our capacity to reach our full potential as human being is severely hampered.  We are designed for those needs to be fully met through our relationship with God.                                                                                                                                         “My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory.” (Philippians 4:19                                                                                                 

Without God people develop elaborate systems to try to ensure their needs are met another way.  When these don’t work they invent coping mechanisms to try and handle these emotions.  Some of those coping mechanism become addictive and are often very damaging. Man’s way is ineffective but God has promised to supply all our needs effectively.  What confuses us is that his way of doing that is very different to our way. When human beings both Jews and Greeks looked at the man who claimed to be the Saviour of the world, hanging on a Roman cross they could not believe that this could ever be part of God’s plan.  Paul commented, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. To human thinking the cross looks like failure but Paul ends the sentence, “but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. It seems like madness but it works.
c)            He is more loving
God does not just operate from a position of power but from a heart of grace.  God’s power always operates in harmony with his nature of love. We need to look back a little further into the passage to see this.

V6-8 “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.  Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways.                                                                                                  

Again there is contrast here.  God is a lot kinder than us. I read something really liberating this week in my daily devotions. “Far be it from our heavenly Father to demand impossibilities of his children. It is possible to please him in all things for he is not hard to please. He is neither a hard master nor an austere Lord……….. It is really much easier to please him than to please men.”  EM Bounds:
God never asks us to do anything for which he doesn’t supply the resources; people often expect other people to make “bricks without straw” God loves to freely pardon (v 7) human beings often want not only justice but retaliation. 
Psalm 36 describes the love of God. “Your love O Lord reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies, Your righteousness is like the mighty mountain, your justice like the great deep.”

 2.            The Choice

Isaiah does not just tell us this about God to make us feel inferior to him but to help us to see that God’s superior power, wisdom and character makes it imperative and desirable that we know him.  He urges us to “Seek the Lord while he may be found and to call on him while he is near.
We are free moral agents we can choose our own way or choose to receive his revealed word to govern our life and actions. And when that happens our living is transformed.
In his dealings with the church at Corinth, Paul was exasperated by the way the people there were jealous and quarrelled with one another.  He said this about them in  1 Corinthians 2:2 “ You are still worldly, for since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you are you not acting like mere men?”
What we need to remember here is that to live according to God’s word, that is living in harmony with his thoughts and his ways is to be raised up to another kind of living.  He seems to suggest that as big as the gap is between men and God, human beings do not have to settle for living as mere men. The Bible promises that the word of God becomes implanted in the very heart of man.

 In hope against all human hope

Self desperate, I believe
Thy quickening word shall raise me up
Thou shalt they Spirit give                                            (Charles Wesley)

 1 Thessalonians 2:13 “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.”

How is God’s word at work in us?  It is through the Holy Spirit.
I am persuaded that the mistake that thousands of people make is to imagine that Christianity is a natural thing, a natural life lived on a higher plane than the ordinary life.  This is not so. It is a divine life manifested in the energy of the Spirit.”  (HA Ironside) 
And so the powerful promises of God, the higher and more effective wisdom of God and the loving ways of God operate in our lives and the consequence is transformation and fruitfulness.  “And you shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace.”
 “God is saying, "That which has caused pain to you shall be turned into blessing; in its place shall grow up beauty and love." I have seen this happen in many lives. Some people have the thorn of cynicism and sarcasm growing in them, but let them be touched by the Word of God and soon the graceful fir of patience and understanding grows in its place. Some harbour the brier of malice and envy, but let them be touched with the Word, the rain and the snow from heaven, and there will grow up in its place the delicate myrtle of compassion and kindness.” (Ray Stedman)

The word of God is transformational. It does not always conform to human logic but when we trust it, we see God’s thoughts; God’s ways expressed in his words are true and right and bring fruitfulness.

God bless

Carol