Word of God Purposeful
by G. Campbell Morgan
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth, and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it
-- Isaiah 55:10-11.The Word of God is the bread of life to the servant of God. "By it his own is sustained both in health and strength," and "he is enabled for service for which he is created and to which he is called." G. C. Morgan tells us the rich symbolism in Isaiah 55:10-11 teaches us the Word of God is purposeful, powerful, and prosperous.
By the Word of God I mean all the phrase can possibly mean; the written Which reveals the Living, the Living Which seals the written; the written Which is still ours, the Living Which lies behind it and speaks through it in power in the sons of men.
. . . . "For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, . . ." The Word of God is a message from God to man which no man was able to find out for himself. It is never a philosophy formulated by human wisdom; it is always a revelation made, a something declared that man could not by searching find out. The supreme quality of the Word of God is that however men may occupy their time in discussing the methods by which we have come into possession of these documents, there is stamped upon every page of them the sign manual of Jehovah. They are great unveilings of His nature, great revelations of the deepest secrets of human life, great illumination of the problems that confront men by Divine revelation. The Word of God is the gift of God and not the contrivance of man.
. . . . The Word of God has been given to men in figure and symbol, in prophecy and song, and at last in the Person of Jesus. . . . The Word was incarnate in Christ supremely. . . .
The Word of God is purposeful. . . The Word of God is not given to be possessed; it is given that it may possess. The truth of God is not given that men may hold it. . . . The truth must hold the man, wrap him around, change the very fiber of his being, permeate his complete life, and unless the Word of God is doing that for me it is failing in the first intention that God has for it. Not for our good only does it come. It is seed as well as bread. Unless we come to receive the Word as the earth takes the sun and the rain, then I am not sure that we had better not absent ourselves from every occasion when the Word is opened. If I come with notebook to write down all I can learn about the Word of God in order that I may know it, then I am absolutely failing. But if I come to strip from my soul all that the things that hide me that the Word of God may search me, if I have come to lay my life out in the light of the Word that the Word may correct it, then I shall find the Word in me is fruitful as is the snow, as is the rain upon the earth. It is a purposeful thing.
Then, thank God, it is powerful. He says it will not return to Him void. And why not? . . . God's Word never returned to Him void because it never comes void from Him. . . Every word of God thrills with fruitfulness. If we but know how to receive it and how to respond to it, then it shall return to Him not void but fruitful, in lives changed, remolded, re-fashioned, sanctified (The Westminster Pulpit, pp. 271, 277-278).
Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness . . . . Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:10, 15).