“so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
‘I’ in the title ‘It shall accomplish that which I purpose’ from the text is God Jehovah. Isaiah’s utterances delivers us so fresh, reasonable, and powerful message, so we see often his greatness from many parts of the Book. The Bible text states exactly that the word of God is not void but with the value of practical effect. In other words, it means that the word of God is alive. Living God, the word of God showing the practice as itself, the life in Christian faith confirms those facts one by one.
There are many people who acknowledge themselves to be in believing in God. But also many persons live in unknowing what the reality of faith is. As the said in the Book of James of the New Testament, the faith without doings is only dead. By the way, we know that many people are living with dead faith. What a miserable and distressed actuality is! I give a question to myself what the reality of my faith is. Check these things right now, “Do you know what the substance of yourself is like?” and “Do you experience indeed the reality of Christ?”
Isaiah the prophet explained about the word of God, taking an example of natural phenomenon. Rain and snow from the sky wet the earth; this says only a common phase of nature. However the gist of saying appears next to the phase. Fruits, seeds, and provisions are produced from the earth wet by rain and snow. Isaiah expressed that rain and snow made fruits, seeds, provisions; differently to the opinion of other people who said that they were made by earth. Isaiah’s view point of rain and snow is focussed on more realistic settlement than people’s general understanding. People says mainly that all the creation can be alive because of supplying light and heat by the sun. That is certainly right as it says a very core of a subject. However the parable of the word of God as rain and snow has another meaning apart from the above-mentioned importance. Water the rain and snow is a soul of natural life, in comparison with earth and sun as body and spirit the bases of creation.
Nothing among all the creation is irrelevant to God, as there is nothing without sun and earth. And also anything of nature can never live in the state without rain and snow. We would meet with many accidents because of much rain in Summer. There is no doubt that troubles are unhappy to man, nevertheless man has none to blame but themselves, for the blunder was of their own making. Such responsibility must not to be imputed to God, for it is improper. Anyway man has to accept rain and snow with thanks. Because nature cannot be alive without rain and snow given from the hand of God. Nature can be alive by gaining fruit and seed and food with rain and snow.
The word of God was given to man. The word of God which is written in letter, and Logos the human form who came into the world, these two kinds are alike rain and snow to man. As the word of prophecy and realization in the Old and New Testament, and as Logos the prophecy and realization for Jesus Christ, God had come into the world. Jesus the Logos had been in the beginning, and He was with people in the Incarnation. In truth, He the Logos is God who had done the creation in the beginning, and nothing has been alive in the world without Him.
Christian faith is on the basis of the fundamental fact. We confess the faith in praising Jesus, this has an object to see God’s doing in my life which is wholly given and obeyed to Him. Remember surely this, “It shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Let’s live in the word of God, in Jesus, in the same way as streaming of blood in body.
(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on August 6th 2017)
