The Word Will Not Return Void

THE WORD WILL NOT RETURN VOID

Isa. 55:10-11

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR

1. A father, teaching his son about the beauties of nature, pointed out a glorious sunset and said, “Look son, isn’t that a beautiful picture God has painted?”

2. Son said, “It sure is, Dad, especially since God had to paint it with His left hand!” “What in the world do you mean, ‘God had to paint it with His left hand?’”

3. “Well, Dad, the preacher at church says that Jesus is sitting on God’s right hand!”

B. TEXT

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, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isa. 55:9-11.

C. THESIS

1. We’re looking tonight at times when it seems like God’s promises have failed and how God’s words can Never fail.

2. Message entitled, “The Word Will Not Return Void.”

I. IT OFTEN LOOKS LIKE GOD’S WORD HAS FAILED

A. “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!”

1. The prophet said, “Water will flow in this desert” (2 Kgs. 3:17). People said, “It can’t happen!” but it did!

2. The prophet said, “Though it’s a famine, flour will sell cheaply in this city tomorrow” (2 Kgs. 7:1-2). Doubters said, “That’s impossible!” but it happened!

3. God said, “This sterile old woman (75 years old) shall bear a son next year” (Gen.18:10; Lk. 1:13). People laughed at the absurdity, but it happened just as God said.

4. God said a little army of 300 men would defeat an army of 135,000 men (450 to 1)! Crazy? But it happened!

5. The prophet said, “Israel, though defeated, sold as slaves, and scattered among the nations, will be gathered and become a nation again and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem” (Deut. 29; Isa. 11:11-13; Jer. 25:11; Hos. 3:4-5 and Lk. 21:23-24). People said, “It will never happen!”

6. 2,000 years passed. It looked as if God’s Word would fail. But after WW2 and the Holocaust, the Israelites were allowed to resettle in their land! God’s Word came true again!

7. “Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events in detail many years or sometimes centuries before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors. The remaining 500 are prophecies yet future to us.” [Hugh Ross]

B. GOD’S WORD IS ALIVE!

1. The Bible may look like other books, but it’s not. The words of this Book are ALIVE! They’re words with spiritual power behind them. Jesus said, “The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.”

2. The Word of God is the most powerful thing in the universe; through it Jesus made the universe, Heb. 1:2-3. God's Word is an active force; creating, animating, sustaining, and propelling all things according to God's will.

3. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” Mt. 24:35. Once released by God, it has a life of its own – to bring about its fulfillment. “His word runs swiftly” Ps. 147:15.

C. IT’S MIGHTY IN ITS INFLUENCE

1. Only the Word has the power to save you & transform your life! It’s so powerful that even faulty preaching of it has saved people: “Paul & his wife Silas;” “Parable of the 12 Virgins.”

2. ILLUS.

a. A travelling Bible salesman in Sicily was held up by a bandit at gunpoint in a forest. He was ordered to start a fire and burn his books.

b. He started the fire and asked if he could read a bit from each book before he burnt it. He read a bit from the 23rd Psalm out of one, then the story of the good Samaritan from another, then the Sermon on the Mount, then 1 Cor. 13.

c. Each time the robber said, "That's a good book; we won't burn that one; give it to me." Not a single Bible was burned.

d. Years later the same bandit turned up again. But now he was a minister of the gospel. [Barclay, William The Daily Study Bible: Timothy, Titus & Philemon p201.]

II. IT TAKES TIME FOR FULFILLMENT

A. LIKE RAIN AND SNOW

1. Why is there often an interval of time between when you pray and when God answers? God said, “As the rain and the snow…do not return…without watering the earth and making it bud & flourish…so is my Word” (10-11).

2. Rain immediately soaks into the ground and fulfills its purpose, but snow may sit on the surface for years or centuries before it melts and is absorbed (think of glaciers). God’s Word is sometimes fulfilled immediately but at other times seems to slumber for centuries before being fulfilled.