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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Empty
Words Read Isaiah 55:10 and
11. "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:
It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and
achieve the purpose for which I sent it." God, through Isaiah,
said that His word that He speaks will not return to Him empty-handed
(NIV) or void (KJV). It will
accomplish its intended purpose. I think we often
misunderstand, and thus, misapply this passage by thinking that the
Biblical text, whether printed in any form or spoken by us, has an
inherent magical-like quality. We
speak or write Bible verses thinking they alone will produce their
intended results. We have put
them on the walls of parliament, congress, court rooms, and billboards.
We have left tracts in public bathrooms and given them to
waitresses with a tip. We post
them on social media sites, but I ask.
Is this what Isaiah 55:10 and 11 is all about? The text states that
rain falls from the sky, enabling crops to grow.
Similarly, words spoken directly from God's mouth enable His plans
associated with His word to be realized.
If there is any New Testament parallel to
this, we find an example in Acts 2:36. "Therefore let all Inspired by God's
Spirit, Peter spoke God's word to his audience, but, it was God who spoke
to the hearts of the people. The
intended purpose of God's word was, in fact, accomplished.
The word did not return to Him as empty words, as Acts 2:37 says. "When the people
heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other
apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" God's message spoken by
Peter, but delivered to human hearts by God, cut directly into the
consciences of those hearing the message.
Peter spoke to human ears. God
spoke to human hearts, something Peter could never do.
We see a Biblical principle at work here, as seen in Mark 16:20.
"Then the disciples
went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and
confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it." Simply put, we do the
manual stuff while God does the spiritual stuff.
We speak to ears. God
speaks to hearts. If God
doesn't speak, our words are empty. All
of this requires a collaborative relationship between us and Jesus whereby
we and Jesus speak with a unified voice that enables God's word to not be
empty words. All of the above being
said, our study of Isaiah 55:10 and 11 must stem from a proper
contextually based hermeneutic. This
means we determine how we should understand verses 10 and 11 in relation
to the main point of Isaiah 55, which is, the restoration of Israel. The specific word, then,
spoken by God that will not return to Him empty-handed or void is His
exact promise spoken to Abraham to make Israel
a great nation.
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