Today we are starting a five part series on the Power of the Word of God by RA Torrey. RA Torrey worked with DL Moody before taking over as pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago. Throughout his years, Torrey also served as superintendent of Moody Bible Institute as well as helped start what is now called Biola University. In this series, Torrey examines the Word of God and gives eleven aspects of its power for the believer’s life. Today we will look at the first two.
“Power belongeth unto God” (Psalm 62:11).
The great reservoir of the power that belongs to God is His own Word – the Bible. If we wish to make it ours, we must go to that Book. Yet people abound in the Church who are praying for power and neglecting the Bible. Men are longing to have power for bearing fruit in their own lives and yet forget that Jesus has said: “The seed is the Word of God” (Luke 8:11).
They are longing to have power to melt the cold heart and break the stubborn will of those to whom they witness, and yet forget that God has said: “Is not My Word like as a fire?…and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29).
If we are to obtain fullness of power in life and service, we must feed upon the Word of God. There is no other food so strengthening. If we will not take time to study the Bible, we cannot have power, any more than we can have physical power if we will not take time to eat nutritious food.
God’s Word Has Power to Convict of Sin
In Acts 2:37 we read, “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” If we look back and see what it was they had heard that produced this deep conviction, we find that it was simply the Word of God. If you will read Peter’s sermon, you will find it one of the most biblical sermons ever preached. It was Scripture from beginning to end. It was, then, the Word of God, carried home by the Spirit of God, that pricked them to the heart.
If you wish to produce conviction, you must give men the Word of God.
God’s Word Has Power to Regenerate
In James 1:18 we read, “Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”
In 1 Peter 1:23 we read, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”
The process of regeneration on our side is the simplest thing in the world. On God’s side it is mysterious, but with that we have nothing to do. The process is simply this: the human heart is the soil; you and I are sowers. The Word of God is the seed which we drop into the soil. God quickens it by His Holy Spirit and gives the increase (1Cor. 3:6). The heart closes around the Word by faith, and the new life is the product. The new birth is simply the impartation of a new nature, the impartation of God’s nature.
How are we made partakers of God’s nature? Read 2 Peter 1:4 and the context: “That through these [exceeding great and precious promises] ye may become partakers of the divine nature.” The Word of God is the seed out of which the divine nature springs up in the human soul.
Read the other posts in this series
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
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