Today we continue RA Torrey’s five part series on The Power of the Word of God. In the previous two posts, Torrey examined aspects of what the Word of God has power for:
Today we are going to look at three more.
God’s Word Has Power to Cleanse
The Word of God has power not only to take impurity out of the heart, but to cleanse the outward life as well. If you wish a clean outward life, you must wash often by bringing your life in contact with the Word of God. If one lives in a city whose atmosphere is polluted with smoke, when he goes into the streets, his hands will become dirty. He must wash frequently if he wishes to keep clean.
In Ephesians 5:25-26 we read, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.”
We all live in a world whose atmosphere is polluted, a very dirty world. As we go out from day to day and come in contact with this dirty world, there is absolutely only one way to keep clean, and that is by taking frequent baths in the Word of God. You must bathe every day, and take plenty of time to do it. A daily, prolonged, thoughtful bath in the Word of God is the only thing that will keep a life clean. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word” (Psa. 119:9).
God’s Word Has Power to Build up
In Acts 20:32 we read: “I commend you to God, and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up.”
We hear a great deal about character building. The Word of God is that by which we must carry it on if it is to be done right. In 2 Peter 1:5-7 we have a picture of a seven-story-and-basement Christian. The great trouble today is we have so many one-story Christians, and the reason is neglect of the Word.
If we are to grow, we must have wholesome, nutritious food and plenty of it. “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby” (1 Pet. 2:2). A Christian can no more grow as he ought without feeding frequently, regularly, and largely upon the Word of God than a baby can grow as he ought without proper nutriment.
God’s Word Has Power to Make Us Wise
“The entrance of Thy Words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psa. 119:130).
There is more wisdom in the Bible than there is in all the other literature of the ages. The one who studies the Bible, if he does not study any other book, will know more of real wisdom. He’ll know more of the wisdom that counts for eternity as well as time, wisdom that this perishing world needs to know, wisdom for which hungry hearts are starving today. He will know more than the man who reads every other book and neglects his Bible.
The man who studies the Bible and neglects all other books will be wiser than the man who studies all other books and neglects the Bible. The man who studies the Bible will have more to say that is worth saying, and that wise people wish to hear, than any man who studies everything else and neglects the one Book.
Men who have greatly affected the spiritual history of this world, the men who have brought about great reformations in morals and doctrine, the men whom others have flocked to hear and upon whose words people have hung, have been Bible men in every instance. In many cases they knew little beside the Bible.
I have seen men and women without culture, who have had almost no advantages in school, but who knew their Bibles. I would rather sit at their feet and learn the wisdom that falls from their lips, than listen to the man who knows much about philosophy and science and theology even, and does not know anything about the Word of God.
There is wonderful force in the words of Paul to Timothy: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly [another version says ‘completely’] furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Through what? Through the study of the Bible.
Read the other posts in this series
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5