“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12
“‘The grass withers and the flower thereof falls away—but the Word of the Lord endures forever.’ Its vitality is such as it can impart to its readers. Hence, you will often find, when you converse with Revelation, that if you yourself are dead when you begin to read, it does not matter—you will be quickened as you peruse it. You need not bring life to the Scripture. You shall draw life from the Scripture. Oftentimes a single verse has made us start up—as Lazarus came forth at the call of the Lord Jesus. When our soul has been faint and ready to die, a single word, applied to the heart by the Spirit of God, has aroused us.
It is a quickening as well as a living Word. I am so glad of this because at times I feel altogether dead. But the Word of God is not dead. And coming to it we are like the dead man, who, when he was put into the grave of the Prophet, rose again as soon as he touched his bones. Even these bones of the Prophets, these words of theirs spoken and written thousands of years ago, will impart life to those who come into contact with them. The Word of God is thus exceedingly alive. I may add it is so alive that you need never be afraid that it will become extinct.
They dream—they dream that they have put us among the antiquities—those of us who preach the old Gospel that our fathers loved! They sneer at the doctrines of the Apostles and of the Reformers and declare that Believers in them are left high and dry—the relics of an age which has long since ebbed away. Yes, so they say! But what they say may not after all be true. For the Gospel is such a living Gospel that if it were cut into a thousand shreds every particle of it would live and grow. If it were buried beneath a thousand avalanches of error, it would shake off the incubus and rise from its grave, If it were cast into the midst of fire it would walk through the flame as it has done many a time, as though it were in its natural element.
The Reformation was largely due to a copy of the Scriptures left in the seclusion of a monastery and there hidden till Luther came under its influence and his heart furnished soil for the living seed to grow in. Leave but a single New Testament in a Popish [i.e., Roman Catholic] community and the evangelical faith may at any moment come to the front—even though no preacher of it may ever have come that way. Plants unknown in certain regions have suddenly sprung from the soil—the seeds have been wafted on the winds, carried by birds, or washed ashore by the waves of the sea. So vital are seeds that they live and grow wherever they are borne.
And even after lying deep in the soil for centuries, when the upturning spade has brought them to the surface, they have germinated at once. Thus is it with the Word of God—it lives and abides forever and in every soil and under all circumstances it is prepared to prove its own life by the energy with which it grows and produces fruit to the glory of God. How vain, as well as wicked, are all attempts to kill the Gospel. Those who attempt the crime, in any fashion, will be forever still beginning and never coming near their end. They will be disappointed in all cases, whether they would slay it with persecution, smother it with worldliness, crush it with error, starve it with neglect, poison it with misrepresentation, or drown it with infidelity. While God lives His Word shall live. Let us praise God for that. We have an immortal Gospel incapable of being destroyed which shall live and shine when the lamp of the sun has consumed its scant supply of oil.”
- C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
taken from: The Word a Sword, Sermon No. 2010, May 17, 1887.
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