The Creative Power of God's Word

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. Thank you for tuning into the program today. Braedan and myself are delighted to have your company as we walk through this journey through the Scriptures to understand what faith is. Now in our last program, we spoke about the knowledge of what the scripture means when urging upon us the necessity of cultivating faith as an essential. It's more essential than any other knowledge that can be acquired. And today we're going to unpack that a little bit further. But just before we start our study, we just invite you to bow your heads in prayer with us. Gracious Father in Heaven, our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sustainer. We are so grateful for your Word, Father. A lamp to our feet, a light to your path. May you illuminate our minds, Father, that as we walk and we can walk in the spirit so we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh that you will give us wisdom and understanding to know what faith is and how to cultivate faith so that we can exercise faith and full confidence and trust in you as we unpack this further today through your word, Father. Bless the listener. Bless us also. With wisdom and understanding is our prayer. In Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C So last time when we went through this program, Braedan, we actually looked at a story of Jesus healing a centurion's servant who was lying home sick. Now, Jesus wasn't at the home, but when the servant's invitation came, Jesus said, okay, I will come. And the centurion said, look, don't come. Speak the word only. And then it said that Jesus marveled. He said that he had not found so great a faith. No, not even in Israel. So what Jesus saw there, he didn't only call faith, he called it great faith. Now, what was it about the centurion that Jesus marveled about? Did the centurion expect that only through the physical presence of Jesus by his servant that he could heal? No, he said, you don't even have to come, but speak the Word only. So it was the spoken word through the Savior that had the ability to actually heal his friend. SPEAKER D And that's not a normal kind of a situation. I think of the story of Naaman, the leper back in the Old Testament. He came down to Israel to get healing and he didn't really know what he was in for and he didn't know where healing would come from. But he came to the prophet eventually, and the prophet Elisha just sent a message downstairs and Gehazi walked down there and just said, hey. The prophet said, go down to the River Jordan wash seven times and you'll be healed. And it's interesting what he said. I thought he said, I thought that the prophet would come down and wave his hands over me and do this kind of stuff and heal me. And he got really angry and just took off. It's very interesting. We naturally would assume, just like Naaman, that the prophet would come down and do some kind of a thing. It needs to be a physical kind of a thing. But he actually had all that was sufficient to be healed. He had a message from God, and his healing came as he humbly cooperated with that and obeyed and followed the instructions. SPEAKER C Which word of God said, you do. SPEAKER D This and you will be healed for this centurion? He just seemed to understand something that we are very slow to understand. We want metaphorically, we want God to come and visit our house, or we actually want Him to come and visit our home and do these different things. And he's like, no, I've given my word and that is sufficient enough. SPEAKER C And that is a great lesson for us. Dear listener, you may know people who are sick, and medical science has done everything they can for them and there's been no cure for them. Now. Jesus is the Great Physician. It says that he walked through entire towns and villages where all the sick were healed. There were no sick people left. They were all cured. So what happens is the physical presence of Jesus has been taken away. But we learned from this lesson that the physical presence of Jesus is not required. We simply need a word from the Lord if we know his will. He says, if you ask anything according to my will, the Lord will hear and he will give you what you ask in faith. So we don't need the physical presence of the Lord for healings to still take place. The reason why we don't see so many healings, because we don't see so much faith, because people don't really realize what faith is. And we want to unpack that a little bit further, because I've heard all kinds of things regarding faith, and they're theories that in principle, I guess they're logical, but we're talking about something that the word of God teaches that we don't have to speculate on. For example, I've heard people saying, look, everyone has faith. When I get in my car and I drive and the lights turn red and I apply the brakes, I know by faith the car is going to stop. Or if I get in the plane. It's by faith that I get in the plane knowing that I'll be able to fly from, say, Sydney to Melbourne. But that is not the faith the Bible speaks of, because what happens is we're talking about saving faith, things that we require from the Lord that we cannot do for ourselves. So if, say, for example, the brakes failed and there was an accident, would you be saved or lost based on the fact that the brakes failed you and your faith was misplaced, you wouldn't. SPEAKER D Be doing well at all. SPEAKER C You wouldn't be doing well physically. Maybe you might be injured or whatever may happen. But that is not to do with the saving relationship between us and God. Faith comes by hearing, we told, in Romans, chapter ten, verse 17. And what are we to hear? The word of God. It's not to be placed in some mechanical thing that may or may not work. And praise God, the mechanical things work quite well today, so we can trust them, but sometimes they don't work. SPEAKER D Faith is not just wishful thinking or hopeful thinking. It's actually a certainty, which we're going to explore a little bit today. We've just been looking at the importance of the Word of God, the centurion. He just said amazingly, he says, Just speak a word, just say some words and my servant's going to get healed. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D And Jesus was like, where did you get this kind of faith from? This is amazing. And if we go back to the Book of Genesis, we actually understand why the Word of God was able to do that. SPEAKER C Yes, because we have a demonstration there in the Book of Genesis, don't we? SPEAKER D We have a demonstration. SPEAKER C And look, the centurion must have grasped that because what did the centurion expect that would do the work? It was the spoken word as the Messiah, as Jesus Christ spoke the word. And we'll unpack a little bit more who Jesus actually was. His spoken word accomplished that. So we're going to go to the Book of Genesis and find out how the Word of God works in action. SPEAKER D That sounds good. SPEAKER C Okay. SPEAKER D And so here we are in Genesis, chapter one. And in verse one, we get the context of what's going to follow. It says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. SPEAKER C Okay? So that is the condition of the world on that first day when God starts there and he now starts populating or generating life on the earth. SPEAKER D But it's so interesting as we observe how God creates, okay, the Bible says in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the Earth, the sea and all that are in them in six days. And how did he create what did he do? In verse three. This is where we get our first little insight into how God created. It says. Then God said, okay, so who speaks God? SPEAKER C God. Okay. SPEAKER D God says it's interesting. If I said these same words, nothing would happen. SPEAKER C Okay. SPEAKER D But it says, God said, Let there be light, because what happened? Then it says, and there was light. SPEAKER C Wow. Okay. So when God speaks something, it happens. SPEAKER D And I've said it like this before. When God speaks, a miracle happens. Except then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And so prior to God speaking, there was no light. After God speaking, there was light. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D Something about God opening his mouth and speaking the very word that comes out of his mouth has power. It has power to actually make something exist that didn't exist before. And it says, and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day, right? SPEAKER C So that was the first day. And the way God created light was by speaking it into existence, by simply saying, let there be light. So where did this light come from? Where were the materials for this? Braedan so if I wanted to make something, say, for example, I want to make a cabinet, I will need wood, I would need screws, I'll probably need glue. I'll need a saw, glass, glass. There's a number of things I would need. And I can be creative and make the cabinet, but the materials will have to exist for that to make. I can't just go and speak a cabinet into existence. Where would the materials come from? I'll probably have to go and earn money to go and buy the materials and then on having the no way. And have a little bit of a plan to put it together. But God here doesn't need any materials from what looks like because there was no light before. He said there would be light, because how could he separate light from darkness? He could have done that before if the light existed. So the light didn't exist. He speaks it into existence. And I want to go to a psalm that actually tells us a little bit about how God actually makes things. And this is Psalm 33. SPEAKER D A wonderful psalm, this one. Yeah. SPEAKER C And I want to read just a couple of verses there. I think it's verse six. And then we'll probably just look at verse nine as well. So Psalm 33 and verse six, it says, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and all of the host of them by the breath of his mouth. So what came out of God's mouth is what the heavens were made and all the hosts of them. And then it talks about he gathers the waters together and heaps them together in the sea. And so forth. And then it says in verse nine, how did God create? It says, for he spoke and it was done so immediately. When God said, Let there be light, there was light. It was done. He commanded and it stood fast. So how long does it take for God to say something, for it to materialize and come into existence? SPEAKER D Immediately. SPEAKER C Immediately. That's right. So this is what we call recreation. If it's something takes a bit of time, we can talk about that as regeneration. But God wasn't regenerating anything. He was creating things that didn't exist. There was no light until he said, Let there be light. SPEAKER D It's so interesting. We go on to the next day. Then God said verse six, genesis one, verse six. Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. So again we find God speaking. It says, thus, God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. So again, we have this thing where God speaks and something just takes place. Yes, this miraculous thing takes place because God opens his mouth. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D But it continues. Again, in verse nine, it says, Then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so. So. I love this. You got then God said, yes, and it was so. SPEAKER C And that seems to be the pattern. All the way through the six days of creation, god said, and it was so. And not only it was so, it said, and it was good. SPEAKER D And it was good. SPEAKER C God saw it and it was good. SPEAKER D Then God said, and it was so, and it was good. SPEAKER C So the fact that God sees it as well shows the physical manifestation of the things he spoke into existence. Yeah, that is remarkable. Now, if we just look at God creating the expanse or the heavens, so this is the first heavens we're talking about, where our atmosphere is and our oxygen that we breathe and so on. At the creation, there was a layer of water above the earth because it separated the waters from the waters. This is even before the land appeared, because there was still land under the waters. How do you shift water? We can't shift water. We have to put it in a canister or some sort of container in a vessel to move it. But God speaks it and it separates. Wouldn't be credible to have been a person as an eyewitness to this account. We now accept it by faith because none of us were there, because man wasn't created till the 6th day. But we are talking about the second day and the third day now. SPEAKER D Well, there's some good news. The Bible says one day God will make a new heavens and a new Earth and we'll be able to see that take. SPEAKER C Praise the Lord. Yeah. That's something to look forward to, isn't it? SPEAKER D It's so interesting. It continues through the rest of the week. The things that God makes, he makes the dry land, as we've just looked at. He makes the sea, he makes the sun and the moon, and he goes on to make animals and fish and birds by speaking. Just the other day, I was out in the ocean with some goggles on. I was swimming around and I saw this most beautiful fish under the water. SPEAKER C Wow. SPEAKER D God spoke and fish materialized. SPEAKER C That was on the fifth day. That's right. SPEAKER D The majestic animals that we see all over this planet when God spoke, animals appeared. SPEAKER C That was on the 6th day, when the animals, the land animals. That's right. SPEAKER D And so if we just take this very basic lesson, there is power in the Word of God. SPEAKER C Amen. SPEAKER D So how did God create? It was by his word. No wonder people say and no wonder the Book of Hebrews says that the word of God is powerful. SPEAKER C Yes, living and powerful. SPEAKER D Living and powerful. No wonder in the Book of Hebrews we find that, yeah, God's word is powerful. And where does that come from? It comes from Genesis. It comes right the way through. Whenever God says something, it's something that we can depend on because it's not something that we have to try to just work and accomplish. When God says something, it's going to happen. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER D Our part is to believe it. SPEAKER C And whenever there's a call to worship, it normally references the fact that the God that we worship is the Creator God. He's the one that has power in His Word to speak things into existence. And while you were talking there out of the Book of Hebrews, and you're saying that the word of God is living and powerful, I believe that's Hebrews 412, but Hebrews eleven, verse three says by faith. So we understand faith is expecting the Word of God to do exactly what it said it would. It says, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of the Lord. So that the things which are seen so this is the physical materialization of what God spoke into existence. The things that we can see, the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. In other words, we didn't see any materials when God was creating and endeavor. When God creates a new heavens and a new Earth, the materials wouldn't be there either. He would again speak them into existence. SPEAKER D That's right. It's so interesting. It says, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed. It's very interesting, the definition of faith that we've been looking at, that faith is depending on God's Word to do what it says. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D Once we realize that God's word is creative, that when God speaks, there is power, actual power in his word to create the thing that he's spoken. If we have that experience with God and experience the power of his word in our lives and experience the power of God's Word to transform our lives, to give us a new heart, to create within us a new desires, a new being. We totally understand that God could create the worlds by his word. Yes, because we've experienced his creative power in our lives. And we recognize that it's a bigger task to create a new heart than it is to create a world because. SPEAKER C It'S a miracle we've got free will. SPEAKER D And it makes it a little bit difficult for God to recreate our hearts. It's a lot more difficult than creating the planet. So we are totally confident that God made the planet through His Word because we've experienced the power of His Word. SPEAKER C Yeah, well, look, the light didn't resist God when God said, Let there be light. But man can. When God speaks righteousness into our lives because of free will, we can determine whether we believe the Word or not. And if we don't believe the Word, the Word of God will not actually accomplish what he desires in us. That's why. And we won't touch on that in detail, but it says faith is the substance of things hoped for. Now, faith was authored by Christ. When we read in the Word of God, the promises to us, this is what God hoped for for us. He wants that for us. Anyway, we'll unpack that a little bit further for some future programs. SPEAKER D So I've just got a verse here in Colossians. So you just preempted earlier that we're going to look at who Jesus actually is. Jesus is so many things, but we're going to focus on one specific aspect of who Jesus is in Colossians. We're looking in chapter one, verse 16, it says, for by Him that is by Jesus, all things were created. SPEAKER C Isn't that incredible? So nothing was created apart from Jesus if we just read that. SPEAKER D That's right. Nothing was created apart from Jesus. All things were created by Jesus. So who is Jesus? He is the one who back in the book of Genesis, was the one who was speaking and creating. Yes, all things were created by Him. Isn't that just an amazing concept? That the one who is walking around Galilee, ministering and healing, that was our Creator. SPEAKER C Incredible how the Creator would condescend and become one of his creation for the sake of saving his creation that had walked away from Him. SPEAKER D It's amazing, isn't it? SPEAKER C That is incredible. Love. I grasp it in the fact that it's indisputable. But to fully comprehend that love, it's something that my mind struggles with. SPEAKER D It's so deep. SPEAKER C It's deep. That's right. SPEAKER D The Gospel of John, chapter one and verses one through four, it says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made by Him. And without Him nothing was made that was made. In him was life. And the life was the light of men, and the light shines in darkness. That same imagery from Genesis, the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. Verse 14, it says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So this Word, the Word who was God, the Word who created all things, is Jesus. And so we find that in creation, jesus was doing the work of creation. And how was he doing that? By speaking. He was speaking words. And these words were actually doing miraculous things and creating. Now we see a shift. Now we see the plan of redemption, the plan of salvation. And the Creator comes down to this planet undercover. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And Eddie, and if we look at his life, do we see similarities? Do we see the same pattern emerging in his life? SPEAKER C Yeah. Well, we do. It's interesting. We told the Bible tells that God is Spirit. And this is in John chapter four, where he's talking to the Samaritan woman. Verse John 424 says, God is spirit, and those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and truth. But now it says, the Word which was spirit, which was God in the beginning, becomes flesh, and he dwells among us. So we can behold, hold Him, we can touch Him, we can interact with Him. Where previously God actually stopped interacting with us directly, like he did with Adam and Eve, because sin had separated us from God. It's not that God didn't want to interact with us. It was just that in his presence, sin would be consumed. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And if sin was part of us, we would be consumed as well. So God, in his grace and mercy, found another way to talk to us. And he talks to us through the prophets, which wrote the Bible through dreams and visions. And that's how we receive the Word of God at the moment. But sorry, you were just going to unpack something. SPEAKER D So we see the Creator back in the beginning. We see our savior Jesus Christ. And when he creates the world, he speaks. Light appears, he speaks. Fish appear, he speaks. Dry land appears. And then the Creator comes to this planet and continues doing the same thing when he was in that stormy sea that night. And the disciples are like, Lord, save us, we're perishing. What did he say? He stood up and he said, Peace, be still. And it said, immediately the wind and the waves ceased. So here we have Jesus coming to this planet again. And he is speaking and things are happening. The centurion, he speaks, and the servant is healed. He speaks and the leprosy flees. He speaks and dead come to life again. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D It's so interesting that the Word is still the speaking of the creative Word is still the way that God changes hearts today and actually does miraculous things. SPEAKER C Yeah, that is really beautiful. What I love about that is the faith of the centurion that had his servant healed. So the servant didn't hear the Word, but he was healed the same hour the Bible says when he inquired when was he healed? When he got back there. And that was the time, exact time, when Jesus spoke into existence that his servant was healed. So we can actually intercede on behalf of people as well. And our faith, god can actually perform things in their life. Sometimes we can believe on behalf of other people who struggle to believe. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Yeah. That's the beautiful thing. And I just love the fact that nothing was made without Christ. So we know that the Father created all things through the Son, jesus Christ being the Son. It says all things were made through Him. Without Him. Nothing was made that was made. Now, the word made there in the original, in the Greek is actually the word guinea mai and ginemai just means for things to come into existence, to be to come into being. So nothing came into being apart from Christ. So this creator God now becomes one of us, and now he's still using the same word to heal. He's still using the same word to stall the waves and the angry sea. And then the people say, who is this that even the winds and the waves obey him? Well, it's the Creator. It's God manifest in the flesh. SPEAKER D And doesn't that make the Bible a new book for us, then? It's not just a dusty document from centuries ago that we just have to kind of decipher moral teachings from and do our best to keep. The Bible has the same power that when we open our Bibles and we read verses, it has the same power. SPEAKER C In those verses amen. SPEAKER D To recreate our hearts. And so when God says, Love your enemies if we go back to the book of Genesis and we remember what God said, let there be light. There was light. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D When God says, Love your enemies, what we typically try to do is go, oh, man, that's so hard. And we just tried our best to try to do that, but God says, no, my Word was never designed to function that way. If you have a proper conception of what faith is, you will hear that word and say, god, that Word has power in it. I believe it and I'm going to live it. And God's Word itself will enable us to love our enemies. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And that makes it that when we always see these commands. When God says, do this or don't do that, I hear a lot of people like, oh, I'm sick and tired of the commandments. I'm sick and tired of this. God never designed his commandments to just be something that we go, oh have to try to do that? No, the Commandments has the power of. SPEAKER C God, has the power in it to. SPEAKER D Help us to live it. SPEAKER C Because it came from God. SPEAKER D Because it came from God. SPEAKER C Amen. That reminds me of the text in Isaiah 55 and verse eleven, and the God speaking, so it's jehovah, God speaking says, so shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth. It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing in which I sent it. So when Jesus says, love your enemies, that Word has the power in it to make it happen. So his biding is also his enabling. SPEAKER D That's correct, yes. And so we should not look at like God is calling us to do some very impossible things. If you've ever tried to love your enemies, the people who just annoy you to no end, that's a really hard ask. And there's a big ask. Basically, if we can summarize what is God calling us to? He's calling us to perfect selflessness always. That is a really big ask. SPEAKER C That is a big ask. SPEAKER D And it is such a huge thing that God's asking us to do, but he never expected us to do that. He is willing to transform our hearts. He says, I will give you a new heart. So the appropriate response there is to go, okay, and let God do it. Yes. When God calls us to do something, only an unjust person would ask someone to do something that they couldn't do. It's like asking a little child, saying, little child, I'm going to punch you in the face unless you carry that piano out of here. Like you'd be as mean as the devil. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D If you would ask a child to do something they couldn't do and then threaten them with punishment yeah. God says, love one another. That's impossible. So we have to say, how's God going to do that? Like, how are we going to do that? God says, don't worry, I'll give you a new heart. I've promised that. And if you trust My Word, it will transform your life and it will enable you to love others. SPEAKER C Look. That is beautiful and thank you for unpacking that. And I just want to talk a little bit about the Word, because the Word is also what's used to transform and change our lives in regards to being converted. Because we read in one, Peter, chapter one and verse 23, it says having been born again. So this is an emphatic statement, something that has happened, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible through the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. So here we told that it's the Word of God that helps us to be born again. So by receiving the Word of God, we are born again. And it is a Word that lives. So it's a living word. In other words, it's. Not a dead word like the words that we speak. As human beings, we can't materialize things out of our words. And it says it abides forever. So it's an everlasting enduring word. Just like God is from everlasting to everlasting. SPEAKER D It's powerful. SPEAKER C So, dear listener, thank you for joining us today on the lesson where we spoke about the Word of God in creation. The Word of God is living and powerful. And when God speaks things into existence, they materialize. It happens instantly. But God has made us free moral agents and he wants us to accept it by faith. And when we receive the word by faith, god will accomplish exactly what he said he would in our lives. His promises are for you and for me. Until next time, God bless. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. Or you can send an email to [email protected] You can also contact us on our 3ABN Australia radio Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you.