THE PREVAILING WORD
THE WORD takes the place of the unseen Christ. Meditation in the Word is a visit with Him. The Word becomes a part of one by meditation. The Word living in us gets into our blood. Acts 19:20, “So mightily grew the Word of the Lord and prevailed.”
A revival in Ephesus was shaking the nation. It was not Paul's preaching; it was not his logic or philosophy; it was the Word of God. Acts 12:24, “But the Word of God grew and multiplied.” It grew in the minds of the people. It gained the supremacy over them.
Faith Makes the Word Prevail
Faith comes when the Word prevails over the thinking processes. In Matthew 8:23-27, we see the Word prevailing in Jesus' lips over the laws of nature. You remember that He said, “Oh ye of little faith.” “Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. And the men marvelled, saying, “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?' “ The Word prevailed in Matthew 8:5-12. The Word in Jesus' lips prevailed over the disease in the Centurion's servant. In Matthew 14:13-21, the Word in Jesus' lips ruled the law of supply and demand. Five loaves and two fishes multiplied until five thousand people were fed and twelve baskets of fragments were left over.
John 1:1-3, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.”
Jesus and the Word Are One
God honors the human language by calling Jesus the Word. The whole Universe was brought into being by words. A Spirit spoke in Genesis 1:14-19, “Let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.” The Word of God, a Spirit, creates material things, proving that the spirit is greater than the material. John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” You see, we have the spoken word in the lips of Jesus; then we have the Word made flesh dwelling in our midst; then we have the spoken Word in the lips of the Apostles before the Pauline Revelation came.
1 Thessalonians 2:13, “Wherefore, we also give continual thanks to God because when you heard from me the spoken Word, you received it not as the word of man but as it is in truth, the Word of God, Who Himself works effectually in you that believe” (Moffat).
While Paul was in Thessalonica it was the spoken Word, but his Epistles are the written Word, the life-giving Word. Psalm 107:20, “He sendeth His Word and healeth them.”
And that Word was manifested in the flesh, as the spoken Word through the lips of Jesus, as the spoken Word through the Apostles, and finally was put upon paper in the language of men so that we might have a permanent record of this living Word.
The Word Prevails Over the Senses
Romans 4:17-19 gives us a graphic picture of the Word prevailing over the fear and hope and sense knowledge in the mind of Abraham. God's Word was spoken through an angel to this man, and it declared: “A father of many nations have I made thee; before Him whom he believed, even God, Who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were.” And notice carefully the next sentence: “Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations.” Hope and Faith were in combat. Faith won and made Hope a reality.
You remember Hebrew 11:1, “Faith is giving substance to things we have hoped for.”
Hope is always in the future; it is a dream, it is never real. Faith reaches up and grasps Hope and brings it into the realm of the present.
Romans 4:19, “And without being weakened in Faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb.” That man had hoped for a child. Now Faith has changed the Hope into reality.
“Yet looking unto the Promise of God (spoken through an angel), he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform (would become a reality).”
And so Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as Righteousness. This Righteousness gave the man a standing with God, the standing of a friend with God.
The Word in Our Lips
Acts 6:7 tells us that the Word of God increased as they preached and practiced what they had heard from the Master's lips. The Word began to develop and grow until it became a mighty force in the hearts of men and women. It was the prevailing Word.
In my ministry, the Word has been a living, growing force. The Word is eternal. Like God, it is ever young, it is ever new. Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” It is a part of God . . . it is what God IS.
John 14:9, Philip has asked Jesus, “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”
Jesus said, “Have 1 been so long time with you, and dolt thou not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”
Jesus and the Father were one. Jesus and the Word, the Logos, are one. John 12:49, Jesus said, “For I spake not from Myself; but the Father that sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is Life Eternal; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.” You can see Jesus' fearlessness in the presence of disease and of demons.
He was using the Father's Words and He knew that they could not fail. It Timothy 4:2, “Preach the Word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” Jesus preached the Word and it healed the sick; it broke the power of demons over men. The Apostles preached the Word, and the sick were healed, the dead were raised, and the multitudes were recreated. To preach the Word means to preach Christ, because Christ is the Word. To preach the Gospel means to preach the Word, the good news.
The Word Makes Us Love
Until the Word prevails, John 13:34, 35 will never be known in the world. “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Love was the prevailing power, that unseen something that governed the early church. 1 John 4:7, 8, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
Love here is proof of the New Birth. Only the lovers have evidence that they have passed out of death into life, because they love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.” He has never received Eternal Life, the nature of God. Only as the Word prevails in the heart do we actually know the reality of these Divine things. The Word makes us love.
1 John 2:10-11. “He that loveth his brother abideth in light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.” The Word of love prevailing in the heart takes a man out of the realm of weakness and failure, where his words will cause offense, and his actions will lead others to do wrong.
The Word Makes Us Conquer
If he hates his brother, he is living in darkness. The Word has not prevailed in his life. He is walking as a common man. 1 Corinthians 3:3, “For ye arc yet carnal (ruled by the senses): for whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of (common) men?” How many believers, because the Word does not prevail in them, live as common men? Disease and sickness prevail over them because they do not walk in the light of the Word. John 8:12, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
As long as sickness prevails over you, you are walking in darkness. You mentally assent to the Word, but you do not act upon it. As long as you walk in poverty, and your testimony is of your needs and your lack, the Word has not prevailed in your life.
Philippians 4:19 has no place in the life that is not dominated by the Word: “And my God shall supply every need of yours' according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
When the Word prevails, you have plenty for yourself and for others. Philippians 4:13 has not yet gained the ascendancy in the unfruitful life: “I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me,”
A faltering, stumbling confession is present when the Word has not prevailed over your reasoning faculties, and when Christ and the Word have not become a reality. Romans 10:8, “But what saith it? The Word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the Word of faith, which we preach.” My heart never recognized the secret of Faith until I saw this truth: that
The Word must prevail over my mind. When the Word became as real to me as the word of a friend or a banker, then Faith ceased to be a problem.
I no longer thought of Faith or the need of it. You see, Jesus never intimated a need of Faith. Why? Because He had the Father's Words.
Did God say it? Yes! THEN IT IS! Psalm 27:1, “Jehovah is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear; Jehovah is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
Did He say that He is the strength of my life? Then He IS. I have all the strength I need for any emergency or any need. Do I lack wisdom? (Most of us do.) Well, 1 Corinthians 1:30 says that God made Jesus to be wisdom unto us. That means that we shall have ability to use the knowledge that is given to us in the Word, that we are no longer to walk in darkness, for we have the light of life.
Colossians 1:13 has become a reality: “Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in Whom we have our Redemption.” Delivered out of weakness, out of spiritual blindness, delivered out of the old mental state of inability, we can now do all things in Him because He has become our ability. 2 Corinthians 3:5, 6 has become our very own: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God; Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant.” The Word at last prevails. We are what He says we are. We can do what He says we can do. He is what He says He is, and no Word from Him is void of ability to make good in us.
E. W. Kenyon, Advanced Bible Course
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Peace and richest blessings, Bernard