The Power of The Word

Romans 10:17-18

Several years ago, my wife and I stopped for gas in Liberal Kansas. About an hour later, our car began to run poorly. It didn’t seen to be getting gas properly. Finally, I stopped and checked the fuel filters. The inline filter was almost full of water. I drained it and then stopped at the next station to get a bottle of gas dryer. When we got to her dad’s house, I pulled the filter again, and found it more than half full, so I drained the gas tank and removed a lot of water.

On our return, I remembered the incident, and made remembered which gas station I had gotten the bad gas at. When I stopped at a station across the street, I noticed that one I had stopped at before was closed. When I went inside I heard a one of the employees telling a customer that the other station had been shut down by the state because they had been caught deliberately adding water to their gas in an effort to increase their profits. Complaints had led to an investigation that resulted in the closure.

While minute amounts of water can improve engine power, just a slightly larger amount can prevent combustion, causing the engine to miss, or even to stop running. Engines were designed to run on gasoline, not to run on water. Just adding a little water can make the gasoline unusable. Just as the car is propelled by the engine, which is powered by the gasoline, Faith is propelled by the understanding, which is produced by the word of God.

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

In the second letter to Timothy, Paul is very insistent that if Timothy wants to please God he will need to study and accurately understand the word of God. In II Timothy 3:16-17 He explains that it is so important because it completely prepares and enables a person to do everything good, as God desires. “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, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” Nothing else is required, no other books, or teachers, or even examples. Everything that is required is in the word of God.
John 15:3 is clear that Jesus’ words are what results in our freedom from sin. “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

Human wisdom and effort has nothing to contribute to salvation or pleasing God, as jesus states in John 6:33. “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Just as adding water to gasoline can reduce or block its effectiveness, adding a little human wisdom or ideas can prevent the word of God from doing it’s job.

Paul is very explicit in stating that it is telling the word of God, not the human explanations or interpretations, traditions, or philosophy that results in salvation. Any of those things make it less effective. “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (I Corinthians 1:17-18)

As a result, Paul avoided flowery speeches, and psycho local tricks and sales gimmicks. He depended on the Holy Spirit to do his job, and the power of the word to produce the results. People would not depend on Paul’s or some other man’s words, but on the power of God.

“And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” (I Corinthians 2:4-5)

This would result in their assurance coming from the Holy Spirit rather than from man’s assurances. Romans 8:16 declares, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” When the Holy Spirit is blocked from fully developing real saving faith by human appeals and fleshly efforts, they may be unaware of his presence, or they may not be saved.

Jesus gave a command to his disciples, those who believe in him in Mark 16;15. “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The Gospel is a subset of the word of God. It is the message of Christ’s death burial and resurrection, and how it applies to mankind. Preaching a diluted or modified gospel, or not going at all is disobedience to that command. Romans 10:14 asks, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” Many have implied as a result that believers are wholly responsible for everyone to whom they haven’t preached the gospel. It has become an unbearable burden to some, but Paul addresses this as well.

“But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” (Romans 10:18)

While we will be held accountable for telling them, we are not responsible for their damnation. Colossians 1:23 stresses that we stick to the Gospel, emphasizing that it was preached to every created being. “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister.” Paul was not responsible for people’s not being saved.

Romans 1:18-20 makes it clear that even a person who has never heard a message about Christ has enough to come to God because God has revealed it through nature. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

God has planned the entire world so man could be aware of hin, and if they would turn to him, he would show them what they needed, as Acts 17:26-27 makes clear. “And (He) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.”

It is not our fault, nor is it God’s fault people go to hell. We ought to love them and try to warn them, because God doesn’t want them to go to hell either.