When God’s word, God’s power, God’s promise says that His blessing will flow to a thousand generations to those who love Him, that’s God’s Word, but we choose to believe our circumstances.

Spies in the Promised Land

Last week we finished a series called Taking God at His Word, and I guess in that series we laid a foundation of teaching that God just takes us as we are, God’s having a party and it’s come as we are and He just wants to breathe life into our dry bones. This week we’re starting a new four part series to really build on that foundational teaching. The series is called The Power of God’s Word in My Life. You love that, The Power of God’s Word in My Life? God’s word is when God speaks; God speaks through the Bible that’s why we call it Gods word. The Bible tells us that Jesus was the word of God, Jesus was God himself speaking to us, when we hear preaching that’s anointed by the Holy Spirit we say, “Well God’s word is being preached.” And then God talks to us in special individual ways directly through the Holy Spirit, and sometimes through other people in words of prophecy and we say, “Well I’ve had a word from the Lord.” Whichever way it is God speaks and when God speaks, things happen, when God spoke in the beginning he said “Let there be light,” and there, was amidst the darkness there was light. God spoke and stuff happened, amazing things happen when God speaks His word because God’s words are containers of His awesome, infinite loving power.

It’s easy for us to say, “Well that’s really nice Berni, yeah when God speaks there’s power and that’s great but that’s for other people, it’s not for me, there’s no way that God is going to speak His word and His power into my life.” Yet the Apostle Paul wrote this, he said, “the same God that commanded light to shine out of the darkness has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Paul wrote that in the second letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4 and verse 6. And again in Ephesians, Chapter 1 Paul said, “look I pray that as you get to know God you would know the power,” and actually he wrote “the immeasurable great power for us who believe according to God’s great power.” The immeasurably great power, the power of God is in His Word and the word of God is for your life and my life and that’s why we’ve called this series, The Power of God’s Word in My Life.

It’s about what God says and what we say, and how those things have enormous power. God’s words have positive power, sometimes the things that we say, the words that come out of our mouths have a destructive power in our lives, so that’s what we’re going to be doing this week and the next three weeks in this four part series, The Power of God’s Word in My Life.

We’re going to start today with the story of Israel in Numbers Chapter 13, and when we read Numbers Chapter 13 if you have a Bible grab it, and open it there early in the Old Testament. Numbers 13, I’ll tell you with what happens here we can see why some people think 13 is an unlucky number. The story of Israel, they’re not long out of Egypt, Israel remember were slaves in Egypt and God sent ten great miracles and plagues, He parted the Red Sea, and through these amazing miracles God brings them out of Egypt via Mt Sinai. And then fairly early on in the Exodus to the Promised Land, why was it called that, why did Israel refer to the land as the Promised Land?

Well if we flick back to Genesis Chapter 12 we see that right at the beginning of God’s engagement with His people He makes a promise to Abraham. Right at the beginning of Genesis Chapter 12 He says this, “now the Lord said to Abraham, ‘go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you, I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you and I will make your name great so that you’ll be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’.” And then further down in Chapter 13 verses 14 to 16 again there’s a promise of this land. “The Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, ‘raise you eyes now and look at the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring for ever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth your offspring also shall be counted.

So God makes this promise to Abram to bless his children and his children’s children with this land of Canaan. It’s the word of God to Abraham, it’s the promise of God to Abraham, of course Abraham was the father of the whole nation of Israel. God promised him offspring, well Abraham was a very old man at this stage so that was impossible and God promised him this land that was inhabited by all these other tribes and that appeared impossible. Yet Abraham had Isaac, and Isaac had Jacob, and Jacob have twelve sons one of whom was Joseph, and from there grew this whole great nation of Israel that was captive in Egypt, oppressed until God through Moses set them free. And we pick up this story fairly early on in what we call the Exodus, Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. This huge miracle all these years on I mean centuries on, it’s impossible that God should even have given Abraham a son, let alone now the sons has produced more sons and we have this massive nation called Israel. And God brings them out through this wonderful miracle and we see that right early on in this exodus, not at the end of the forty years, but fairy early on in the piece they stand at the threshold of the land that God promised Abraham all those centuries before.

Pick it up in Numbers, Chapter 13 verses 1 and 2. “The Lord said the Moses, ‘send men to spy out the land of Canaan which I am giving to the Israelites from each one of their ancestral tribes you shall send one man everyone a leader among them.’” So God spoke His word the power of His word centuries before to Abraham and now miracle after miracle has happened and Israel stands at the threshold of the Promised Land. And God says, “Look, go and see what I have prepared for you, go and have a look, go and have a sqwizz.” God’s word spoke power that rang down through the centuries, you know often when God speaks words to us it doesn’t feel like power. You look at Israel’s story, it was a huge sweeping story from Abraham to this point where they’re standing at the promise land but they only see their little bit.

They’re torn out of their homes in Egypt, they go on a journey that they don’t understand, its uncomfortable, it’s unfamiliar. We’re like that sometimes too, we believe in God’s word but when it comes right down to it in our lives, well, ummm, ahh, I’ll go and have a look, I’ll spy into the land that God’s promised me. And we have a decision point, its not an easy decision point but we have a decision point between God’s word and believing that and the power of God’s word, and the physical and emotional circumstances that we find ourselves in. And we weigh those two things up constantly saying, “Well, which one am I going to believe, God’s word or my circumstances?” We’ll see how that plays itself out in the story of Israel.

Giants and Grasshoppers

Well here we have Israel standing on the threshold of the Promised Land, the power of God’s word; God’s promise to Abram has rung down through the centuries and brought them to this point, miracle after miracle. And they send spies into the Promised Land and they have to weigh up, are they going to go into the Promised Land, are they going to follow God’s word and God’s promise and believe all the miracles, or are they going to believe what the spies bring back. Let’s have a look to see what it is that the spies have to say when they come back. We’ll pick it up in Numbers Chapter 13 beginning at verse 21.

“So these spies went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob they went up into Negev and came to Hebron,” (and whole bunch of other places that I cant pronounce) “and they came to the Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes and they carried it out on a pole between two of them and they also brought some pomegranates and figs. That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster the Israelites cut down from there.

At the end of forty days the spies returned from spying out the land and they come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to tell the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land, and they told him, ‘we came to the land to which you sent us, it flows with milk and with honey and this is its fruit. Yet the people who live in the land are strong and the towns are fortified and very large and besides we saw descendants of Anak there. And the Amalekites live in the land of the Negev, and the Hitties and the Jebusites and the Amorites live in the hill country and the Canaanities live by the sea and along the Jordan.’

But Caleb, Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘let us go up at once and occupy for we are well able to overcome it.’ Then the men who had gone up with him said, ‘we are not able to go up against this people for they are stronger than we are.’ So they brought to the Israelites an unfavourable report of the land that they had spied out saying, ‘the land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. There we saw the Nephilim, the Anakites come from Nephilim, and to ourselves we seem like grass hoppers and so we seemed to them.”

What did the spies find when they went into the land? Well they found that it was good, it was flowing with milk and honey that there was fruit and they brought some of that fruit home with them. But they also found big people, the Anakites and the Amalekites and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites and the Canaanites. And they were scary people, they were big people, they lived in fortified cities. So here we have it, the clash, the real life clash between God’s promise, God’s power, God’s word on the one hand and the reality on the ground, on the other.

God’s promise was one of love and power and future and land and growth and blessing and milk and honey. And God had brought them to this point through a trail of miracles across history, and yet these people who just a short time before had walked through the Red Sea parted for them by God through Moses, who had seen for themselves the plagues that God sent on Egypt to set them free. These same people looked ahead into the Promised Land, the land that God had promised them and saw people and circumstances and it was an ugly and scary reality. They were torn between God’s heart and God’s promise and this ugly reality on the ground. And twelve men, one from each tribe, they were torn; the majority, ten of them, well they went to the land and they caught grass hopper syndrome. They went there and they saw the circumstances and look what they said, they said, “Look these people are bigger than us, when we compared ourselves to them we seemed like grass hoppers and we seemed like grass hoppers to them too.”

So God’s promise looked so small next to the big obstacles that faced them, to ourselves we seemed like grass hoppers. So true sometimes, we feel as small as a grass hopper, when God laid the dream on my heart, He said, “Berni I want you to go and proclaim the gospel through this medium of radio.” And that promise was so strong in my heart, and then as I started to do that and started to go through the practicalities and the realities of learning how to record programs and doing all the stuff and going to radio stations, I felt so small. You know I thought, “Who am I that I should be doing this?” Yet there was a call, there was a promise from God, and it’s so hard. And so it was for the Israelites, the ten of the twelve spies came back and said “no way, we’re like grass hoppers, we’ll get squashed and crushed.”

But the other two, Joshua who was from Ephraim the tribe, and Caleb who was from Judah, they came back with confidence. Look at what they said, Numbers 13:30, “Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘let’s go up there at once and occupy it because we are well able to over come it’.” But the two were out weighed by the ten, and so the spies as a group gave an unfavourable report it says. Let’s look at the people’s reaction, the people in Chapter 14 verses 1 to 10, the people said, “well if that’s the way it’s going to be let’s get out of here, we’re not going there, you know there’s no way we want to get killed, we could have stayed in Egypt to go and get killed, in fact why don’t we appoint ourselves a captain and go back to Egypt?”

“And then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the whole assembly of the congregation of the Israelites and Joshua the Son of Nun and Caleb the Son of Jephunneh who were among those who’d spied out the land, tore at their clothes and said to all of the congregation of the Israelites. ‘The land that we went through as spies is and exceedingly good land, if the Lord is pleased with us He’ll bring us into the land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey, only don’t rebel against God, and don’t fear the people of the land because they’re no more than bread for us, their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us, don’t fear them.’ But the whole congregation of Israel threatened to stone them to death.”

It’s amazing isn’t it, they looked, these two men, and they saw with confidence, the rest had fear, so the whole of the congregation of Israel, the whole of the nation wanted to flee back to Egypt, they were afraid. The bold life of Christian victory is a risky business, it involves going from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the safe to the unsafe, from the known to the unknown, from here into God’s Promised Land. And there are so many dimensions of our lives, relationships and maturity and finances and we sitting here, and we know that God has promised us a better life, yet we peak, we send spies, we have a look at it, and it can be scary to follow God’s call. It can be scary to listen to God’s word; it can be scary to believe in God’s power. The question for you and me is, “are we a Joshua and Caleb or are we like the majority of Israel?” Which one are we?

Power of a Positive Report

Well the spies came back, ten of them gave a negative report, two of them gave a positive report, Israel had seen miracles they are at the threshold of the Promised Land, they’re ready to go in and they decided not to. How did God see it? Well God reacts; God was not happy, look at Numbers Chapter 14 verses 11 and 12. “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will this people despise me, and how long will they refuse to believe in me in spite of all the signs and miracles that I have done for them? Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll strike them down with a pestilence and disinherit them and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.’ And so Moses, you can read about it in the next few verses, verses 13 to 19, throws himself down on the ground and he intercedes for Israel. He says, “God they’re your people, don’t destroy them, they don’t understand what they’re doing, just bless them just don’t destroy them.”

And God listens to Moses, look at what it says in Chapter 14 verse 20. “Then the Lord said, ‘ok, well I will forgive just us you’ve asked, but nevertheless as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors. None of those who despised me shall see it, but my servant Caleb, because he was a different spirit and has followed me whole heartedly, I will bring into the land to which he went. And his descendants shall possess, none will enter except Caleb, Son of Jephunneh and Joshua, Son of Nunn. But your little ones who you said, will become booty if you go in, well I’ll bring them in and they shall know the land that you have despised, but as for you your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years and shall suffer for you faithfulness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.”

Isn’t it amazing, God’s perspective was so different to the Israelites perspective? They were focused on the problems and the difficulties and the risks and the big people in the land and the fortified cities. And God said, “Hang on a minute, haven’t you seen all the miracles that I’ve done in your life already? Can’t you remember those? Can’t you listen to My word and understand when I speak, I speak power and I spoke to Abram all those centuries ago, I was speaking a promise that cannot be broken. I have brought you to this land and instead of coming back with a positive report you’ve come back with a negative report, you’ve turned my promised land away, none of you shall enter into my promise except the two spies, Joshua and Caleb, and your children who were too young to participate in your sin. But you, you who are adults, you who have turned against me, you will not enter into the Promised Land.”

Isn’t it amazing how we can look at our situations, a difficult teenager, and say, “Well, I’ll just have to live with it.” When God’s word, God’s power, God’s promise says that His blessing will flow to a thousand generations to those who love him. That’s God’s word, but we choose to believe our circumstances, or we’re looking to take the next step in our relationship with God and we say, “Well you know, what will I have to give up, and how hard is it?” And yet God’s word God’s promise says when we take a step towards him, he will draw close towards us. Or we’re dealing with some sin that we can’t deal with, the temptation and we think, “Well, you know, I’m never going to get over this.” And Jesus says, “But when I set you free, you’ll be free indeed.” Which one are we going to believe?

Are we going to believe the giants, the fortified cities, the circumstances that we don’t think that we can overcome? Or are we going to believe in the power of God’s word in our lives? How can we miss out on that power, how can we miss out on the promise, how can we miss out on the blessing? By rejecting the word of God, by going for the grass hopper syndrome and focusing on our circumstances and deciding we can’t do it. Without faith it’s impossible to please God, and that’s what’s going on here. Israel sees its little bit of the story, right now, the problems from the bottom up. God’s looking at it from the top down, God’s looking at the sweep of history, God’s looking at it from His power and His word, he’s looking at it from a different perspective, but only Joshua and Caleb understood that. Why is it that those two came back from the land with the other ten as spies, why did they bring back a positive report? Why were they different? Because they looked through God’s, they saw those giants and said, “Those giants aren’t as big as God.” They saw the circumstances through God’s eyes; they saw it from God’s perspective, top down not bottom up. And their lips spoke a positive report, because their hearts had faith in God.

When we step into God’s power through faith and when we speak God’s positive report over the circumstances because we believe His word and we believe His promises, then the power of God is at work in our lives. Let me ask you a question, in your life right now, what’s oppressing you? What are your giants? What’s stopping you from walking into the promised land of peace and joy and fellowship with God? Come on, what are they, and what are you saying about them? Are we grumbling and complaining, “Oh it’ll never change, I can’t cope. Oh this is a problem, oh that persons a problem?” Those things are like the unfavourable reports of the ten spies who came back from the Promised Land, and let me tell you that is not music to God’s ears. Let’s get right down to it; our unfavourable reports are like a stench in the nostrils of God. We’ll be looking at that more over the coming weeks, but right now God’s words are God’s power, they are promises for you and for me. And my prayer is the Holy Spirit will breathe them into your heart so that your lips can confess the promises of God and the power of God and the power of God’s word in your life.

What we speak changes the direction of our lives and the lives of other people. We speak death or we can speak life, like clear fresh living water.

Sticks and Stones

Over the last few weeks on Christianityworks we’ve been looking at the power of God’s word in my life, in your life. Two weeks ago we looked at what I called grass hopper syndrome, you know when we’re confronted with some really big problem and we look at it and we think, “I’m just this little grass hopper, how am I ever going to over come that giant?” And what we saw was that when God promises to help us he means to help us, and no matter how big, no matter how daunting, no matter how scary the problem might be God’s word is more powerful than the problem. And last week we saw that God has creative power in his word, we saw how Abraham, you know he had this promise from God saying, “You’ll have children and grand children more than you can ever imagine,” and Abraham was an old man and yet God promised that He would do it, and God did do it.

There’s such an incredible creative power for God to find solutions to our problems that we can never dream up ourselves. Well today, yes God’s word has power and as we speak God’s word over our lives, that power happens in our lives, but there’s a flip side to that. On the flip side of the coin is the devil’s word, the stuff we say comes out of our heart and it goes to our mouth and it turns into words and we’ve a decision, we have a decision either to speak what God speaks, to say what God says, to see ourselves the way God sees ourselves – in faith. Or we can let bad stuff come out of our mouths, the devil’s words, to do a lot of harm to ourselves, and in fact to other people. Remember in the school yard we used to sing that little ditty, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me?” Well that’s a whole bunch of rubbish because when people say bad things to us they do hurt, some of the things that people have said to us, to you and me over the years have left some deep scares.

Now God can heal those hurts and I pray that if you have hurts from the past, in fact let me pray for you now. If you have hurts from the past I’m going to pray for you right now. Father, there is someone listening today who is suffering from hurts from the past, maybe its something their parents said or did, maybe its something the kids at school said or did, or a teacher, or just someone Lord, and that’s left a deep hurt. Father your Spirit can go into that place and heal that hurt, Father for that person who is listening today who is suffering from hurts of the past I pray healing into that space, into that place, into that hurt, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Father I pray that through the power of Your Spirit you would bring healing in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Now today we’re going to look at the words that we say and how they can cause pain and real damage to others and to ourselves, and really what today’s about is stopping the pain and stopping the damage. Next week we’re going to turn back to God’s word and see how when we speak God’s word out of our lips that brings a healing power into our lives. But we do some stuff, right here, right now, right today, yesterday, tomorrow, we say things with our lips that cause pain. And it’s amazing how small our mouths and how small our tongue is compared to the rest of our body, and yet it can cause such incredible pain as we say bad things to ourselves and we say bad things to other people.

If you have a Bible grab it, open it, we’re going to James Chapter 3, it’s towards the end of the New Testament. James Chapter 3, where James talks about taming our tongue. Let’s pick it up at verse 2.

“All of us make many mistakes; anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridal. If we put bits into the mouth of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies, or look at ships, though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them forward, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. Well that’s what it’s like with our tongue, it’s a small member of our body yet it boasts of great exploits, how great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire? And the tongue, the tongue is a fire, the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity, it stains the whole body, sets of fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. For every species of beast of burden, reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by the human race but no one can tame the tongue, a restless evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God, from the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, it shouldn’t be like that. Does a spring pour forth from a same opening fresh water and salt water? Can a fig tree yield olives or a grape vine, figs? No, no more than salt water can yield fresh water.”

Isn’t it interesting how James here draws this picture, you know you ride a horse, if you’ve ever ridden a horse, I have a couple of times, I hate riding horses, there’s no where to put the CD’s and there’s no air conditioning! But other than that they’re nice animals, don’t get me wrong they’re wonderful! A horse is a large animal, it bigger than a person right? Much bigger than a person and actually the horse could rebel against the rider but when the horse is trained and you put a bridal in its mouth, that small bridal attached to the reigns, takes the horse where ever the rider wants it to go. Same with a ship, ships in James’s day, in the first century were wooden ships, sailing ships, there were no motorized ships and lots of wind had to blow them forward into the sails and yet the small rudder, this tiny little piece of wood at the back of the ship, you push it to the left, you push it to the right and the ship goes where the pilot wants it to go.

And he says look the tongue is exactly the same, the tongue might be a small part of our bodies but it has a major impact on the direction of our lives. See the bridal in the horse’s mouth is about setting direction, the rudder on the ship is about setting direction and then he says the tongue is exactly the same. Isn’t that interesting, what we do with our mouth, what we say with our mouth can set a direction of our lives. And then he goes on to say you just need a little flame to set a whole forest on fire and our tongue is like that, what we say makes a huge difference. And we can say some rotten things, you know a husband and wife arguing, and they do, and one screams at the other one in a fit of rage, “I wish I’d never married you.” It’s like a knife into the heart of the other, its something that that person can never take back, it’s a scar that will be deep and will hurt for a long time. Even if it wasn’t meant, if it was just a stupid fit of rage it creates a deep hurt.

The words from our mouth can either be God’s words, words of encouragement, words of goodness, words of grace, words of peace. Or they can be the devil’s words, now you may think that’s too strong but it says exactly that when James says that the tongue is set on fire by the fires of hell. It’s full of deadly poison and when we use it that way that stuff isn’t coming from God that stuff is coming from the devil, it’s going to change the direction of our lives and the lives of the people around us for the worse. We’ll have a look at that a bit more, that whole blessing and cursing thing that we can do with what we say in a minute.

Blessing and Cursing

Well, we’re talking today about the blessing and the cursing that can come out of our mouths, what we say can change the direction of our lives. We can either speak blessing with our mouth, or we can speak cursing with our mouth. It’s amazing, as James writes, we read it before, “for every species of beasts and burden, reptiles and sea creature that’s been tamed by the human species. But no one can tame the tongue, a restless evil tongue full of deadly poison. With it we bless God and with the same tongue we curse the ones that God has made in His likeness, the people around us. From the same mouth come blessing and curse, brothers and sisters, it shouldn’t be like this. Does a spring bring forth fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree yield olives or a grape vine figs? No more than salt water can yield fresh water.”

Did you know that what you say about you and your life can be a curse on your life? “I’ll never loose weight. I’ll never get that promotion at work. All those other people have such a good relationship with God I can never be like that. You know my husband is a slob he’s never going to change.” The list goes on and on. Do you hear those words coming out of your mouth sometimes? Sometimes we say it without even noticing, sometimes we just say this negative stuff and we don’t notice we’re saying it we’re just in a habit, in a rut of saying negative things. Jesus said, “If I set you free you are free indeed.” And later on in the New Testament it says, “We have been set free in order to …be free.” For freedom we have been set free, the whole point of Jesus dying on the cross, rising again is that you and I could have a life of freedom. Real freedom, freedom from this sort of rubbish that can come out of our lives. And the Apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:17 “if anyone is found in Christ,” that is in a relationship with Him, “then that person is a new creation, old things have passed away, all things are new.”

Next week we’re going to have a look at some of God’s amazing promises for your life and for my life. The sorts of promises that are all throughout the Bible and then we go along and say, “It’ll never change, it’ll never get better, I’ve got a terrible life.” Come on, are we meant to be a people that speak misery over our lives? I know people, I know people and every time you speak to them, you say, “How are you today?” And they say, “Well, you know, this is wrong and that’s wrong and this isn’t going well and that’s never going to change.” “But hang on doesn’t anything good ever happen in your life?” I know some people like that who have attended church all their lives and my question is, “what for?” “What benefit has that been to you?” Because if all you can see in your life is misery and hopelessness and all you ever speak over your life is misery and hopelessness, you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to end up wasting your whole life.

Now that’s to say that bad things don’t happen to good people, they do, and some people have to carry burdens for many, many, many years. If you’re the carer of someone who’s chronically ill, you have to carry that burden for many years indeed. But you know something, the more we speak misery over our lives, the more we are going to live that misery. See what James says there in verse 8 of Chapter 3, he says, the tongue is full of deadly poison. When we speak those words over our lives it’s like drinking in poison. How smart is it to do that? How smart is it to speak that poison over our lives? Jesus didn’t promise that He would put us all in great big mansions, driving expensive cars, having perfect wonderful lives, in fact He promised the opposite. He said, if you follow me you will have tribulations, you will be persecuted, you will have problems, but be of good cheer because I’ve overcome the world, I’ve come to set you free so that you can experience joy and peace and freedom in whatever circumstances I choose for your life.

God wants us to enjoy today, God wants us to experience and taste his peace and joy now, this very hour. And sometimes we’re going through difficult times and we’re waiting for a word from God, we’re waiting for God to speak to us, we’re saying “God why aren’t you talking to us?” And then the moment we talk to someone else all we do is speak the words of the devil over our lives. We speak poison over our lives, get a revelation! If out of this mouth, out of your mouth, out of my mouth we speak death, we can’t speak life. You see what he writes here, “from the same mouth come blessing and cursing, my brothers it shouldn’t be like this. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh water and salt water?” Fresh water is life, salt water is death, you can’t drink salt water, you can’t live on salt water, it’ll kill you.

That’s the problem these people had on their sailing boats when they were becalmed or when they were lost, they ran out of water and they died. But fresh water, that’s the water of the Holy Spirit, that’s the living water, they’re the words that God wants coming out of our mouths, they’re the words of life. If we talking words of death over our lives, well, holy good night! Come on what are you speaking over your life, life or death? And what about the lives of others, “Oh you’ll never amount to anything, your hopeless you shouldn’t be in this job.” They are the devils words, they cut off hope, they cut off future, they’re like a dark shadow and a pool of smoke. When we speak those words to ourselves or others we doing the work of the devil for him. We become his agents no better than the demons he sends out from hell, are you shocked? Do you think I’m over stating the case a little bit?

Look at verse 6, “and the tongue is a fire, the tongue is place among our members as a world of iniquity, it stains the whole body and it sets fire to the cycle of nature and is itself set on fire by hell.” You say those words, you deny the promises of God, you speak death over your life, you are being an agent for the devil. God today is revealing His will, this is coming from His word to teach, to admonish, to grow, to encourage. Come on, God wants a better life for each one of us, and part of growing up, part of being mature, part of having a life of victory, is saying, “I’m not talking this stuff over my life anymore, God has some great promises in His word and I am going to speak those promises over my life. That’s what we’re going to be looking at next week.

So what does God’s word look like? What does it look like when we speak God’s word over our lives? Well we’ll have a look at that in a minute.

Two Kinds of Wisdom

Well we’re looking at the two kinds of words and wisdom that can come out of our mouths, God’s words and the devil’s words. What we speak changes the direction of our lives and the lives of other people. If we speak death we just looked at that, we looked at the sort of things that we can do to speak death and gloom over our lives or we can speak life, like clear fresh living water. And James says look you want to know what that looks like? This is what it looks like; you want to know what speaking life looks like? Here it is; we pick it up at verse 13 of James, Chapter 3.

“Who is wise and understanding among you, show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts don’t be boastful and forced to the truth, such wisdom doesn’t come from God but its earthly, its unspiritual, its devilish. For where there is envy and self ambition there will be all sorts of disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from God is first pure then peaceable and gentle and willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of hypocrisy. A harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

The nasty things we say, you know they’re about winning, they’re about that selfish ambition, and the bitter envy, and James is say there if you’ve got that in your heart, look what he says, he says in verse 15. “That sort of stuff, it’s not from God its earthly, it’s unspiritual and it’s devilish.” In other words it’s not from God it’s from the devil. And we carry that around in our hearts and there’ll be disorder and wickedness of every kind. If we speak with that in our hearts then we are going to be speaking the devils words because we have devilishness in our hearts. But then he says look, in verse 17, “the wisdom from above you put that in your heart.” What does that look like? Well its pure, its peaceable, its gentle, its willing to yield, you see when we’ve got selfish ambition we want to win.

We’re taught from being little kids, right from the beginning, its all about winning. And he says, no you want God’s wisdom? Then be peaceable, be gentle, be willing to yield. Have you been in a taxi, I have, where the shock absorbers aren’t working? And it is one heck of a bumpy ride, every pothole you feel it sort of jars your fillings. A good shock absorber softens the ride; a really expensive shock absorber makes for a very smooth and comfortable ride. What’s gentleness? It’s being willing to yield, its being like a shock absorber in a relationship, because when we have selfish ambition, when its about winning then we don’t have any give in us, we let stuff come out of our mouths that is jarring, that is hurtful, that is painful to ourselves and to other people. But if we have the Holy Spirit’s gentleness in our hearts then our mouth will say different things.

You and I can’t control our tongues; look at verse 7 and verse 8. “For every species of beast of burden, reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by the humanity but no one can tame the tongue.” Who can tame the tongue? No one can tame their tongue. Do we want the power of God’s word in our lives? Do we want power over adversity? Do we want that incredibly creative power that God has to bring solutions to our needs and problems that we can never dream of? Absolutely, and we’ll get back to that next week, but today your tongue and my tongue can undo that power, today its like having a weapon. I mean Paul writes in Ephesians Chapter 6 that the Word of God is like a sword and the sword is an offensive weapon. When we put bad stuff out of our mouth it’s like having, well like having a weapon, a sword or a rifle, for fighting the enemy, but instead we shoot off our own foot. We can’t have victory, we can’t have the power of God’s word in our lives if we’re praising God in one breath and cursing others and ourselves in another breath. If that’s you, let God’s word set you free today.

God means for you and for me to have a life of awesome freedom. God has provided all the power that we need to do that and he gives that to us through his word, through what He says here in the Bible and through His Holy Spirit to bring that into effect, in our lives, and what God says doesn’t change, God doesn’t say one thing one day and another thing the next day, he doesn’t flip flop. He is faithful, He’s reliable, He’s a God whose word will stand for ever. But you and I, you and I have the power to undo His good power in our lives by speaking the devil’s words over our lives, words are containers for power and what James writes here in the Bible, this is God’s word, this is God saying this to you and me here and now, you do that stuff and its from the devil and it’ll ruin your life, but let the Spirit of God into your heart and say “Lord I want to be set free from that junk today, I want your Spirit to change my heart so that I’m not spitting forth the devils words over my life anymore, I’m done with that Lord, I turn from that I repent from that I want a life where your power happens in all its fullness and all its blessing and all its wonder in my life.”

If you’re struggling with what you’re saying over your life, today, today God’s Spirit means to set you free.

This God who showed the stars to Abraham and said, “Just believe in me,” is the same God who promises us a relationship and reconciliation and eternal life and peace and joy through Jesus Christ.

Let There be light

Welcome to another program of Christianityworks. This week we’re working our way through a four part series called ‘The Power of God’s Word in my Life’ and I have to tell you, I’m excited for us to be together this week. God’s Word is an amazing thing, it’s not just a dusty old book. God’s Word means a number of different things, yes it’s the Bible; it’s God’s Word. The Bible also calls Jesus the Word of God because through Jesus, God spoke and He is still speaking to you and me, here and now and when we hear anointed preaching we say, “Well, God’s Word is being preached,” and when we hear a prophesy we say, “There’s a word from God.”

God’s Word is a wonderful thing, God began at the beginning (we’ll look at that in a moment), speaking and amazing things happened. God is still speaking to us today, here and now and amazing things are still happening. So what does that mean? I mean, what does it mean for your life and my life? I think we are going to have an exciting time together over the next twenty or twenty five minutes or so, when we look at the creative power of God’s Word in our lives. It works! God’s Word makes such a difference; it makes life better. Not in theory, but in real life, in practice, when God speaks, it does make a difference to our lives.

Well, let’s go to the beginning and take a look at what happens when God speaks and the beginning of God’s Word is Genesis chapter 1, right at the very beginning. And it says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and then God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light and God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness.” So right there in the beginning, in verse 3, it says, “God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”

Can you imaging what an incredible concept light is, when light has never before existed? All that there was, was darkness, nothing, just darkness and the Spirit of God was in that place and God spoke; God said, “Let there be light,” and there was and all of a sudden, in what had always been darkness, what had always been a formless void of nothing, light shone into that place. Why did it do that? Because God said, “Let there be light.” And in verse 6 of Genesis chapter 1, it says, “God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water, so God made an expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water over the expanse.” So it says there God said, “Let there be a sky,” and God created that dome and then in verse 9, God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered in one place and let dry ground appear.

And so it happened, the vast majesty of the oceans on the earth were created. And verse 11, “Let there be plants,” and verse 14, “Let there be light,” trillions of stars and galaxies, verse 20, “Let there be seafood.” Hallelujah for seafood! Verse 24, “Let there be animals on the land,” and then in verse 26, He says, “Let us make humanity in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” And then God created us, humanity, in His own image, the image of God, we were made in. Male and female, He created us. And then in verse 29, finally, it says, “Then God said, “I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they will be yours for food and all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food, and it was so.”

What an awesome chapter! God speaks, “Let there be light,” there’s light. “Let there be a sky,” – there’s a sky. Let there be an ocean, let there be plants, let there be lights in the sky, let there be seafood, let there be animals, let there be people and let those people have dominion over the whole of creation. There was nothing and then a whole universe was created. How was it created? God said! You might say to me “Berni, you don’t believe that stuff? Well, when I look around creation, the wonder, the abundance, the size, the complexity, the intricacy, the beauty, the power, I just can’t come to any other conclusion – that God made these wondrous things. I can’t come to the conclusion that they were an accident. I can’t come to the conclusion that, somehow, you and I are born out of some primeval slime soup millions of years ago. God’s creation is too wondrous, it’s too powerful, it’s too beautiful to be just an accident and it all happened when God said, when God spoke.

A couple of thousand years ago the Apostle Paul, said this, “What can be known about God is blindingly, glimpsingly obvious because God’s shown it to us. Ever since the creation of the world, His eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that He has made.”

You can’t help but look at creation and see His creativity, see the variety, the abundance, the power. How did He do that? I don’t know; I have no idea how God created everything. I’m just not an expert, but that He did is obvious to me. The beauty and the magnificence and I look at it all and I just smile in wonder and awe and think, “My goodness, that’s amazing.”

Ok, so what? God speaks and amazing things happen – worlds and galaxies and universes are created. If God’s Word; if what He says is an expression of who He is, what amazingly creative power does our God have? Go and look in the mirror sometime – you and I are a part of that – when He created you, when He created me, He looked and smiled and thought, “I’m creating this person – unique, but it doesn’t stop there, because God’s Word is full of creative power and God’s heart is to bring all of that creative power to bear through His Word in your life and my life.

God’s Creative Power

It is, it’s awesome! God’s Word is just wonderful. When He speaks, He speaks so wonderfully, great things happen, amazing things happen – lights and oceans and plants and stars and fish and worlds and galaxies and the universe. When as yet there was nothing, God said, “Let there be light.” You know, I believe we can dismiss God’s Words too lightly, if you’ll pardon the pun. The Word of God is an expression of who He is. It is full of His creative power; God’s Words are containers of His creative power. Great, so what? Well, praise God He didn’t stop with the inanimate things, He created us in His image – He created us, you and me, male and female and He still wants to touch our lives with His creative power through His Word, here and now, today.

One of the things that always stands me in awe of who God is, (I did it last weekend). My wife Jacqui and I went away in the country for a short break and away from the smog and the lights and the noise of the city at night time, we could look up at the Milky Way and see how many stars there were. When you look at that universe of stars out there; the trillions of stars and then you look at you and me – we look so small, don’t we? The stars show the majesty of who God is, nothing more vast and beautiful and yet we are so small and there are some wonderful pictures of where God talks about that in the Old Testament. One of them is when He talks to Abraham.

If you have a Bible, open it at Genesis chapter 15. And God had promised Abraham when he had left his country and went where God had sent him, God had promised him that he would be a father to many, many people and yet, here was this old man and he was starting to get dejected because God’s promise was taking forever to happen. Feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it? And it says after this, “The Word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision and God said, “Don’t be afraid Abraham, I am your shield, your very great reward,” but Abraham said, “Oh, God, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who’ll inherit my estate will be Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abraham said, “You have given me no children, so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Doesn’t it feel like that sometimes? And Abraham was crying out to God; his circumstances looked impossible, he was an old man, the Word of the Lord came to him and said, “This man will not be your heir but a son coming from your own body will be your heir,” and He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens, count the stars, if indeed you can count them,” and then God said to him, “so shall your offspring be.”

There was nothing larger that God could have pointed to Abraham that night than the stars in the sky. Abraham had no idea that there were trillions of them. He had no idea of the distances between them; he knew none of that – God did but he didn’t – yet he looked up to the vastness of the lights that God had put in the sky and God said, “Look at this Abraham; look how many, can you count them? Look at them; as many as there are up there, that’s how many children and grand children, and great grand children and great, great, great, great, great grand children you will have.” And later on Sarah, his wife, laughed at God. They thought this was ridiculous; they were both so old; they were almost a century old, both of them. How were they going to have a baby? And yet, eventually they did – they had a baby together and that baby’s name was Isaac and Isaac means ‘he laughs.’ In other words God had the last laugh.

We sometimes look at our circumstances and they are so fearsome and they are so against us and they are so difficult and they are so complicated and they are so impossible. Do you get this? I’ve been there; you’ve been there. Maybe you are in that place right now. We look at our circumstances and God comes along and makes a promise. God comes along and says, “Listen, listen to me. I have something for you that you cannot begin to imagine. It’s so impossible except for the fact that I am speaking this word into your life.”

God makes an enormous number of promises to us in His Word and the problem is sometimes we define ourselves by our circumstances. We define ourselves by the things that we can see and they’re impossible and we say, “Well, you know, nothing is ever going to change.” Then you go and open a Bible and read that story of Abraham and you read that story about God saying, “No, no, Abraham, you don’t get it. You put your faith in me and you will have millions; millions of offspring.” You don’t have to read very far in the Bible to see the promises that God makes to us about who we are in Him. My favourite place; my favourite place to read the promises of God about who I am – the first three chapters of the Book of Ephesians. There are so many promises about who we are; about how we are brought close through Jesus; about how we are children of God; about how we have an inheritance; an eternal inheritance – that is how God sees us. That is God’s Word about you – God’s Word about me and it is bigger than all the impossibilities that you or I can see or imagine.

God is a wonderful God. He’s a powerful God. He’s above all things. He created all things and yet, He has this tender closeness; this tender ’here’ for you and me as He did when He beautifully led Abraham out of that tent that night and showed him the stars. The question is; the question is will we believe in Him? Will you and I look at God and say, “Yes! Yes God, I believe your promises for me?”

Touch of the Master’s Hand

We are looking today at the creative power of God’s Word in your life and in my life. Right at the beginning of the Bible it says that there was no light, there was darkness; there was nothing, and God said, “Let there be light and there was.” That same God who commanded that light to shine into the darkness, has done the most creative thing by sending His Son Jesus, to walk on this earth, to die on this cross, to rise again for you and for me. That same God has shone a light in our heart through the knowledge of Jesus Christ in our lives. And John, in his Gospel talks about that. If you have a Bible, flick it over – let’s go to John chapter 1 and it says.

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” That Word is Jesus and verse 14 of that chapter, it says, “and then Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us.” And He healed the blind beggars and He healed the lame lepers and He walked this earth and He touched lives. He touched the lives of ordinary people like you and like me and once – you can read it in John chapter 6 verse 63 – He said, “Look, it’s the Spirit; it’s God’s Spirit that gives life. The flesh is useless and the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life,” and then He went on to say, “Therefore believe in me. Put your faith in me.”

If this God could create the universe; if this God could look at nothing and be so creative as to come up with the wonderful, glorious, beautiful, powerful, frightening, unfathomable creation that He did, what is it that we think that He can’t do in our lives? And if this God loved us so much that He spared not even His own Son on the cross, what is it that we think He won’t do for us in our lives? It’s not just that God has the power; it’s the creativity, it’s the ability to come up with approaches and solutions, like Jesus, that we would never, ever, ever ourselves dream up in our lives and it’s all through God’s work -when God speaks, those words have a creative power in our lives. And you think, “well, how can I access that power. What is it that gives that power to me?”

Well, let’s have a look what Paul says in Romans chapter 4 and verses 13 to 17. Paul here is looking back on Abraham. Just a few minutes ago we looked at the story of Abraham, who believed God. He said, “God, I know I’m an old man and I know you have promised me a son and I know it looks impossible, but when you show me the stars and when you speak to me and when you say, “I will give you this many descendants,” I’m going to believe you.” And Paul turns around, in Romans chapter 4 verses 13 to 17 and he says this.

“It wasn’t through rules that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be the heir of the world but through the righteousness, the goodness that comes from faith. For if those who live by the rules are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless because rules bring wrath and where there’s no law, there’s no transgression, therefore the promise comes by faith so that it may be grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring; not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of faith of Abraham. He was the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” Here’s our father, in the sight of God in whom we believed, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that aren’t as though they are.” The God that calls things that aren’t as though they are! Now a God that does that is either delusional or powerful.

A God that does that, is either kidding himself- calling things that aren’t as though they are – or this God has the power to make those things happen. And we saw at the beginning of the program, right at the beginning of God’s Word, He said, “Let there be light.” There was no light and light happened. This God who showed the stars to Abraham and said, “Abraham, I have got an incredible promise for you. Just believe in me,” is the same God who promises us a relationship and reconciliation and eternal life and peace and joy, through Jesus Christ and it’s in His Word; the Bible – if it’s in there, it is impossible for God to go back on it because God’s Word is ’who He is’. God is a God of honesty and integrity and God is a faithful God who delivers on His promises.

The creative powerful God of whom Paul writes here, ’He calls things that aren’t as though they are,’ that very, very same God is speaking to us here and now through His Word. He’s saying, “Look, I know your circumstances look impossible. I know there’s something in your life that is a mess. Go and look at the stars – go and look at the trillions of stars that I, through my power and my glory and my grace, put in the heavens for you to look at. Now look in my face, look in the face of Jesus Christ and tell me please, what do you think I can’t do for you? What do you think I won’t do for you? Just come to me with the smallest seed of faith and put your faith in me.” God is a wondrous God. I’d like to finish today’s program with a beautiful poem called ‘The Touch of the Master’s Hand.’ It goes like this:

‘Twas battered and scarred and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But held it up with a smile:
“What am I bidden good folks,” he cried,
Who’ll start the bidding for me?’
“A dollar, a dollar”; then, “Two!” “Only two?
Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?
Three dollars, once; three dollars twice,
going for three —” But no,
From the room, far back, a grey-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then, wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet,
As caroling angels sing.

The music ceased and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said: “What am I bid for this old violin?”
And he held it up with the bow.
“A thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two?
Two thousand! And who’ll make it three?
Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice,
And going, and gone,” said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cried,
“We do not quite understand
What changed its worth?”
Swift came the reply:
“The touch of a master’s hand.”

And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like the old violin.
A “mess of pottage,” a glass of wine,
A game — and he travels on.
He is “going” once, “going” twice,
He’s “going” and almost “gone.”
But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the touch of the Master’s hand.

His plan was to put His power into our hands so that we could live out, in reality, here and now, the victory that He has already won over the devil, on the cross.

Tearing Down

Words are powerful things. Just a small word of encouragement from a friend has the power to lift us up, doesn’t it? And a nasty sneer or a harsh criticism from someone, well it really has the power to hurt and to leave scars on our personality; it leaves scars on our soul; to leave scars on our heart.

This is the last in a series of four messages called, ‘The Power of God’s Word in My Life’. Over these last three weeks we’ve looked at a thing that I call ‘grasshopper’ syndrome. One of the things that happen sometimes is our circumstances look so big and so scary and so hard, we feel like a little grasshopper and we saw a few weeks ago how Israel sent some spies into the Promised Land. When they’d just left Egypt and they’d just begun the exodus and they sent spies into the Promised Land and they came back and they said, “Man, the people in that Promised Land, they’re so big; they’re giants, we can’t do this, we are just like grasshoppers,” and yet two of those spies, Joshua and Caleb, said, “Come on, let’s rely on God’s Word. God’s Word has power. God promised to Abraham that this land would be ours, let’s just go and do it”. And God was angry with the people and He said, “For forty years you people are going to wander around in the desert because you wouldn’t listen to my Word and you wouldn’t go into the land that I promised you.” And ultimately, all the adults who left Egypt, forty years later, had died and there was only their children that got in, except for Joshua and Caleb. It was the men that put their faith in God’s Word and the power of His Word that received the blessing.

Then a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the creative power of God’s Word. When God said, “Let there be light,” there was light. When God speaks there is power in His Words, things happen – big things happen – and God has spoken through His Word; what we call the Bible today. And last week we saw that there is power in my tongue and your tongue. There’s power in what we say. We can say good things or bad things; we can be agents of God or agents of the devil. Words are powerful things, so today we are going to finish off this series by bringing the two together – God’s Word and our words because what we say changes things. That is the title of today’s program, ‘What We Say Changes Things.”

I mean, it stands to reason, if words have power, then what I say, what you say, changes things. I was listening to a man talking, just the other day and he said, “You know, we are living on a Spiritual battlefield.” Sometimes we forget that; sometimes we just look at life and we’re diddly-bopping along through life and it just seems that life is life; ups, downs, good days, bad days, but the reality is and the reality that God’s Word teaches is that we are on a Spiritual battlefield. That’s the reality – the moment we decide to follow Jesus we are stepping onto that Spiritual battlefield. Now, it’s a battle that has already been won, but the devil will attack us. I can hear someone saying, “Oh, Berni, you don’t believe that rubbish do you, that‘s a myth.” Well let’s have a look – let’s go to the Book of Revelation. This is the last book in God’s Word; the Bible. If you have it, open it up. Its Revelation chapter 12 and we are going to look at verses 7 to 12. Let’s have a read.

“And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down – that ancient serpent who is called ‘the devil’ and ‘Satan’ and ‘the deceiver of the whole world’; he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice proclaiming, “Now has come the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of the Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades, the devil, has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God, but they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them, but woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath because he knows that his time is short.”

There’s a picture, I mean, Revelation is all about picture language – it’s written for the Hebrew culture and they love talking in pictures. The picture here is of this great battle in heavenly places; a Spiritual battle and the devil was defeated, he was cast down. We see that – verses 10 and 11 tell us that he was defeated; he was cast down. He was cast down where? To the earth, and we are told that the heavens should rejoice but we here on earth, well, woe to us because the devil is running amuck and he knows he only has a short time. This is the battlefield reality. The devil has been defeated by what? Well, it says in verse 11, “They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb,” by what Jesus did for you and for me on the cross, the devil has been defeated and by the word of their testimony. If we are followers of Jesus, we know the battle’s been won and we know that we’ve got victory and …. But there’s a reality in that victory, theirs is a here and now reality that the war has been won, but the devil is still wandering around the earth, having skirmishes and battles.

Are you a Jesus follower? Let me just speak God’s Word into your heart and into your life. You and I have victory over the devil! But they also defeated him by the word of their testimony because there is power in words. There is enormous power in God’s Word and when we speak God’s Word into that battle, we effectively bring His power to bear in that battle. It’s a bit like when I was in the Army, I never saw active service, but on exercise; we would be on exercise and then we would call in the big guns. We’d get on the radio and we’d call in the artillery fire to do things that we couldn’t do with our rifles. It’s the same thing – when we speak God’s Word into that battle, it is like calling in the heavy artillery into the battle. He can do things with His power that we simply can’t do in our own strength, because these people who won, it says, they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Well, what does that mean?

“They defeated the devil by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” You know what we do sometimes in a tough situation? We see the physical dimension, in a sense we cling to life because what we see, feels safer. But the power is believing in what we can’t see – the power is believing and speaking God’s Word over that situation – into that physical dimension. The blood of the Lamb is God‘s promise; the word of our testimony is making it effective and claiming the authority of God’s promises in our lives. What do some of those promises look like? What does God actually promise? What are some of the Words of God that we can speak into the difficult situations in our lives?

Building Up

We have just been looking at the fact that we are living on a Spiritual battlefield. The devil is alive and well – he has been defeated in the heavenly places. What Jesus did for you and me on the cross has won the war, but he’s fighting some skirmishes; he’s fighting some battles here on this earth and we know that we can defeat him through the promise of God; through the blood of the Lamb; through what Jesus did for me on the cross, through what He did for you on the cross and the word of our testimony. Both of those things come together and defeat the Devil.

What we say changes things; it effects us, it affects the people around us, it brings God’s power to bear; God’s love to bear in any situation and it brings God’s victory over the devil, to bear into that situation. Remember, God’s victory over the devil is an historical fact – it’s what happened when Jesus died and rose again and ascended into heaven – death was defeated, guilt was defeated, hatred was defeated, Satan was defeated and you and I, through faith in what Jesus did on the cross, have that victory, here and now. That’s the creative power in God’s Word and if we are labouring under something; a relationship or financial issues or self-esteem issues or just normal everyday stuff, the devil is going to want to come and have a picnic in our heads and our hearts.

Ever had that? You know that you have this victory but then you go, “Well, maybe this Jesus stuff doesn’t work?” Here’s the devil having a picnic. “What’s the matter with you,” he says, “how can you believe this stuff, come on?” It happens to us; we start to get that doubt happening in our heads and that is the devil playing around with us. So what do we do? Well, we end up mumbling and grumbling, we put words out of our mouths that say – ‘I won’t ever change, I’m hopeless, God’s deserted me.’ Come on, that’s what people do, but let me ask you, what if we spoke God’s promises instead? What if we just spoke God’s Words over and into the situation that we’re dealing with, instead of speaking the devil’s words?

Let’s have a look at some of God’s promises. There are so many in the Bible but there are more promises per square centimeter in the first three chapters of Ephesians than you will find anywhere else in the Bible. These are my favourite chapters in God’s Word, from chapter 1 verse 1 through to the end of chapter 3 of Ephesians, I’m about to read you the thirty promises about us – if we believe in Jesus – that I have been able to discover in those three chapters. Here they go; here’s what the promises say:

I am a saint, grace and peace are mine, I am blessed with every Spiritual blessing – how many? Every! I am chosen before the creation of the world, I am predestined, I’m adopted into God’s family, I’m redeemed, I’m forgiven, God’s grace is lavished on me, wisdom and understanding are mine, God’s will is made known to me, I’m included in Christ, I’m sealed with the Holy Spirit, I have a guaranteed inheritance, I’m called to hope, I have a glorious inheritance, He’s incomparably great power is at work in me, God has given me life, I am seated in heavenly places, I am saved by grace, I am God’s workmanship, I am brought near through Christ’s blood, I am reconciled with others, I have access to the Father, I’m a fellow citizen with God’s people, I’m a dwelling place of God’s Spirit, I’m a member of His Body, I share in the promise of Christ, I can approach God with freedom and God is able to do immeasurably more than I can ever ask for, hope or imagine. Will that do you for a few promises? Is that enough? That is three chapters; two and a half pages in God’s Word and they are the promises of God.

When we are walking alone and having a bit of a tough time and, “don’t know which way to turn – should I do this, should I do that? I never know what God’s going to do, I don’t know what…. You know, He never speaks to me directly”. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 9 says, “God’s will is made know to me!” That’s a promise – that’s a promise from God. When I feel like God’s deserted me, I am sealed with the Holy Spirit, I am included in Christ, I am a dwelling place of God’s Spirit. I can come near to the throne of grace through Christ’s blood; I have access to the Father. What if, when we were struggling with those issues, we simply claimed the promises of God in just these three chapters of His Word?

There are so many, many more promises that His Word makes and there’s something about God, when God makes a promise, He never, He never, He never goes back on it! God’s Word has enormous power. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was – He created the universe and the heavens and the earth and you and me and animals and plants. He created us all simply by speaking us into existence and then He gives us His Word; His promises, beginning with what Jesus did for you and me on the cross and He says, “You know, through what I did for you on the cross and through my Word, you do have victory over the devil and when he comes after you – he knows his time is short – use my Word”. The Apostle Paul calls it the Sword of the Spirit; the Word of God, an offensive weapon against the enemy, to live out the victory that I have already purchased for you. Come on, just live those promises for a bit, speak them into the heart of the situation.

Be Imitators of God

Well, there is power in God’s Word. There is nothing surer, as surely as God made little green apples, when we speak God’s Word; God’s Word of power; God’s Word of grace; God’s Word of love; God’s Word of encouragement. God’s promises, into the situations that confront us in our lives, His plan was to put His power into our hands so that we could live out in reality, here and now, the victory that He has already won over the devil on the cross.

God uses His Words of power to create the universe – let there be light and there was. It is time for us to take His Word and to confess it over our lives. Let’s stop talking rubbish, let’s stop talking negativities, let’s stop talking doubt. You speak those things over your life and that’s what you will end up living. If we speak unbelief into a situation that is a foot hold, that is like swinging the door open for the devil and he will come in and he will inhabit that space.

Nowhere more in God’s Word is there a starker contrast between the good things we can speak and the stupid, lousy things we can speak, than in Ephesians chapter 4, written by the Apostle Paul. Let’s flick there now, if you have a Bible, Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 29. This is what it says: “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you are marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other as God in Christ, has forgiven you.”

You see what Paul writes there about the lousy things that we can say? That whole list was about talking – bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander and malice – instead be kind to one another. He says, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouth, only the sort of words that are useful for building up”. Why? So that your words will give grace to those who hear. When you speak, who is the first person that hears? You hear what you say a split second before everyone else. I hear what I say a split second before everybody else. So if the words that we speak give grace to those who hear, the first person that benefits from that is us. Hasn’t God got a wonderful plan? My words are for me and your words are for you, as well as the people around us who hear. They’re in our hearts before they are on our lips.

The truth is sometimes I find myself around negative people – in negative circumstances. I still do some consulting in the I.T. industry, even though, on full time, I am involved with Christianityworks. In order to bring revenue into the ministry, I still do some consulting and yesterday I was with some very senior people in a Government. It was a tough and difficult and threatening meeting. The meeting room was like a million miles away from God’s Word. That’s how it felt and yet God’s Word came to me in my heart, a word from Joshua chapter 1. He said, “Every place where your foot will tread, I have already given to you.” The Holy Spirit brought it there; it just bounced out. And I couldn’t pray out loud, you know, I couldn’t say, “Well, Lord, praise you, God I really thank you for that,” – not in the middle of that meeting – it wasn’t appropriate and in my heart I just turned to God and I knew I had peace. I knew it would be fine. God gave me this quiet confidence through His Word and it wasn’t just me.

As I began to speak, I spoke with a gentle and quiet confidence and the whole meeting changed. When God’s Word had been spoken through His Spirit into that situation, the tough hardnosed people in that meeting started to collaborate; there was consensus; where there was discord there was agreement – there was peace. God’s Word sent the devil packing out of that meeting, even though at the beginning I have to tell you, it felt like God was a million miles away.

When we’re feeling inadequate, when we have failed, when we are uncertain, when we are lonely, when God seems a million miles away, God can come along and say, “My grace is sufficient for you.” “In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.” Are you feeling lonely? “I’ll never leave you or forsake you.” Come on! God’s Word is His promise to us; His love letter to us. When we speak His Word out over the adversity the devil brings in our lives, it brings encouragement. Let’s look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29 again. “Let no evil talk come from your mouths but only what is useful for building up so that your words give grace to those who hear. God’s Word builds us up. God’s Word builds other people up.

And Revelation chapter 12, that we looked at before the break, says that God’s Word sends the devil packing. I am a son or daughter of the living God and God hasn’t given me a spirit of fear but a spirit of love and power and self-confidence. When we speak that word into the middle of situations of fear, wow! What encouragement God’s Word builds up? The devil’s words, when we speak evil over our lives, when we speak unbelief – well – they don’t bring encouragement at all, they bring destruction. We know that God calls things that aren’t as though they are – Romans 4:17. God speaks into nothing and builds something beautiful and right after this little passage here in Ephesians chapter 4, beginning Ephesians 5 verse 1, Paul writes this – he says, “Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children.” Well if God can do it we can; if God speaks words of power and love and encouragement and creates beautiful things, we can do that too. We are made in His image.

This stuff changes our lives. How often do we wander around grumbling and mumbling and speaking deception into a situation and fling the door open for the devil and say, “Come on in, sit down with me, have dinner with me, keep feeding my doubt and my fear and destroy me,” cause that’s what we are doing, we are inviting the devil in. On the other hand, the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony defeats the devil, brings encouragement and beauty and love and victory. Can I encourage you today to make a decision to stop speaking the devil’s words?

Get into God’s Word; start speaking God’s Word over your life, the lives of others, over the battles that you think you can never win and I promise you this, you will see God defeat the enemy by the word of your testimony and the faith in your heart, in Jesus who has already defeated the enemy. What I say changes things; what you say changes things – that was always God’s plan!