The Purpose of the World — Chuck Smith

Let's turn in our Bibles to Psalm 19 for our scripture reading. I'll read the first, the odd number verses. Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in the reading of the even number verses. Shall we stand as we read the Word of God?

The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth showeth his handiwork. Day unto day utter his speech and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle before the sun. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and a circuit unto the ends of it. And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, and the commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes.

The statues of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. And the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever, and the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. And moreover by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors?

Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me, and then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Father, we do ask that the meditation of our hearts might be acceptable, Lord, in thy sight.

How we thank you for your word, the law of the Lord, which is perfect, the commandments of the Lord, which are just, the statutes of the Lord, which are right. And Lord, we just pray that today you'll give to us a greater appreciation of your word, that, Lord, it might be applied to our hearts and that it might bring forth fruit in our lives 30, 60, 100 fold.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. This week we continue through the Bible. We're in Isaiah chapters 53 through 55. And tonight, Pastor Skip leading us in the study of these chapters, and we've been enjoying immensely Pastor Skip's studies here on Sunday night, and we would encourage you to come and join with us.

Seven o 'clock this evening, Chuck Gerard will be leading us in worship and then followed by Pastor Skip and our study in Isaiah 53 through 55. Fabulous chapters. This morning we'd like to draw your attention to the 55th chapter and verse 10, where the Lord declares, for as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and returns not thither, but it waters the earth and makes it to bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth.

It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. In Hebrews, we are told that the word of God is alive. It's powerful.

It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces and is able to divide between the soul and the spirit and the bone and the marrow, and it discerns the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Isaiah speaks of the word of God and the life that the word of God can bring.

The power of the word, the purpose of the word is found here in Isaiah 55. He speaks about the purpose of the word of God. It's like rain that comes down from heaven to water the earth, to cause it to bring forth and bud.

We look at the fields this time of the year. We see the vegetation pretty much gone. We see the dark earth. We see the dust, and we realize that within that dirt, there lies a potential for color, for beauty, though it looks very barren and desolate at the present time.

Friday, I was driving from Murrieta, the Bible College, back here to the church. I've been teaching at the Bible College Friday morning. Coming through Temescal Canyon between Elsinore and Corona, the hills are all brown, very dry.

I don't suppose they've had any water for several months, and they look so blighted. They looked so deserty. And it was only a few months ago, back around April, that I was driving that same route through Temescal Canyon down 73.

The hills were alive with color. The golden California poppies were blooming. Vast fields of poppies coloring the hillsides looked like a carpet. And of course, the green grass, and what a difference between that beautiful verdant hillside in April and the dry, barren hillsides here in September.

But I realized that in those dry, barren hills, in that dirt, dust that is there, there lies still the potential for beauty. There are poppy seeds that are there on the ground, and the various grass seeds that are there.

They will lie there until touched by the rains of the winter and the spring. And then once again, the hills will be covered with the beautiful carpets of different wildflowers and the green and the mustard and so forth that will just cover the hillsides.

All it needs is water to bring forth the beauty, the hidden beauty that is there. And I realize that there are many lives that are like those hillsides now, blighted, dry, parched. But the potential for great beauty is there.

All it needs is the Word of God to bring to life all of the resources that are there, right there, just waiting to be touched and to be brought into life and beauty through the Word of God. How marvelous is the Word of God.

And the purpose of the Word is to bring forth beauty from your life, to give life to you and to bring forth beauty. "'Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while to spend much time with the old violin, but he held it up with a smile.

"'What am I bidding, good folks?' he cried. "'Who'll start the bidding for me?'. "'A dollar, a dollar, we'll make it two. Only two, we'll make it three. Three dollars once, three dollars twice, and going for three, but no.

From the room far back came a gray-haired man, and he picked it up with a bow. And wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening the loosened strings, he played a melody pure and sweet, as sweet as the 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 a bow. "'A thousand dollars, we'll make it two. Two thousand, we'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 can't quite understand. What changed its worth?'. Quick came the reply, the touch of the master's hand.

And many a man with life out of tune, and battered and scarred by sin, is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like that old violin. A mess of pottage, a game of chance, a drink, and he travels on.

He's going once, he's going twice, he's going and almost gone. But the master comes, and the foolish crowd never quite understands the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought by the touch of the master's hand.

We have seen so many lives blighted by sin, fruitless, barren. And we have watched how the Word of God transforms and changes and brings forth such beauty from those lives that were once really just cast aside and thought could never bear fruit.

And yet you see them today, and you see what God has done through the power of the Word in his life, and we stand always in amazement at the power of God's Word. Jesus likened the Word of God to seed that was planted in the ground.

He said there was a certain man that went forth sowing seed. Some of it fell on the wayside. Some fell among stony ground. Some fell among the thorns, and some fell on good soil. That which was by the wayside was soon eaten up by the birds, never did anything.

That which fell on the stony ground sort of came up quickly but soon died because it lacked depth of earth. That which fell among the thorns grew up, but yet the thorns choked it out and it never bore fruit.

But that which fell on the good soil brought forth fruit thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. The interesting thing, likening the Word of God to seed. For you see, in the seed there is that DNA molecule. In that DNA molecule is all kinds of information.

The information to produce and to replicate the source of the seed. Whether it be a bare grain, or whether it be a sequoia tree, or whether it be a beautiful flower, all of the information for the reproduction of that original source of the seed is there coded in the DNA.

God's Word, because it is God's Word, planted in your heart, has the capacity of transforming you into the image of God. All of the information is there coded, and as it falls on the good soil of your heart, brings a transformation and brings the beauty of God out of your life.

The grace, the love, the tenderness of God is then manifested in you as God's Word has its effect upon your life. We are told that the earth has the potential that is there. All it needs is the rain falling from heaven to bring forth the full potential.

The potential to give seed to the sower, first of all. You see, it is God's purpose that the propagation continue. So when a farmer harvests his crop, the first thing that he is interested in is setting aside enough seed that he can plant his crop next year.

He wants to perpetuate that crop. And so the seed for the sower is the first thing that is taken out. What is left is ground into wheat to make flour, or the wheat is ground into flour to make bread for the eater.

But first of all, seed for the sower. The propagation and the perpetuation of the harvest is necessary. God's Word. Jesus, when he commissioned his disciples, said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Seed to the sower. Take it out. Spread it over the world. Take the fruit that is in your life, has been produced by your life, and share that fruit with others. What the Lord has done for you, what the Lord has done in you, share it.

Spread it out. Let others know. Years ago, when God began to bless Calvary Chapel with a surplus of funds, at the board meeting we began to discuss the surplus of funds that the Lord had provided for us and how could we best invest these funds to reach our world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of the board members spoke up and said, what is it that has attracted us to Calvary Chapel? What is it that has transformed our lives? It is the simple teaching of the Word of God. Why don't we take this teaching of the Word of God and put it on radio so that people around the country can experience the same transformation in their lives that we have experienced in our lives because of the Word of God.

And that was the beginning of our Word for Today radio ministry across the United States. And as the seed was sown, as rain coming down from heaven, it began to bring life to people all over the United States.

We have hundreds of thousands of letters from people whose lives have been transformed, whose families have been transformed as a result of the teaching of the Word of God and as a result, hundreds of churches have sprung up across the United States teaching the Word of God, seed to the sower.

But it has also bred to the eater. It is so nourishing spiritually to get into the Word and to study the Word and to grow by the teaching of the Word. Bred to the eater, sustained by the Word of God. Now we are told the power of God's Word.

We are told by the Lord that it will not return unto him void, but will accomplish that which he says he pleases. Years ago, the Lord changed my ministry and revolutionized my ministry. Up until then, I had been preaching to the church, and I came to the realization that the church didn't really need preaching as much as it needed teaching.

In Hebrews chapter 6, it said, leaving the first principles of the doctrines of Christ, the repentance from dead works, the baptisms, the laying on of hands, let's go on into maturity. Let's grow up. Let's become mature.

Well, I had not done that as a pastor. I was still just preaching repentance from dead works, baptisms, laying on of hands, and I wasn't really leading the people into maturity through a systematic teaching of the Word of God.

And so, impressed of the Lord, I decided that I would start teaching the Word. And the first book that I chose was the first epistle of John. And interestingly enough, John said that the purpose of that epistle, the reason why he wrote it, is that they might have fullness of joy, that they might have freedom from sin, and that they might know assurance of their salvation.

We spent a whole year on Sunday mornings teaching through the first epistle of John. At the end of the year, though I didn't recognize the relationship, by the end of the year, the people had a greater joy in their walk with the Lord than they had ever known before.

They had greater power over sin, and they had assurance of their salvation. I didn't relate that to Isaiah until years later when I was reading in Isaiah and God says, my word will not return to me void.

It will accomplish really the purposes for which I have sent it. I thought, amazing. As I taught first John, the purpose of the book was to bring fullness of joy, to bring power over sin, to bring an assurance of their salvation.

And that's exactly what happened to the people as I was teaching through first John. Why? Because God's word won't return void. It will accomplish the purposes for which it is sent. God's word planted in your heart is going to accomplish the purposes of God in your life.

And that's why it's so important for us to get into the word. That's why it's so important and we go through the whole word that we might get a full growth. Every part of our body nourished and strengthened because we go through the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation and thus God's word does not return void but produces the fruit in our lives that God has intended that it should.

That is why it is so important really if you have a friend that is really questioning the Bible and Christianity, encourage them, urge them to read the gospel of John. Because John when he wrote his gospel said, these things have we written unto you that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ and by believing have life in his name.

Now that's the reason why John was written then that's what's going to happen as people read the gospel of John. We had a lady in our church who years ago here at Calvary accepted the Lord and her husband was quite upset.

He was an engineer and was really upset that she would embrace you know the Bible as God's word and he was determined that he was going to just read the Bible, find all of the contradictions and flaws and then he was just going to rip her faith apart.

So he started reading and studying the Bible to find the mistakes in order that he might use it as a instrument against her faith. When he got to the gospel of John he accepted the Lord. God's word, it's alive, it's powerful.

God's word, it's like rain that comes down from heaven to water the earth, to give seed to the sower, bread to the eater. It will not return void but will accomplish the purposes for which God has sent it.

Many people have come from all over the world because they have heard of the work of God here at Calvary Chapel and they've come to find the secret of success. No secret. It's the power of God's word.

Simply teaching the word of God simply. It brings forth beauty in the lives of the people. It brings forth life. It takes them from a barren kind of a relationship into a rich, full, beautiful relationship with the Lord.

We can be sure God's word doesn't return void. The most important thing is just to simply teach or to share the word of God with others. A story is told of a young girl who was in the Salvation Army and was in Chicago and would be in these park services and would stand up and give her testimony.

And how this one atheist was just incensed at her simple faith in the Lord. And how he began to listen to her and badger her, trying to interrupt the train of thought. And he started arguing with her about the Bible.

How do you know it is true? How do you know it is the word of God? And as he would argue with her, she would say, well, sir, I really don't know the answer to that. All I know is that the Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, can cleanse a man from all sin.

And he scoffed and he said, that's a Bible, but how can you... She said, sir, I really don't know, but I do know that the Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, can cleanse a man from all sin.

And he'd go on raving again and she'd say, well, sir, I don't know, but I know that the Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, can cleanse a man from all sin. And he finally went away just raving about the ignorance of these people's simple faith and they don't think things through and all, but the next day he was there and he said, what did you say that the Bible says?

The word of God, it penetrated and he accepted the Lord. The word of God, it's like rain. Bringing forth the total potential in a person's life for beauty, for glory. Let the word of God penetrate your heart and your life and it will bring transformation to you.

Father, we thank you for your word, for the power of your word and for the purpose of your word and how the word of God will prosper in the thing in which you have sent it. Thank you, Lord, for how the word of God has blessed and prospered our lives and caused us, Lord, to bud forth with your beauty and with your love.

Lord, we pray today that those that are here whose lives have been blighted by sin, lives are out of tune with you. Even as your word, Lord, has come down like rain from heaven, we pray, Father, that it might bring forth fruit in their lives today.

That it might bring forth the beauty that is possible, the potential that is there. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.