PHYSICAL AND MENTAL EFFECTS OF GOD'S WORD

In The previous study we discovered the following three effects.

 God's Word produces faith, faith consists in believing and acting.

 Produces new birth

 Spiritual nourishment

God's Word provides not merely spiritual health, and strength for the soul, but also physical health and strength for the body.

Psalm 107: 17 20

(17) "Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted.

(18) Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

(19) Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses.

(20) He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them form their destructions."

PHYSICAL HEALING:

Isaiah 55:11

(11) So shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God Absolutely guarantees to provide healing through His Word.

Proverbs 4:20-22

(20) My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings.

(21) Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart;

(22) For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.

...health to all their flesh. Every part of our entire physical frame is included in this phrase. In the margin of the 1611 King James Version, the alternative reading for ‘health' is ‘medicine'. The same Hebrew word includes both shades of meaning. Thus God has here committed Himself to providing complete physical healing and health.

Matthew 15:26

26) It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.

Christ indicated that healing is the children's bread. It is part of God's appointed daily portion for all His children. The means by which God provides healing is His word. God Himself is in His Word. God Himself is in His Word, and that it is through His Word that He comes into our lives.

No cure can be expected unless the medicine is taken regularly, according to the directions.

What are these directions?

1. ‘Give attention to my words'

2. ‘Incline your ear'

3. 'do not let them depart from your eyes'

4. ‘keep them in the midst of your heart'

First direction is: give attention to my words. Give it close and careful attention. Focus your understanding upon it. Give it free, unhindered access to our whole inward being.

When reading the Bible, it is well to do what Jesus recommended when He spoke of prayer; that is, to enter our closet and shut the door. We must shut ourselves in with God.

Second Direction is; ‘incline your ear'. Ear indicates humility. We must be teachable. We must be willing to let God teach us.

Ps 78:41

(41) Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy one of Israel.

By their stubbornness and unbelief they set limits to what they would allow God to do for them.

Matthew 15:6 and 9

(6) Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition

(9) And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men

Third direction is: ‘Do not let them depart from your eyes'. Smith Wigglesworth once said: ‘The trouble with many Christians is that they have a spiritual squint: with one eye they are looking at the promises of the Lord, and with the other eye thy are looking in some other direction.'

Keep both eyes fixed unwaveringly on the Lord's promises.

James 1:6-8

(6) He who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind

(7) For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

(8) he is a double-minded man. Unstable in all his ways.

Deuteronomy 29:29

(29) The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law".

The reason why some Christians fail to receive healing very often remains a secret, known only to God, and not revealed to man. We do not need to be concerned with such secrets as this. Rather, we need to concern ourselves with those things which are revealed: the clear and definite statements and promises of God given to us in His Word.

The first direction spoke of ‘attending'; the second spoke of the ‘inclined ear'; the third spoke of the ‘focused eyes', God's spiritual medicine is to be received therefore, with careful attention, both through the ‘ear gate' and also through ‘the eye gate'.

The fourth direction: keep them in the midst of your heart.

Proverbs 4:23

(23) Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

What is in your heart controls the whole course of our life and all that we experience.

Admit them regularly through both the ear gate and the eye gate - so that they occupy and control our heart, then we find them to be exactly what God has promised: both life to our soul, and health to all our flesh.

Psalm 34:8

(8) Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

No, God's Word is altogether good, altogether beneficial. When received according to God's direction, it brings life and health to our whole being.

MENTAL ILLUMINATION

Psalm 119:30

(30) The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.

Two effects produced in the mind: ‘light' and ‘understanding'.

Nothing else can do in the human mind what God's Word does, and nothing else can take the place of God's Word.

Secular education is a good thing, but it can be misused. A highly-educated mind is a fine instrument - just like a sharp knife. But a knife can be misused. One man can take a sharp knife and use it to cut up food for his family. Another man may take an exactly similar knife and use it to kill a fellow human being.

God's Word reveals to man those things which he can never discover by his own unaided intellect: the reality of God the Creator and Redeemer the true purpose of existence; man's own inner nature; his origin and his destiny.

Hebrews 4:12:

(12) For the word of God is living and powerful (or energetic), and sharper that any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

There is no area of the total human personality to which God's Word does not penetrate. It reaches right down into the spirit and soul, the heart and the mind, and even into the innermost core of our physical body, the joints and the marrow.

God's Word, implanted as a seed brings forth eternal life; it provides spiritual nourishment; produces perfect health; and produces mental illumination and understanding.