The church age is like a field, which is going to grow by the “seed”—the Word of God. “Now the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God” (Luke 8:11). Church growth actually equals the Word of God “being kept spreading.” Samaria had “received the Word of God and that was what qualified them to be a church. “And the word of God increased; and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the truth” (Acts 6:7).
Jesus says that the only thing that matters and can give you life is the Spirit and He does His work through the Word. “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63).
Peter says that you owe your very existence to your new life. The very existence that comes in our life and makes us new born to the Word of God. That’s what does it, not anything else. When you share your testimony with someone you may be wetting their apetite… but when it comes right down to it they need to hear the Word of God because that’s what brings faith. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23).
“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (1 Peter 1:3). We can do without anything else, but we cannot do without the Word of God. When we begin to move away from the Word of God as our soul ministry, our soul hope, by the degree that we move away from it, it is the degree that the church gets weakened and eventually falls. (TheFaithfulWord@ameritech.net ; Expository Teaching Tapes; “Departure From Scripture in the Evangelical Church” 9/17/95; Pastor Jim Mooberry)
