Derek Prince - Our First Reaction To The Word Should Be Fear And Trembling
This is excerpt from: The Power Of Proclamation
Now I want to parallel with Moses' experience the way that we can make the Word of God effective by proclaiming it. Proclaiming it is releasing it into a situation. It takes confidence. It takes boldness. It's not for the timid. You have to make up your mind, I believe this. It's God's Word and when I say it, if I say it with a believing heart and through believing lips, it's just as effective as if God Himself said it when His Spirit says it through me. Can you believe that? Can you believe that? It doesn't have to be God speaking. If the Spirit of God propels the Word of God through your mouth it's as effective as it was when God spoke the universe into being.
Now the first thing that happened to Moses was he got frightened. He threw his rod down on the ground. It became a snake and he ran from it. And I want to say to you that before we can be effective in proclaiming we have to learn to be afraid of the Word of God. We have to learn to tremble at the Word of God. Isaiah says this. Or God says it through Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 66, the last chapter of Isaiah. The first two verses of Isaiah 66: Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you will build me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things my hand has made, and all those things exist, says the Lord. In other words, the Lord says, You can't build Me any temple or building that will impress Me because I built the whole universe. But He says: There's one thing that does attract my favor, just one thing. He says: But to this one will I look.
Another translation says: will I have respect. Whom will God respect? Whom will He take into account? Him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my Word. So you see like Moses, our first reaction has to be fear and awe at the Word of God. There is far too little fear of the Word of God in the church today. We are too familiar with it, we bandy it about and we quote it but we don't show real reverence for it. And we have to change that attitude. Now let me give you two reasons found in the gospel of John why we should tremble before the Word of God. The first is in John chapter 12:47-48. Jesus is speaking. He says: If anyone hears my words and does not receive them, or keep them I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
So Jesus says, I'm not going to be your judge. You're going to be judged by the Word of God. Imagine yourself standing before Almighty God having to give an account of your life which I believe all of us will have to do one day. You would tremble. You would be very concerned. What Jesus says is you should have the same attitude toward the Word of God. For it's the Word of God that will be your judge. Every time we open the pages of this Word and read it if we can understand it, we're looking at the thing that will judge us one day. No wonder we should tremble at it. And then further on in John 14:23 Jesus makes another amazing statement. He says: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. It's one of the very few places in the Bible where the plural noun is used about God. We, Father and Son, will come to him. How will we come? Through what? Through His Word.
In other words, when we open up to the Word of God, if we can believe it God Himself, the Father and the Son is coming into our lives willing to make His home with us. If it should ever be that somehow, even in a vision you were to see the Lord Jesus maybe coming into your home you would be overwhelmed. You would have a sense of awe. You'd want to fall at His feet. Jesus says, Not only will I come but the Father will come. We will come. Through what? Through what? Through the Word of God. You see? I have to say that most of us today in the contemporary church have got to change our attitude towards God's Word. We need to show a reverence, an awe and a fear. And it won't be effective in our lives in the way that I'm speaking about until we've learned to reverence the Word of God.