The Victory of the Word of God
D. K. Greer, D. D. Revelation 19:11-16 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat on him was called Faithful and True… "The Word of God." What is it? where is it? is it at all? Has God spoken? If so, how has He spoken, and what is the word He has spoken? I. WHAT IS A WORD? A word may be broadly defined as that which expresses thought. Now, thought is expressed to some extent by language, but only to some extent. It is also expressed by action. Action, therefore, is a word. Conduct is a word. Everything that man has made or done is a word, because it expresses thought, and expresses it sometimes much more effectively than any spoken or written language can. The artist can best express his thought by a picture; the sculptor, by a statue; the musician, by his music. Action is a word. Everything that man has done or made is a word, because it expresses thought. The houses we build, the factories, the ships, the churches, the clothes we wear, the movements we make, everything that man has made or done, from the easiest and simplest and most trifling thing up to the hardest and most complex — it all stands for thought, is the expression of thought, is resolvable back into thought — the word, the embodiment, the manifestation of thought. In the Book of Genesis it is said that God speaks it into existence. God said, "Let there be light." Light is His word, the expression of His thought, and He speaks it. And God said, "Let the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the dry land, and living creatures appear"; the sun, the stars, the living creatures — these are His words, the expression of His thought, and therefore it is said, Ha speaks them into existence. Is there any other word that God has spoken? Is there any other expression of His thought? In making up the inventory of the contents of the universe, we must not leave humanity out of the reckoning; and if the sun, the stars, the great globe itself, be the expression of thought, and constitute the word of the infinite God, must not human nature also be regarded as the word of the infinite God? Yes, man is God's word as well as physical nature, expressing the thought of God. But that statement must be guarded, must be qualified. For nowhere in our ordinary life do we see what man is, and therefore cannot know from the study of the ordinary man what God is. We see much that is good and noble in the history of man, and we also see many things that are base and ignoble, and which our moral sense will not permit us in any wise to attribute to God; and looking upon these evil things in human history, we are forced to say, "Some enemy hath done this, and the tares have sprung up with the wheat." But let our eyes somewhere see the perfect man, in whose humanity there is no flaw or blemish; then and there we shall see the perfect word of God, "the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." II. And now, having found what in the broadest sense is meant by the Word of God, let us consider THE VICTORY OF THAT WORD; and, first, as we see it in the forms and forces of the physical creation about us. Physical science, as we call it, is the dominant study to-day, and marvellous are the results which have been accomplished by it. Not only have we explored the earth and gathered its hidden treasures, but the heavens, and the waters under the earth, and all the forces of nature, we have gathered in golden chains around the feet of man. And yet if, as the result of all this, man is only becoming greater and richer in material products; if all the forces of nature which he has discovered and utilised are only giving him greater material growth and expansion, then, although to-day he can send his messages under the waters and across the seas, and the earth has been made to give its coal and iron and oil and mineral treasures to him, and the stars in their courses fight for him instead of against him, then I say that in spite of all these things he is just as much a prisoner — although, indeed, he is bound with golden chains — as in the days of Sisera and of Job; and, with the materialistic philosophy coming in to tell him that there is nothing but matter and force about him — no thought, no spirit, no heaven, no God — not even a "prisoner of hope." Let us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die. But no! The physical universe about us is not merely matter and force; it is the word of mind. There is thought in it, through it, pervading it. It is the embodiment of the thought of God. And, looking at it in this way, then does human life become truly rich, and is "crowned with many crowns." We are standing, not on the floor of a prison, with the walls of a prison around us, and the great sealed roof of a prison over our heads: we are living in the open of God, and "There is not a bird that sings, There is not a flower that stars the elastic sod, There is not a breath the radiant summer brings, But is a word of God." But human nature as well as physical nature — the world of man as well as the world of nature — is the word of God. And in the perfect man Christ Jesus, as I have tried to show, we have His perfect word; and, oh, what victories that Word of God has wrought! The story of civilisation is the story of its triumph. All the best things in the world to-day, all the best and purest feelings that touch and sway, if they do not completely control, the heart of man — his highest conduct, his bravest deeds, his noblest sacrifices, his brightest hopes for the future, without which the future is cold and dreary and impenetrable darkness to him — that Word of God has inspired. By that Word of God we have been taught that we are sons of God; and, looking out upon the vast physical creation about us, or looking up through the moral and spiritual clouds above us, we have been able to say, "Our Father, who art in heaven, Thine is the kingdom of the physical creation about us; Thine is the power that is working mysteriously in our human life for our good; Thine is the glory for ever!" And, finding our fatherhood in God, we have found our brotherhood in one another; with the consciousness of that brotherhood we have been trying to live and perform our duties, and are trying, with many infirmities, to perform our duties to-day. Far as we yet come short of that ideal form of life, we are moving toward it, and will continue to move until at last, here or somewhere — it matters not, for everywhere we are in the open of God — here or somewhere we shall all come, in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto the perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Jesus Christ. (D. K. Greer, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. WEB: I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes war.