The Power of the Word

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."- Hebrews 4:12

When the Jesus film was shown int he city of Stavropol, Russia, the team in charge of the project ran out of Russian New Testaments to give to inquirers. Contacting their source in Moscow proved impossible. Then local Christians remembered that in the 1930s local authorities had confiscated large number of Bibles on orders of Joseph Stalin, and these had been stored in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city.

After much prayer, some of the believers went to the local officials to inquire whether or not the confiscated Bibles had ever been returned to their rightful owners. If not, could the churches claim the Bibles, being spiritually responsible for the people to whom the Bibles once belonged?

Amazingly enough, the local officials cooperated. An investigation revealed that the Bibles–old and dusty–were still there. Glad to be rid of them, the officials agreed to give them to the churches involved in sponsoring the showing of the Jesus film.

The next day the believers returned with an old truck and a number of young men and women, including some college students who were not part of the project, to load the old Bibles onto the truck. As the work progressed, one of the young men disappeared, and the crew went looking for him. They found him, over in a corner of the warehouse, quietly sobbing. One of the team members related: "He had slipped away, hoping to quietly take a Bible for himself. What he found shook him to the core. The inside page of the Bible he picked up had the handwritten signature of his own grandmother. It had been her personal Bible! Out of the thousands of Bibles still left in the warehouse, he stole the one belonging to his grandmother–a women persecuted for her faith."

What happened to the young man? According to the team involved in the project, that young man is devouring the book of faith which changed his grandmother’s life two generations ago.

When Chinese customs officials refused to let me take Bibles into China, I asked, "Why are you afraid of this book? It only makes people honest, law-abiding citizens!" And they replied, "We are a socialist country, and we have the freedom not to believe!" I countered, "The freedom not to believe is no freedom at all because there is no choice."

Have you discovered for yourself how this grand book can change your life? Feared more than bullets by those who oppose it, the Bible liberates the soul and points a man or woman towards heaven’s shores. No wonder they call it the Book of Life.

Resource Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16