To Encourage You

John 18:12 “So the band of soldiers and their captain and the officers of the Jewsarrested Jesus and bound Him.”

2 Timothy 2:8-9 “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!”

The history of the Christian church is a history of opposition from all sides.  It began with its founder, Jesus Christ.  The Jews, as well as the Romans, did all they could to stop Him. The religious leaders of the day constantly tried to trap Him in His words. They dismissed Him, rebuked Him, and finally arrested Him, brutalized Him, and crucified Him. In their own minds they had finally shut Him up, for good.

Since that time, opposition to Christ and His Word has continued. It began with people like Saul (later named Paul). We are told this about him in Acts 9: “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priestand asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” We see here that he hounded the believers, trying to track them down, bind them, and get rid of their influence and their preaching.  He was even there when Steven was stoned.  Anything to stop the spread of the gospel. 

This opposition continued with the murder of believers by Nero and the various purges of Christians by ungodly governments and religious leaders through the ages, including most recently by the communist regimes of the USSR and China.  In many of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim countries across the so-called “10-40 window” this persecution continues.  In many of these places, the preaching of the gospel is absolutely prohibited and to do so often leads to imprisonment and even death. 

Regardless of this relentless opposition, it is an awesome truth that “the Word of God is not bound!” as we are told in the passage from 2 Timothy 2 above.  This is  true whether we are talking about Jesus, Who is the Word of God incarnate, or the Word of God as it proceeds from the lips of those who follow Him.  In the case of Jesus, although the soldiers “bound Him” as they led Him to trial before the high priest Caiphas, and the Romans bound Him in a tomb, thinking that was the end of Him, He certainly wasn’t bound in the end. Triumphantly, He rose from the dead, leaving the grave clothes that bound Him forever behind, free to give life to the world.  Going back in history to the earliest men, Cain tried to shut up his righteous brother Abel, whose sacrifice to God was accepted when his own unrighteous worship was not. Yet, to this very day we are told about Abel that “through his faith, though he died, he still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4). 

You see, the Word of God will never be bound.  It’s always living, always powerful, and always sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Though man has always and will continue to try to ignore it, silence it, and bind it in various ways, it’s much more powerful than men because it has the supernatural power of our supernatural God.  As this omnipotent God said through the words of the prophet Isaiah “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).  And as Jesus said in His sermon on the mount “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18).  You see, He knew that as the Law of God, i.e., the Word of God incarnate, He would accomplish every single thing that His Father sent Him to do, no matter what men tried to do to stop Him. And He also knew that every Word of God written down in the pages of Scripture would be fulfilled, no matter what men would ever do to stop it. 

May God help us to believe His Word, speak His Word, and obey His Word regardless of the efforts of men and the systems and the governments of men to stop us, for there is no force in the world that can bind the infinite power of God’s holy Word.  Surely the “Word is not bound.” It never was, and it never will be, for it has come from the God Who can do and will absolutely do every single thing that He has ever said, including bring salvation to those who are truly bound, in sin.