Well, may the Lord be with us and may he grant his blessing upon our gathering here this afternoon. Our attention is not to be drawn to any individual, be it myself or anyone else. Our attention needs to be drawn to the Lord himself, the great God. He who has given to us his word and he who has given us the privilege and the honour of circulating the word of truth among the nations of the earth. Well now, you've had read to you the words of Isaiah 55, and I want to draw your attention particularly to just one verse. We'll see the context of Isaiah 55, verse 11. We'll read from verse 10, from verse 10 to the end of the chapter. Isaiah 55, from verse 10. For as the rain cometh down from the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and barter, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign, that shall not be cut off. Now, the words I want to dwell upon this afternoon, you'll find in verse 11, so shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth. And to you each, my friends, to each of the auxiliary committee, and to all who labour with you, including, as has been already mentioned, the wives and the children, Let me read to you a portion of the divine truth that relates to you in your work that has been done and the work that we trust you are yet to accomplish. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Anything to do with the circulation of the Word of God cannot, cannot, cannot be in vain. It is done to the glory of God. It is done for the glory of His name, for the advance of His cause and His kingdom here in this world. And in the words of our text before us here in Isaiah 55 verse 11, we have it said, So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto thee void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. We have here three statements made with regard to the efficacy of Holy Scripture. One stated negatively and two stated positively. Firstly, we're told that the word of God that goes forth out of the mouth of God shall not return unto the void. It will not return empty. there will be an accomplished result. And then secondly, we're told here, it shall accomplish that which I please. There is the pleasure of the Lord that shall be accomplished through the circulation of the Holy Scriptures. And then thirdly, we're told, it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." And there is the divine sovereignty overseeing the distribution of the Holy Scriptures. Now every Bible, every New Testament, every Gospel, every portion, every Scripture leaflet, every Scripture text card, every Scripture calendar, every Scripture poster, is included in these words, my word that proceeds out of my mouth. Where there is the going forth of the word of God, we can be assured it will not return to him void. It will prosper the thing whereto he has sent it. He will grant his blessing to rest upon it, to the glory and praise and honour of his name. Truly, to some, sadly, it will be a savour of death unto death, but unto others it will be a savour of life unto life. We're talking here not about the word of man, and perhaps we should remind ourselves of what our Lord says in verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." We're not talking about the word of man or the ways of men. We're talking about the very voice, the very word. of Almighty God. Very often we refer to the Bible as the Word of God. But do we really realise, do we really appreciate what we mean by that term, the Word of God? The Word of God. We can read in the beginning of the book of Genesis, and we'll carry on reading through Genesis, through Exodus, Leviticus, and go on through the whole of the Word of God to the end of the Book of Revelation. Now, what are we reading here? These are, each one, the very words of God. Correctly, that is true with regard to the Hebrew and the Greek. What is in the Hebrew and in the Greek has been translated for your and my benefit, so that we can read it in the English language. And what we have in our authorised version is a faithful and reliable translation of those very words of God. God spoke. God spoke. He spoke in words. And those words were recorded and have been preserved. And those words, making up sentences, making up verses, making up chapters, have been translated into the Bibles that we have before us. Now this is the Word of God. This one volume contains from beginning to end the Word of God. Now let's look for a moment at all the other books of the art in the world. Now I like books and I've got many hundreds if not thousands of books, but go to any library And there you will see hundreds of thousands of volumes. Go to Cambridge or Oxford or any other great cities where there are universities, you'll find vast volumes of books. And each year there are many thousands of new books put into circulation. Now what can be said of all those books compared to this one book? So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth." This is the word that comes forth from the mouth of God. Every other book, every, every other book. There may be good books as well as being very bad books. All the other books are the result of man's production. They're what man has written, men and women like ourselves. All of them, without exception, the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. Now, what are we to say with regard to all these books? Many of them are good books. Look at the writings of John Owen or Thomas Manton, or any of the other Puritans or the Reformers. These are very good books, yes, but they all say that those books are as nothing, as nothing compared to the Bible, the Word of God. Now, of course, you know this, you know this. I'm just stating it to emphasise again how we are to regard the Word of God. It is holy unique, if that's not a tautology. It is unique. It is of God. It comes down from heaven, pure, holy, righteous, just. There is nothing, nothing, nothing like it whatever in this world, nothing to be compared to it. All the other books are to be put down upon the ground and are put upon it. It is but the Word, of fallen man. This book came forth from God. It came forth from the mind of God. It came forth from the heart of God. It came forth, as we see in our text, from the mouth of God. Our God is the, as Isaiah describes Him, the holy, holy, holy God. This word, therefore, is the holy, holy, holy word of God. There is something about this book that is transcendent. It emanates from heaven. It is of God. It is that which should claim our supreme attention, our supreme focus. And it is that which we should be supremely concerned is placed in the hands of all our fellow men, whatever language they speak, in whatever land they live, Whether they can afford to buy a copy or not is immaterial. It is the Word of God. And what is Christ saying? What is Christ saying at the beginning of Proverbs 8 as wisdom? Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of man. This is why the Trinitarian Bible Society exists. This is why any Bible society exists. Forget about the Trinitarian Bible Society. We're about the scaffolding. We're about the means to an end. The end is the circulation of the Word of God. God has spoken and God claims the attention of mankind. and we are to give to our fellow men, we are to ensure that they have the Word of Almighty God in their hands. You recall our Lord Jesus Christ, among the many parables that he uttered, he gave the parable of the sower. In Luke 8, look at Luke 8 chapter 1, 2 and 3 and what follows, you'll see that Christ is saying, I am, I am the sower. I have come to sow the seeds of the Word of God. He is called, is he not, the Word of God. It's a wonderful title. Why is Christ the Word of God? He came to reveal, to declare, to unfold, to set forth the glory of the Godhead. And this is what the Word of God is in our hands for. It sets forth the great majesty and glory, the wonder of the being of Almighty God. But it is not only to set forth the glory of You recall how that in Isaiah 55 verse 11, it starts off with that word, so. So shall my word be. And it's referring back to the previous verse, to the rain, to the snow. These are very common terms, things that we understand. We see the snow come down and the effect it has. We see the rain coming down and the effect it has. So the Lord is saying, my word has an effect. It has an effect, there's a power, there's an authority attached to it. Wherever it goes it will have an impact. I trust that the Word of God has already had an impact upon us each. upon each of our minds, upon each of our hearts, upon each of our souls, upon each of our lives, can you and I say that thy words are a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path because of the transforming effect that the Word of God has had upon our lives as individuals. We'll come back to that in a minute later, God willing. I want to emphasise for the moment this parallel that's been drawn between the coming down of the rain and the coming down of the snow and the going forth of the word of God, out of the mouth of God. When I left, when I was staying in Surrey this morning, there was a little drizzle As I came down, there was more and more rain. As I came here, it was a steady rain. I recall when I was once in one part of the world, we had ten inches of rain in one hour. There was a complete downpour. My wife sent me this morning a picture of the mountains covered in snow. Normally we can't see those mountains in the distance because they are beyond the ability of man to see. But covered in snow, they can be seen. Now, what I'm saying here is the Lord is in control of wherever the snow and the rain fall. In Isaiah 9 verse 3, I believe it is, you'll find there how the Lord says that he did not send rain or snow to this particular place. There's a judgment upon them. The Lord gives rain in one city and not in another city, in one town and not another town, in one land and not another land. He is sovereignly in control of all that he does. Every flake of snow, every drop of rain is under his sovereign oversight. He is looking after and overseeing the dropping of every drop of rain, every snowflake, to see where it goes. It is going at His command, at His perfect. And likewise, we have the Lord saying in Isaiah 55 verse 11, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my blood. of my love, he is overseeing the distribution of his holy truth. Every Bible, every New Testament, every Gospel, every portion, every scripture leaflet, every scripture text card, every calendar, every poster is going forth and he is overseeing how that is having an impact upon the earth. He is the God who is supreme over all. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth." It's interesting how the tense here implies that there's a continuous going forth out of the mouth of God of his Word. The Word of God is not merely a statement of what God has said in the past, It is a living Word. Our God lives in the eternal present. We live in time. He lives in the eternal present. And from Him, His Word constantly goes forth as the living Word of God. It goes forth. When we open our Bibles, we are hearing the voice of God speaking to us. in the very hour, the very day that we are before him. He is speaking to us, read Hebrews 12, and there you will see how that the apostle draws attention to the fact of how we should be diligent in our attention to the Word of God. In chapter 2 of Hebrews he says there, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation if we allow these words to pass by as though they are of little significance. The Word of God comes forth from the very mouth of God. We read in John 17 of how our Lord Jesus Christ refers to the words that he had received from his Father and he had given unto his disciples. In Hebrews 1 we read there of how God, who spake in times past unto the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. And we have Almighty God the Father, Almighty God the Son, Almighty the God the Holy Spirit bringing to us the Word of God. The Bibles that we have, the Bibles and the other Scriptures that we distribute are from the very mouth of our Triune Jehovah, our Great God. He has given to us His Word. We have His Word. We read in 1 Timothy 3.16, those well-known words, that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. God breathed, God employed Moses, God employed Isaiah, He employed Ezekiel, He employed all the human authors of scripture to ensure that what they wrote was nothing less than the Word of God. And what we can say is, particularly with regard to the Hebrew and the Greek, that there is nothing in this world, nothing whatever in this world of a tangible nature that is pure and holy apart from the Word of God. God has spoken. He employed Moses to write the first five books. He employed John to complete the Scriptures in writing the book of Revelation. And between Genesis and Revelation, those hundreds of pages, they make up the entirety of what is the Word of God, to which nothing is to be added and from which nothing is to be subtracted. the word of God. This is the law of God. This is the word. So shall be, as we're told in the words of our text, so shall be my word that goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return to be void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall in a thing were true, I sent it." Now what can we deduce from the words of our text? What can we deduce both directly and also indirectly that God is saying with regard to the word that is coming forth from his lips, his word that we have in our hands, and his word has been distributed into the prisons and the schools and to many individuals here in Wessex and that the society sends forth to different parts of the world. What can be deduced from the words of our text with regard to the word of God? Well, it is a revelation of God. It is the revelation of God. Now you recall how that in the opening verses of the book of Revelation we have there the Holy Spirit saying, the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. And the emphasis here was that this was a revelation that was given And the Bible is a revelation that has been given to us for our profit and for also the profit of our fellow men. It is given to the Church for the Church's benefit and for the Church to give to our fellow men throughout the world. The Word of Almighty God. A revelation or the revelation of God. Where else are we to learn about God? We can see a certain element of the being of God in nature, in creation, in providence. But where else are we to learn about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ? Where else is man to learn of the mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God, all his goodness. Where else apart from in this volume is man to learn about God? Equally, where else are we to learn about ourselves, of our depraved state, of the nature of sin, rebellion against God, the law of God? Nowhere else apart from in this sacred volume, the volume of truth, the word of God, the word of Christ. Thinking of this meeting some weeks ago, I was dwelling upon many different parts of scripture, wondering which portion to speak on. And one of the portions was, we find in Zechariah 9, I think it is, where we read of Christ speaking peace to the heathen. Now this was to be an encouragement to the Jews that had come back from Babylon and they had been hindered in the rebuilding of the temple. And as you know, Haggai and Zechariah were sent by God as prophets to encourage them to go on in their work. And Haggai says to them, I am with you, I am with you, I am with you, build! And Zechariah brought many different prophecies, but one of them was this, that Christ, the coming Messiah, He who was yet to come, when the Messiah came, He would speak to the heathen, What a wonderful thing this was, his big peace to the heathen. This is the volume of peace from the Prince of Peace. The heathen are his inheritance. The heathen lands are yet to be all conquered for King Jesus. He is to have dominion. He is to have power over all the nations of the earth. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall accomplish that which I please. It shall prosper the thing whereto I sent it. And in Zechariah, the prophecy is that Christ will yet one day He will speak peace to the heathen. He will send forth his word to the heathen peoples of the earth. Yes, he will come with power and with divine authority. He will come to convict. There will be pain as the arrows of truth enter into the souls of those who are to be gained. Another verse I was thinking of was in Revelation where we have Christ going forth, conquering and to conquer. Upon the white horse, He's going forth. He is today and He will be tomorrow going forth, conquering and to conquer in our congregations, I trust, and among the nations of the earth. He'll be going forth with the Word of God. He'll be going forth to send forth the arrows of truth into the hearts and minds of men, women and children, to bring them down, that they might be crying out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. The Lord, the mighty God, He who is mighty, mighty, mighty, going forth conquering and to conquer. He will conquer all his enemies. There will be a people whom he will redeem unto himself for his praise and for his honour. He will make a people willing in a day of his power. He sends forth his word. He sends forth his word into the prisons, the schools, the old people's homes and other places here in Western, elsewhere in Great Britain, in Northern Ireland, on the continent of Europe, in Central America, South America, throughout the world, his word is going forth with the power the authority and the unction of His Holy Spirit. It's a remarkable thing. We read several times in the New Testament of the Holy Scriptures speaking. Can a Bible speak? Can any book speak? What we read in Scripture, I think it's nine times. that the Scriptures speak. We also read in Galatians that the Scriptures preach. We also read in Galatians that the Scriptures conclude. There's a personality given to the Word of God. Such is the very tight, close relationship that Almighty God has to His own word. It goes forth from His mouth. And He is superintending where it is going. This Bible is for Belgium. This Bible is for Yugoslavia. This Bible is for South America, for Bolivia. This Bible is for Santa Cruz. This Bible is for this person living in this road in Santa Cruz. The Lord, he is sovereign in every detail of his activity as he sends forth his own word from his lips. Unto you, O man I call, my voice is to the sons of men. You see, we don't need to think of the Bible as being that which is separate from the Godhead. It is the expression here in this world of the Godhead. God has spoken and here we have that book before which we are exhorted, in effect, to tremble. Why? Because it is the voice of the High, Holy, All-Glorious God. What do we deserve to hear? Nothing apart from this God saying to us, Depart from me ye cursed. That is what we, and our fellow men, be they heathen or not, they deserve, we deserve to hear God say to us, depart, depart, depart. But the Lord places the fullness, the fullness of truth in our hands. With the exhortation to read to pray over it, to bring before him our hard questions, for him to resolve. Here is a preacher that has divine authorship. God is the preacher, preaching through his own words. We have in this volume God saying to our fellow men all that is contained in the Holy Scripture. There's no mediation of man in this. Now, the mediation of man when it comes to the preaching, And the teaching of the truth of God is very, very helpful and very useful and is a God-ordained office and not to be in any way despised. But preachers are to preach what? The Word. They are to preach the Word. They are to expound the Word. And nothing more than the Word. The Word is foremost, and they are to themselves tremble. And that is what is often, I believe, referred to by the prophets when they say they had the burden of the Lord upon them. They had the weight of what they had before them was, this is the Word of the great God that I am now commissioned to give to my fellow men. Now the society has this great privilege and you, my friends, have this great honour also of being engaged in this work. Forget about the Trinitarian Bible Society for the moment. The great work is that we as individuals, we as churches, have given to us the Word of Truth. This is the Word of Truth. We're living in a day where there is so much that it is called or claimed to be truth, but here is truth from God, the Word of Truth. And we're living in a day that is in need of truth, in need of divine truth, divine truth. here, nowhere else. Those who live as our neighbours, they need this book. Those who live in South America, in Central America, in North America, those who live in Eastern Europe, those who live in West of Europe, those who live in Africa, on every continent, in every land, those who are poor, those who are They all need them. Divine truth. The book of truth. The book of salvation. The volume of grace. There's a most wonderful little word in the epistle of James in chapter 1, where we have the Holy Spirit revealing to us a little of what the Bible is. Verse 18 of 1 James. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. This is the seed of the kingdom. This is the means whereby souls are converted. They come under conviction by the Word of Truth. They are converted by the Word of Truth. They are given comfort and consolation through the Word of Truth. Because it is through this sacred volume that they have communion, fellowship and union with the Divine Author, the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you and I know him? Then we are to study his word. Would you have our fellow men to know the Redeemer? They need his word. And so, my friends, as I draw to a conclusion, I'm drawing attention to what the Apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit referred to as the sword, of the Spirit, that which is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the one, true and only Saviour of sinners. Here is the word of Christ. Here is the word of salvation. Here is the revelation of mercy and grace. of the love of God, of the kindness of God to sinners. Or my friends, would you not give it to your fellow man? Now by nature, by nature we are so, such strange individuals. We are so full of sin, so full of corruption, so full of depravity. We are like the briars and thorns we read of in the following two verses. The briars and thorns that remind us of the Garden of Eden after man fell. Well, in those last two verses of chapter 55 of Isaiah, we read of the effect of the Word of God, that instead of the briars and thorns, there'll be now the trees of righteousness, there'll be now the myrtle trees and the other trees prospering. Why is that? Because even as the rain and the snow leads to the bread for the eater and for the sower, so by the going forth of the Word of God out of the mouth of Christ, in his word, among the nations of the earth, to men, women and children, like ourselves, living in different parts of the world. The Lord will be gathering to himself a people for his praise, a seed to do him service. There will be men, there will be women, there will be children, converted by the word of God and brought into the everlasting kingdom of Christ. I often reflect upon David, what a great man he was. We read in Psalm 72 of his dying prayers. He is praying there. What is he praying? Let us hear again what David was saying in those closing verses of Psalm 72 when we are told at the end there, the prayers of David are ended. We read there, His name shall endure for ever. His name shall be continued as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in Him. All nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God and the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious name for ever. and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and Amen. I conclude as I began by exhorting you the words of 1 Corinthians 15 verse 58 with regard to your interest your prayerful interest in the distribution of the Holy Scriptures among the nations of the earth. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. All night.