This is not an idle word

What is the last thing you might tell your teenager as he is about to leave for his first semester of college?

What is the last thing you might tell your employees before you leave for a new opportunity?

What is the last thing you tell long-time neighbors before you leave the neighborhood?

What is the last thing a wife tells her husband before she enters eternity?

What is the last thing a leader tells his people shortly before he dies?

The answers to the first four questions will vary to some degree, but we know at least how Moses answered the last question.

Shortly before the Lord took Moses to the top of Mount Nebo so that he could see the promised land, Moses offered counsel, encouragement, and exhortation to the people he had led for 40 years.

“Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law.  For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life. And by this word you will prolong your days in the land, which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.” [Dt. 32:46-47]

Take to heart the Word of God.  Train your children in this Word.  Because this is not an idle Word, he exhorted.

In English, the word “idle” has the sense of “unmoving, still.”  But that is not the sense here.  Moses is telling the Israelites that the Word of God is not empty.  It is not vain.  The cows and ears of corn in Joseph’s dream?  They were lean and thin — the same word as used here.  The writer of Judges uses this word to refer to worthless men (Jg. 9:4; 11:3).  Elisha told the widow to get some empty (our word) vessels that he later filled with oil (2 Kg. 4:3).  Isaiah used this word to remind the Israelites not to form an alliance with Egypt, because Egypt’s help would be empty — powerless (30:7).  Numerous times Ezekiel says with this word that a sword has been unsheathed (emptied) from its scabbard (5:12; 12:14; 28:7; 30:11).

All these various uses point a picture of something that is empty, unoccupied, vain, desolate and powerless.  But this is not the state of the Word of God.  It is full, rich, purposeful and powerful.  It is, Moses said to Israel, your life.

And it is our life too.

For the word of God is

• living
• and active
• and sharper than any two-edged sword,
• and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
• and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. [Heb. 4:12]

It is alive and powerful to accomplish all its purposes for us and in us.

“The exceptional character of the influence of Scripture lies in two things:

1. Its power to penetrate into the spirit of man…
2. It’s ability to bind the conscience, that is, to constrain it before God either to excuse or accuse us of sin.

The word of God is in the Holy Scriptures.” [William Perkins]

This is Moses’ very point.  The Scriptures would be the sustaining grace for the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land.  Obedience to it would keep them from the futility of life experienced by the pagans in the land — and from the judgment of God.  And obedience to it would also yield the blessing of God.

As John Piper points out, the Word of God comes with much power and benefit:

• The Word of God awakens and strengthens faith
• Through hearing the Word, God supplies the Holy Spirit
• The Word of God creates and sustains life
• The Word of God gives hope
• The Word of God leads us to freedom
• The Word of God is the key to answered prayer
• The Word of God is the source of wisdom
• The Word of God gives us crucial warnings
• The Word of God enables us to defeat the devil
• The Word of God is, therefore, the source of great and lasting joy

As you read and hear the Word of God, remember that as it was for Israel, so it is also for you — it is not idle, but it is the instrument of God that works actively and powerfully in you — it is your very life.