The Word Cannot be Silenced: A Meditation on Amos 7 and Mark 6

In both Amos 7 and Mark 6, we have examples of the attempted silencing of God's Word through the persecution of its bearers.  Though separated by several hundred years, the prophets Amos and John the Baptist encountered resistance from the religious and secular powers of their day-- not so much because of the men they were, but because of the Word they bore to the people.  While tradition holds that Amos was killed by Amaziah's son, Scripture records in fairly clear detail how John was killed by Herod.  Both men of God bore faithful witness to His Word, calling people to repentance and faith.  Both were persecuted and killed for doing so.

This is not a phenomenon unique to Amos and John.  Indeed, most of the prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament met with grisly fates, and those who didn't still struggled with persecution and adversity.  Bearing the Word of God is dangerous in this world, as the blood of the martyrs has well testified both in antiquity and today.  Those who dwell in darkness and rebel against the light of God's Word, will always have an aversion to those who carry that light into their darkness.

The same was true of Jesus, who is and was and is to come, the very Word of God incarnate.  He came as the Light and Life of God to dead and dying sinners, and under the influence of the devil, those dead and dying sinners persecuted, tortured, and crucified the Word of God.  The devil is the original rebel against the light and life of God's Word, and his will holds sway over the whole fallen world, most especially among those who themselves rebel against God.  There is no length to which the devil will not go to silence the Word of God, and no atrocity he will not inspire in the hearts of wicked men to stomp it out.

But as with Jesus, so with those who abide in Him by His Word:  they cannot be stomped out, and death itself cannot hold them.  The Word of God is the very source of life, and it is not possible for death to contain it.  The devil may so possess the minds of men to the futility of wiping the Word of God out of creation, but it is an insanity not unlike words on a page attempting to un-write themselves, or the cloth of a garment trying to unweave itself.  No one can undo the Word of God in creation, because no one other than God is the Author of that Word.

Everyone else in all creation is either a more or less faithful witness to that Word which is their own life and light and salvation.  Just as Jesus was the Word by which the Father spoke the universe into existence, and the Word by which the Holy Spirit continues to work salvation by grace through faith in Him, this same Jesus is the light and life of the world in our day as well.  He is the Word of Law which pricks our conscience and shows us for the sinners we are.  He is the Word of Gospel which shows us His sacrifice on His Cross was for us, that we might live forgiven and free in Him by grace through faith.  He is the Word of judgment against all who refuse to repent of their evil, preferring their darkened hell to the heavenly light.  He is the Word of salvation to all who will turn from evil to embrace the good, keeping them in His light and life forever.

And it is His indomitable and everlasting Word which He has given us to shine forth in this world of darkness, despair, rebellion, and demonic insanity.  Though the world may take from us our life, liberty, and happiness for bearing witness to the Word of Jesus, they cannot take from us either that Word nor that life which is Jesus Christ our Savior.  Those like Amos and John the Baptist hold forth that Word in the world by the fearless testimony of the ever-living and all powerful Spirit of the Living God, who cannot be bound by death, and who posses a Kingdom which cannot be taken away.  It is the Spirit who bears witness by the Word which enlivens and keeps the whole household of faith, raising us up to bear faithful witness in our own time and place.

O His people, hear the Word of the Lord!  Feel the warmth of its life giving light.  Receive the sting of it's convicting Law, and the sweetness of its eternal Gospel.  Receive the new birth from above by Water and Spirit, and go forth in the power of Jesus Christ as fearless and unconquerable ambassadors of the gracious King of Glory.  The Word in which you abide, abides forever-- thanks be to God!  Amen.