Psalms 119:152
Psalms 119:152, “Psa 119:152 Concerning
thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.”
This is a great verse on the teaching of the
preservation of God’s Word. It’s not the first verse in Psalms 119 dealing with
this issue. But the point is God’s Word God promises to preserve without error
for all eternity.
There is not one book in the world to which the
issue of inerrancy is more hotly debated than that of the Bible. Perhaps it is
because the primary and most important teaching of the Bible is that man is a
sinner headed to hell unless man repents of his sins to Jesus for salvation.
This is not a popular message in the world. And there are many who will do
anything they can to try and discredit the truth of the gospel.
Regarding the issue of the preservation of God’s
Word there is a lot that could be said. But I’m going to make it very simple.
There are many ways to prove that God’s Word, the Bible is without error and
perfectly preserved from generation to generation.
One, The Bible itself makes the claim that it is
without error and perfectly preserved. If this claim were false then what about
the rest of the things the Bible says? How can they be counted to be true? Things such as the virgin birth of Jesus, the
deity of Jesus, Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of the world, Jesus
rising from the grave; so the bible makes a very great claim when it claims
that it is founded for ever.
Two, the
teachings of the Bible. If the Bible is
true then the teachings of the Bible are true. This is easy to put to the test.
For example let’s just take the Ten Commandments and what they teach. The Bible
teaches that we reap what we so. Therefore it is logical to say that if you do
sinful actions you will reap bad consequences and if you do righteous actions
you will reap good consequences. If the Bible is true every standard it has of
right and wrong is also true. Test the facts for yourself. Try each action and
you will quickly discover what the good or bad consequences are for your
actions.
Three,
archeological evidence. There are thousands
of ancient codecies of the Bible dating back for
thousands of years. If you took all these manuscripts or codecies
as they are called and compared them to one another, it would be found that the
vast majority of them agree with one another and do not differ.
So
the Bible makes the claim it is preserved without error. History and archeology
support this claim. And the truth of Biblical teachings
support this claim as well. That is a lot of evidence. Of course in the
end a person must choose to have faith in what God says. It really comes down
to faith. God has give a lot
of reasons and evidences to help you believe the truth. But ultimately you must
choose for yourself to either believe or not believe what God’s Word says.
You
see there would be one great problem if the Bible had error’s
in it. The question would be what are the errors? The question would be what
had been lost or changed? How would you even know for certainty the way of
salvation if the Bible is not perfectly preserved without error?
But
because we know and believe that the Bible is perfectly preserved without error
we can read all the teachings on the gospel of Jesus Christ and know with
certainty and full assurance that salvation is the free gift of God through
grace and not of works lest any man should boast. We know the way to heaven and
how to get there, through faith in Jesus Christ who loved us and washed us from
our sins in His own blood when he hung upon the cross and died. And we can know
with great joy and confidence that Jesus also rose from the grave defeating
death. And all those whom put their trust in Him also inherit eternal life. For
those who are planted together in the likeness of His death are also planted
together in the likeness of His resurrection.
Psalms 119:53 says, “Psa 119:153 RESH.
Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: for I do not forget thy law.”
Life has its sufferings and sorrows and death.
All pain and suffering and death entered into this world because of sin. It all
began when Adam and Eve first sinned then sin entered the world and with sin
came affliction and death. Fortunately God has a plan a plan of deliverance for
all mankind. And God’s Word tells us what that plan is. Romans
Jesus is the Deliverer who can and will deliver
us from sin and suffering and death. Those who trust in Jesus are forgiven of
their sins and freed from the power of sin. Those who trust in Jesus are also
given eternal life in heaven. Heaven is the place where there will be no sin,
no suffering, and no death. What great deliverance Jesus brings. He brings it
because He is God. He brings it because He died on the cross for the sins of the
world and rose from the grave defeating sin and death. The problem with your
life is that you need deliverance. You need Jesus, the Deliverer.
Psalms 119:154 says, “Psa 119:154
Plead my cause, and deliver me: quicken me according to thy word.”
This verse continues to talk about deliverance
and the Deliverer and it says something very important in the first phrase of
the verse when it says, “Plead my cause.”
This verse is talking about Jesus as the great
mediator between God and man. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 says, “1Ti
2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus; 1Ti 2:6 Who gave himself a ransom
for all, to be testified in due time.”
Jesus went to the cross, then the grave, then
rose and ascended into heaven. And in heaven Jesus stands before the Father. And for those who
trust in Jesus, Jesus points the Father to Himself and His righteousness in
behalf of us who are nothing but sinners.
Jesus pleads for us. Jesus is the mediator, the
go between. We don’t come to the Father. We come to Jesus. We pray to Jesus. We
worship Jesus. Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
What a blessing it is to know that Jesus pleads
for us to the Father. He prays for us, He beseeches on our behalf, He
represents us in His righteousness to the Father and thus we are accepted by
the Father because of Jesus and His righteousness.
If all we had were are own works we would never make it. We would be
declared guilty because of our sins. But those of us who trust in Jesus have
the work of Christ on the cross and thus we are declared righteous not because
of any good that we have done but because of what Jesus has done for us.
Jesus pleads for us. I wonder what He does.
Perhaps shows the nail prints in His hands to the Father ever reminding God
that He died for our sins. And we wonder why we receive so much mercy and grace
in this life even in the times when we fail or wander away from God. It’s
because of Jesus, because of what He did on the cross and because of what He
does now as He pleads for us.
If only we were more like Jesus who pleads for
us. If only we would plead to Jesus more in behalf of all the lost souls in the
world.
And speaking of lost souls Psalms 119:115 says, “Psa
119:155 Salvation
is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.”
Now we come to a verse which teaches us something
important about salvation or you could say answers a question for us about what
kind of people get saved? When I say
what kind of people can be saved of course any one can be saved because Jesus
died for all men, all men are sinners, and Jesus wants all men to be saved. But
only a certain kind of people are saved. The kind of
people that desire to do what is right.
That’s what this verse is talking about. “Psa
119:155 Salvation
is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.” Why is
salvation far from the wicked. It says because they
seek not thy statutes. Seeking God’s statues. This is
a very important phrase. It’s not talking about a person’s ability to do what is
right. In other words it’s not saying salvation by works because salvation
comes by the grace of God. But it’s talking about the desire a person has. A
person who seek’s God’s statues is a person who has a
desire in them to do what is right.
There is not one person who comes to Jesus and
accepts Him as savior who does not in their heart have the intention of doing
what is right. That is why salvation always involves repentance from sin. A
person hasn’t truly accept Jesus as savior if they say
they believe in him but have no intention of changing their sinful ways.
Because repentance means a change of mind about, a change of direction from
doing certain things, things that are sinful to saying, ‘I am going to try and
do what is right.”
For example a liar will say to Jesus forgive me
for lying its wrong and I’m going to try and with your
help not lie anymore. This is the attitude and intention of a person who comes
to Jesus for salvation.
In our age today we tend to be very focused on
science and logic and history and archeology. And all of these things are well
and good. But ultimately the arguments and logics and intellectualism used by
people to rationalize why they don’t believe in God or the Bible and why they
don’t accept Jesus savior, such arguments are really not the full truth of why
a person rejects Jesus. The true reason is that such a person does not truly
desire with all the heart to do what is right, to change the sinful ways in
their life.
You see it’s a spiritual condition not an
intellectual condition. Arguments, and logics, science, and history all their
place of course but ultimately its
about choosing right or wrong. If you could see inside the heart and mind of
every individual that rejects Jesus as Savior you would see what God sees, you
would see that ultimately it is some sin or sins that they choose to not repent
of. That sin may be something obvious like sexual immorality, or it may simple
something less obvious like pride, the pride of their own ideas and thoughts
that keeps them from coming to Jesus. Some people actually prefer to believe
lies than to believe the truth. Whatever the reason, ultimately it is sin that
keeps and their love for it that keeps them from Jesus.
“Psa 119:155
Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy
statutes.”
There is nothing wrong with using history and
archeology and science to reason with people because these things are tools of
information that always agree with the bible when the facts are interpreted
accurately. Such information can help a person to come to understand the truth.
But ultimately a person has to see that they are a sinner and understand the
sins that they have committed and have a desire to do what is right instead of
doing what is wrong. This work is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy
Spirit that comes to an individual and convicts them of their sins and shows
that person that the Christ is real and did indeed die for their sins and that
person at that moment of realization of the truth must make a choice to accept
or reject Jesus as savior.
The reason it is important to understand these
psychological processes that go on inside the mind of an individual is so that
a Christian can be a more effective witness to the lost people in the world
around them. It is very important to try and recognize when the Holy Spirit is
working in the heart of an individual. It is also important to recognize is it
time to plant the seed, to water the seed, or to reap what another person has
planted. These things are key in knowing how to
witness to a person as effectively as possible.
You can’t force a person to be saved. Yes you can
chip away at the stony hearts of men with the hammer of the word and you can
try to sow seed in the soil of the heart. And you can pray that that seed will
take root.
“Psa 119:155
Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy
statutes.”
Why would the wicked see the statues of God in
the first place? How does a person who loves sin and their sins reach a place
in their lives where they suddenly desire to do what is right instead? God
works in their hearts. God uses everything to try and bring a person to Christ
and God especially uses the testimony of His children.
You see, sin doesn’t satisfy. Sin doesn’t bring
that deep eternal peace and joy which defies all circumstance. Only the
righteousness of God does. Knowing that all lost people are suffering in the
thralls of sin what a Christian can do is be a testimony and show the peace and the joy the love and
the fulfillment that is found in Christ and through Christ and through the
holiness of God. You see the world is going to learn very little if anything
from
Take romance for example, very few people in the
world could even tell you what all the benefits of living a godly and pure life
romantically and what are all the negative consequences of sexual immorality.
When people see the contrast between the two, when an individual begins to
understand the consequences of a particular action especially the contrast
between the good consequences and the bad consequences such things can help put
that desire in a person, the desire for righteousness and the desire for
holiness.
Holiness has so much more pleasure and joy to it
than does the pleasures of sin for a season. And what better way for a lost
person to see such truths than through the testimony of a believer who lives a
godly and righteous life through faith in Christ.
“Psa 119:155
Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy
statutes.”
If you do not know Jesus as your Savior, come to
Him today. Today is the day of salvation. Come experience the righteousness of
God and all the blessings of having your sins forgiven and becoming a child of
God: including eternal life and peace with God through Christ. There is no
greater pleasure the pleasures of holiness. There is no greater peace than
peace with God. There is no more certain of a future than that which God has
promised to those that believe His Word.
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Copyright; 2017 by Bruce
Creech
All Rights Reserved