Psalm 19:11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
The Psalmist is directed to continue to show the reader the benefits of God’s Word. God’s Word is more important than anything else. God’s Word helps the observant person to understand what they are seeing when they look into the heavens.
This past week another flight took off to the international space station. Apparently the people on board this flight had to pay at least part of the cost of the flight. The world is working hard to find a way to be able to live in outer space. They are too foolish to figure out how to live on this earth, but somehow they think they will do a better job out there. It is interesting that they would even allow anyone to fly to the space station since we are still being told that the “virus” is very deadly and still changing. I wonder if those who are on that station have had their shots. I believe the governments know the dangers of the shots, and it is doubtful that they want to deal with heart and stroke issues up there. Nor do they want people who develop neurological problems as the result of the dangerous injections.
While the world is wasting time and money trying to figure out where life began and how to best sustain it, those who are saved simply need to go to God’s sure Word and we can know more than those fools will ever know. It is true that we cannot hang a certificate on the wall of the prestigious schools we attended and of the number of hours we spent in space, etc. However, we can declare that we have been adopted into the family of the Creator God and we did not need to pay a penny for that. We can declare that our entire cost was paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ when He left heaven’s glory and willingly came to this earth to suffer and die on the cross of Calvary, shedding His blood as THE payment for man’s sin. There is nothing this world has to offer that can compete with what God has provided for man.
In our text we see that God’s Word will warn the true child of God of the many pitfalls that the devil sets in place to seek to harm God’s people. The lost are blindly following the devil’s lies. It is by the grace of God that they are not diving further into sin than they are. God is still restraining the evil one and giving the lost opportunity to see God’s glory in the heavens. Occasionally a lost sinner gets saved and joins the few who are on the narrow way that leads to life.
The saved need to be warned of the lies of the devil. He makes his lies look so much like the truth. Many are deceived by his lies. People tell me that their particular perversion is almost the same as the King James Version. They do not understand the definition of the word “pure”. Some years ago I was mixing cement for an addition I was putting on a barn I had. I like to save money where I can and I was trying to scrape up all the gravel I had purchased to use in that mix. I noticed a small piece of soil that I threw into the mixer with the gravel I threw in there. I thought, that little bit of dirt won’t matter. I watched that batch mix and every so often that lump of dirt would show up as the mixer was rolling that cement around in the mixer. That lump of dirt did not break down and it did not mix into the cement. I learned something that day. I stopped the mixer and I took that dirt out of there. I learned that dirt does not mix into the cement and if I would have left that lump in there, it would have weakened that batch of cement.
God tells us that His Word is pure. It does not have any mistakes in it. Every one of the perversions has mistakes in them. There are over 6,000 discrepancies among the different additions of the Nestle/Aland Greek text. They cannot even agree with each other as they try to update their corrupted Greek test.
God’s Word warns the true child of God of the tricks of the devil.
II Corinthians 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
The devil is always looking for a way to get an advantage of true Christians. True Christians do not need to walk around in fear of the devil. They do not need to lack confidence because they are never sure if they have been duped. They do need to humbly submit to the authority of God’s Word and carefully study His Word to avoid the devil’s devices. Truth is important. We need to be sure that we are building our lives on the truth.
God tells us further that those who keep His word will have great reward. That reward is for the here and now as well as for the future. We can walk with certainty and we can make wise decisions if we walk circumspectly, redeeming the time because the days are evil. We can know the way in which we need to walk.
In John 14 Jesus was continuing to prepare His disciples for His soon departure. He was encouraging them that He would come again. In verse 4 He told them that they knew where He was going and they also knew the way. In verse 5 Thomas admitted that they did not know where Jesus was going and thus how could they know the way. Jesus gave them a very clear answer in verse 6:
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Jesus was standing in their midst when He made that declaration. How about you and I. How can we know the way? We can know the way because we have the sure Word of God available to us. We do not need to doubt one word of the Bible if we have the sure Word of God. God promised to preserve His Word from this generation and for ever and He does not lie. He has seen to it that we have an accurate text in the primary language of the world, which is English at this time. God watched over the gathering of and translation of the originals texts of Hebrew and Greek, with a little Aramaic in it. He provided the environment for men to be able to sit down and carefully translate those texts into the English language. Those men worked carefully and consistently to bring God’s Word into the common language of the people. That English text is known as the King James Version. It is the last accurate effort to bring the Scriptures into the language that is commonly used across the world. God made sure that His Word would be known to all.
Five times in the New Testament, God commands His people to go and teach others the truth. It is important that true Christians be willing to take up the command of God where He wants them to be. He will provide for their needs if they will simply submit to His will.
There is great reward in serving the Lord faithfully. True Christians can see real value. Real value is found in helping some lost sinner come to know the peace and forgiveness of God in their heart. Then to be able to help that newborn babe in Christ to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is also a great reward. We have that privilege today. Soon that time will be past. The church age will come to a close in a moment, when the trump of God sounds and the New Testament saints are removed from this earth.
Life will be much more difficult for those who enter the Tribulation. Those who enter that time will not be saved. They will be fed a lie and they will willingly accept that lie. There will be people saved during that 7 year period, but it will not be those who heard the Gospel during this age and rejected it.
Those who are saved now have the privilege of being involved in the greatest work on earth — the proclamation of the sure Word of God. Let us take up the challenge and serve God faithfully.
Pastor Bartel
