The Worth of the Word

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Psalm chapter 19 tonight. Psalm chapter 19. I will warn you that my notes have 12 points in them, but don’t be afraid because that shouldn’t go as long as this morning.

And if you’re wondering, if you’re afraid about coming next Sunday morning because you think he went long today just getting through point one, how’s he going to do two, three, and four next week? Two, three, and four together are about as long as point one. So don’t let that dissuade you from being here next Sunday morning to hear the rest of the evidence that I’ll be bringing for the proof of the resurrection.

But tonight we’re going to be in Psalm chapter 19. Psalm chapter 19. And as we look at this, you know, sometimes it’s hard to get ourselves to do the right thing.

And I’m not even talking about choices between right and wrong. I’m just talking about things that are good for us. You know, should I sleep in or get up and run on the treadmill?

I know I probably should get up and run on the treadmill and be good for me. but I just don’t, I flat out don’t want to. Now, I need to make myself, but I just flat out don’t want to.

In the evenings when I’m trying to go to sleep, trying to get my brain to shut off and relax, I know I’d be better off reading a book, and yet I just want to sit there and watch TV. I like salad, I like vegetables, and I know that I’d feel better if I ate those, but sometimes I just want a cupcake. Anybody else ever feel that way?

I know that this would be good for me. I know I would feel better if I would do this, but I just don’t care. Folks, we are the same way sometimes in our spiritual lives.

We know what’s good for us. We know what will help us. We know what will make us feel better and what will make our spiritual lives work better, but we just don’t want to do it.

We’re either tired or we’re wrapped up in ourselves or for whatever reason, We just don’t care. And it’s easy if we’re not careful to find ourselves doing the same thing when it comes to our study of God’s Word. For us to grow as believers, for us to grow as Christians, it’s important for us to spend time in God’s Word.

And you can have been a Christian for 40 or 50 years and think, well, I’ve read it all. I can guarantee you, if you will read it and spend time in it, you’re going to read a passage that you’ve read 20 times before and you’re still going to find something new in it. God is going to use it to speak to you in a different way.

And I don’t mean we’re going to see something that nobody’s ever seen before some new doctrine. Each passage has one interpretation, the one that God put in there. But a passage can have multiple applications.

Like I talked to you about Wednesday night with the book of Nehemiah. It applies to things in business. It applies to things in church growth.

It applies to things in politics. It applies to things in, hey, how am I going to build this wall in my garden? There are principles in Nehemiah that apply to several areas of life.

I’ve preached more sermons out of John chapter 1 than I can remember. And they’re about a multitude of subjects because principles in the Scripture apply to different things. And God will speak to you in different ways.

So don’t get to the point where you think, well, I’ve heard all this already. I don’t need to read my Bible anymore. God speaks to us through his word.

If your idea of hearing from God is, well, I’m just going to go along and wait for him to speak to me, that’s dangerous ground, my friend. That’s dangerous ground. More people have been led astray by what they’ve thought they’ve heard from God than anything else because our minds play tricks on us.

We hear things from other places. God speaks to us today through his word as written in this book here. And so if we want to grow as believers, if we want to grow in our walk, if we want to get our mind focused on Him, if we want to do the right thing, if we want to know how to handle a given situation, we’ve got to be in His Word.

We know it’s good for us, but sometimes it’s just hard to make ourselves do that. We’re going to look at this passage in Psalms chapter 19, and I want to present you with 12 things that King David says, 12 ways that King David says the Word is good for you. Twelve things that maybe will help you be encouraged to say, you know what, I’m going to make the choice to be in God’s Word today.

Now, I’m not saying there that that’s all you ever do. You just sit and study God’s Word all the time and never eat, never sleep, never any of this. But we should be in God’s Word on a daily basis.

And if these things will encourage you in that, these are some things that he says that God’s Word is good for and beneficial for. Psalm chapter 19, verse 1 says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his. .

. I’m sorry, I have written down the. .

. I’m sorry, we’re not starting at the beginning of the chapter. That’s the problem.

I was thinking that does not look like. . .

Once again, read this passage many times, that did not look like what I studied. Starting in verse 7 instead of verse 1. I can’t read my own notes.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned.

And in keeping of them, there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. So King David was a man who had reached the heights of power.

He’d reached incredible wealth. He’d seen amazing things. And we would think you’d get to that point and say, I’ve got life figured out.

But even King David, who was not a perfect man, but the Bible calls him a man after God’s own heart, even in the midst of his own sin and his own trouble with his family that grew out of that sin that plagued him for the rest of his life, really. David was a man who at least desired to follow the Lord. He desired to do the right thing.

And folks, that desire is half the battle right there. If we can get ourselves to desire to follow the Lord, then half the battle is won already, I believe. But David, even with all of his wealth and his status and his privilege and everything, realized that he didn’t have all of life figured out.

He, even as the king of Israel, had to turn to the Lord on a daily basis for wisdom and looked to his scriptures and turned to the scriptures and said, what does God have to say? And he learned things from those on a daily basis that helped him as he took care of his family, as he ruled his kingdom, as he tried to live and do the right thing. And again, as I said, King David did not always do the right thing.

We know of at least one glaring example from scriptures where he fell far short of God’s standards. But still, this was a man who said on a daily basis, I’m going to come to the word of God because I know that even I have something to learn. And if King David, who was called a man after God’s own heart, had something to learn, then I have no doubt that I too have something to learn on a daily basis if I’ll come to God.

And it’s important to note, too, that in David’s day, when he’s talking about the scriptures, they only had the first five books of the Old Testament written. King David lived around 1000 BC so about 3000 years ago and at that time they only had Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy they had those five books now those are not typically the books that we say let’s look to and find wisdom about life ok if we want to find wisdom about life a lot of times we’ll look at the New Testament we’ll look at Psalms and Proverbs but David lived before the New Testament and he lived in the time when Psalms and Proverbs were being written. So when he’s talking about, he uses all of these words here, he says, thy words, thy statutes, thy laws, thy judgments, thy commands, all of these are words that he uses for the scriptures.

All of these are words that he uses to mean the word of God. So when he says all these things, he’s referring back to those five books. And those are books that we, a lot of times, as Christians, pass over and say, well, there’s not much in there for us.

There’s Genesis and Exodus that has history, and the rest of it’s just laws and who begat who, and we just look over it. That’s why we never recommend to new Christians, just read your Bible straight through from Genesis. You’ll do all right until you get about to Leviticus, and then it gets, and I don’t mean this disrespectful, it gets very dry very fast, because it’s lists of priestly laws that, especially as a new believer.

I’ve been a believer for 25 years, and there’s a lot about Leviticus and the Old Testament law that confuses me still. A new believer, let’s not throw them into the deep end of Leviticus. And then all those lists of family trees and such.

But David looks at those five books and says there’s so much wisdom even in those. And folks, we have the benefit of not five, but 66 books of God’s wisdom. There’s even more in there for us to find today than what he had access to.

So the first thing that he says about God’s word in this passage, about it being good for him and good for us, is that God’s word converts the soul. God’s word converts the soul. If we have the opportunity, when we’re trying to lead someone to faith in God, faith in Jesus Christ, if we have the opportunity, there’s nothing better than Scripture.

There’s nothing better than Scripture because God’s ability, the knowledge of the truth and faith in God that leads to the soul being converted. And I’m trying to think of this in Old Testament terms. But nowadays we would share the gospel with somebody, and the Bible talks about being born again, talks about being a new creature in Christ. Okay, that’s not based on my opinion and me telling you, okay, this is how I got saved. It’s based on what God’s promises are as spoken through his word.

And if we have the opportunity, if we have an open door, there’s nothing more powerful to share with somebody than scripture. See, I’ve changed my thinking on this in the last few years. I used to think that the most powerful tool we had to witness was our own testimony.

And I can tell you what my testimony is, and you can tell somebody else what your own testimony is, but we could be wrong in what we think happened. I mean, honestly, are we not fallible human beings? Just because I think I experienced something doesn’t make it true.

What makes it true is that God said it was true and God’s promises. So not to say there’s no room for the testimony, but what does God’s word say? And that’s why you’ll see gospel tracts that will have God’s word.

They’ll quote, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You’ll see God’s Word quoted.

God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword. I talked about this a few weeks ago. It’s able to divide even between soul and spirit and bone and marrow, which is pretty hard to do.

It takes a pretty sharp instrument to get between bone and marrow. God’s Word is sharp and it penetrates and it gets right to the heart of things. And that’s why when we see in the book of Acts, when they would stand up and they would preach about Jesus Christ and they would do so from the Old Testament, they would quote the scriptures, and the Bible says that the men were pricked in their hearts.

They were cut to the heart. And it drove them to either say, what must we do to be saved? Or it drove them to say, let’s kill them so we don’t have to hear this anymore.

The word of God is powerful, and it gets into your soul. And God’s word can change somebody’s heart. God’s word can change somebody’s heart.

in a way that my words cannot and in a way that your words cannot. You know, I’ve tried for a while to talk to somebody about an issue of right and wrong and just didn’t hear it. They weren’t hearing it at all.

Then a few weeks ago, they were around me when I was on the phone talking to somebody else, talking about, well, you know, God’s word says this. And boy, I tell you what, they couldn’t get in their car fast enough. And it’s easy enough to ignore Jared.

my kids do it all the time. It’s harder to ignore God’s Word, and this is what it’s saying. God’s Word gets in the soul and changes from the inside out.

God’s Word converts the soul. He says that in verse 7, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. You know, the more I read of God’s Word and I see how holy He is and see how sinful I am, it does something to me.

It changes something inside me to realize, wait a minute, even now as a believer, I am wrong in this that I’m doing or this that I’m thinking, and God says this, and I need to get in line with it, and it’ll change my heart about a situation. So that’s the first thing. Second of all, God’s Word imparts wisdom.

He says in verse 7, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, and thank God that He does. The word simple, as used in the scripture, usually means somebody who’s simple-minded, somebody who’s not all that wise. And I will tell you, I’m not all that wise.

You may think, oh, the preacher, he’s the preacher, he must know stuff. Ask my wife, not a lot of common sense always between these ears. I’m not the wisest man there is.

But reading God’s word and soaking in these principles, there’s something about it where King David says it makes wise the simple. I can’t tell you how many times in life I have stayed out of trouble by keeping my mouth shut when people are arguing or when something. And you know what?

There’s a principle in Scripture that I learned a few years ago. It says, as much as lies within you, live at peace with all men. And that’s a principle that God’s Word taught me that I didn’t have before then.

The time I learned that, I was in high school. We had started a Bible study group there, And we had various speakers come in, or we would just get together and study the Bible on Friday mornings before school. We had a group of oneness Pentecostals who had started coming to our group, which was fine, until they wanted to bring their speakers in.

And the problem with that was not that they were Pentecostal. Because we weren’t all Baptists in this group at the school, the problem was that they don’t believe in the Trinity. And they wanted to bring in other speakers to convince us that we shouldn’t believe in the Trinity either. So I brought in a pastor, a retired pastor from the church where I grew up, who had a reputation as being one of the pulpit-pounding guys that I just wouldn’t know how to be.

And I thought, he’s going to get them. And he didn’t know anything that was going on. But he came in and he spoke a message on that passage, as much as lies within you, live peaceably with all men.

And I thought, what? What a rip-off. I thought he was going to come in and get them, and he comes and talks to us about living in peace.

It didn’t mean that we were going to agree or let them take over our group, but the message was basically God’s word says this, don’t go looking for a fight. As much as I hated that he came and talked on that of all things, I was convicted by it. I hear that verse bounce around in my brain at least once or twice a week when something goes on and I want to jump into the fray.

There’s some wisdom in God’s Word when it says, live peaceably with all men. There’s wisdom from God’s Word that has saved me from trouble I don’t know how many times. And that’s just, folks, that’s just one example.

There is wisdom in God’s Word that you can apply to everyday life that will help you. And where I am unwise, where my natural inclination is to do unwise things and jump ahead of things and be rash. God’s word comes in and brings wisdom, thank God, to the Lord.

Third of all, God’s word brings joy. It says in verse 8, the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. His statutes, his law, what he says is right, and it brings joy to the heart.

Now, a lot of times we’d look at that and say, wait a minute, we just talked about in discipleship training, sin is fun, sin is enjoyable. So it’s joyful to say you should live this way, you should live this way, you should live this way. These rules and this right and wrong, really that brings joy to your life?

Well, let me tell you, it does. I’m not a perfect man. None of us are.

But I have tried since I was a child to live by God’s word as best I could. And you know what? There are a lot of things that that has spared me from.

the joy of going home every night to my family where I love my wife and she loves me and my kids are, you know, they have their moments, but they’re basically obedient, I think. Unless y’all are lying to me in the nursery, I don’t think you are. You know, there are things that we don’t have to worry about.

You know, my kids don’t have to worry about coming home at night and his daddy going to be drunk and want to beat on us. My wife doesn’t have to worry about if I leave at the last minute or I come home late and I’ve been off in the city, who have I been with? You know, there’s a joy and there’s a peace and a restfulness in following God’s word that we don’t, there are just some things that we don’t have to worry about.

And I don’t set that up to say my family’s any better than anybody else’s. It’s just that God has given us the grace to be able to see the wisdom in his word. And by following his judgments and following his word, I’m not saying we have a perfect life or that everything’s always easy.

It’s certainly not. And we have our flaws and we have our failures, but there’s a joy in following God’s word and knowing that some things we just don’t have to worry about. God’s word gives righteous instruction.

You want to know what’s right and wrong, you want to know what to do or what not to do, God’s word will tell you what to do or what not to do. Verse 8 says, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. How would we know?

How would we know that theft is wrong, or that murder is wrong, or that lying is wrong? If it weren’t for God’s word. Now, I know that there are people who say, well, every civilization has laws in some form or another against murder, or against theft, or against lying.

They all have some variation of these laws. but the Bible says that God has engraved those laws on the human heart. It’s because of the light of conscience that God gives that men all over the world, whether they follow God or not, at least realize that those basic things are true.

And there are other things that, folks, we don’t learn just by, just the word I’ve always heard is osmosis, which I don’t remember what osmosis means. I think it’s you’re next to something and it gets imparted there. We don’t just learn right and wrong by osmosis.

My son didn’t realize at first that lying was wrong, believe it or not. I know we look at that and say, well, of course it’s wrong. He didn’t know that until we told him.

Caught in lying, said, this is wrong. And then we had quite a time getting that straightened out. And I’m not going to say anything else about it because every time I say, and I think we’ve turned a corner in that, then we have a relapse.

But you know what? I don’t always know the right thing to do in a situation without God’s Word, especially sometimes where we look at them and we want to see our gray areas. And sometimes, for example, you can have a dispute with your spouse.

And you think, but what I’m saying is right, and I’ve got to stand up for what’s right. And then there’s a principle in God’s Word again. that here we go again with as much as lies within you, live peaceably with all men.

And you start to, and God’s word says, live at peace with your wife that your prayers be not hindered. There is a passage I need to preach on at some point, but wait a minute, is this worth it? See, because in the flesh, I think the right thing is to prove my point at all costs.

And then God’s word comes back and says, no, no, the greater good is to live at peace with people in your family. So I don’t always know the right thing to do apart from looking at God’s Word. But fortunately, David says that God’s Word can teach me the right thing to do.

His commandments are pure and they enlighten the eyes. And there have been times I’ve read the Bible and it’s just like scales fall off of my eyes. Oh, what an idiot I have been.

Or, oh, I didn’t realize I was wrong when I did that. How I wish I could take it back. You know what?

God’s Word gives righteous instruction. It teaches us the difference between right and wrong. Number five, God’s word remains unchanging.

He says in verse nine, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The fear of God and the respect for what he says, it stays the same forever. That is, I don’t know about you, but that is comforting for me, for other people not so much, but it’s comforting for me to know that when God says this is true today, that it remains true tomorrow just as it was yesterday.

One thing that I’ve mentioned here before is that I’ve heard a senator say on the radio that there are over 15,000 federal regulations, and most people violate federal law, EPA standards, and all those things two or three times a day without even realizing it. You cannot, and I don’t want to turn this into a tirade against the federal government, I’ve got to be careful about that, But you cannot follow all of federal law and be sure that you’re following it all because they change it every stinking year, if not every day. I say law.

On top of that, the regulations. They change that all the time. You can’t keep up with it.

There’s no security in that. Knowing that the law changes and I may never know and I’m still guilty and they could still come take away my property. They could still come put me in jail.

What is that? And yet, for God, what he says today stands true for today, for tomorrow, for yesterday. If God says it, it’s not going to change.

And the reason I say I know that’s not comforting for a lot of people is because people, sometimes it’s not convenient for them. They want those definitions to change. They want those standards to change.

Well, surely God couldn’t have seen 2,000 years later what society was going to be like. I don’t know about you, but a God that couldn’t see 2,000 years in the future isn’t a God worth worshiping. He’s from everlasting to everlasting, and he’s the same today, yesterday, today, and tomorrow and forever.

I think I jumbled that up somewhere in there. You name it, and he’s the same. And so when God says, you know what, theft is wrong yesterday, it’s wrong today, and it’s wrong tomorrow.

When God says murder is wrong yesterday, it’s wrong today, and it’s wrong tomorrow. When God says this is what marriage is yesterday, it’s what it is today and tomorrow. You go down through the list. God’s word doesn’t change.

Now God came through and as time went on, he added, he continued to speak through his prophets, but his principles, his truth did not change. And so God’s word remains unchanging. That’s one reason you can study your Bible with confidence as it points you to the truth, as it points you to how God wants you to live your life.

It’s not going to change. You’re not going to be following God and doing what God said yesterday and then find yourself in trouble with God today because he changed his mind. God’s not the government.

He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God’s word is always right. Here’s another one.

He doesn’t change and he’s always right. It doesn’t matter whether we agree with him or not. He’s always right.

Verse 9 says the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous all together. All throughout. They’re righteous altogether.

And some people will try to attack the Bible and say, well, God clearly isn’t good because how could he justify such and such action in the Old Testament? Well, first of all, I don’t know. I’m not God.

But I also don’t want to be the person standing there shaking my fist at God saying, I know better. I’m more moral than you are. If God said it, he’s right.

We know that God values truth. We know that God values life. We know that God values love for one another.

We know that God values perfection. We know the things that God values. And God sees things differently than we are.

He sees them more completely than we are. And so when God says something and we think, well, that doesn’t feel right. Folks, we’re the ones who are wrong.

And I don’t say that throwing that all on you. Hey, you need to get right because if God says it, I don’t care what you think. He’s the one that’s right, not you.

I’m saying that for me too. There are sometimes I look at things and think, it’s not really what I want to do. You know what?

It doesn’t matter. He’s right and I’m wrong. If I disagree with God, I’m wrong.

And there have been times I’ve had to come back and correct myself because what I’ve said didn’t square with what God said. And you know what? I was wrong, not him.

So God is always right. King David says he’s always right. His judgments are always right.

He doesn’t have to go back like an earthly authority and correct himself. You know, we look at, for example, there are some people who will look at the Supreme Court as being infallible. Hey, they said it, and that means it’s true.

Let me refer you back to 1854. Dred Scott versus Sanford. The Supreme Court got together and said, oh, runaway slave, property, not human.

He has to go back. Are you kidding me? We’re never going to enter a time where God says, oh, I messed up, I didn’t have all the facts.

Or, oh, I was young and stupid. We’re never going to get to a point where God says, I was wrong. I didn’t know everything.

If God says it, it’s right. And if we disagree with God, we’re the ones who are wrong. God’s word is precious.

King David said it’s precious. More to be desired are they, his words, than gold, yea, than much fine gold. I don’t know if any of you have bought gold lately.

It’s not cheap. I went to have a ring resized several months ago for charla and already had the gold just needed to add some more gold to it and what little I added cost me a whole lot of money I was not happy because they were supposed to call me first if they had to if they had to add more gold to resize it then I get there to pick it up but oh your bill is a hundred or whatever dollars for what it looks the same gold is expensive it is it is incredibly expensive. And you know what?

That makes it precious. She better not lose that ring. It’s expensive.

This ring is expensive. I don’t want to lose it, not only because of the sentimental value. It’s the ring that Charlie gave me on our wedding day.

It’s also the ring that my grandfather wore. It was his wedding ring. It’s precious, but it’s also expensive.

I wouldn’t I don’t want to have to go spend the money to replace it. And he says that God, David says that God’s words are more precious than fine gold. You know what?

You have the choice between gold and God’s word. I know it doesn’t make a lot of economic sense, but you go with God’s word. You go with his truth.

Gold can be stolen. Silver can be corrupted and corroded. I found that out the hard way.

I bought this sterling silver ring for $30 and forgot to take it off when I was bleaching out the deep freeze. Now it’s got little spots on it. Stuff can be ruined.

People can steal. Things can corrode. Stuff loses value all the time. The stuff we buy, the stuff we’ll have to have it, then ends up in the garage and it’s junk and we sell it for a dollar.

God’s truth never quits being prescient. God’s word never loses its value. He says it’s sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

My kids like honey. a whole lot. And we had cornbread the other night and I had cornbread and honey and I poured honey all over that cornbread.

I waited until after they went to bed to have my cornbread because I knew that they would want the honey too and I didn’t want them to see that. I poured honey all over my cornbread and you know what? It was sweet.

And about three or four bites into it, I thought this is way too because it’s way too much honey. God’s word, David says, is sweeter to his mouth. It’s more pleasant to his mouth than honey.

Folks, God’s word is precious. God’s word is precious. God’s word warns us of unseen dangers.

He says in verse 11, moreover by them is thy servant warned. Yeah, he was warned of pitfalls. Hey, don’t do this.

Hey, stay away from here. You know, you read through, I’m not going to give you any examples on this, but you can read through God’s Word, and you will read something and maybe not think a lot about it. Think, okay, that’s interesting, and go on with your reading or go on with your day or whatever.

And you can come to a situation days or weeks or even years later where you’re forced to make a choice, you’re forced to make a decision, you’re presented with a choice and suddenly that passage, that verse of scripture comes screaming back to your consciousness like a giant neon flashing sign and you think where did that come from I think God stores that stuff back in our memory to bring it back to us as a warning of saying wait a minute there’s a trap there’s a pitfall right ahead you need to avoid that sometimes that scripture that we read and study can be that big orange sign that gives you plenty of time to turn around. After the birthday party yesterday, we had to go back to my parents’ house and pick up some frozen food that I left there because, as I said, I was bleaching out the deep freeze to get it ready.

We start through the neighborhood, and the city of Moore is kind of like the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. They have this fun game they play where they make mazes, and they shu

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