What Scripture Is #2

The Word of God is an anvil that people wear out their hammers trying to shatter and it never, ever works. And so it's a rock, it's a Gibraltar, a massive testimony to the enduring strength and truth of God unchanging. God's name speaks of His great power and majesty. It also speaks of His perfect character and unmatched holiness. There is nothing on earth or in heaven that is above it.

Or is there? Hi, I'm Bill Wright and this is the Truth Pulpit with Don Green. We're going to see today that the only thing that God holds above His name is His Word. Right now, friend, if you have your Bible handy, let's join our teacher for today's lesson in the Truth Pulpit. Scripture is not the Word of men, but it is the Word of God. As the Spirit worked through human thoughts, human personalities, the human experiences of the author, worked through those to make sure that what the authors produced was exactly what God intended, so that the final product of their written work was exactly what God had spoken to man. It is the Word of God, and that has a lot of implications, beloved, and Psalm 119 draws them out for us. First of all, the fact that it is the Word of God, our second point is this, is that Scripture is true. Scripture is true. In other words, Scripture is certain. Scripture is dependable. Scripture is right. Scripture is correct. Scripture is accurate. All of those things falling under the umbrella of the assertion that Scripture is true. Let's look at a few passages that assert this for us.

Again, remembering that we're treating things in a thematic way here. Look at verse 41. May your lovingkindness also come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your word. So I will have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in your word.

And here it is. And do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I wait for your ordinances. Your word, O God, is the word of truth. Look at verse 142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth.

Verse 151. You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth. And finally, in verse 160, the sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting. It reminds me of what our Lord said in his high priestly prayer in John 17.

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Old Testament, New Testament, Psalm 119, the lips of our Lord Jesus, all speaking to the reality that Scripture is true. It is accurate.

It is correct. It is honest. It never deceives us. It never leads us astray in anything that it asserts.

Everything that it says is completely reliable. And as a result of that, my friends, Scripture is the one and only means by which you can come to know the living God. A man who does not read the Bible, a man who does not expose himself to Scripture, a man who does not know what the Bible says is a man who is far from God. And until the Spirit of God brings his mind into contact with Scripture, until he brings himself into and under the authority of the Word of God, he remains separated from God because it is only in Scripture where the truth about God and the truth about salvation is made known. There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. There is an exclusivity to the truth claims of Scripture. Scripture is true and everything else is judged by it. So true faith must be built on the truth of Scripture. You know, it's frightening. These are simple propositions.

I get it. These are simple propositions in one sense that we're talking about. But it's because people ignore the simplicity of the truth claims of Scripture and these simple propositions are ignored that people's souls are in eternal danger. People say, you know, that may be what you believe, but I believe something else. Or, you know, you have your God, I have mine. You have your truth, I have mine.

No, no. Scripture is true. Scripture is the place where all human thought is evaluated for whether it's accurate or not, and thought that is contrary to Scripture, apart from Scripture, is false by definition. It's not a question of whether you think you have a God of your own or not. The question is whether your God is the one that is revealed in Scripture because that alone is where truth is found. And if your faith, your beliefs, your thoughts about God are not rooted squarely in Scripture, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. I really wouldn't.

I really wouldn't. No matter how good it makes you feel for the time being, at the end there's an accountability for believing lies and rejecting and ignoring and disdaining the truth of the Word of God. Scripture is the Word of God and Scripture is true. And that means that we must study it and come to grips with all that it says. Now thirdly, there's another aspect of Scripture that we find in Psalm 119.

It's this, and it's sweet. Scripture is sweet, but that's not the point that I'm making here. Scripture is faithful. Scripture is faithful. Now, faithful in the original language is closely related to the word true. And it has the idea that the Word of God is firm.

It is steady. I know some of you are like me and you don't like a lot of change. You don't like it when new buildings go up or roads get redone or whatever the case may be and the changes in society and the changes in life and the changes in relationship and there's just so much change constantly churning around us.

No, I don't like that. It's the nature of the world that I live in, but I don't naturally embrace that. The refuge that you and I have in this is that Scripture is faithful. Scripture is firm and it is steady and it is something that we can stand on knowing that the ground under our feet is not going to shift or move. Look at verse 30 with me of Psalm 119. Psalm says, I've chosen the faithful way.

I've placed your ordinances before me. In verse 86, he says, all your commandments are faithful. And in verse 138, he says, you have commanded your testimonies in righteousness and exceeding faithfulness. What God has said in his word, he will uphold. What the word teaches us is something that is steady. It is firm. It is reliable.

You can build upon it. As life changes, as trials assault you, as sorrows weigh down on your head, you can always come back to the word of God and find it saying the same things that it has always said. For those of you that were raised in Christian homes, you find it is saying the same things that you were taught on your mother's knee, that it is repeating the same things that an earnest father pleaded with you to hear and to respond to.

And as pastors have spoken to you in different places over the years, those that have pointed to you to the word of God, you know what is true today? As you look in it, as they were faithful to tell you those things in the past, it's the same now. It is firm.

It is steady. It isn't shifting as the philosophies of the world change. It's not shifting as political parties come and go or political leaders come and go. It doesn't change when loved ones come and go. It doesn't come when prosperity comes and goes.

Some of you have walked in severe lack, seeming like there was never going to be an end to the financial pressure upon you. The word of God was true to you then. Now that it's changed, the word of God is still saying the same thing. Our circumstances change, our people change, our environment changes, our leaders change, but the word of God is faithful.

It is the same all along. There is a faithful friend beside us as we walk through this world, and it is the faithful, true word of God. And when you start to realize that truth of the word of God, the faithfulness of the word of God, you start to love it. You start to appreciate the fact the Scripture is like that, that there is a genuine anchor. There is a cornerstone in my life that I can always build on, that I can always rest on.

This word is precious because of what it is. And those of you that have been greatly harmed by unfaithful people who have treacherously betrayed you in life, those of you that have been harmed by unfaithful spouses, harmed by unfaithful friends, harmed by parents or children who have failed you or strayed from you and rejected you, and you see all of the carnage that that leaves behind and the baggage that it injects in our lives, beloved, you can leave the baggage outside and find in the word of God that which refreshes your soul because it's true, it's faithful, it can be relied upon. And I can picture somebody saying, well, if this is really wonderful to hear, if that's true, then that means that we should really be giving ourselves over to the word of God so that we can be blessed by it. Yes, exactly, that's the whole point of Psalm 119. How blessed are those who walk in the law of the Lord. You know what you experience in life as a result of that? You experience truth, you experience faithfulness, you find something sustaining your soul that nothing else can do.

That's the whole point. Because of what the word is, you give yourself to it to walk in it, not out of external obligation, but out of an inner presence of mind, an inner affection that says this is really precious and I want to know this word. Let me get rid of all of my stuff. Give me a table and a lamp and this book and I've got all I need. That's the far-reaching consequences of the true and faithful word of God. Now closely aligned with those thoughts, point number four here is this, is that Scripture is unchanging. Scripture is unchanging.

Because it's true, because it's faithful, because it's the word of God, we find that it doesn't change. God does not change. One of his perfections, one of his attributes is that he is immutable.

What he has always been, he always will be. He has never changed. God does not go through mood swings. God doesn't respond to external stimulus and alter his frame of mind. There is just an ongoing stability and reality of his character. When Scripture talks about God being angry or delighted or things like that, it's not because his emotions are flipping up and down as day-to-day events unfold. It's simply expressing in human terms something about the permanent, eternal outworking of his character toward a changing world in a way that we can understand. But God himself, he doesn't change.

Neither does his word. Look at verse 89, Psalm 119, verse 89. Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations.

You establish the earth and it stands. Lord, your word is settled. It's settled in heaven where men cannot attack it and change it. It is settled forever. It is secure.

It is final. Look at verse 152, Psalm 119, 152. Of old, of old I have known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever. And Psalm 160, we looked at it a moment ago. The sum of your word is truth and every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting. God's word today is the same as it has always been in the very distant past. God's word today is the same as it will be in the very distant future.

How great is that constancy? How comprehensive is that unchanging essence of the word of God? Well, our Lord Jesus gave us a sense of perspective on it when he said this in Matthew 24. He said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. The known world that we see all around us, we look at the earth, we look at the heavens, that's all going to change one day. You can read about that in 2 Peter and the book of Revelation. Everything that we assume about the constancy of the stars and all of this, heaven and earth are going to pass away. God's word?

No. God's word is in a realm of its own, of constancy, of unchangeableness. Scripture compares it to heaven and earth, and Jesus says, they'll pass away, but my words won't. In a macro sense, it makes that comparison.

There's a micro comparison that it makes with daily experience. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40 verse 8. Men live and die, God's word stays the same. Biblical critics come and go, liberals spout their theories, people chase after them, then those men die and their books lie unopened, dusty on shells. A few years later, the word of God, living, active, unchanged, still powerful, still working and accomplishing the will of God through the outworking of the word of God as it's proclaimed by His people. The word of God is an anvil that people wear out their hammers trying to shatter, and it never, ever works. And so it's a rock.

It's a Gibraltar. It's Half Dome in Yosemite, a massive testimony to the enduring strength and truth of God unchanging. And so the word of God is true. It's faithful. It's unchanging.

One final point, fifth point for today. Scripture is the word of God. Scripture is true. It is faithful.

It is unchanging. Finally, Scripture is righteous. Scripture is righteous. Now the term righteous means that the Bible is just. It conforms to God's character, which makes perfect sense.

Since it's the word of God, then it would reflect the character of God, the attributes of God. And this is an especially prominent theme in Psalm 119. Psalm 119, verse 7, the righteousness, the purity, the uprightness of the word of God. Psalm 119, verse 7, I shall give thanks to you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments. Psalm 40, behold, I long for your precepts.

Revive me through your righteousness. Verse 62, at midnight I shall rise to give thanks to you because of your righteous ordinances. Verse 75, I know, O Yahweh, that your judgments are righteous and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Verse 137, righteous are you, O Lord, and upright are your judgments. You have commanded your testimonies, verse 138. You have commanded your testimonies in righteousness and exceeding faithfulness. Verse 160, we come to this verse multiple times.

It seems to be an intersection where so many of these characteristics of God's word, they meet at this intersection in verse 160. The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting. It is the word of God. It is true. It is faithful.

It is unchanging. It is righteous. Verse 164, seven times a day I praise you because of your righteous ordinances. And finally in verse 172, let my tongue sing of your word, for all your commandments are righteousness. God's word manifests the character of God Himself. The nature of the word itself is righteous.

The nature of God Himself is righteous. It's right. It's what's true. It's what's faithful. It's what's unchanging. You could say it this way. We'll say things a couple of different ways. God's word exposes sin, and it affirms holiness.

You could say it this way. Scripture reveals the perfections of God. Scripture reveals the perfections of God and applies them without fear or favor to the character and actions of men. There's a vertical dimension to the righteousness of Scripture. It reveals God for who He is.

There is a righteousness about Scripture in that it is utterly pure and true and reliable. It is clean. It is honest. It is accurate.

It is perfect in every conceivable way. And so there's this vertical dimension to it. And then horizontally you can understand it in this sense that the word comes as a righteous judge of the motives, words, actions, thoughts, and actions of men. And it judges them all with precision and with perfection.

And it does it to the great and to the small. The word affirms the humble believer who trusts in Christ. It condemns the highest level of men. Those with the greatest authority find no position before the word that gives them any benefit that none of the rest of us have. Without fear or favor, the word righteously judges the character and actions of men. Friends, we have an amazing privilege over the course of time.

You have an amazing opportunity in the course of your daily life. We hold in our hands today the only perfect book. We hold in our hands today the only book that is genuinely living, that genuinely speaks to human hearts, that has the power as the Spirit of God works in it to change human hearts, to give life where death has prevailed, to bring holiness where sin has been an unmerciful master. A word that shines Christ where Satan has blinded eyes. A word that changes you, that changes me.

This is the world's only... There's no other book like it. It points sinners like some of you to the fact that Jesus Christ is a merciful, crucified, and risen Savior who will forgive all of your sins if you come to Him in perfect, in submission, in repentance, in faith. The Word of God offers hope to broken sinners, offers hope to those in broken marriages, offers hope to parents with sorrow under their same roof. It shows the way of salvation. It teaches us what faith-based obedience looks like. I ask you, my friends, I ask you from the bottom of my heart, what are you doing with this true, faithful, unchanging, righteous Word of God?

What role does it have in your life? Do you respect this divine book for its holy excellence? Do you think about the Bible as a book in a class of its own with authority of its own, unique, the object of your love and affections because it reveals to you the Lord Jesus Christ?

Do you love it and respect it? That's what Scripture is. That's the response that it calls forth from us. That's Don Green with a look at the indispensable role of God's Word in the life of every believer. Well, friend, we're so glad you could join us for today's lesson. Don will continue in this series called The Magnificent Word next time on The Truth Pulpit. Meanwhile, if you'd like to find out more about this ministry, just go to thetruthpulpit.com. Once there, you'll find all of Don's messages along with a treasure trove of study materials to help you get God's Word down into your soul.

Before we go, though, here again is Don with some closing words. Well, my friend, if today's broadcast has helped you, can I ask you for a simple favor in return? It's more important than you could possibly know.

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