Preserved, Not Vile, Words

1/19/2019

Three times during last night, I awoke singing an old hymn. When I got up, it was gone from my feeble mind. I’ve looked through old songs and I haven’t found it (or had it come back to me), but I found one I believe will fit this day’s blog. I said yesterday I was going to put more in about the truth and its veracity, so perhaps this song is better than the one I was singing during the night. I don’t have a tune for this, as it was written in 1900, and not in any known book. The name is “The Unchanging Word.”

When the earth shall cease to be,

And the heavens pass away,

The unchanging word of God we’ll see

Just as it is today.

• Refrain:
  On the word of God I calmly rest,
  With a sweet assurance in my breast;
  For I know it is His holy will,
  Each promise to fulfill.

That is the opening verse and chorus, fitting perfectly as to what I believe about the word of God. The Lord said His “word shall never pass away.” 

I believe His promise, knowing also His promise to preserve it from David’s generation, forever, as found in Ps.12:6, 7. 

And, since I used the Ps.12 passage about preservation of the word of God, I’d like to point out the verse which appears next; v.8. “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest of men are exalted.” What a verse for today! You know, our president gets called vile for his crudeness and, frankly, offensive castigation of those who oppose him (and I’m not excusing him on everything.) But “the vilest of men” which are exalted are more clearly those who oppose him when they themselves vehemently called for the same thing he is now advocating, yet they are calling him “immoral” for doing no more than what they had done a few short years ago.—That is vile: read Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, you’ll see what the lord called vile.

From the time of David and continuing through this day, the Word of God has been under attack more and more subtly the further we go. As I mentioned the 20th century saw 100 new versions. Just as a principle of the question “what is the word of God?”—that is a vile thing. One hundred books saying ever so slightly differing things, attempting to get people to believe and put confidence in a constantly changing “sure” word of prophecy?? It is appalling.

Preachers in training: what must be going through their heads as they enter a school (seminary) thinking it is going to establish them with a rock-solid education to know how to discern the will of God, and the first thing they hear is,  “you cannot read God’s perfect word, we don’t have it. But trust in us, we’ll tell you what you should know.” 

Oh, young man who desires to know: don’t go to a seminary, pick up your King James Bible and go home and “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Attn: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. See Col.2:5-19 for the whole context.

Looking forward to tomorrow morning in Chattanooga, two hours of bible study plus a “potluck luncheon” afterward. C’mon! come join us, bring a dish or just take potluck! chuckle, chuckle. 

Here’s really great news about our weather: it is raining hard, again. The good thing is it isn’t below freezing, we would have had huge snowfall! Blizzard like. Worst ever! But, instead, we’re just having the wettest Winter anyone here can remember. I’ll take this for Winter, we live on a mountain. We have to go down and up a lot. Snow and ice don’t fit the hills real well.

Thanks for reading, the Elder