Have I ever, since you've listened to me, have I ever delivered a message to you for or against homosexuality? Abortion? Divorce? I could keep going the list is long, but the fact of the matter is that's your business. That's between you and God. And anyone who tries to interfere in your working it out with God is actually interfering in God's plan for you, which includes you fumbling around and messing it up. How many times have you heard somebody say something's not going to last, “Now, that's never going to last.” Now it's kind of funny when people make statements like that and they can be talking about anything. But if you talk about something specific, specifically the word of God and somebody says, “The word of God is, or Christianity is, it cannot continue, or will cease to be,” well, people have made predictions like that. You all know the name I'm sure, Voltaire, playwright, philosopher, atheist. In 1778, before his death he said within a hundred years Christianity would be extinct, it would cease to exist. Here's the irony, there's always little twists and things when people make statements like that concerning the things of God, I don't know about anything else but concerning the things of God. Fifty years after Voltaire's death, remember he said, “A hundred years Christianity will be extinct,” fifty years after his death the Geneva Bible Society was printing Bibles on the press that used to be his, in the house that used to be his. I don't know about too many other things, there a lot of things people say, “Oh, that'll, that's never going to last.” And I can't speak of those things but I can speak about the things that I know the permanency of God's word. And I just took Voltaire because he's just easy pickings, there's plenty of them that made the same type of prognostication on Christendom over at least the last thousand years recorded. I'm sure that there are more. But in any case, I thought it was kind of interesting and I chose this as kind of a launching pad to take you into what is called the longest chapter in the Bible, which is, that's not really a true statement. There is no longest chapter, but there is a longest something and that would be Psalm 119. A lot of people tend to avoid Psalm 119, why, because it is long. That's number one. And number two because of the following, and I want to, I want to make this, I want to take something away from this psalm that keeps a lot of people away, okay. If you study Psalm 119, and you'll find most Bibles, even if you don't have a Bible like mine, most Bibles will have either the Hebrew letter or the spelled out name of the letter, of the Hebrew letter, because this is an acrostic psalm. There are 22 stanzas, usually being separated by usually eight verses apiece, all sitting under alphabetical order in the Hebrew alphabet. And a lot of times people have asked the question, you know because this particular psalm has a lot of references to law, people avoid it especially we who study the whole Bible, but there are a lot of people who will avoid it. Let me just tell you because I wrote some of these things down and I think it's pretty important that you see. Yes there's a theme to Psalm 119; 173 times the word “law” in 176 verses. That tells you that whoever wrote this that was heavy on their heart. We must be mindful if we're going to study this, that you can't stay away from it just because there is so much mention of God's law. In fact if you kind of go through the whole psalm, you'll find 24 times the word “Torah”; eduth, which is “testimonies” 19 times; piqqud, which is for “precepts” 20 times; the word choq (these are Hebrew words), for “statutes” 19 times; mitsoath, for “commandments” 22 times; mishpat, for “judgment” 22; dabar, for “word” 22. So you can see that the emphasis has strong leanings towards “law, judgment.” Those are the, we'll call them the focal words. Let that not scare you away from studying this psalm. I know plenty of people have said, “Well, there's so much law, and so much that it can be confusing.” When you read Psalm 119, you've got to read it with two different frames of reference. One it is, there are important things in here that I believe actually reveal or point to Christ. Failure to read those or find those you just end up with somebody reading and saying, “Well, it's a lot about testimony, law, judgment, precepts,” and you fail to see the bigger driving point, which is the focus on Christ. The reason why I chose this is to couple it with what I said in my opening remarks, and a lot of people who have said Christendom and Christianity cannot last. Especially now in the times we live in, who would have thought that pastors, ministers, people who are actually preaching the word (we are not talking about fundamentalists or perfectionists), people who are just preaching the word are actually, essentially being silenced. And we have, it's really a great flip, or an inversion if you see what has happened. This is why I've said to you it's very important that we not treat our faith or our calling lightly, because there are plenty of people who do treat it lightly, and there is no sense in, for those people in saying, “I must stand, and I must be rooted and grounded in the faith.” And they have kind of a very loose understanding of everything and it's very laissez-faire. And there, is quite frankly, there are very few people who are speaking out in these days. We're not talking about; I'm not speaking about speaking about subjects that I do not talk about. Have I ever, since you've listened to me, have I ever delivered a message to you for or against homosexuality? Abortion? Divorce? I could keep going the list is long, but the fact of the matter is that's your business. That's between you and God. And anyone who tries to interfere in your working it out with God is actually interfering in God's plan for you, which includes you fumbling around and messing it up. That's part of what God let's you do, it's a freebie, it's, you know, “Wait there's more.” God actually says, “Here I'm going to give this great gift to you, but I'm also going to give you the freedom to mess it up,” which is what we do. So the important thing that I want to highlight out of this psalm happens to be beginning at verse 89, and I'm going to be looking at verses 89-96 which is under the header of the Hebrew letter lamed, which is the “L” for us. And let me do something here. See, sometimes I think we've got enough people here who I taught Hebrew to that I should be able to have somebody here who thinks I am not writing in Chinese, although you never know. All right, I'll just write out the nuts and bolts of what I want to focus on here. And we'll use this nitsav, and last word here which should be familiar to some of you who studied Hebrew bashamayim. All right, you don't have to read Hebrew, but I'm going to discuss this. This would be verse 89, that's kind of funny. What, what I want to focus on first, let's look at the Hebrew and then I'll come back and we'll talk about this, what this verse means and the verses that go along with it, because I have, I think I have famously mentioned the verse, I may have even taught a lesson on it but I have not dealt with what comes directly underneath it. And I want us to do that today. So let's first look at the Hebrew. So we have here, “To forever,” olam, “forever Yahweh,” and we have here, “of him, word of him, the word of him,” let's put a proper, “the word of him,” and this nitsav, which is “firmly, firmly fixed”" your King James says settled, “firmly fixed,” bashamayim, “in the heavens, in the, in heavens,” it's plural in Hebrew with the im, in the heavens. All right why? Why this, because I want to talk to you about things that don't change. There are enough things that do. I want to talk about the things that don't change. So the first thing that I want us to look at, and I'm going to use the verse and then we'll look at the verses that follow, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” A couple of thoughts that should be posted somewhere, you can write in your margin. The first thing is no one; that is man or a woman, I'm not sexist here; no one can change or hinder God's word. Now there have been many attempts to hinder God's word by humans, sometimes deliberately, and sometimes inadvertently. And I say sometimes deliberately if you again go back and follow the history of the translation and transmission of the word of God and you will find that especially where biases and pet theologies have developed, there you will find a propensity for translation that leans towards making something agree with an interpretation. But there is, there shouldn't be anything in here, in this book that is privately done in a way that says this, this message directly applies here in a method that doesn't conform to the rest of interpretation. Now part of why I'm saying no man, no woman can, can touch this word, you know, as I said in the words of Voltaire, if he believed that with his heart, Christianity would cease to exist, as I said, the Bible, the Geneva Bible Society said, “Okay, we'll show you.” And that's been, if you look at the history of, and I'm using the word “transmission of the Bible,” that has been essentially a reoccurring theme. If you were around when I taught the lessons, and there's plenty of stuff on the website about Martin Luther, why we are Protestants. There was a time when before Martin Luther's conversion; he was a Christian, but he was an Augustine monk and steeped in the traditions of the church. So before his conversion, you've got someone who's following along and following the customs and traditions until he began to study out of frustration to see for himself, as he was counseled to do, that brings about the reality that the bulk of what was being done in the church was essentially wrong and evil. And therefore it brought about protestations, which from, which we get the word “Protestant.” So there have been attempts to change and there have been attempts to try and get the word to say something it doesn't say. And this is why I also tell you, especially for those of you who took the time to learn Hebrew or study Greek, those are wonderful tools, because as you have the language tools, even if you just limp along and you can just use your Strong's or just basic, basic knowledge, it says you will never be held prisoner. Not by me or by anybody else's doctrine. You're able to take and see for yourself, and do the research. And I've said many times before that's a big part of the problem, of the church's problem, not willing to do anything that actually sounds like homework or study: “God forbid we should interfere with the rest of our week,” right. So no man or no woman can hinder the word of God. The second thing is I like this Hebrew word, leolam, which we can call it “eternal.” But it is above man and if we say “firmly fixed in the heavens” it is out of, it is out of, and I'm using the generic word now, “man.” It is out of man's reach to fully corrupt and attempt to pervert, to twist or whatever, but to fully alter. Why? Because it is having been established, fixed in the heavens, it is out of man's reach in its totality to, to mess with, if you will. Now the second thing I want us to look at is the focus on this, “the word of Him.” This ha at the end makes it His word. This is, I guess, it has been a theme for me for the first few months of this year to get people focused on what's important. His word is important, not my word, although my words can help with His words, but it's His word that's important. This is my frustration personally that I've told you when you have spare time if you should turn on the TV and, I'm not saying that that represents Christendom, because it does not. But if you should turn on the TV, it is very rare to hear somebody on TV dealing strictly with His word and what does His word say as opposed to tossing out a couple of Jesuses and Amens and you know, the rest of it is not His word. The difficulty is the church, as I've said becomes impotent and cannot thrive. Why? Because faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of God, so we have a couple of things here that, as we break down, they're pretty simple, but they definitely speak to us on what we should be focused on. Next is this word here, “firmly fixed,” nitsav, and the reason why I think this is important is if you look in your King James, it says “settled.” Then read into the next verse, “Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.” These are different words, the word for “establish”" versus the word for “settled,” so I want you to think of this word “settled” as something that has its origin, its beginning as “not moveable.” And immediately you think of “In the beginning was the word.” And in the beginning the Word that was and that spoke and out of nothing came everything, and I know there are a lot of people who wholeheartedly reject that. God help our kids who are going to school who, I don't even know what they learn anymore. Anyway, that's a different problem. But how long is this word “settled”? The key “for ever” is there, but read down. It says here, “Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day.” They are ongoing. So the wonderful thing I want to hang on this verse and the verses that will follow will be how God sustains His servants; that's all of us, in tough times. See, once you kind of see certain things in the book, you kind of say, “That's right, the certain things don't change.” Now let's go for example to Genesis and it gives you everything in a step-by-step of the first day, this is what God did, and He did this on the second day. He spoke and said, for example; He didn't say “let there be” in a permissive way. He spoke and He said, “Light be,” and there was light. This same authority with declarative power to make things come to pass has not changed. The thing that has changed is us, we as a people, we've changed. And I don't think for the better, by the way, I include myself, I don't think for the better. Somebody once said, “Education will solve everything.” Well, then we should have no problems, right? But what I want you to start with first, if you want to put something somewhere, is how God helps His children, His saints, His servants in tough times. And the answer is kind of cool. I think that these are important things to put down in your margin. The first thing I'm going to put down here “permanency,” something that is permanent. We are not permanent, but God's word is permanent. And the permanency of His word says that no matter what, it is fixed. That means the only variables in the circumstance are, A) what I choose to do with this fixed word. Do I choose to latch on and amen it and take it to myself? This is how we navigate tough times. Or do I do what many have done, ala Voltaire and just completely dismiss, because “All of this is ridiculous; it can't be proven and therefore.” Well, I'm not going down that pathway today, so you can forget about that. But I love the fact that just in this opening verse we have permanency, “For ever&, thy word is settled in heaven.” That's the first thing. The second thing is a descriptive of how God is, and the psalmist says, “Thy faithfulness unto all generations.” He doesn't say, “The faithfulness to some,” but to all generations. My question is do we live in a time, and it's a self-evident for me, but it may not be for some; do we live in a time where this is still true, “Thy faithfulness is unto all generations”? And I'm going to say it must be! Now the next thing that I, I kind of glean out of this, as I said, in verse 91, “They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all thy servants,” not for some. This is the other thing. When people talk about the Bible being translated, specifically the King James, at a time where you've got a not so good social setting for women, what I like about this is if you're reading carefully, you find that God is going to be saying the same thing. Yes, He'll spell out some details for specifics, but here we have a blanket: “thine ordinances,” for, they're for “all thy servants,” they're all encompassing. And I like how in this day and age we're trying to figure out how we can include everybody. You notice that? And for some reason, I don't know why, but it seems like today, in today's climate, there are more people excluded. Am I speaking crazy? Because it's like this is the whole drive to make people feel like “You're all wanted and you're all included; but you must fit into this group here,” versus what God says, which is “all, all thy servants.” Not one person is outside of that fitting into “thy servants.” And let's go back to this goodness and badness stuff. This is the thing that drives me absolutely nutty, and people say, “Well, you know; you're, you're a pastor; you're held to higher standards.” Huh? Are you kidding me? Because they're taking one text somewhere of instruction for that particular time; I'm sorry, how could I be held to higher standards when I'm just the same as you? That really puts it in the best light possible. This is how ministries, by the way, are destroyed. Let's set somebody up as the, you know, “this person is the poster child for,” let's use the words that are always used, “holiness, goodness,” all of these wonderful words. The only problem is, and this is the problem, there isn't anybody like that. Except for Jesus, there isn't anybody like that. Don't even talk about your mother or brother or your husband or your wife; they're not like that. They may be really good, but they're not like that. There's only One that can fit that category, and the problem with every single, every single ministry has been people loving the minister or the pastor so much. Here we go, we inadvertently lift them up. They can never be human. God forbid that there should be any flaws or any anything. And then we immediately say, “Well, you see, this person's, you know, obviously we, our judgment was skewed. We didn't pick the right person.” No, your judgment was probably spot-on except for your thinking. Your thinking at the time was messed up. The reality is that there is no such thing. So keep this, you know, you can graffiti this page as much as you'd like because it needs some, some writing on there. The first thing we're talking about is permanency. I've said that already. The next thing is perpetuity. Now I do not believe that God leaves gaps over time, contrary to what you've heard even here, that God leaves gaps and leaves His church for any amount of time untended by a faithful steward. That means that perpetuity for His sake, the word's sake, God has a method to kind of wake up those whose hearts are fixed on Him to bring forth the word and to keep bringing forth the word with the earnestness of perpetuating it, of planting the seeds that people then take up and a new generation takes up, if you will, the mantle. But the design is not and was never that a scattering for a couple of hundred years and then it stops. There have been, again, going back in church history, there have been periods of what we'd call extreme darkness historically in the church, where the word of God was covered up. That probably would fit the time where the Bible had not yet been translated into the English language, you had the clergy who controlled the book, the lay people never had a Bible and all you had to do was follow what the priest, or whoever was leading you, said. So God makes a way through the ages. And I can say even before Wycliffe's first translation, his first version, translation for the translation of the Bible into the English language, even before that, reading church history you will find people whose, it was their sole goal, their mission to protect the word of God to make sure its integrity, to protect the manuscripts or the codices. So there is this wonderful thing built into this that God says, “I have a few that haven't bowed their knee to Baal. And those will be the ones who will be concerned with My word,” God speaking to us today, “My word”" And making sure that the proclamation is going forth, so that His word is perpetuated, it stays and is as the verse declares, “for ever.” So what else does it say? It says, “Unless thy law had been my delight, I should have perished in mine affliction.” Well, that tells you that; let me paraphrase this: without God's word, the psalmist feels he would have perished in his peril, in his trouble. Now step away from all this kind of foggy English stuff here for a second and step into the reality of what you've come to know. Not what you think, but what you have come to know about God. I think there have been times in my life where I'm, I could say had it not been for God's word and knowing a promise of God and being able to hang on to that promise to get me through, I don't know what I would have done. And I don't know if that's the same for you, but that's a good way of looking at this verse 92, instead of, as you know, you immediately see “thy law.” Think of it as what points to the word. And I can say for myself, as I've had many of these over the years where had it not been for the certainty that God's going to see me through, that He is there, that He does exist, but equally for the words that have stayed in my heart that I have taken the time to learn the words that when trouble comes I'm able to speak forth those words of promise that give me comfort: I'm going to make it through no matter what comes my way God's going to see me through it. “I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.” See what else is being said here by the psalmist: I have been made alive by Your word. He says this elsewhere in Psalm 119. I'm making it so it's plain for us: I have been made alive by Your word, quickened. And I love that if you take this verse and you'll go into the New Testament and you see what Paul says, we were dead in trespasses and sin, but made alive, quickened, raised up with Christ. And I love the fact that even here in, in this, what I'd call a very intense section where people can say, “Well, this is all; is this all about law, testimonies, precepts,” but rather this is all about the fact that God's word has made me alive. I may have, I may have thought I was alive before, but I was never fully alive until I came to know the word of God. And again, my lament, as I've said many times is having lived for so long and not known. And some of you are just like me, you had to be put into that box unfortunately, but thank God because you're learning or knowing or wanting to learn today. All right, let's move on to the next part of this, which is what verse 94 says, “I am thine, save me; for I have sought thy precepts.” And I want to take that and say if the word is forever fixed, immoveable, it is that solid rock, then I love the fact that the psalmist says, “Save me! I'm, I'm Yours! Save me.” I wish we all managed to figure out how to pray to God just like that instead of all the gobble-de-gook we tend to spend our time or we “Does this sound spiritual? Or how do I, how do I change my voice so that, you know, God thinks, “Wow, that's, that's a spiritual prayer right there.” You know, most people, you're, you are a very blessed bunch; most people are not told this. You know, you pray specifically. You pray, you know, how you, how you talk to your best friend, your husband, your wife, your girlfriend, your, your family; how you are that direct, that's the directness with which you pray to God. You don't have to make up all kinds━if God sees the heart, do you think God's saying, “Aw, what is this person saying?” You just speak plain, “My index finger hurts me.” God's probably saying, “Damn it! Say your index finger hurts you! You've been praying for ten minutes and you have yet; you haven't even got to the darn index finger yet.” Because people don't think about this, they, we get conditioned to how other people pray. I told you, I'm sorry; I've got to do this again. I told you the story. I've only told it to you probably a bazillion times; I love my spirit of exaggeration. And we were, it was myself and we had some important people from other ministries, so I'm just keeping this very generic, but we happened to be at a dinner. There was only, I don't know, a half a dozen people there and I told you the individual wanted to pray for the food. And man while they were praying, I was doing this. First of all, could you pray any louder, because you prayed for the people in the kitchen, you prayed for the food that's in their stomach and what may come out of it. But you know, and then it goes on and then we just; I thought you were going to pray for the food, but now we've got the missionaries, we've got orphans, we've got a leaky roof, “Please pray for So-and-so's leaky roof.” And sometimes they even forget to pray for the food, by the way. They just, it's a laundry list of stuff, and it's like, “Now,” I think what it is “Now I've made known to everybody at the table what my issues are. God already knows about them, so you know, forget about that.” But my point is when we speak to God directly, I love the fact that right here, it's, it's so clear: I'm Yours; save me! I don't belong to somebody else. I belong to You. The Bible says you're bought with a price, Christ's blood. If that is true, and that is true, then saying, “I'm Yours,” fill in the blanks, “I'm Yours; save me. Lord, I'm Yours; heal me. Lord, I'm Yours.” And what I'm saying this to you because it's a great template to figure out you don't need complicated prayers when you speak to God. You just need to be direct and address exactly what it is. And this is what the psalmist does. “The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider thy testimonies.” I'll be thinking about, I will be meditating, I will be looking at the things that pertain to Your word and who You are and the verity of You and the judgment of You and the things that You have declared Yourself to be, which You haven't changed and still are, because You will take care of those people. The psalmist says, “The wicked have waited for me to destroy me.” You know what, I'm going to tell you, in every single age, in every single age, not just because we live in the age of internet, which has produced more (sorry, here it comes), produced more cowards and more sissies and more bullies, but they're bullies when they can't be seen. I'd say, hey, you want; you've got an issue with me? Come say it to my face. I have no problem sharing my opinion of you either; to your face. Hold on. But the cowardice that has been really; has anybody ever heard the saying, “God hates cowards”? I have, many times. This is kind of interesting that this is what has brought about, it's a new generation of people that the best they can do; at least in the━sorry, I'm going to be pretty graphic. At least in the olden days, you know if you had some issue with somebody, you could do it the sneaky way, you know, behind their back. You know, and hit them over the head behind the back, you know, and they'd never see, they never saw it coming, right, sucker punch or something. But, or you could sling something at them or something! But you would, you would doing it. Now we've, we've catered to a whole new generation that has figured out that they can be “tough” people as long as they're sitting at their computer. Get them out where the real rubber meets the road and you're going to find real quick that there is a whole lot of━huh, let me see here, this is family time, so there's a whole lot of stuff out there that has no weight to it. You do whatever you want with that. But my point is that I love what he says here, “I will consider thy testimonies.” No matter what's going on with my enemies and those people out there and the people who are seeking to do this, I will be concerned with You and Your word. I will concerned with━let's go back, the permanency of Your word, how it doesn't change, the perpetuity of Your word that it continues that I not be derailed from that which I believe every person has a calling in that sense. That if I take the promise that's in here, and there is a promise in here: His word is settled, it's fixed, it's not moving. I may move; He does not and neither does His word. So I've got a lot of great things, including the fact that when we talk about this “I will consider thy testimonies,” there are plenty of words within this book that are promises of God's protection, promises of God's provision, promises of God, and you can, as said, you fill in the blanks. But it is His power as He is sovereign and it's His word, which He, the psalmist says, is faithful “unto all generations.” “I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad”" Only looking at these verses, what do I take away? What can I walk away with that makes something, we'll call it a handle in here that I never used before, and that is this psalm to me is an antidote for fear. It is definitely one of those things that says, “I should be praying for my faith to be increased, I should be listening more and building up my faith,” because as faith comes, faith and fear cannot live strongly at the same time simultaneously. One or the other will flee and as I claim faith in Christ and victory in Christ, fear flees. Fear cannot stay and remain. You, and don't, let's not talk about; we may have doubts, we may have places where I'm not a hundred percent sure, but there are some things we can say absolutely. When I consider all the ways the Lord has led me, and I'm not going to say like those children of Israel, who because of their own rebellion, forty years in the wilderness. I'm going to say because of my own rebellion. And God didn't give me a shortcut, and God didn't even say, you know, “Here's how long it's going to be.” He just said, “Here's the way; walk ye in it.” My responsibility is being the “y”" that's walking in it, all right. Now I know you're going to remember this message, because somebody's going to say, “What did you say?” That's what I said. So these few verses give me a license to hang on in the toughest of times. These give me a license to say, you know, there are places in, in the Psalter that talk about “I shall not be moved; I shall not be greatly moved,” but I'd prefer to say He is not moved. He is not moved by anything that He sees. It's, I think sometimes we treat our life, our mess-ups as something that God has never seen before. He's never seen anything like this before, oh, no. Smile. God says, “Yeah, right.” But the faithfulness of God to His servants and probably I use this verse, psalm, verse 89, because something in this simplicity tells me there isn't anything except me disconnecting. “Who shall separate us from the love?” There isn't anything that can take away this promise that is His word is settled, it is fixed. The promise that I would claim today is not a promise that I can say I can't claim tomorrow because it's changed. It's the same. God's word is the same, He is the same, He changes not. So what about the people who are in trouble today, who are having a tough time and we'll call it the, the winds of life have kind of blown you around a little bit, hang on to this. The word, His word is settled. It hasn't changed. Go in the book and find your promise. If you're sick today, you claim. If He declared Himself to be “I am the LORD that healeth thee,” then, and He changes not because the book says, He says, “I am God and I change not,” then He is still the Lord that healeth me. And when I think about it, I can go in here and I can reach in for any promise, but I've got to have it in my mind. The word, His word, has been established from ages of old. And too tragic for me is when we have these unsettled, inconsistent, we'll call them days or periods of our life, and then you come back to your sanity and you realize nothing has changed, except for me. Now you're either growing and increasing in faith or you are going backwards. Now a lot of people, when I talk about faith, especially for newer people, and this is important because a lot of people don't even know. When you talk about faith, they just say, “Well, you've got to have faith. You've got to have faith,” and they use that term like, you know, like you've got to eat breakfast or you've got to, you know go outside. But having faith and saving faith, which is the faith that you have in Christ, which brings me back to the Word, the Word that was not yet in the flesh, but revealed in this book, and what it is to me is to say that certainty that I have; what makes it so when things are being knocked sideways in my life, what makes it so I'm able to hang on. And I think even in the shortest prayers that I've prayed, much like Peter, much like the psalmist. Here the psalmist says, “Save me. I am thine, and save me.” Here's Peter's prayer, “Save me, Lord! I'm drowning!” Although I don't think he said he was drowning. I just think he was saying, “Save━blub, blub, blub, blub, blub, blub,” right, the shortest prayer in the book. But that's the essence of what I'm saying, and the certainty that He hears and He will enter in. These are the things, I call them, we'll call them the pegs that one has to put down somewhere. And as I said, my Bible, the margin in this section is kind of bare, so there's lots to fill in. The other thing I that I wanted to kind of highlight out of this psalm, or out of this section of the psalm, because you could treat every single section and every single section has something that if brought out into its proper light and understanding, brings about more faith. I think this psalmist here, as he mentions his enemies and obviously had trouble, had we'll call it━and who knows. A lot of people have speculated about the authorship of Psalm 119. I could say it could very well fit a whole host of people in the Bible, but it could very well fit us as well. For we are kind of in the same place making a declaration, we know God and His word do not change, and standing firm on that word. Why, because of His faithfulness. If we have something that is settled, fixed, immoveable, no matter how crafty man is, no matter how crafty the devil can even be, it cannot be moved or removed. Why do I tell you this? Because we live, we are living in a time where, as I said, a polar shift has occurred. And people are afraid to actually speak. You'd think that in an age where we have engaged in free speech that people who are genuinely trying to communicate God's word are actually afraid to speak God's word. Do you know why? Because at least, from what I'm seeing, there are pastors out there, one pastor in particular who was asked to give a commencement speech. And because a small, he made the change, he was supposed to say “good luck to you all,” and he said, “God bless you all.” And that brought out every kook and every nut bag saying, “You see this. We don't want this. And you know, we&” There's a group that it's freedom from religion, “We don't want this.” And there is yet a movement to make sure that “We silence anybody who is going to make reference, talk about the Bible, anything that has to do with God, we silence that for something that is more socially acceptable and more generic.” Do you notice that everything has kind of put into a generic form so we don't insult anybody? Have you noticed that? Well, let me ask you this. How can any of us grow spiritually and survive spiritually without the lessons from this book, from the Great Physician Himself coming into our hearts? He does the surgery. He does the cutting. He does the things that are needful. How can that ever happen when we're so busy trying to make everything so frosted and sugary-coated that we can't even communicate the basic truths to people that fifty years ago or a hundred years ago we'd have fire and brimstone preachers coming out and telling people the consequences━hear me out━the consequences of sin unconfessed, unchecked, unaware; not ignorant as Romans says, but just kind of putting it in this kind of a gray zone. We cannot, no one can speak up on these matters. We're not even talking, as I said, about your sexuality or issues of abortion or anything. We're just talking about the main thrust of Christianity that is all men, generically humankind has sinned. And we're not even able to talk about the consequences of that like a cause and effect because this society has now bought into that there's no consequence, therefore we shouldn't be bothered by this. Let me tell you something, it's why I said to you if you read this right there's something really remarkable. He's God and He changes not. He's going to let the time unfold. The New Testament says, “In the last days men will be lovers of themselves,” lovers of pleasure and it gives the list of things that will be more so than anything having to do with God. And the pursuit of truth, let's ask the question that was asked even of the Lord Himself: what is truth? And what does it mean? And no, it doesn't become subjective and let's, let's analyze how we can make it work for you. The truth is what has been revealed in the book, which is what God has declared, and you're either going to stand and say this word does not change. I only have one, one response to this, like being in an army, being called to the battle, being called to basic training. I have one response to this. I either salute it, it's either a “Yes, Sir,” or phttt! Don't even bother. You're not going to come in and start changing God's word and deciding and cherry picking, “Well, I like this part, but I, I can't, I can't deal with that.” It's like the people that say, “Well, I”━they love Dr. Scott's teaching but they don't want to hear about giving when giving makes up the bulk of the Bible, Old and New, and it a diversity of ways━“Well, we don't want to hear about that because that's part we don't want to hear about.” Do you know what that's called? That's called an unconverted heart. That's called somebody who is in denial of the truth because it doesn't work for them. That's the subjective factor the society has now accepted as “This must work for me and it must adapt to me and it must adjust to me, or else I will reject it.” What does my Bible say? What does your Bible say? “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” It means not changing. What's hard to understand about that? God is not changing, He's not going to change, His word's not going to change; not for you and not for me. “Well, hmm, let me think about this for a minute.” Okay. But what you have is a take away if you have a heart that's really leaning towards God is comfort and knowledge. Now just because it's nestled in here, somebody would say, “Well, well, but it's nestled in here. Can you give it to me from somewhere else?” Yes! Jesus said, “I am the truth, I am the way, I am the light.” You need something else? Because I find all that I need, that's what spirituality is, is I'm finding all that I need for my spiritual journey in this book to help me grow. Then it is said that God gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastoring-teachers for the perfecting, the bringing to completion of the saints. Not somebody to lord it over them, not somebody to finger-point, but somebody to say this is how we grow in faith until we all come to the knowledge of the perfect man who is Christ. That's the goal and the goal is to hang on to those words along the way. Why? Because life is going to come at you, probably with a battering-ram most of the time, and five percent of the time it will be a feather, but in the battering-ram moments you're going to remember “I'm holding on to something that in heaven is not moving, it will not be moved, and God's word will sustain me.” I may be moved. A very smart person used to say, “Try lighting a stick of dynamite and singing 'I shall not be moved,'” right. But God who is the ultimate Dunamis shall not be moved, and His word is solid. So for those people who are looking for something to grab onto today and say, “I know the possibility of what's in God's book, but I'm still having problems as I wrestle through.” Well, join the club. Just because you quote/unquote “came to the Lord” doesn't mean the Lord says, “Oh, you know, now that you've decided to come in here and you've decided to walk with Me, I'm just going to take my chamois and polish away all those troubles of yours, you know. And you'll have a super-duper shiny life and it will all be&” You know, it's not like that, in fact, I always say the more you press in to want to know, the more the stuff is going to fly at you. It's almost like this is the training, this is the boot camp for eternity. You learn the lessons here. You don't learn them as you cross over into the next. You learn them here and they're applied over there as you have learned there here. This is why I do what I do. I am not here for any other purpose than that we might, as I've said, grow together, grow in our understanding and stay focused. The easiest thing to do is to say, as somebody said, “Oh, that's not going to last.” I remember them saying a declaration, I think it was probably about thirteen years ago, and somebody said all the, you know, “She can't do it. The ministry can't last.” “You know, it's not going to last.” Well, here's the thing. I never said I'm doing anything. I never said to you, “I am doing, me, me, me!” I said this is God's work and God can do whatever He wants. He can make it prosper, He can make it really prosperous or He can make it, as I've said, like the woman with the cruse of oil, there's just enough. Which has been the pattern, there's just been enough. And I'll take that faith of just enough to get through and it's sufficient, it's really just enough, that keeps me on my toes and hanging onto God's word and keeps me coming back and saying, “Of course His word is not changing.” Of course the Lord will provide. Of course the Lord will make a way. Of course, if I'm focused aright, even as the psalmist said about his enemies, but it's said everywhere throughout the Bible. “Vengeance is mine, saith the LORD.” You have a problem with somebody? It always helps if you can talk it through and two people are civil, but if they can't, you just leave it with the Lord, commit it unto Him. And the Lord will work it out. It may not be worked out in this lifetime. Just remember that. But when you say, “I'm Yours; by the way, You bought this whole package here, all of it, all right, Lord? I know it's hard to believe, but You bought it all; even the bad stuff. There's probably more bad than good, but it belongs to You. Lord, I need You to get me through.” This is not a prayer in the foxhole. This is a prayer that will take me and will take through and all the way, as long as you keep hanging on and you're recognizing the permanency of this promise is that it is forever. And the reality is when you've taken these words to yourself, you find something very, very, very comforting, which is I don't have to think about the “what ifs.” God said, “I'm here. You can count on Me. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. When you find yourself in this time of pressure, of trouble, whatever it is, I will be with you,” the fourth man, if you will, in the furnace may be the second man with you. And I'm speaking about God being with you through all of your trials, but He will be with you. If you are ready to hold on to that promise God will see you through. That, those are the fixed handles of God's word of promise for you and for me. I hope you will hold on tight. Keep faithing. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
