God’s Word And Persecution

Scripture

Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in Your instructions.

~Psalm 119:18, NLT

Quote

Those who refuse to conform to the world will be persecuted by the world.

~Warren W. Wiersbe

The third stanza is Gimel and again the subject is GOD’S WORD. This stanza begins with the Psalmist commitment to obey God’s word...Be good to your servant, that I may live and obey your word. Then the Psalmist prays for illumination…Open my eyes to see the wonderful truth in Your word. The word of God, working in conjunction with the Spirit of God, provides us with Revelation, Illumination and Inspiration. The truth is in the word {Revelation}, the Spirit must open our eyes to see the truth {Illumination} and when revelation and illumination work together, we have inspiration. The bible is the written word, Jesus was the living word. The Jewish religious leaders saw Jesus the man but they never saw beyond Jesus humanity. He was imparting truth after truth and they were missing it all because they were walking in darkness. Intelligence is not the issue, no one can study the bible and see the hidden truths without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Each time we sit down to study the bible, our prayer should be…Open my eyes LORD to see the truth in the scriptures I am reading.

Dr. Wiersbe has an outline for you preachers: [1] We are Servants [v.17] [2] Students [v.18] and [3] Strangers [v.19]. If we obey God’s word, we will appear strange to the world. Those who put God’s word into practice are out of step with the world. Obedient believers do not fit the world’s mold and this creates animosity that leads to persecution. Following the instructions in scripture will make you appear different, perhaps even strange and you will be persecuted in some shape, form or fashion. The Sea Gull is the most jealous creature that the LORD created. You can snare one sea gull, tie a red ribbon around its leg, then release the bird and the other gulls will kill it within minutes. They will attack it because it is different; it has a ribbon and they don’t.

  • I was the recipient of two wonderful acts of kindness today: make that three. I want to thank Mrs. Ann for this delicious pecan pie, my, my what a pie. It is a foretaste of glory divine. Then I want to thank Cory and Carl Shaddrix for helping me hang a new storm door. As soon as I got it out of the box, I knew I was in over my head. You need an Engineering degree just to figure out how follow the instruction. With their help, the door was finished by 10:30: without their help, I would still be on the front porch. Thank you men. I also want to thank Joe. I carried my mower in to get it changed over and he got right on it which saved me from making two trips. Oh yes, I want to thank Dr. O. C. D. Turrentine for delivering the pie. I am still eating pie and it is delicious. Mrs. Ann rocks!
  • LORD willing, June and I will take our second day trip today. We plan to head North, up the Old Railroad Bed to Fayettville where we will hit 231 to Shelbyville. Just North of Shelbyville, we turn East on TN 82 to Bell Buckle. Then we are taking 269 to Wartrace and then down to Normandy. A friend who rides motor cycles told me this was a good fall tour. Lord willing, we will check it out.
  • Mother first cousin Ruth Simpson of New Canaan was promoted and her service is tomorrow at 2:00 and I don’t need to forget. Ruth may have been the last cousin other than my three uncles. It seems like there is a Halbrooks are two still living.
  • Sunday Schedule is slightly different: No deacons meeting. We kick everything off with LCBS at 9:15 with worship at 10:15 and 6:15. Lord willing we will be doing sermons 2-3 from our Jonah series. We will be talking about Repentance Sunday morning and Revival Sunday night. AWANA meets Sunday evening at 5:30.
  • I will be picking up the Guatemala Team Monday night, I think. Hey, I like the shirt Sandy.

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