TREASURY OF SERMONS
"Blessed are They That Keep His Testimonies"
By Rev (Dr) Jeffrey Khoo
(Preached at Life BPC, 8am service, 18 Dec 1999)
Text: Ps 119:1-16
Introduction
The title of the sermon assigned to me this
morning was taken directly from Ps 119:2, "Blessed are they that
keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart." Ps
119 is one of my favourite psalms. Many Bible scholars have
described this psalm in wonderful ways. It has been called, "The
Alphabet of Divine Love, the Paradise of all the Doctrines, the
Storehouse of the Holy Spirit, the School of Truth, also the deep
mystery of the Scriptures, where the whole moral discipline of all
the virtues shines brightly." The Bible is described in this psalm
by means of various words like, "law," "way," testimony," "precept,"
"statute," "commandments," "judgment," "word," "saying," and
"truth." If I were to entitle this psalm, I would call it simply,
"The Bible and Me."
And this is exactly what I want to talk about
this morning. What is the Bible to you and to me? How do we regard
it? How do we treat it? What have I done with it? "Blessed are they
that keep His testimonies." But in order to be truly blessed in the
keeping of His testimonies, we must:
1. Make Sure that the
Testimonies We Keep are truly His Testimonies.
The psalmist tells us to be "undefiled" in the
way of the Lord (v1), "to do no iniquity" (v3), to praise Him with
"uprightness of heart" (v7). In order for us to live a sanctified
life, we must obey the Word of God. Jesus Himself prayed that the
Father would sanctify us by His truth, His Word is truth. But how
can be keep ourselves from defilement, iniquity, and wickedness if
the Word we are using is not the pure Word of God? We can’t! If we
don’t use a Bible that is "holy" we will not be holy. An unholy
Bible gives wrong instructions. And if we use a corrupted Bible, the
danger of us following corrupted instructions (whether consciously
or unconsciously) is very real. I cannot stress this enough.
There are a host of modern Bible versions out
there that pass themselves as "Holy Bible." But the problem and
danger is that they are not "Holy." Many of the modern Bible
versions we have today are unholy. Many of them have corrupted the
Word of God by either using a corrupt Greek text, or using a wrong
method of Bible translation, or both.
Let me explain. Ps 12:6-7 tells us that God will
preserve His word from being tainted or lost. "The Words of the Lord
are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified
seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them
from this generation forever." Did God keep this promise to preserve
His Word? Of course He did. For 1,700 years the church has been
using the traditional Greek NT text as found in the majority text.
The crowning glory of this divine preservation work was the KJV and
the Greek Received Text that underlies it. With this Satan is not
well-pleased. He is not happy that people are reading the pure Word
of God, and so He has sown tares among the wheat. He poisoned the
Bible in in the 1800s through two unregenerate men who did not
believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, who promoted
Darwin’s theory of evolution, who were Mary worshippers. They were
Westcott and Hort. Both of them corrupted the Bible by changing
God’s Word in 5,604 places involving 9,970 words which were either
added, omitted, or twisted. I give you one example of Westcott and
Hort’s twisting of the Scriptures. It is found in the classic text
on Bible inspiration itself—2 Tim 3:16, "Every scripture inspired of
God is also profitable …" Such a translation gives the impression
that some parts of Scripture are not inspired. Only those parts
which are inspired are profitable. But the KJV translates this verse
accurately, "All Scripture is inspired of God, and is profitable …"
This leaves no ambiguity whatsoever that all of Scripture in whole
and in part is the inspired Word of God.
Has any good come out of the Westcott and Hort
text? Nothing whatsoever. It ushered in a whole new generation of
unbelieving, modernistic scholarship which all but destroyed the
mainline protestant denominations—the Anglican, Lutheran,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist churches have by and large turned
modernistic, denying many fundamentals of the Christian Faith. Which
Bible version you use will affect your spiritual health. Use a wrong
version, and you will suffer spiritually. Why? Because the Holy
Spirit will not and cannot use a corrupted Bible to bless your
heart. The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth, but that
happens only when you are reading the truth. The Lord will sanctify
you by means of His truth, but only if you have been meditating upon
His truth—the pure, unadulterated Word of God.
The 20th century modern versions are even more
dangerous. Many of them not only based their versions on the corrupt
Westcott and Hort text, they also employed a wrong method of
translation called dynamic equivalence which grants the translator
the liberty to translate a text according to his whim and fancy, and
not literally as the text says. One such a version is the popular
NIV. I give you one instance where the NIV has changed God’s Word.
Turn again to Ps 12:6-7. The NIV has it this way, "And the words of
the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay,
purified seven times. O Lord, you will keep us safe and protect us
from such people forever." Do you see the difference? The KJV
unmistakenly means the preservation of Scripture. The NIV changed it
to mean the preservation of people. Which is correct? We have to go
back to the original Hebrew text. The Hebrew word tishmerem
means keep THEM (3rd plural) not US (1st plural). Why did they do
this? Simple reason: the NIV translators do not believe that God
preserves His Word. The doctrine of Bible preservation is an
important doctrine of the Christian taught by the Westminster
divines who said that God by His singular care and providence has
kept the Scriptures pure in all ages. With the entrance of the
Westcott and Hort Text and Dynamic equivalency, this doctrine has
been subtly removed. It is no wonder that this precious doctrine is
absent in most of the Systematic Theology text-books written this
century.
You see, using a wrong version can lead to
spiritual declension. I really cannot stress that enough. That is
why we feel so strongly about upholding and using the KJV. It is
based on the traditional preserved text of God’s Word, and it is
translated literally and accurately for you. It is the most
faithful, and reliable version of the English Bible we have today.
You will be spiritually enriched if you read, study, and meditate on
it. Make sure that the testimonies you keep are truly His
testimonies. Blessed are they that use the KJV.
2. Make Sure That We are
Learners of His Testimonies.
Verse 7 says, "I will praise thee with
uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous
judgements." Verse 11, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I
might not sin against thee." Verse 15, "I will meditate in thy
precepts, and respect unto thy ways." To blessed by the Lord we need
to learn, hide, and meditate on His Words. Without faith it is
impossible to please God. And how to get faith? Faith cometh by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God. In order to please God we
need to know Him. We must know what He likes and does not like. We
know all this through His Word. We receive tremendous blessings from
the Lord when we become learners of His Word. When you know God’s
more and more, you will become more and more victorious in your
Christian life. You begin to see your way clearly as you maneuver
your way through life’s dark and treacherous roads. If you know only
a little of God’s Word, you are like one who only has a
torchlight—that can only shine so far and no more. If you know God’s
Word a lot, you will be like the searchlight or the lighthouse which
beams its light far and wide. The more light you have the more
clearly you can see.
God’s Word is light. How much light do you have?
One way to increase your light power is to study God’s Word in a
systematic way in our night classes at FEBC. Won’t you make a
commitment during the new year to study God’s Word intensively and
systematically?
3. Make Sure that We are Not
Only Hearers but also Doers of His Testimonies.
Those who are blessed are those "who walk in the
law of the Lord" (v1), v2, "that keep his testimonies," v3 "that do
no iniquity." We are told to walk, keep, and do God’s Word. It is
not enough to read and study God’s Word. We need to put it into
practice. You may have all the knowledge of Scripture, and have all
the light of Scripture, but if you do not practise what you know,
you are like a lighthouse that is not switched on. All the power is
there, but the switch is off. When you obey God and His Word, you
switch the light on.
In what way ought we to keep God’s Word? Well,
the psalmist tells us to do so "wholeheartedly" (v2), "diligently"
(v4), "respectfully" (v6), "joyfully" (v14), "delightedly" (v16). We
ought not to do God’s Word grudgingly, reluctantly, or angrily.
Conclusion
How to be very happy in life? "Blessed are the
undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are
they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole
heart." Let us therefore make sure that we use the true Word of God,
learn the Word of God well, and then do the Word of God
wholeheartedly. The Lord will surely bless us richly when we keep
His Word faithfully.
Top|Back
Click here for
Sermons by Rev (Dr) Timothy Tow
Click here for Audio Sermons
|
