Proverbs 30.5,6

Pentecost 5

Hymns: 289, 282, 285, 286

The church that I served in Wisconsin before coming here to Plano ten years ago was a very large, massive, cathedral-design church building. It has a 75 foot aisle with six 3X3 foot wide columns on each side. In the basement there are concrete pillars and beams running the length and breadth of the building. In one corner of the basement there was a small room in which was kept a large safe...so large that you can’t pick it up and walk off with it. The people who counted the weekly offering put the money in this safe after the Sunday services to keep it safe until it was deposited in the bank on Monday morning. Above the safe was one of these massive, concrete beams and if you didn’t duck your head down far enough to open the safe door you would hit your head on that beam.

The combination to open the safe had 5 numbers. You had to enter the numbers this way: turn the dial six times to the right and stop at zero, then 5 times to the left to the first number, then four times to the right to the second number, three times to the left to the third number, and right, left to the last number. You had to get the numbers and the numbers of turns exactly right or the door to the safe wouldn’t open. If you would add or subtract just one number, or one turn, the door to the safe wouldn’t open.

By the way, when I began serving that congregation in 1984 someone showed me the safe and how to open it. He also warn-ed me about the low concrete beam so I wouldn’t hit my head. He also said, "In case you ever forget the combination to the safe, it’s written right here on the beam." Sure enough; there it was for anyone to see. We erased it!

Safes have combinations that have to be followed exactly for our own protection so no one can steal things that are valuable to us. We also need protection from people who would steal from us the valuable truth about God. How can we do that? PROTECT YOURSELF IN THE TRUTH OF GOD’S WORD.

How can you protect yourself from getting lost? These days you buy a Garmin GPS, enter the address to where you want to go and listen to the voice that tells you where to turn and which road to follow. Believe that voice and you will be protected from getting lost. Don’t disagree with it or change it...just do what it tells you and you won’t get lost. The same would be true if you printed out a map from the Internet or bought a road map and figured out on your own which roads to take. But you don’t change anything...for your own protection you believe exactly what the map or GPS tell you.

Solomon writes in our text (v 5). Everything you read in the Bi-ble is, like pure gold, of the highest and purest value. If you want to protect yourself from going in the wrong direction as you live your life, from believing something that isn’t true as you figure out how you’re going to get to heaven, from trusting in some false god or wrong ideas about how to be saved or about how to get through difficult times or how to deal with temptation or your own sinful weaknesses or doubts or fears or depression or...you name it...trust in God’s Word; that’s how you protect yourself. It is your shield. And (v 6). God’s Word is true; why would anyone want to change it or add something to it or take something away from it?

Yet people do that! God tells us clearly what sin is; yet you and I choose to sin anyhow and then make excuses for ourselves and expect that God will accept our excuses. Or people say that what the Bible says can’t be true because sinful men wrote it, even though God tells us that he wrote and used sinful to record his words.

Example: the Bible tells us about the 10 plagues God sent on the Egyptians that finally got them to release the people of Isra-el so they could return to the land God gave them...modern day Jerusalem. But some say that the Nile River did not actually turn to blood as the Bible says. The red color came from an organism or from the erosion of red soil. And Moses didn’t really part the waters of the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk safely across and escape the Pharaoh’s army. Actually, Moses knew the way through a swampy area and Pharaoh’s army was caught in quicksand and died. And God did not feed 600,000 men plus women and children with a sweet food called manna that appeared on the ground every morning for 40 years. That was some kind of plant lice that grows for a short time even today in the Sinaitic Peninsula and it fed only 6000 men. Mod-ern day scholarship doesn’t agree with the embarrassing version of the Bible that says that God actually performed miracles to get Israel out of Egypt.

Modern-day Bible scholars say the same thing about Jesus when the Bible tells us that he fed 5000 men, plus women and child-ren, with a young boy’s 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. What actu-ally happened is that some people brought a lunch but didn’t want to share it with those who didn’t bring a lunch. So Jesus used the boy as an object lesson. And when the boy showed his willingness to share his lunch of a few loaves of bread and two fish, other people who had brought a lunch were so embarrassed by their selfishness that they shared their lunches and there was enough to go around for everyone. What is the point of this ver-sion of modern scholarship? Jesus was such an influential man that he could get people to share their lunch. So let us all sup-port the United Nations and provide food for the people who are starving in third-world countries.

These are just two examples of adding to or subtracting from the truth of God’s Word that is going on the religious community today and is viewed as the intellectual and desirable way to go. But you know what’s missing. Without the truth of God’s Word you are not protected against the guilt of sin or the power of Satan. not protected against the curse of sin and the punishment of hell. not protected against the fear of death and the shame of despair. The truth is that only Jesus' perfect life and his death on the cross has removed from us the curse of sin and fear of death. Only Jesus' physical resurrection from the grave protects us from the punishment of hell and eternal separation from God.

Protect yourself in the truth of God's Word. And that truth is that every word in Scripture is true because it is God's Word which he gave to the sinful, human men who wrote down his word. Do not believe those who would add to God's Word, or subtract anything from it or tell you that the Word of God contains mistakes and other information which intelligent, scientific, twenty-first century people just cannot accept. If God could not rescue his people Israel from Egypt in the way he tells us, then, perhaps, neither could he rescue us from the slavery of sin and death, as he tells us. If Jesus could not feed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and two fish, then perhaps neither can he rescue us from the poverty of sin and grip of the grave. Where does the questioning and denial of God's Word of truth stop? It has no limitation and you and I are without protection.

Protect yourself in the truth of God's Word. Believe every word and be at peace during your life now and for eternity in the power of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Only if you follow exact directions and don’t add to or subtract from the numbers of the combination of a safe do you have pro-tection from anyone take your valuable possessions from you as long as they are in the safe. And only if you do not add to or subtract from any of God’s Word do you have protection from the fear of death and the guilt of sin. Only if you believe all of God’s Word will you be protected from denying any of it.