God’s Word is My Hope
“Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Thy word.” Psalm 119:114
Here we go again. There is more sad news from the pollsters. This time they polled folks as to the authenticity of God’s word. The results were that only twenty percent of people polled believed that the Bible is God’s word. Twenty percent! And if that wasn’t bad enough, only twenty-five percent of folks who claim to be Christians believe the Bible is God’s word. Twenty-nine percent of folks in general believe that scripture is made up of fables while sixteen percent of Christians say the same thing. I know a couple of people who believe the fable theory. My guess would be that most of those folks likely have very little knowledge of God’s word. We know that there are some allegories, mostly parables, in scripture to illustrate truths, but the vast content of scripture contains actual people, places, events, prophecies, and warnings which illustrate the sinful nature of people and the remedy that God provided for salvation.
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at these poll numbers. Just a cursory glance at the state of our nation and of the world indicates that morals have been steadily declining among not just the general population, but among Christians as well. The sexual immorality among priests, pastors, and leaders in the various denominations across the land that have been reported is a sign that even the most faithful among us have lost their way. We can see the decline of morals in the secular world, but that is not as surprising to us. After all, sin is what sinners do. But when you hear about those whom you know or know of who have always presented a moral and faithful lifestyle and yet have fallen into sin, it makes you wonder what in the world is going on. When those we look up to as role models and mentors fall, it puts a fear into our hearts. If they can fall, then what are the chances of us being able to withstand the onslaught of the devil? And believe me, Satan likes nothing better than to trip up a believer in Christ so that he can brag about his deceptive efforts to his demon buddies. A truly born-again believer cannot lose his/her salvation, but he/she can certainly lose the joy of their salvation, bear the consequences of their sin, and worst of all, do damage to the cause of Christ.
I am certainly not perfect, far from it, and I sin, too, but I am naive enough to believe that a Christian, if he/she is serious about his/her relationship with the Lord, will strive to stay away from sin as much as humanly possible. Because we receive the righteousness of Christ when we are saved, then we have as much help as we need to live a circumspect life, living to please God and becoming a positive representative of Christ. The Psalmist wrote that God is our hiding place and shield to protect us from the enemy, Satan, and from all those who follow him, and there are plenty of them, their numbers growing by the day according to this poll. Evil has always been present since the garden of Eden when Satan tempted Eve to disobey God, and he has been working and perfecting his deceitful methods for thousands of years. They say that practice makes perfect, and, in the devil’s case, practice doesn’t make perfect, but it certainly makes progress.
Satan is not called the “prince of the power of the air” for nothing. He doesn’t have to be on Twitter or Facebook to have lots of followers. Scripture warns us about him and his tricks, but apparently those folks who consider scripture merely fables must think he is just a character in a bad B movie. But he is real, hell is real, and God’s judgment will come upon all those who have ignored the warnings of scripture. I think some folks ignore scripture because they don’t like the truth. They don’t want to hear that they are sinners and will be held to account for their sin. They are like Mark Twain who said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” He is not alone in his analysis.
Where does this leave those of us who desire to follow Christ as a living testament to His word and a witness to the ever-increasing number of unbelievers in our towns, cities, counties, states, and nation? How do we fight against all those who refuse to believe that God’s word is the only hope that people have? As the football coach’s admonition states, “The best defense is a good offense”, thus we should live before others as good soldiers of Jesus Christ and “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ” (I Peter 3:15). The truth of God’s word cannot be defeated.