In the sermon 'Refined, Reliable, Complete' by Peter Allison, the speaker delves into Proverbs 30:5-6, emphasizing the purity and completeness of God's Word. Allison explains that every word of God is pure, akin to refined metal, free from impurities. This purity underlines the Bible's reliability and challenges the skeptic's claim that truth cannot be known, asserting that such skepticism is self-refuting. The sermon further explores the implications of this purity on textual criticism, arguing that God's Word is preserved through ages without error, and each word, grammar, and punctuation is significant. This preservation is not only divine but also supported by historical manuscript evidence. Allison critiques modern textual criticism for undermining the majority textual evidence in favor of older, less-supported manuscripts. He argues that God's Word is a shield to those who trust in it, offering protection and guidance in issues like climate change, economic policies, and societal norms. Ultimately, the sermon calls for faith in the enduring truth of God's Word, emphasizing its role as the ultimate standard of truth and a source of divine protection and blessing.

Here, God's Word, our scripture from Proverbs, chapter 30. I'd like to read, I'll read the first six verses, but we'll be looking today at verses five and six specifically. The words of Agur the son of Jaca his utterance this man declared to Ithiel and Yucal. Surely I am more stupid than any man and do not have the understanding of a man. I neither learn wisdom nor have knowledge of the Holy One.

Who has ascended into heaven or descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fist? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name, if you know?

Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar. May the Lord grant faith to believe His commandments and teach us good judgment and knowledge. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would, as we continue to worship you, that you would bring your word to us.

You would open our spiritual eyes, that we may understand it, that it might be mixed with faith, that you would, Lord, through this word reveal yourself to us and cause us to love you more faithfully, to serve you more diligently through this. In Jesus' name, Amen. Please be seated. Has anyone ever asked you how you know that you have a complete Bible? Maybe they're challenging you because they've realized you're a Christian who believes the Bible.

How do you know there are no extra books that are in it, that are missing, that you don't have? Or how do you know that one of the books you do think you have shouldn't be in the Bible. Well if the Bible was determined by man then that would be a very Good question. It would be a question that would give us great pause. Because men can make mistakes, can be ignorant.

If what was in the Bible was determined by our ability to find it, then we might never be sure that we weren't missing a book of the Bible, or that we hadn't properly included a book that shouldn't be there. But we can be confident in answering the question of what is the Word of God, because it's not answered by humans. It is God Himself who canonizes his word, who makes his word his word, and gives it to us. And it's God himself who preserves it. And how do we know all this?

Because the Bible tells us this. How do we know that the Bible is without error? Because the Bible tells us it is without error. Now when we say that to the unbeliever, he might immediately say, oh, but isn't that circular reasoning? Well, no.

Yes, in one sense it is, but it is an inescapable fact of any absolute standard. There is no standard that he could bring up, that he could try to prove is the absolute standard of truth, that wouldn't have the exact same problem. Because you see if there is some other standard of truth by which you prove another truth, then that other standard of truth is more ultimate than the truth you are setting forward as the ultimate truth. So by its very nature, if something is the ultimate truth, the standard of what is true and what is right and wrong, there can be no other standard by which it can be proved. If there was another standard, then that other standard would be the standard of truth.

That's why the skeptic is wrong too. He says, well, you can't know that this is the Word of God. We can't be sure that this is true. Because we can't know truth. That's the skeptic's position.

Well, is it true that you can't know truth? That becomes self-refuting. It's a self-refuting claim. If it is true that we can't know the standard of truth, then that truth refutes itself. The skeptic's claim is self-refuting.

We know that God's Word is true. We know that it is God's Word that He has given to us because His Word tells us that it is true. And it tells us that it is God's Word to us. And this is one of the passages that tells us that. These two verses.

Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. Every word of God is pure. What an incredible statement.

What an absolutely incredible statement. That word for pure is the word for refining metal. To refine metal. Refining metal, particularly we talk about it with respect to gold or silver or precious metals. Refining metals is the process of removing all of the impurities from the metal and it is a excruciating process.

It involves a lot of heat. It involves, there are lots of ways that they purify gold. And all of them sound horrible. Sound difficult. Painful.

But to refine gold is to get all of the impurities out of it. And when you're speaking of gold, silver is an impurity, Copper is an impurity, as well as all the completely worthless things that might be in gold. And it's a difficult process. And that's why this same word for refining is also used in the Bible to talk about testing people. God refines us through this process of trials and tribulations of testing.

It's how He refines and sanctifies us. And it's also used to describe the Word of God. That this Word is pure. It's pure in the sense that there is nothing in it that is of no value. There's nothing in it that isn't true.

There's nothing in it that is of no value. There's nothing in it that isn't true. There's nothing in it that is in any way false. There's nothing in it that is meaningless. Throw away words, sentences like spoken into the wind.

It is pure gold. God's Word is like pure gold, with no base alloys in it, no base or metals in it. And this is the repeated testimony of God's Word. This isn't the only place. Psalm 12 says that the words of the Lord are pure words.

Same word there, refined. Like silver tried in a furnace, purified seven times. Tried in a furnace. Means the metal has been heated. And when you heat it and all the different alloys can be melted they can be separated and and drawn off sometimes density differences would cause the different metals to to float to float at different depths that's the idea But the scriptures then are refined seven times.

The process is you refine once and you get 99 percent. You refine again, you get another 99 percent. And again, you get another 99 percent. Each time you do it, it is increasingly pure. Seven times represents the idea of perfection.

The Bible is perfect. It's perfectly refined. There is nothing in it that isn't pure. Purely the Word of God. The Bible doesn't just contain the Word of God, and we have to search in it like you might search in the dirt for a coin you lost.

The Bible is the Word of God. All of it. God's Word is truth. 2 Samuel 22, 31, As for God, his way is perfect. The way of the Lord is proven.

He is a shield to all who trust in Him. Notice the connection there, same connection of the Word of God being proven and the Word of God also, or God also being a shield protection. In Psalm 18 is a duplicate, a replication of that verse. As for God, his way is perfect. The way, the word of the Lord is proven.

He's a shield to all who trust in him. Or Psalm 119, your word is very pure. Therefore your servant loves it. So that is to say God's Word is without error, without any error. Now this purity of God's word has a number of implications.

A number of implications that impact and affect how we go about this whole process of what we call textual criticism, of gathering together the manuscripts of God's Word and preparing the Greek manuscript from which we will use to translate God's Word into English. And the first of these implications is that God's Word is preserved in every age. God's Word is pure. It is pure. That's a present tense verb.

That means it is true today. That means it is true every day. And it is true tomorrow. See, it's not enough that God's Word was originally written without error. It's written and it's been maintained in every age without error.

There is never a moment in time when God's Word isn't pure. There is never a time in history when parts of God's Word are lost. You know, a book with missing sections in it, Or sections in it that aren't God's Word. That's not a pure Word. That's not a pure Book.

And so this verse and all the others like it that we've looked at and many more condemn any Supposed book of the Bible that has been lost for hundreds of thousands of years if somebody finds a new book This is all this book has been lost as as people have done recently and throughout history. And said, somehow this is a book, this is a Bible, this was just lost. We know that that's not right. They're wrong at the face of it, because that would imply that God's Word was not pure for all those years that we didn't have that book. It also says here that every, every word is preserved.

It's not okay to say that we have most of those words. It's not okay to believe that a scribe made an error with a number. As many of the editors even of the Bibles that I have make, and they will change the text, because they say it was probably a scribal error. One example that we saw just recently was the age of Jehoiachin when he became king. In one book says he was eight and another says he was eighteen.

That's not an error. That's the Word of God. Every word is pure. Every word has been preserved through all history. Both of those are true in one sense or another.

Irenaeus, who was a very early church father, referring to the number of the beast in Revelation and being changed from 666 or actually 666 to 616 he says that referring to this beast his number being found in all the most approved and ancient copies of Revelation, and those men who saw John face to face bearing their testimony to it. I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech and have vitiated the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of 50 from it, so that instead of six decades, they will have it that there is but one. He says, there shall be no light punishment inflicted upon him who either adds to or subtracts anything from scripture. These men, he says, speaking of this one little change of one number in the book of Revelation, he says, therefore men ought therefore to learn what really is the state of the case and go back to the true number of the name that they not be reckoned among false prophets end of quote. False prophets.

To change one letter, one number, he says made them a false prophet. Jesus said it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle, one little mark of the law to fail. For Surely I say to you until heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle will by no means Pass from the law until all is fulfilled not even the smallest marks of punctuation will be lost from God's Word until all is fulfilled. You see, it's no light matter then when you find verses missing from the Bible, verses that are in the vast majority of New Testament manuscripts. Bruce Metzger in his book on the New Testament text, he recounts an occasion when Bishop Spyridon in 350 AD took on the distinguished Trifalilias of Ledra who used the more refined addict Greek word for bed when he quoted Jesus' words, rise, take up your bed and walk.

He used a more sophisticated word for bed than what Jesus used. And Spyridon sprang up and indignantly called to him before the whole assembly. And he said, are you then better than He, that's Jesus, who uttered the word kran batas, that you are ashamed to use His word? Now Dr. Metzger quoted that to prove the validity of an assumption he wanted to make that the shortest text was the best because people would try to edit the text to make it more understandable, to make it more stylistically beautiful and correct.

But I think ironically that proves the exact opposite of what he's quoting it for. It shows that those men who were faithful prophets were indignant when even a word was changed, even if the word meant the same thing. And you could say, well, it communicated the same thing, but it wasn't the same word that was in the Bible. And these were people who were very close to the original autographs. And in some cases had seen them.

I think it was Irenaeus, maybe it was Justin Martyr, said he had seen many of the original autographs, at least five, and he knew where they were. At his lifetime He knew where he could go to see the original autographs. And those people who were true prophets of the word, they were very careful to transcribe every word precisely, so much So that when somebody substitutes, even in an oral quote, substituted the wrong word, another presbyter jumps to his feet and rebukes him. Because he didn't use the word that Jesus used. That's how careful God's people are to preserve his word.

Because you see, God preserves his word, but he uses, his word is pure, but he uses people. That's the amazing thing. He can use people who aren't perfect, who aren't pure, completely pure. He can use all of these things and infallibly preserve his word, every jot and tittle of it. So every word is preserved, but also that means that grammar is preserved.

The grammar of God's Word is preserved. Paul bases a theological argument in one letter, on one letter in Galatians, where he demonstrates that the promises made to Abraham and to his seed which was Christ, and not to seeds, plural. He doesn't say, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed who is Christ. He's making a theological argument that the covenant of grace, the promise was made with Christ. And he's doing it based on one letter of one word.

Because every word is pure. Hebrews 12, 27 argues from a phrase, yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Yet once more. In Inglatians 4, 9, Paul argues from the voice of a verb, active or passive. Passive is when something is done to you.

Active is when the subject does the action of the verb. And Paul says in Galatians 4 and 9, but now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beg? Because Elmer, he changed the tense there. Because it made a difference. Jesus argues from the tense of a verb.

He says, before Abraham was, I am. Same verb, just different tense. See, John wrote in Revelation, blessed is he who reads, and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep the things that are written in it for the time is near blessed is he who reads and keeps the words of this prophecy because every word is pure and we end and so that's another implication. Every word is truth. Every word.

God said, your word is truth. We can Never ignore even a word of the scripture and think that it isn't truth or think that it is simply not important because well it's only one word in all the Bible, it's just one word. No, every word is pure and we are accountable then. We are accountable to every word. If God preserves and he purifies every word of scripture, then we're accountable to keep every word of scripture.

In Deuteronomy 8, God said that he humbled the children of Israel, that He allowed them to know hunger, and that He fed them with bread from heaven, manna, something which they didn't know, didn't understand. That's what the word manna means, what is it? He said He did that so that they might know that we don't live by bread alone, but we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So we can, we have confidence because God has said He has preserved every word, that we can live with every word.

And Jesus quoted that passage to refute Satan when Satan wanted him to turn the rocks, stones into bread. Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The secret things Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 29, 29, belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. Why? Why do they belong to us?

So that we may do all the words according to this law. Every word, every word is truth, Every word is part of God's message, God's word to us. And it's that which we are accountable to keep. But also God promises blessing to those who read his words and keep his words. And so altering then or changing or adulterating God's word is a very serious offense.

Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. When we add to God's words, we're saying God is saying something that he didn't say. And when we say God says something that God didn't actually say, then that makes us a liar. So adding to God's word makes us a liar and brings us under God's condemnation. Well, there are many ways that we can add to the Word of God.

We can add to the commands of God and bind people's conscience where God has not bound our conscience. That's called legalism, adding the commandments of men. And Jesus condemned the Pharisees for teaching as doctrine the commandments of men, teaching as the word of God the commandments of men. And Christ routinely ignored such commandments. He repudiated them.

We cannot follow the commands of people even if it's the Apostle Paul coming to us and saying this is what God's Word says. We're to be like the Bereans. We're to go back to the Scriptures, to God's Word, and see whether the things that we're being told are true. The things that whether I'm talking, telling you. Don't believe it because I said it.

That won't cut it. That won't. It has to be in the Word of God. One of the things I've seen that's been the greatest deliverance for people who have been abused as children or even as older children and young adults, is for them to learn the truth of the Word of God themselves. And I've seen where they have learned themselves the truth of the word of God, then they have been able to, they've been awakened to the things that were happening to them not being right.

We all need to know. Our children need to know every word of God. It is a protection to them as verse 5 says. One of Satan's primary attacks against God is to cast doubt on his word. To cast doubt on His word.

Satan came to Eve and did that. He suggested to her. He didn't come out and say, well, God's wrong, or that's not right. He asked a question, has God indeed said? He tried to cast doubt on what God had said by just raising the question, asking the question, has God really said that?

That was an attack on the Word of God. And Satan continues that attack on the Word of God. He continues asking that same question. How can you know that what God says is what God had actually said? How can you be so sure?

And we have to answer him like Jesus did, with the Word of God. The Word of God is powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, able to divide, asunder soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And it doesn't matter whether the person that we're talking to believes the Word of God. It doesn't change the fact that God's Word is true and that God's Word is sharp and it is effective. And so we can use the Word of God against the very people that are attacking the Word of God.

And one of the main attacks on the Scriptures I think today, and by today I mean over the last 150 years, 120 years or so, has come as an attack on the manuscripts that comprise the Greek text from which the New Testament is translated. So there's some 5, 000, 5, 200 and some manuscripts that are in existence in the world today. Not all of them are complete manuscripts of the New Testament or of a particular book. Some are just fragments but many are complete. And the people, the vast majority of people, the vast majority of scholarship in this whole field of what we might call textual criticism, the people that have comprised, put together the Greek text from which our Bibles are translated, the people that have done this have done their work with some very wrong assumptions, presuppositions.

They have in many cases assumed the exact opposite of what the Scriptures teach. They assume that scribes would change the scriptures. God's Word says the exact opposite. Those that love His Word are careful with every jot and tittle of it. They've also based a lot of their work on the assumption that the oldest manuscripts are the best ones and that the number is not so important.

So you might have 3, 000 manuscripts that say one thing or more typically maybe 100 or 200 or 300, that have say it one way and a couple that say it differently. And they're saying, oh, it doesn't matter that there's 300 witnesses over here. What matters is how old the manuscript is, how the quality of the manuscript is. That's more important. So we're gonna take this reading over here, that's only in a couple manuscripts.

Because the number isn't really important. What's important is how old it is. So Gordon Clark has this to say in his book on textual criticism. The critics propose a rule that number is less important than weight. A dozen or a hundred manuscripts all copied from a single original ancestor count only as one.

So they would say, okay, here's a hundred manuscripts that were all translated from this earlier manuscript. And so, well, that's just one. And over here is another manuscript. I only have one copy of it and it's different. So which do we use?

And he says, therefore, these critics say a lone manuscript of a different type equals the other hundred in weight. It's just one copy is just as important and weighty as the hundred copies over here. That's their argument. That's how they're doing this. He says it seems plausible at first, it is not so weighty a criterion as the critics seem to believe, but there is another factor involved.

What if we approach this with biblical assumptions that God is preserving His word, that those scribes who are copying the word that are faithful are copying it correctly. And they're not copying the bad manuscripts. He says, what if a score or two, what if 20 or 40 manuscripts have a single ancestor? Okay, you got 40 manuscripts over here that were all copied from an earlier manuscript that was worn out or older. He says it implies that a score or two, 20 or 40 copyists, believed that ancestry, that original that they copied from, they believed that to be a correct and good copy, a faithful to the autographs.

But a manuscript that wasn't used, it might not have been used because faithful scribes believed it was corrupted, because it didn't match the autographs. And so they didn't use it, and that's why there aren't very many copies of it around. He says, quote, but if a manuscript has not a numerous progeny, as is the case with Vaticanus's, and you may have heard that word that Vaticanus and Sinaticus are two of the five main manuscripts, two of the primary of the five main manuscripts out of which the eclectic text is written. But if a manuscript has not a numerous progeny as is the case with Vaticanus' ancestor, one may suspect that the early scribes doubted its value. If facts are to be determined on the basis of two or three witnesses, then single manuscripts like that should really be suspect.

That's the biblical standard. By the mouth of two or three witnesses, things are established. So For example, one of the chapters of our Bibles, many Bibles that is missing today is Mark 16, after verse 8 in any Bible, translated from this eclectic text that was put together with these unbiblical assumptions. It's missing the latter half of that chapter. Latter half of that chapter.

Here is what one Kurt Alon, who is one of the texts is named, named Nestle-Alan Text. And this is what he said. He said, it is true that the longer ending of Mark, part that's omitted in any of the Bibles today that come from the Eclectic text. He said, it is true that the longer ending of Mark is found in 99% of the Greek manuscripts, as well as the rest of the tradition, enjoying over a period of centuries practically an official ecclesiastical sanction as a genuine part of the Gospel of Mark. He's admitting that.

This part of the Bible that he's going to omit, he acknowledges is in 99% of the Greek manuscripts And it has enjoyed a period of over centuries as having the sanction of the church as it being the genuine part of the Gospel of Mark. But he says, but in Codex Vaticanus, this one manuscript, as well as in Codex Sinaiticus, the Gospel of Mark ends at Mark 16, 8. So I'm going to ignore 99% of the manuscripts and look at these two, because these two are supposedly older and therefore they're better and more weighty. What he doesn't tell you is that one of those, Sinaiticus, had the original ending of Mark in it and it was erased. If you look at the picture of the codex, you see a spot right there where it went.

It's gone. It was there. The space was there. You know, when you're doing a word processor and you delete a paragraph, then all the text moves up and there's no space, right? But if you're doing a typewriter and you delete a text, there's a space there.

Well, in this manuscript, there's a space there where that was. It was there. It was removed. So there's only one manuscript left that has this longer ending. But we're going to take that one manuscript and ignore the 99% of the others.

You see, the majority text represents the widest geographical distribution of texts across Greece, Asia, Minor, Constantinople, Syria, Africa, Gaul, Southern Italy, Sicily, England, and Ireland. These all have manuscripts, majority text manuscripts. This eclectic text, they're only in Egypt, a place of many heresies. That's where Arius came from, And many other heresies came out of Egypt. There were no original autographs that went to Egypt.

There were no letters written to the church at Alexandria. There were letters written to the churches in Asia Minor, to Thessalonians in Macedonia, to Corinth in Achaia. These places all had original autographs. So here's the total manuscript support. There's different manuscripts.

Some are written on papyri. Some are written in all capital letters. Some are written cursively. The ones that are written in all capital letters are called unciels. Then there are church lectionaries.

So there's different types. But if you look at all the papyri manuscripts, 75% of them support the majority text. 13 support the eclectic text. And there's 88 total papyri manuscripts. Of all the unciels, there's 267 of them.

97% of them support the majority text. 3% support the eclectic text. Of all the curses, there's over 2, 700 of those. 99% of those support the majority text. Only 1% support the eclectic text.

Of the church lectionaries, there's over 2, 100 of those. 100% of those support the majority text. There is no support among those manuscripts for the eclectic text. So overall, 99%, just like Mr. Alon said, over 99% of the manuscripts that we have available today support the majority text.

And others have done work even on the majority text to identify that family of texts, family 35 that God has preserved to us without error. God's Word then is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. God's Word is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. God has preserved every word of His Bible to us. And it is a great protection to us when we begin to pay attention to every word that is in it.

What's one of the big mess of our day? One of the things that's just driving the world crazy, that's going to end in, It depends who you talk to, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years, because of climate change. I mean, you can just turn on the news and somebody is saying, well, the world is gonna end because of climate change. And we better do something about it. And people say, well, what you want to do would destroy the way of living.

It would be very, very expensive. Nobody could afford it. And their answer? Well, you're worried about a few dollars when the earth is going to be gone? Well, the Bible has a clear answer for that.

It said, while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. So you're wrong. They're just wrong. If we listen to every word of the Bible, it protects us. We don't have to worry about anything else.

The idea that the seasons are going to end, that seed time and harvest is going to end is wrong. And God's Word will protect us from great folly in trying to redesign everything that, every way that we live today in order to protect, somehow protect and prevent this great catastrophe. The Word of God is a very simple answer. It doesn't take any government money to figure it out. And yet today I can tell you company after company after company is throwing everything they've ever done up in the air and away, and reinventing it at great expense in order to alleviate some frivolous concerns that the Word of God completely contradicts.

Money. The word of God has so much to say about money. You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length or weight or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, and an honest ifah, and an honest hin, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt." If we ignore those words, we bring great peril on ourselves. John Maynard Keynes said that inflation was a tax that not one man in a million could diagnose.

And it's a very effective tax because nobody realizes they're being taxed by it. But it brings great devastation on anybody who has seen their life savings become useless because of inflation. The prices are going up. That's the result. That's the result of inflation.

And it wipes and it destroys people, it steals from people. It's a great destroyer. And yet, if we paid attention to the Word of God, then we would avoid that. It would be a protection to us. It would shield us from things that we cannot know or understand.

Sickness and disease, promiscuity and fornication bring great sickness that you can preserve yourself from if you pay attention to the Word of God. God has given to us every green herb bearing seed for food, for medicine. The trees in Revelation 22, the leaves of the trees are for the healing of nations. The healing of nations. When we turn to these pharmaceutical companies, they've become, and put our trust in them for our healing, we do so to our great pearl, they've become dispensaries of death.

Because Word is a shield to us when we pay attention to every word, every letter. Talks also about mixed seed in God's Word as well. Or social security is a great myth when it came, but it was a great rage of the day and everybody signed up for it. In fact, they tricked people into signing up for it. They coerced people into signing up for it.

And people did because they weren't paying attention to it, the Word of God. Which says that our help is not from the government, our security, our social security is not from the government, but it's from the Lord. So why are we asking the government to provide what God is providing? Or statism, relying on the state to solve our problems. And those of you that were in the afternoon class last week, you remember Phil Kaiser went through a very great list, incomplete list, but still a great lengthy list, of all the different ways that we have become statist in our thinking and in the way we live without even realizing it.

And in so doing, we are ignoring the words of scripture to our peril. We are a lot like Israel when they demanded a king. They wanted a king to be like everybody else. And God, And Samuel was initially not pleased with that. He took it personally that they had rejected him, but God said, no, they haven't rejected you, they have rejected me.

They wanted a king so they could be like everybody else. They wanted a king who would give them security. They wanted a king who would solve their problems. They wanted a king who could make life easy for them. If somebody's attacking them, call them up and he'd come send somebody to stop them.

If they're sick, call them up and he'd send somebody to heal them. If their crops fell, call them up and he'd send them some food. That's what they wanted. Samuel prayed to the Lord about this when they asked for a king. And the Lord said to Samuel, They haven't rejected you, they've rejected me.

That I should not reign over them. They've forsaken me. They've forsaken my word. And here's what he said, what they will show them, the behavior of a king that will reign over them. This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you.

He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots. He's going to draft them into his army and have them fight in foreign wars. Isn't that what we've seen? We only had 4, 000 people die in the wars of the last 20 years, but that's 4000 sons and husbands and fathers. And those families is real.

He's going to take your sons and appoint them for his chariots, and his horsemen and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over thousands and captains over fifties. He will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, some to make his weapons of war and equipment for chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will take the best of your fields through taxation, your vineyards, your olive groves, and give them to his servants.

He will take a tenth of your grain in your vintage and give it to His officers and servants. He will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, your donkeys, and put them to work. He will take a tenth of your sheep, and you will be His servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your King whom you have chosen for yourself. And the Lord won't hear you in that day because they had ignored the word of God.

We ignore the word of God to our peril. It is truth in every area that it speaks and we can be greatly blessed when we pay attention to God's word. He blesses those who walk in his ways and I think It's an ongoing thing. More and more we realize how many lies we've believed and how many words of scripture we've just glossed over and ignored what they're saying to us. And when we do that, we lose the shield and the protection that God's Word gives to us when we put our trust in His words and not in the words of men.

May God grant us faith to believe every word that he has given to us. Almighty Heavenly Father, thank you for the words of your words. Thank you that though the grass withers and the flower fades, your word endures forever. That your word is true, eternal in the heavens, unchangeable. We thank you Lord that it is a word of life.

And that you have sent your Son, the Word to be made flesh and to dwell among us. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.