Direct your prayer for attention
to the portion we read, Psalm 68, and reading for our text,
verse 11. The Psalm of David, verse 11
reads, the Lord gave the word, great was the company of those
that published it. And that which is on my spirit
is just simply bringing the word. The psalm here, written by David,
and no doubt was used when they were bringing up the ark to Jerusalem,
and it was sung there as that ark, a beautiful type of the
Lord Jesus Christ, was brought up to the worship at Jerusalem. But of course, we don't confine
it just to that time. David was a thousand years before
Christ, And many of these Psalms written by him, they prophesy
very clearly of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even the very words that
he spoke on the cross in Psalm 22, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Written and penned a thousand
years before our Lord uttered them at Calvary. And so when
we think of the word, the word the Lord gave, and then there
is a great company of those that published it. And I want to look
this evening firstly at the word, and then bringing the word, those
that are publishing it, and then those to whom the word is brought. But just before we look at those
points, Maybe to think of a situation, if God had planned it, that he
would not have any written word, but the whole Church of God relied
upon God individually speaking to every one of his people, individually. So he spoke directly to them,
They didn't have to have it through second means or someone else.
Each one received it individually. But there's no written Word.
There's no way we could test what others had, whether they
really had that from the Lord or someone else. But the way
God has planned it, He has the Word, which is our Holy Bible
here, finished, sealed, And that word is the word of God to us. God does not add to it, he does
not take away from it, but he has those that bring that word. And in the formation of that
word, he had those that brought it as well. We read in Hebrews
of how that in the time Prior, in the beginning, God spoke in
various ways, sundry times, different times, in divers manners, different
ways, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, those he spoke to them by prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, by the Lord
Jesus Christ, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also
He made the worlds. So then let's get back and speak
from our first point, the Word itself. What is the Word? Well, our text says that the
Lord gave the Word. The most important thing in that
is that the Word is the Word of God. How lifeful is it that
we really know what is the Word of God, believe it is, receive
it as the Word of God, and that Word is conveyed faithfully to
us. So when we're thinking of the
Word, even before we define it, just looking at the words of
our text, the Lord gave the Word Whatever that word is, and the
word before us says there is a word, it is a word that the
Lord, Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth has given us. As God made the world and formed
man upon it, and as he has a plan for the world and a plan of salvation,
a plan of saving those that are sinners, those that are lost,
He is kind enough to tell us what that plan is, tell us what
our danger is, give us the counsel and direction from himself in
one book. And as we said in the beginning,
we have it here in the Bible. What is so beautiful about the
Bible, it goes right back from creation, and then it speaks
of to the end of the world and it traces the history of the
world through the nation of Israel and there is no break in the
link from creation right through until our Lord Jesus Christ came. And so we have many books, many
chapters in the Word of God that have lists and lists of names.
They are names of the children of Israel. We know it then is
true history. Our Lord Jesus Christ came through
the line right from Adam and in Luke, We have the generations
back from our Lord and from Mary, the mother of our Lord, traced
right back through to Adam. And in Matthew, we have it traced
from Abraham through to Joseph, the husband of Mary. And we have
this link and it's vital for us to realize because Peter says
that some accuse that we follow cunningly devised fables, but
if we have a history book and we have real men, real people
in it, then we can be sure that it is correct and right. Over 40 different authors were
used to write the Bible as penmen, and the word was God breathed. The Lord breathed that word,
so they wrote the very words that he'd have them to write
Sometimes there's great detail in the history, sometimes great
detail in the prophecies. Other times we'll have 50 years
in the history of Israel, and it's told in two verses, and
there's nothing more elaborated about it at all. And God has
chosen what to put, and we have it summed up by John in the Gospel
according to John, that these are written that he might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, and that in believing, he might have
life through his name. So firstly, the word then is
the Bible, the word of God, and we believe it is all the word
of God, every word of God is pure, it tells us that, it tells
us that it is given by inspiration of God is one of the things that
has been lost amongst many, many churches today, that they are
ceasing to believe and hold fast that we can trust in the word
of God, that God has given us his word, and that we may believe
it and read it and through the blessing upon it be brought to
salvation. But what are the aspects in the
Word of God? He spoke about the history part
of it. Then in the context, in Psalm
68 here, he speaks about Mount Sinai. Now Mount Sinai was where
the law was given, the Ten Commandments. There was always a law in the
world from Adam until Moses at Mount Sinai. And we know that,
and the Bible tells us that, because men were dying. And where
there is the law, and the law is broken, the sentence against
man was, in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die. So, but the law must be put. If there isn't a law, then the
law, the sin is not imputed. And you think in our land, if
the government wants to prosecute someone, He can't just say, I'm
going to prosecute you. He's got to make a law first.
And that law has to be in the statute books. And then when
someone breaks it, the law says what the penalty is, and that
applies to that person. And so the law of God is given.
It's given in the Bible. It's given twice, given in the
book of Exodus and given in Deuteronomy. And the reason for the law is
given that all the world might be brought in guilty before God. The Lord Jesus Christ was given
the name of Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. So they must first be convinced
that they really are sinners. They really have broken the law
of God. They really are under the sentence
of death. Spiritually, we are dead. We
cannot find out the things of God unless God reveals them to
us. Naturally, we are sick, dying
sinners, that one day we must die, we know that. And then after
death is the judgment and the second death. And it is the plan
of God to send forth his son to save from that death. But
first, we must be convinced that our own good works or our own
attempt to obey the law of God does not work, we will not be
saved that way. And that's why the law was given,
so that we might not be looking to be saved by saying to God,
look, I've done that good, I've done that good, I've got a charity
work there, I've done these things, and in return, I must be brought
to heaven. The Bible makes it very clear
that by that good deeds we shall not be saved. Our righteousnesses,
our good works are as filthy rags before God. And until we
realize that, we won't value the Lord Jesus Christ. We won't
ever need of being saved by him. So one part of the holy law of
God is to bring us guilty before God. to bring us to not looking
to be saved in another way. You know, if we were ill in a
natural way, say if we had cancer or something like that, and we
were trying to find a cure in a way that just was not going
to work at all, wouldn't it be kind if someone
said to us, someone that was qualified, and they said to us,
look, you won't be, you won't be cured that way. Don't waste
your time and effort going that way. And go another way. I know it was overruled of God,
but I know how I felt when I was 25, and my mother was diagnosed
with cancer, breast cancer, and she was diagnosed early, and
yet she just wanted to use herbal remedies and just diet and things
like that. And we knew that that was not
going to cure her at all. And yet we couldn't convince
her to let go of that. And she wouldn't use conventional
medicines. 18 months later, she died. But
the Lord did really bless her in her end. And she had a real
hope beyond the grave and was wonderfully blessed. I wouldn't
have it any other way. But at the time, it was hard.
because she was looking the wrong way for a cure for her body. She was looking the right way
for her soul. She was looking for the forgiveness
of sins. She was looking to know and love
the Lord Jesus Christ. And for that, we were so thankful. But in a way, Paul, when he writes
to the Apostle Paul, when he writes to the Romans, he saw
his countrymen, and they were looking the wrong way. They were
trying to, by their good works, attain heaven. And he knew they
couldn't. And while they were looking that
way, they weren't looking to the gospel. They weren't trusting
in the life and death and sufferings and the shed blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's what he wanted them
to do, to trust in that and not in what they were doing. So in
the word, the Lord gave the word, the Lord has given the word of
the law, but he's also given the word of the gospel, the good
news of salvation, how we are to be saved through faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is comprised, of course,
in the four gospels and then in the letters of Paul. But when
we truly know the word, we will see right through the Old Testament
the same plan of salvation. in types, in shadows, every sacrifice
of the animals that was there, all pointed to what was gonna
happen to the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary. So the word that
was given by God, how he would save sinners, how would he save
his people from their sins, that word is given by God. It is a great blessing to have
the word of God like we have. It's a great blessing to have
it in our own tongue, a language that we can understand. Many
nations, they still do not have that. And to read that word and
to have the Lord bless it to us, open our understanding. When
the Lord rose from the dead, he opened their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. And what they had
to understand was that the Lord Jesus Christ, he was truly God
and truly man in one person. And that he had come to this
world to live a perfect life of obedience to his father and
to lay down his life as a sacrifice at Calvary. He says, I have power
to lay it down, I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received from my father. And so when he laid down his
life, when he died, Pilate wondered that he was dead already, the
two thieves weren't, but he was, because though he was crucified,
he yielded up his spirit to God, and he died, really died, was
buried, and three days later, rose again from the dead, and
again appeared to many of the disciples, 500 brethren at once,
and the Word of God that we have before us here, many of those
were alive when it was written. None of them contradicted it
and saying these things didn't really happen. They were witnesses
of these things. And so again, we can trust that
testimony of our Lord and the Word that He has given us, given
assurance unto all men. that God accepted the sacrifice
of his son because he raised him from the dead. And everyone
that believes, everyone that knows the power of God, that
changes them, changes their hearts, turns them from the love of the
world and the love of self and sin, and brings them to love
God, knows that it is God's power that does that. The Word of God,
it sets before us how we are to live, how we are to walk,
what God's will is. All the teaching that we need,
all the direction that we need, is in the Word of God. I often
say to the children in the schools, when we give them the Word of
God, that you need not be deceived by any man, because you can always
test what you hear by the Word of God. And even when the Apostle
Paul was preaching in Berea, we read that the Bereans, that
they searched the Scriptures, or the Old Testament Scriptures,
every day to see whether what the Apostle Paul was saying was
true. And he was proving that the Lord
Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, was truly the promised Messiah
that was said that would come. So the Word then, that is given
by God, is this Bible. It is to be translated into all
languages. First it was, of course, Hebrew,
the Old Testament, Greek, the New Testament, and we have it
in our tongue, and all nations have that. Well, then we have
bringing the Word. Now, second point, bringing the
Word of God. So when God has given that word,
that then has to be distributed around. We're used to in our
lives, are we having things distributed? You think of a manufacturer of
some of our food items, and there'll be a warehouse, and all of the
things are there, and then they have the lorries to take them
to this shop and that shop, and it's distributed. It goes to
the shops and then we go and we get it from there. In every
aspect of our lives, there is a transporting of bringing things
from one central place and then bringing it to other places. And with the word of God, we
have one word. And wherever the gospel is preached
in the whole world, there's one word, there's one Bible. translated
different languages. But God doesn't have one word
there or one word there, he has one word. But he has those that bring the
word, that actually bring it to the people. I want to give
you some examples from the word of God. In the first book of
Samuel, we read of when Samuel was a young learned he was to
be the prophet of Israel, and God spoke to him in the night. And it was the first time he
was ever to hear the Lord speaking to him. And in the morning, Eli,
the prophet, there at Shiloh, he wanted to know what Samuel
had heard from the Lord. And Samuel then had to bring
that word and tell Eli. And it was a hard word because
He reproved him because his sons, Eli's sons, were not walking
in the ways of the Lord, and God said that he would destroy
them and cut them off. And yet Samuel brought that word
to Eli. What is so important was that
the word that he brought was exactly the word. And Eli said
to him that he was not to keep anything back. He was not to
change it or make it any different. and those of us that have the
Word of God and bring the Word of God to someone else, we must
bring that Word, not change it, not make it different, but bring
it exactly as what God has said. Sometimes I've tried to illustrate
the importance of a good translation to the children at school and
I ask them whether there's someone in the class that knows a different
language. And usually there is, there's
one that can speak English and another language, maybe it's
Dutch. And then I say to them, well,
say if we had a visitor that came to the class and they could
only speak Dutch, only this one student could speak Dutch and
English, and the other ones could only speak English. So the visitor,
they speak to the class in Dutch. Now really, that student that
knows Dutch and English, they could tell the class anything. They could change the message
completely, because the visitor didn't know English, so they
wouldn't tell, that the one interpreting to the class is telling them
something different. And the class wouldn't know they're
being told something different either because they didn't know
Dutch. So they rely solely on that interpreter. He could be
very mischievous, could tell the opposite. And when you think
that when the word was given from God, those that God gave
it to They could change it whatever, if they wanted to. But they are under the power
of God to bring the Word of God, and when it is translated, that's
why we want a faithful translation of the Word of God. We can trace
the history of when this Bible was translated into English,
you can clearly see God's hand in it. But it is very important
that we really know that we can rely on it. And though the Bible
is written by some 400, sorry, 40 different authors, yet there
is a flowing together between the whole of the Word of God.
It's not a jar at all. The best way of finding out the
true meaning is to compare one scripture with another scripture. You need both sides. Another time there was a bringing
of the word was in the history of Joseph. Remember how Joseph
was sold into Egypt by his brothers and stayed there for some over
20 years. And then when there was a famine
in the land, then Jacob sent Joseph's other brothers to go
and get corn. And they didn't know him. He
obviously looked like an Egyptian then, he'd grown up, and he was
speaking through an interpreter, so they didn't realize that actually
he could understand them. He made out that he was a stranger
to them. But in the end, he did make himself
known to them, and the brothers had to go back to Jacob in Canaan
and to tell him that Joseph was a liar. What a message that was. They had deceived their father
those years ago and made out that a beast had slain him, but
now they're going to tell him that he's alive. And Joseph and
Jacob, I must believe it, will read that Jacob's heart is sank. He didn't believe them, what
they were saying. No doubt he would want to, What
a great thing to be told, to be brought word from Joseph saying,
I am alive. But then he saw the wagons and
all what Joseph had sent from Egypt to him. And when he saw
the wagons, then we read that the heart of Jacob revived and
Israel, the other name given to Jacob by the angel, when he
wrestled with God, that The spirit of Jacob revived and Israel said,
Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I'll go and see him before I
die. And of course, Jacob's change
of name to Israel, that is what Israel is named even today. The
descendants of Jacob have the name of Israel. Then we think of when our Lord
rose from the dead And the disciples had the Lord beginning to appear
to them, and especially the women that were first at the tomb,
and when the angels had spoken to them, he is not here, he is
risen, they ran to bring the disciples' word. Again, a wonderful
thing, to have the message that the Lord is risen, and to be
the one that is bringing that word. conveying that word to
another person. In Romans 15, we have the Apostle
Paul being so convinced that he would come to the Romans,
and when he would come, he would come in the fullness of the gospel. He was so sure that the word
that he was to bring to them would be a blessing to their
souls. They would be strengthened by
it, encouraged by it, It is a great blessing to be able to bring
the Word of God as a minister, or perhaps you visit an old person
in their home, or some in the old people's homes, or to someone
that is sick, and you bring the Word of God to them, and you
put that before them. It is a great blessing to be
able to do that. Remember years ago, one of our
age members of her congregation, some of you may remember her,
Ruth Abbott, Liz Abbott's mother, and she was in Bethesda at Tumbly's
Wells when Bethesda Home was opened then. And I went to visit
her one day and when I was there I said to her, now Ruth, would
you like me to read the word of God and have a word of prayer? And she said in her usual blunt
way, she said, huh, not much use to your coming if you don't.
And I thought, well, that was being reproved, wasn't it? Because
what is the use if a minister or anyone just goes and visits
and all they do is talk about the weather and everything else,
but don't bring the word. And it's a good thing to be those
that bring the word. We have in our text here, the
Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published
it. And that's not just me publishing
it like a book, but proclaiming it and causing it to be heard
and causing it to be received. I want to then look thirdly at
those to whom the word was brought. Now wherever there is a, you
bring a word or bring the word of God to someone, there's someone
that is receiving it. I hope it's the case with us
that we may say that we have received the word of God. We know with the Bibles that
we have offered at the Bible boxes, many people would receive
a Bible, but whether or not they will receive the Word is another
thing. And it's the same with us. We
can hear the Word very regularly preached to us and read in front
of us, but are we actually receiving the Word? When it is a warning,
when it is a Word that we should be what we sought to be doers
of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. Now
the Lord told a parable and quite often we don't think that this
is the meaning of the parable, but it was the parable of the
one that built his house, one on a rock and one built his house
on the sand. And the Lord spoke of the one
that built his house on the sand and when the winds came, Waves
blew and storm came up, that house it fell and great was the
fall of it. But the one that built his house
upon the rock, when those winds came and the waves beat upon
it, it stood. And the Lord said that what he
was illustrating was the difference between one that heard the word
and did the word, and one that heard it and didn't do it. He
said, the one on the rock was the one that heard the word of
God and obeyed it, did it. It affected their lives, it changed
them. They patterned their lives after
what they heard. The word is not something just
to read and just think it's interesting. I worked with a chap in Australia
years ago, and he loved the language of the authorized Bible. He could
quote it, he would read it. but he never touched his heart,
he didn't want to live at all according to it, and he didn't
see his need of being saved either. To have so close to you that
word that is the precious word that shows how God saves sinners
and what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do, and yet not actually
receive it by someone that is is dying of an evil disease,
and they're told the remedy. And they just, oh, that's nice,
that's interesting, that is. But they don't ever take any
steps. They don't even look at the remedy,
don't think, well, actually, this applies to me. I should
be doing this. So Egypt, when the children of
Israel were in Egypt, and they had hard bondage and were owing
unto the Lord in their bondage, then God sent Moses into Egypt
to deliver them and to bring them out of Egypt and into the
promised land, into Canaan. And we read that when the children
of Israel heard that word, they believed God. They believed God
had spoken to Moses and they rejoiced, they praised, they
thanked God. And of course we know God did
bring them out of Egypt, right through the wilderness, and into
Canaan, and that is the land that they've been brought back
now. I wonder how many of us really realize and think what
an amazing thing, the 70 years after our Lord was crucified
and Jerusalem was destroyed and Israel scattered around the nations,
and yet it is in this last century, just after the Second World War,
that after 2,000 years, that nation is brought back to their
own land. Before that time, they weren't
there. And in a way then, I know most of us here, I think, weren't
alive when that happened. Some of us were just being, or
were to be in the next few years. It is a major, major event in
history. But to go on, we had the case
also of Josiah. Josiah was a godly king in Israel,
but Israel had departed from the ways of the Lord, in fact,
so much that the word of God had been lost, and it was hidden
in the ruins of the temple. And when they reformed the temple
in his day, And he read the word of God, he realized that they
were really under the judgment of God. They'd done what God
said they shouldn't do, and they knew that he would punish them
for it. And so he sent to hear the word
of the Lord, and this was from a prophetess in those days. And
so he was asking what the word of the Lord was. And the word
then was sent back to him. You can read that in 2 Kings
22 and 15. She said unto them, Thus saith
the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man that sent you to me. Thus saith the Lord, Behold,
I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof,
even all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath
read. And there's the reasons that
are given for it. But then she says a word to the
king, to Josiah, himself. Because thine heart was tender,
and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest
what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof,
that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy
clothes and wept before me, I also have heard thee, saith the Lord.
And he was told that instead of seeing all that desolation,
he would actually be gathered to his father's, he would be
brought to heaven, really free from it. He would die and free
from that. Then we have the case with Cornelius,
when the gospel was first sent to the Gentiles, and he sent
to Peter to come and hear the word of the Lord. And when Peter
came, They were all gathered there, and they said, we're all
here ready to hear the word of the Lord. And Peter preached
to them, same as I see to preach to you, preach the gospel, preach
what the Lord had done at Calvary, how he had suffered on the cross,
how he had died and rose again, how he had stood in the place
of his people, suffered instead of them, bore the punishment
of God instead of them, and then risen again from the dead. Really
what our Lord has done is paid the debt and he has taken away
the wrath of God to all that believe on his name. And that
message was given to Cornelius and his house and God blessed
that message. what we need, when we hear the
Word of God, the Holy Spirit to bless it, to apply it. Our
Lord lives in heaven, He has sent forth His Spirit, He has
promised to be with us until the end of the world, and by
His Spirit and His grace, He has commanded us to preach the
Word, to bring the Word, and He has promised to bless that
Word, and that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, that
should have eternal life. So we have three things. We have
the word, we have those that bring the word, and we have those
that hear the word. And really those of us that bring
the word sometimes also are the ones that are receiving it as
well. And maybe when we hear the word
and receive the word, receive it as the Word of God, and it
be blessed to us, and change our lives, and give us a hope
not just in this life, but a hope beyond the grave, eternal life. The Lord says, I give unto them
eternal life, they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of mine hand. But the text says, was the company of those that
published it. Amen.