My Ways and God's Statutes

Psalm 119:26
By Ronnie W. Wolfe

"I have declared my ways" indicates a true, personal confession. My ways are not God's ways, and this is the first thing that a person must realize before he will come to Christ for salvation. He must realize that he is not worthy in himself to receive anything from God. It is only by God's grace that a person is saved.

Declaring our own ways is difficult even to other people, but especially to God. God already knows everything about us, so he knows when we are making a true confession. We are bound by his very attributes to tell God the truth. Truth is hard to confess when it is about your most inward self and the sins that so hardly and so easily beset us.

The benefit of confessing to God is that he will always hear that true confession. When we tell God the truth, we are actually agreeing with God that we are truly sinners, depraved, undone, and unworthy. This God must agree to, or he would deny himself.

Now, after true confession, the next step is to ask God to teach us his word, his commandments, his statutes. They are true.

We read in Psalms 119:155 Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.  When we truly confess to God, we are actually asking him to show us his statutes, which are far from our own.

God says in Ezekiel 18:29 ... O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? 

God's word is the container of his statutes. Let us learn his ways, since they are far above our own ways, more blessed, more abundant, and more precious.

Salvation is of the Lord, Jonah 2:9.

The Word And Life

Psalm 119:25
Dr. Ronnie W. Wolfe

My soul, that which is really me, that which moves me, gives me a moral conduct, arranges my life for me, has hold of my every thought and intent of heart, cleaves to this dust, this flesh, this carnal, fleshly person, so tightly that one is never without the other [the physical and the spiritual] and watches over my every move and spawns my purpose and action.


If this soul, the real me, is dead, then what kind of man will I be? I will exist according to my own nature--depraved in sin and weak to the point of death spiritually.


But the psalmist cries to God to quicken him, to make him alive, to make him like God in the sense that all real life comes from God. John said about Jesus, In him was life, and the life was the light of men." We do not desire to live wholly in the flesh, but the soul that cleaves to this dust must be made alive so that this dust can serve the true and living God; otherwise, we shall live in vain and be foolish as those who believe there is no God.


This quickening, or making alive, must come from the word of God, for Romans 10:17 says, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  Also we read in Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.

Both the dust and the soul are dead to God, but the soul can be made alive by hearing and trusting in God's written word and Jesus Christ, the living word. Acts 16:31 tells us in brief, . . . Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

The object of this faith is Jesus Christ, the work of this faith is Jesus' work of redemption through his perfect life and shed blood.

The Wisdom Of Words

Psalm 119:23
by Dr. Ronnie W. Wolfe

I.  WORDS OF THE PRINCES

     When the important people in the world speak against us, as the world seems to be doing today in a great way, we should not be surprised at the world's arrogance.

     We are reminded of Psalm 2:1-2 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?  2  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed,

     The world is called secular, because that word basically means "of the world." We are in the world but not of the world. We cannot speak the same as the world; otherwise, we are no different from the world. Our speech should be wisdom from above, not the wisdom of the world (see James 3:15-18).

II.  WISDOM OF THE WORD

 

     As our text expresses, "thy servant did meditate in thy statutes." The standard for the believer's life is the word of God, and the wisdom of the world knows very little about it. They may have heard it; they may have read it; they may even love it in a worldly way; but they who are in the world have never "tasted it," Hebrews 6:5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come . . .

     The world hates and fights against the wisdom of God in his word, but that word is and will remain the standard for holiness and salvation. Meditate in God's statutes (his word), and you will live; you will abound in good works; and you will rest in heaven as your eternal inheritance reserved for you who are kept by the power of God ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:5.

Legalism

By Dr. Ronnie W. Wolfe

    Legalism originates, not from customs, not from practices, not from religious rites, but from the heart. Its execution is prompted by the mind and is based upon a false conception of Bible interpretation.
    Therefore, we must be cautious about our judging others upon their actions, calling those actions legalism when they may not actually be a part of it. So many participate in religious acts and even rites that, because of their upbringing and their ignorance of the word of God, they understand them to be necessary, not having a reason why.
    True legalism is practiced upon the human belief that the things practiced are not only proper but necessary for salvation. Legalism is set against grace and takes the place of grace in the teaching of those who follow legalism. Many of the teachers of legalism have literally “fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4), turning from the true meaning of grace, redefining it, and turning rather to their own doctrines and practices as the basis of their Soteriology, their teaching on salvation; and they teach others their false doctrine and turn others to their fallacies and drawing them away from God’s true grace.
    This is made manifest many times in their practice of religion. These teachers put much emphasis on a strong free will and a necessity of works both for salvation and for the keeping of one’s soul, which gives no real assurance to those who practice legalism, for they do not know how many of these legal works they must do in order to know for sure that they are saved.
    Many practice these things, however, without having a heart of legalism. They practice them as a result of coming up in life with these practices in their families and churches. For example, if a person practices foot washing, that in itself does not dictate that the person practicing it believes in legalism. If a person applies oil on another person’s head and prays for him for healing, that does not mean that he is practicing legalism.  When a preacher preaches on a Christian’s having a sanctified, a separated, life, that in itself does not mean that he is preaching legalism. The belief in the heart is the determining factor.
    That is why the Bible is very clear that we should not be judges of other men’s matters. We must, of course, be judges according to righteous judgment, but we must be very sure that the judgment is righteous and not personal or subjective. Note what Peter says in 1 Peter 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?.
    Peter is speaking of two types of judgment here. The first part of the verse speaks of the judgment that comes from the house of God and must begin there. We must judge as to the morality and the testimony of the members of the Lord’s church. Then Peter brings the matter to a more serious level in the last part of the verse in regarding the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God. This is the final determination of what legalism really is. It is a turning away from the gospel of God, his death, burial, and resurrection, and turning into one’s self for the salvation of the soul, leading to legalistic practices. It is not unreasonable to think that only God can know for sure whether a person is practicing legalism or whether he is simply ignorant of the freedom that he has in Christ Jesus. If that be the case, then we must not think that we can determine a person’s position before God by his actions. Remember that many of the believing Jews were continuing to practice much of Judaism after they were saved (See Gal. Chapter 3).
    Let us not judge people by their actions alone but by their true and genuine faith in Christ Jesus as their Master and Lord and with some make a difference (Jude 1:22), giving them freedom to do as they feel pressed to do, but teaching them to observe all things that the Lord has commanded us. Then their actions that seem to be legalistic, if they are truly saved, they will turn away from and follow Christ. At first they do not know that they need to turn away from their idols to God (1 Thess. 1:9).  Yes, some will continue to follow idols through their practices, even though they may not worship them. But when they learn more of the Savior and his word, they will turn from them and serve the living God.
    There are three kinds of government: (1) Theonomy, (2) Heteronomy, and (3) Autonomy. In Theonomy God is the ruler and king. Only he directs the judicial judgments. Israel was under such a government, and the Kingdom of God is spiritually under this government.
    A Heteronomy is “another” government, which means that one man or a few men (an oligarchy) rules men in both their actions and in their consciences.
    The third is an Autonomy, which means that men have free consciences and should not be judged by other men in their beliefs and opinions. This is the government under which we live and which is taught, I believe, in God’s word for earthly societies. Therefore, we must leave men to their own consciences to believe as they want; but then it is our calling and work to teach men of the gospel and of the truths of God’s word. It is this truth that will make them free indeed (John 8:32), not our judgment of their actions.

Prayer of Peter Marshall 7-3-1947

God of our fathers, whose Almighty hand hath made and preserved our Nation, grant that our people may understand what it is they celebrate tomorrow.

May they remember how bitterly our freedom was won, the down payment that was made for it, the installments that have been made since this Republic was born, and the price that must yet be paid for our liberty.

May freedom be seen, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to please to do what is right.

May it ever be understood that our liberty is under God and can be found nowhere else.

May our faith be something that is not merely stamped upon our coins, but expressed in our lives.

Let us, as a nation, not be afraid of standing alone for the rights of men, since we were born that way, as the only nation on earth that came into being "for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith."

We know that we shall be true to the Pilgrim dream when we are true to the God they worshiped.

To the extent that America honors Thee, wilt Thou bless America, and keep her true as Thou hast kept her free, and make her good as Thou has made her rich. Amen.

-Prayers offered by the Cmaplain, the Rev. Peter marshall, D.D. at the opening of the daily sessions of the Senate of the United States during the Eightieth and Eighty-first Congress, 1947 - 1949.

To All UK Fans

By Dr. Ronnie Wolfe

To all UK fans: 

I can practically see you, licking your sores today. I heard the bad news on the TV this morning, and my heart immediately went out to you in thinking I must say, "I'm sorry for your loss," but that did not seem to be appropriate.

Rather, I am saying "You should have known," or something in that direction. "They" have a saying that, "You can't win 'em all," and that seems to apply to this situation.

I was saved from all of this hurt and crying. I don't cry much. I almost cried when Zeva left NCIS and when The Mentalist came to its final episode; but I refrained from crying. 

Certainly we all should weep as the Lord wept at Lazarus' tomb. We should weep as he wept over Jerusalem. He wept, no doubt, due to those who did not understand him, who did not have a spiritual insight into his teachings. He wept because Israel had rejected her Messiah; and we should weep for those who do not know Jesus intimately through faith in his shed blood, his death, his burial, and his resurrection, realizing that he alone is God in the flesh, and the only way to Heaven is through him.

Let's cry a little more over lost sinners!

I Am Not What I Will Be

By Dr. Ronnie W. Wolfe

It is a fact that I am not what I will be. There is no doubt that I will be older if I continue to live. I may be weaker, and  I may be ill or in a nursing home; but it is certain I am not what I will be. But I am not talking about these things. I will explain as we go along.

In thinking of this subject, let us consider that I am not what I used to be. When the Lord saved my soul at the age of 13, I was changed both in my mind and my soul. I repented of my sins and trusted Jesus Christ as Savior. I am now a new creature in Christ, because . . .if a man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all thing are become new, (2 Cor. 5:17).

Neither am I what I could be. I could be involved in all kinds of terrible sin. I could be a murderer. I could be a gambler or many more evil things, but I am not, due to God's grace.

But then I am what I am, as Paul says, . . . by the grace of God I am what I am . . . (1 Cor. 15:10).

But, then I am not what I will be. I will one day be perfect. I will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:32). I will be with Jesus (John 14:3). I will be in eternity that was promised to me by Christ (Heb. 9:15). I will have a new body like the Lord's (Phil. 3:21). Are you saved by God's grace? If not, you may be right now what you will always be.

You are what you are, but are you what you are by the grace of God? Only God's grace can change your heart and give you a new life so you will be a new creature. Trust him today for salvation.

From First Baptist Church Bulletin, Feb. 16, 2014