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May my cry come before you, Lord;
    give me understanding according to your word.
¹⁷⁰ May my supplication come before you;
    deliver me according to your promise.
¹⁷¹ May my lips overflow with praise,
    for you teach me your decrees.
¹⁷² May my tongue sing of your word,
    for all your commands are righteous.
¹⁷³ May your hand be ready to help me,
    for I have chosen your precepts.
¹⁷⁴ I long for your salvation, Lord,
    and your law gives me delight.
¹⁷⁵ Let me live that I may praise you,
    and may your laws sustain me.
¹⁷⁶ I have strayed like a lost sheep.
    Seek your servant,
    for I have not forgotten your commands.

Verse 170 reads like this in ‘The Message’:

Give my request your personal attention,
    rescue me on the terms of your promise.

One major implication of taking God’s Word seriously is that we take His promises seriously. I found George Mueller’s biography inspiring and instructive when I first read it – probably close to 30 years ago. I saw how, in his experience of God, the Bible and prayer went hand in hand. He read the Bible diligently, looked to the Holy Spirit to be His Teacher, and his faith-filled prayers were fuelled by what he knew God had said. He prayed according to God’s promises. The Lord still has much to teach us through him today.

I wanted to stay with these verses for another day, and look at them in two other versions. I believe they capture something of the emotion, passion, ecstasy even, that this individual feels towards God’s Word. May such a heart be given to us!

I’ve been slandered unmercifully by the politicians,
    but my awe at your words keeps me stable.
I’m ecstatic over what you say,
    like one who strikes it rich.
I hate lies—can’t stand them!—
    but I love what you have revealed.
Seven times each day I stop and shout praises
    for the way you keep everything running right.
For those who love what you reveal, everything fits—
    no stumbling around in the dark for them.
I wait expectantly for your salvation;
    God, I do what you tell me.
My soul guards and keeps all your instructions—
    oh, how much I love them!
I follow your directions, abide by your counsel;
    my life’s an open book before you (The Message).

Powerful people harass me without cause,
    but my heart trembles only at your word.
¹⁶² I rejoice in your word
    like one who discovers a great treasure.
¹⁶³ I hate and abhor all falsehood,
    but I love your instructions.
¹⁶⁴ I will praise you seven times a day
    because all your regulations are just.
¹⁶⁵ Those who love your instructions have great peace
    and do not stumble.
¹⁶⁶ I long for your rescue, Lord,
    so I have obeyed your commands.
¹⁶⁷ I have obeyed your laws,
    for I love them very much.
¹⁶⁸ Yes, I obey your commandments and laws
    because you know everything I do (New Living Translation).

¹⁶¹ Rulers persecute me without cause,
    but my heart trembles at your word.
¹⁶² I rejoice in your promise
    like one who finds great spoil.
¹⁶³ I hate and detest falsehood
    but I love your law.
¹⁶⁴ Seven times a day I praise you
    for your righteous laws.
¹⁶⁵ Great peace have those who love your law,
    and nothing can make them stumble.
¹⁶⁶ I wait for your salvation, Lord,
    and I follow your commands.
¹⁶⁷ I obey your statutes,
    for I love them greatly.
¹⁶⁸ I obey your precepts and your statutes,
    for all my ways are known to you.

“The Holy Scriptures are our letters from home.” -Augustine of Hippo

“Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.” -Charles Spurgeon

Derek Prince said, ‘Faith is taking God seriously.’

It seems to me that those who have made the greatest difference in the world have been ‘people of the Book.’ They have taken (they take!) the Bible seriously because they take God seriously.

N.T. Wright has said, “The Bible is the book of my life. It’s the book I live with, the book I live by, the book I want to die by.”

Many years ago, when I was a child, my dear old pastor, George Tett, sat next to me and pointed to the letters spelling ‘Holy Bible’ on the spine of this most wonderful Book. He said, ‘Honour, Obey, Love Your Bible It Brings Life Everlasting.’

In this section of Psalm 119 we see someone taking the Scriptures seriously. Their attitude – one for us to emulate – involves a mixture of trembling, rejoicing, loving, waiting, following and obeying. It also opens with the implicit warning that the world will hate those who love God’s Word. Nevertheless, there is ”Great peace” in being Bible-centred. But clearly, if we take God seriously we will do what He says.

Kierkegaard commented, however: “The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are ob (and hence ‘God-centred’).liged to act accordingly.”

PRAYER: Lord, help me to be a serious reader of the Bible.

Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. ²⁷ Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. ²⁸ For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

Here a further contrast is drawn between Jesus, our great High Priest, and all the other priests of the Levitical order.

As we have seen:

• Their impermanence is contrasted with His permanence; and in today’s passage we note
• Their imperfection contrasted with His perfection.

Those Old Testament priests had to first offer sacrifices for their own sins before sacrificing on behalf of the people. But Jesus was both Priest and Victim. He offered the one final sacrifice of His perfect life for us all,

‘There was no other good enough, to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gates of heaven, and let us in.’

While we needed a Priest to be like us in our humanity, we also needed Him to be unlike us with respect to sin:

 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15,16)

Jesus is the ”high priest who truly meets our need”, and the fact that He is ”exalted above the heavens” is the supreme attestation that the Father in heaven is pleased with Him and His work. He has raised Him to His own Right Hand. This is the divine seal of approval on God’s Son.

So now we have a high priest who perfectly fits our needs: completely holy, uncompromised by sin, with authority extending as high as God’s presence in heaven itself. Unlike the other high priests, he doesn’t have to offer sacrifices for his own sins every day before he can get around to us and our sins. He’s done it, once and for all: offered up himself as the sacrifice. The law appoints as high priests men who are never able to get the job done right. But this intervening command of God, which came later, appoints the Son, who is absolutely, eternally perfect.‘ ‘The Message’.

Such a high priest truly meets our need…

There is something so beautiful about this statement in its economy and simplicity.

I believe everyone will admit, if they are honest, that something inside of them is ‘missing’. An all-important piece of the puzzle doesn’t appear to be in the box. They have a need that nothing and no-one can satisfy. There is no ‘scratch’ to relieve their unremitting ‘itch’.

Until they come to Christ , that is.

Saint Augustine famously said, ”Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts find no rest until they rest in thee.”

Recently, Jilly and I saw a testimony, given by a young man: a perhaps a not entirely unfamiliar story of a search for life and meaning in the destructive world of drug addiction. But at the end of his self-damaging journey, he had a life-transforming encounter with Jesus…

…and this ”high priest truly” met his need.

”This “I” was made in the image of God for fellowship with God. Without God it is miserable, empty, confused, and frustrated. Without God life has no meaning; but with God at its centre there is life, an inner strength and peace, a deep satisfaction, an unfading joy known only to those who know Jesus Christ. ‘ Billy Graham

Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; ²⁴ but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. ²⁵ Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

‘Every pastor is an interim pastor.’

I read the above words in ‘Next’ – an excellent book on succession/pastoral transition. Sooner or later, every pastor will be replaced by another. Moses walks to the pavilion, Joshua comes in to bat.

The same could be said of the Old Testament priests: each one was interim. ‘Time like an ever rolling stream’ bore all these ‘sons’ away.

But ”Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.”

This has enormous implications for those of us who are trusting Him for salvation. Look at verse 25. The word ”completely” may also be translated ”fully” or ”absolutely.” Jesus does a proper job.

There is also the possibility of translating this:

”Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Because He is alive for ever, He is able to save for ever.

We are saved not only through His death but also by His life. We still need Him to represent us before the Throne of God, and because He is alive He is able to do this for us.

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:10).

Eugene Peterson expresses Hebs.7:23-25 like this in ‘The Message’:

Earlier there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced. But Jesus’ priesthood is permanent. He’s there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.

Whichever way we look at this, true believers have every reason to take heart. We have a ‘defence Lawyer’ in heaven who does not lose a single case that is fully placed into His Hands.

”My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. ² He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.” (1 John 2:1,2).

Again, Peterson renders the above that: ”we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus.”

How good to know we have a ‘Friend in Court – the best Friend of all.

And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, ²¹ but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:

“The Lord has sworn
    and will not change his mind:
    ‘You are a priest forever.’”

²² Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.

When someone speaks on oath, say in a law court, we should be able to believe them. Should! But that would be in an ideal world. Sadly, you can’t believe what everyone says.

But you can always believe God.

We need to appreciate the Hebrew background to the argument here. When God speaks it is done! His Word is His work. If God says Jesus is ”a priest forever”, then He is.

Note too the strong word ”guarantor”. The Greek word used makes its only New Testament appearance here. In the Greek text the name ”Jesus” stands in the most emphatic place, right at the end of the sentence: ‘the guarantor is Jesus.’ Westcott points out that a surety ‘for the most part pledges himself that something will be: but here the Ascended Christ witnesses that something is: the assurance is not simply of the future but of that which is present though unseen.’

PRAYER: Thank you Lord for the certainty, confidence and security we have in Jesus.

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? 

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ they say, and we whole-heartedly agree. We know ourselves only too well. We are aware how flawed we are, and we know this is true of others.

But wait a minute…

Here is the glory of the gospel: In Jesus we have the first ever, the one and only perfect priest. Furthermore, in Him – for those of us who trust in His Finished work on the Cross – we too are made perfect:

• Presently, we have a positional perfection, before God. This is, wonder of wonders, how He sees us in Christ;
• Also we can say that we are currently being made perfect in that wonderful process we call ‘sanctification.’ Increasingly, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are becoming what we are;
• Then, ultimately, we will have an actual perfection.

Salvation comes in three tenses:

• We have been saved from the penalty of sin;
• We are being saved from the power (and practice) of sins;
• And we will be saved from the very presence of sin.

Nothing in Judaism could bring this about. It could only foreshadow it. Through the coming of Jesus perfection is being ”attained”.

Why would we go go back?

PRAYER: Thank you Lord that you no longer see me in my sin but in your Son. I can scarcely believe it; but by your grace and mercy it is true.

 If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? ¹² For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. ¹³ He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. ¹⁴ For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. ¹⁵ And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, ¹⁶ one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. ¹⁷ For it is declared:

“You are a priest forever,
    in the order of Melchizedek.”

¹⁸ The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless ¹⁹ (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

“The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.” (N. T. Wright).

‘If the ministry of the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood had been spiritually effective, it would have been quite unnecessary for God to have sent another priest after Melchizedek’s order rather than Levi’s. Jesus did not belong to the tribe of Levi but to the tribe of Judah, and that tribe was not allowed to present its male members for the Jewish priesthood (7;13-14). The necessary authentication for Christ’s priesthood is not a legal requirement like physical membership of a specified tribe, but his vindication and attestation by God at his resurrection. By the power of an indestructible life he lives eternally and can serve as our effective and only mediator, a priest for ever. The old Jewish order of priesthood is thus set aside because of its inadequacy, its weakness and uselessness and its imperfection, for the law made nothing perfect. The saving work of Christ has introduced a better hope and it is by this way, and this way alone, that we draw near to God.’ (Raymond Brown: ‘Christ above all’, p.130).

‘Because He is a Priest forever, He saves forever (vv.23-25). ”To the uttermost” means ”completely,” ”perfectly.” You are secure as long as He lives, and He lives eternally. You can live by the power of His endless life!’ (Warren W. Wiersbe’, ‘With the Word’, p.818).

Praise God for the indestructibility of the Lord Jesus Christ – and for all this means for those of us who are in Him.

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.” (Charles Colson).