The Integrity of God’s Word
Dearly beloved of God, after God delivered Israel by His miraculous power from their bondage in Egypt, He made a covenant with them to be their God, and that they would be His people.
God gave them His Word in the form of the Law. The people agreed to keep the covenant God made with them, and walk with Him, but Israel failed to keep the covenant soon afterwards.
God told them at Kadesh Barnea to go up because He had given them land, but they did not go up at His Word. Instead of believing what He said, they sent spies into the land and they believed their evil report, instead of believing what God said.
They wandered in the wilderness for forty years because of their unbelief. Only Joshua and Caleb of that generation, who believed God at His Word went up and entered the promised land.
The Apostle Paul recounts some of Israel’s history in the record of Acts 13, from which we can learn.
Acts 13: 17-22
17 The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them out of it.
18 And about the time of forty years suffered he their manners in the wilderness.
19 And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan [Canaan], he divided their land to them by lot.
20 And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.
21 And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years.
22 And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.
Israel left Egypt about 1491 B.C. They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, until about 1451 B.C. [All these dates are approximate dates.]
Judges presided over them for 450 years. [until approximately 1000 B.C.]
Israel said, "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." [See I Samuel 8:1-22]. What a come down! They rejected the Almighty Living God for a man to rule over them. How did that work out for them?
Saul, their first king, ruled over them for 40 years. Then God chose David as their king, and he reigned for 40 years, and then Solomon reigned for 40 years.
Because of Solomon's idolatry [See I Kings 11:1-13], the kingdom was divided into the northern 10 tribes which Jeroboam ruled, called Israel, and the southern two tribes called Judea, which Rehoboam, Solomon's son ruled. This occurred around 880 B.C. [See I Kings 11:26-43 and 12:1-24].
When a king listened to God, God delivered them, and when they would not listen to Him His hands were tied, and He could not help them.
Around 611 B.C. Shalmaneser besieged Samaria [see II Kings 18:9-12] and carried the 10 northern tribes into captivity in Assyria because they transgressed God’s covenant with Him, and they went whoring after other gods.
A hundred years before Israel was carried away to Assyria, God sent Israel six prophets over that time in an effort to call His people back to Him. He said perhaps they will listen to My Word and I will forgive them and show them My mercy, but they would not listen.
About 496 B.C., a little over a hundred years later, the southern tribes would go into captivity, also.
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon came against Jehoiakim at Jerusalem [See II Chronicles 36:5-10]. This was his first siege of Jerusalem [See II Kings 24:1].
Jeremiah delivered God's Word to the house of Judah. God said, "It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin."
When King Jehoiakim read "the roll," he cut up the word of the Lord with a pen knife, and threw it into the fire, and he wanted to take Jeremiah and Baruch, but the Lord hid them.
The kingdom of Israel, which began with Saul went as captives to Babylon approximately 504 years later.
Around 489 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar’s second siege of Jerusalem followed when Jehoiachin was king [II Kings 24:10-16] and they were taken captive to Babylon.
Around 478 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar’s third siege of Jerusalem ensued when Zedekiah was king. Jerusalem was taken, and Zedekiah was taken to Babylon. The Temple was burned and the walls of the city were torn down in Nebuchadnezzar’s 19th year of his reign [See Jeremiah 52].
God sent Judah seven prophets over a span of 94 years before they went into the Babylonian captivity, and during it, in an effort to call them back to Him so that He could show them mercy, and forgive their iniquity, and deliver them by His mighty hand, but they would not listen.
Every time God’s people came to the position of recognizing the integrity of God’s Word, and they obeyed Him, God led them to great victories regardless of the odds against them. When they turned their back to God and rejected His Word, they went forth in their own strength and utterly failed.
From Genesis 3 to this very day it has always been a question of the integrity of God’s Word. Did God mean what He said? Can we have trust Him and confidence in what He says? Is He able and willing to perform His Word?
Six thousand years of history substantiate the truth that there is no question about the integrity of God’s Word, nor of His almighty power and His willingness to perform His Word when He is believed.
God, by His divine power, has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. He has given us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we can be partakers of the divine nature.
“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.” “By grace you are saved through faith; and that [salvation] is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, so that no one may boast.” This is the Word and Will of God concerning salvation.
God meant what He said concerning prayer. “This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us; and if we know that He hear us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” He is not a man that He should lie.
God’s Word is true concerning our standing before Him in Christ.
His Word is true concerning our having access to His throne of grace with boldness and confidence. In Christ Jesus we have access by one spirit unto the Father.
God said what He meant when He said, “by whose stripes you were healed.”
“God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” God said so, and He stands behind every single word with His almighty power to perform it.
God our Father is able and willing to do what He says He will do. Rejecting His Word will definitely not bring us any closer to obtaining these wonderful realities than it did for those who came before us.
Dearly beloved of God, God has not changed. If we are to obtain these exceeding great and precious promises we must come to the position of recognizing the integrity of God’s Word and believe Him. He is faithful that promised.