“Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” (Psalm 119:160)
We caught a mouse a few weeks back. It was during that time of the year (winter) when they come in from the cold looking for shelter and food. Everyone has them at times. No matter how clean you keep things, you cannot keep mice from getting in the house. We saw the tell-tale signs of our little furry visitor, so we got some of those old fashioned spring loaded mouse traps and set one for him. A little peanut butter on the tip lures the unsuspecting rodent, thinking he has hit the mother lode for a five-star dining experience. Then… SNAP! Out of nowhere, the metal bar of judgment drops instantly from the sky across his neck and sends the unwelcome freeloading non-rent paying tenant to mouse heaven or hell, based on whether he ever got baptized and kept the golden rule and the ten commandments. I’m guessing mouse hell for our friend, since he clearly violated the “Thou shalt not steal” by helping himself to our food without leaving his little mouse dollars on the counter.
This wonderful device was invented well over 100 years ago, and ever since then, there has been a relentless attempt to make it better. I am sure you have seen the other products. We have even tried them. We got one of those little “sticky pads” that is supposed to be more “humane”. It’s not. We caught a mouse on one last winter, and he chewed up half of the sticky pad trying to free himself before he finally gave up and died. Instant death is a lot more compassionate than making the mouse go through all that fear, suffering and turmoil. Of course, the “bleeding hearts” among us would object to my supposed “cruelty”. It’s a mouse. Get over it. I am not trying to rid the world of mice and “upset the delicate eco-balance” (not!), I am just trying to keep them out of my house so they don’t eat up all our food and bring disease to our family. God keeps making plenty more of them, and if I caught one alive in a “humane and compassionate” tender loving way, and then delivered him to your house, you wouldn’t want him around either.
God put a perfect Bible in our hands many hundreds of years ago, and for some strange reason, man keeps thinking he has to find a way to make it better. But there is nothing that can improve on the blessed simplicity and beauty of our good old King James Bible. Just like our mouse traps, it has stood the test of time. Those old fashioned mouse traps are really simple to use once you figure it out. The first couple of times you try to set one, it takes a little getting used to. You have to know how to load the bait and hold it just right to set the spring. Then you have to be very careful and set it down gently so it doesn’t snap your fingers. But when it is operated properly, it works every time.
The same is true with the Bible. The first few times we pick it up, we are not sure how it works. We read a bunch of lists of “begats” and stories from cultures we are totally unfamiliar with, and we are afraid the Bible is going to “bite” us. We see the “-eth” on the end of all the verbs, and it scares us. We have flashbacks to our High School when we were forced to read Shakespeare. It would have been less painful to shove an ice pick in our eyes. So everyone wants to find a way to “make the Bible better” and in the process, they make it worse. There has never been an “update” of our beloved Bible that improves on the clear way God communicates to his people. You just have to know how to operate it. Operating a mouse trap can be mastered in a few minutes, but a Bible takes a lifetime. Unfortunately, in our “instant” society, most people will not invest the time to do so. But the health of your soul is far more important than the comfort of your home. Ridding your home of unwanted pests is not nearly as vital as ridding your life of the influences of the pest of the “god of this world”. Open your book and learn how to use it. The blessed pages of the word of God work every time.
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