All Things For Good: Chap. 6 Pt. 6

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Hermeneutics: Matthew Chap 24 Pt. 7

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We are still in chapter six, part six, and either this week or next week we'll conclude this chapter, we'll see how we go, but hopefully the discussion has been useful and fruitful and given us something to think about.

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So we spent a good portion of the last five parts going through 20 motivations to love

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God. Obviously the title of the book is All Things for Good, which is referencing Romans 8, 28.

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All things work for good for those who love God. And so we've talked about the worst things and the best things working for good, and then he was speaking about for those who love

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God and who those people are, and then he was exhorting us to become lovers of God and to grow in our love for him.

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So we've concluded last week the last of the 20 motivations.

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This week we will ask the question, he's telling us to love

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God. So here's the question. What shall we do to love God? Answer.

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Study God. Did we study him more, we would love him more.

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Take a view of his superlative excellencies, his holiness, his incomprehensible goodness, the angels know

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God better than we and clearly behold the splendor of his majesty, therefore they are so deeply enamored with him.

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Labor for an interest in God, oh God, you are my God. That pronoun my is a sweet lodestone to love.

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A man loves that which is his own. The more we believe, the more we love. Faith is the root and love is the flower which grows upon it.

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Faith which works by love. So we normally, we read a paragraph and then ask you a question, and somehow now

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Thomas Watson is asking the questions. What shall we do to love God? And so this, hopefully as we're, we considered those 20 motivations,

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I mean I would bring it up periodically, what can we do to increase our love? How does this cause us to love

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God? And if we're asking that question, this should keep coming up to us. Because even as believers, we still need that exhortation to love

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God. So the answer, he states it clearly, is to study God.

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So the question to you would be, in what different ways can you study God? Get out of your magnifying glass, go outside.

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Through the Bible. Through the Bible, okay. And creation. Creation, yeah.

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As we consider the Bible, what are different ways? These are softball questions for you guys.

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Don't think you have to think too hard about it. Obviously the Bible is a standard. The Bible is

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God revealing himself to us. So what are opportunities for us to study the

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Bible? To find out more about God? Well, I was thinking about it.

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You know, through Bible studies, you're quiet.

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Yeah, I mean, go ahead. Means of grace. Means of grace, yes. Keep going back there, but.

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We keep going back there, for a reason. As a church body, we have corporate Bible studies.

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We have Sunday schools. We have worship service. All of those ways are. Right. Right. We also have, in the worship service, we have prayer.

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Wednesday nights we have prayer. You have your own time of prayer. Your prayer should be informed by the scriptures.

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We've talked about this before. You know, Jesus says, if you ask anything in my name,

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I'll grant it to you. But what does that mean? Just tag on in Jesus name at the end and he'll give it to you?

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It's a magic formula? No. What does it mean? In accordance to his will.

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A prayer that's in accordance with his will. Right. I didn't give her all the answers before. Right.

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In accordance with his will. So how do you know what's in his will? Again, the scriptures, right?

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We go back to the scriptures. But we find that as you grow in your understanding of the word, as you grow in your understanding of the faith, you realize that your prayers don't change

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God. But God uses your prayers to change you. To direct your heart towards his word.

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To remind you of his word. And we can see how God responds to us.

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Does someone want to open up to Psalm 63? He references that first verse. 63 -1.

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Oh God, you are my God. Right after he says, labor for an interest in God.

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Someone have it? Want to read it out? Nice and loud. Verses 1 -8. 1 -8? Yes. Nice and loud.

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Okay. Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you.

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My flesh feeds for you. As in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary.

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For holding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

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So I will bless you as long as I live. In your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food.

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And my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. When I remember you on my bed. And meditate on you in the watches of the night.

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For you have been my help. And in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you.

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Your right hand unfolding me. Very good. Okay, so what do we see there?

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Laboring for an interest in God. Look what God has done for the psalmist, right? Um. But what is he saying?

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How does he labor and show an interest in God? How does he pursue his relationship with God?

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It's an open book test. Says. I think by knowing the attributes of God, you know, he experienced

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God's love and kindness, and his gentleness, and you know, you get to know him just by spending time with him.

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I think the more you know about his characteristics the easier it is to relate to him, to love him more. Yeah, as we've been talking about, the mentoring group has been talking about God and the simplicity of God and the attributes of God.

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And that has filtered through through our Sunday school lessons. We've been talking about the attributes of God as we go through the book of Nahum with Pastor Anthony.

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And so, Erica mentioned systematically, you know, you have systematic theologies can point out all these different categories about God, but you have systematic theology, you have biblical theology, you have all these different ways of kind of studying and getting that academic information.

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And as we read through the Bible, we're also living this, we're applying what we know.

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Think about how the psalmist talks here. He says, earnestly

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I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you. He goes, I looked upon you in the sanctuary.

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You know, when he's gathering to worship, and he's reflecting on what God has done, and what he's doing.

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He says, beholding your power and glory. And he says, my lips will praise you, I will bless you, I will lift up my hands, my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.

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I remember you on my bed, meditate on you in the watches of the night. And the result is he's singing for joy, his soul clings to him.

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This is, he is pursuing God, he's thinking about God, he's allowing

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God to fill his thoughts, and so he's using the means of grace, he's gathering for worship, but he's also thinking about what

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God has done for him. You know, we have this constant reminder, Old and New Testament, but Old Testament, you know, they're constantly telling the people to, you know, tell the law to your children, teach them the law, they have boundaries set up, they have, you know, piles of rocks, so that they can explain, this is what the

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Lord did for us. And so they're constantly telling the next generation about the goodness of God, what he has done, the kindness he has shown.

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I think the names of God help with that, to reveal his character. The Lord is called the

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Good Shepherd, what does that mean? So knowing the names of God will help you know

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God's character. Yeah. There is so much to study in the Word, just to take time to just meditate on, this is his name, this is how he is known, this is another attribute of him, this is another aspect.

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This is a way to labor, but it's a fruitful labor, it should be an encouragement to you as you consider just how good

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God is, and what he's done for you. And also helps give you a truthful understanding of who he is.

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There are some people who only want one part of God, right? They have a character of, oh, it's just God is love, you know.

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We've talked about this before, you know, we hold to Reformed theology, we emphasize just how sovereign

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God is over all things. And we have brothers and sisters who would say, oh no,

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God would never do, he would never bring evil to pass, he would never bring calamity. And what's one of his names,

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Pastor Anthony? Jealous. Jealous, right. Vengeful, wrathful, that's not his name, but he's a jealous.

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He is a jealous God, but the God who strikes. He's the

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God who strikes. And so we want to have an accurate picture of him, but when we fully understand it and his holiness, these things will cause us to love him more.

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As we remember that we were his enemies, and yet look how he has shown us love. And at what cost?

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Because he's holy. He's just. And so he has given us his son, that we might have life.

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So we should be studying these things more and more. It says, make it your earnest request to God, that he will give you a heart to love him.

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This is an acceptable request, surely God will not deny it. When King Solomon asks for wisdom from God, the request please the

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Lord. So when you cry to God, Lord, give me a heart to love you. It is my grief,

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I can love you no more. Oh, kindle this fire from heaven upon the altar of my heart. Surely this prayer pleases the

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Lord, and he will pour of his spirit upon you, whose golden oil shall make the lamp of your love burn bright.

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So, it says, make it your earnest request. Has anyone ever thought about that? Lord, help me love you more.

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Yeah. Yeah. And if you haven't, think about it. Go ahead,

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Ashley. Yeah, that was actually, um, actually making it that desire.

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Praise God. Praise God. I mean, think about, think about the commandments.

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Think about the things that we do ask God for help with. Right? Help me to do my job well. Help me to remember all the things

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I need to remember. Um, you know, give me the strength for this day. Help, you know, you tell me to love my enemies.

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Lord, help me love my enemy. Um, help me to love my neighbor. Right? We ask him to help us in areas that we know that we struggle in.

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You know, we're having a hard time obeying him and doing whatever he's commanded us.

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Right? And so we pray, God, I can't. I need your help. But I wonder how many of us think, is it a suitable prayer?

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Should I ask God to help me love him more? Um, that's,

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I wonder if that's a request that sometimes maybe that wouldn't be how we would think of it. But keep in mind, to love him is another commandment.

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Right? What's the first and greatest commandment? The second's like it.

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Love your neighbor as yourself. Right? So, the first commandment, the greatest commandment, love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. Who does that?

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Who's got that one nailed down? Jesus. Right. That is the only correct answer.

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That's the only correct answer to that question. He commands us to love him.

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So why wouldn't we say, Lord, help me love you more. You know, I take encouragement of the father who was looking for healing for his son.

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And, you know, he says, oh, you know, your disciples, they tried to heal him and then they couldn't.

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And he goes, but if you, if you can do anything. Jesus says, if. Because anything is possible for those who believe.

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And what does he cry out? I believe. Help man believe. Right? That's a good prayer.

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You know? We, we, this is what God calls us to. He calls us to believe. He calls us to love.

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And we are dust. And it's a struggle for us. So by all means, just like you ask God for any help in any other area of your life, ask him to help you love him more.

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That is a, that is a good prayer request. Any other questions or comments about that?

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Yeah, I was saying to my husband the other day, I said, you know, God's given us 24 hours in each day. And I wish,

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I mean, how much of that time do I really spend with God? We claim so much time together and stuff.

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And now he was saying, he claims to love God, but I'm thinking, I'm sorry, Lord, I have to pray a similar prayer. I say, boy, I need to love you more.

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You're there for me 24 -7. How much time do I really put into just really spending my, you know, especially now that I'm retired, you know what

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I mean? You know, we could, my husband and I can be together in all places, but it's not the same as just being alone with God like when

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I was single, single women, it was a beautiful time. You know, the whole day I was off, I was spending the whole day with the boy, it was great.

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So now it's like, oh, Lord, how do I do this thing? I never catch up. You know what I mean? Yeah, we definitely want to prioritize our time to make sure that we're utilizing those means of grace.

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Yeah, when, you know, like you did talk, you used that verse, you know, Lord, forgive my unbelief. Unbelief is a doubt.

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So when you think, when John the Baptist was in prison and he sent a message to Jesus, are you really the one who's come?

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Are you the one? Right? So here's John the Baptist who saw Jesus, watched him, and he said, you know, are you the one?

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So there's doubting that goes away from faith, where you say, well, this just couldn't be, so God must not exist.

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And then there's doubting towards him. Right? Because God is much bigger.

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He's infinite. So to think that we're going to know every single thing there is about God is foolishness.

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So we can doubt in a good way. Lord, forgive my unbelief. I want to know more.

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I want to know more of you. And it's amazing when you pray that prayer, what God does as you read the

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Scriptures. Because, you know, my prayer lately is when I read the Scriptures is, Lord, I've been skipping over so many things.

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Just highlight the things that I've skipped over that I need, you know, that I shouldn't skip over.

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And then you read and it's like, oh my goodness. You just told me so much stuff. So, forgive my unbelief.

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Forgive my doubt. You know, draw me closer. Give me greater faith. I need more faith. And he answers those prayers.

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Doesn't he? Those are good prayers. Okay? Alright. So here now we have an exhortation to preserve your love to God.

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You who have love to God labor to preserve it. Let not this love die or be quenched.

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As you would have God's love to be continued to you, let your love be continued to him. Love, as fire, will tend to die out.

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You have left your first love. Satan labors to blow out this flame, and through neglect of duty, we lose it.

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When a frail body leaves all clothes, it is apt to get cold. So when we leave off duty, by degrees, we cool in our love to God.

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Of all races, love is most apt to decay. Therefore, we have need to be the more careful to preserve it.

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If a man has a precious jewel, he will keep it safe. What care, then, should we have to keep this precious jewel of love to God?

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It is sad to see professors declining in their love to God. Many are in a spiritual declension.

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Their love is decaying. We always see actions or, like, evidences of love.

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I think it can also be difficult because you can also be doing so many actions but lacking love.

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So, you know, I think it's just it's sometimes difficult to know like, how well am

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I loving God? Yeah, it's we're called to examine ourselves.

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You know, we're called to take stock. Because, like I said, you know, we can do all these actions.

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You know, it's going through the motions. Right? We just we're in cruise control.

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We're doing all the things we're supposed to do. We're showing up where we need to show up. Or, you know, read a chapter or whatever.

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We check things off. But is love there? Or is it just...

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Yeah, so it's good to take stock of those things. You know,

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I think if you're... See, I think there's certain things that are easier than others.

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You know, there's certain things that are easier to to kind of go through the motions and you're not even aware that you're kind of on cruise control.

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You know, and your heart's not in it. But, if you're intentional, when you're in prayer, you know, and I think that's a good way to really see where your pulse is at and see if your heart is beating with love.

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What's your prayer like? You know, are you giving thanks to God?

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Are you caring about others? That'll give you some idea of the temperature of the degree of your love, right?

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Worship service. When you go on a worship service, you know, are you just there and just wait and look at your watch?

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Is it almost over? That'll be a good sign to you that your heart's not where it needs to be.

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That you need to look to preserve your love. That your love might be decaying.

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Again, you can be doing all the right things, quote unquote, saying all the right things, but your love is declining.

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I mean, here, we're warning to the church, right? You've lost your first love. So they're still doing things, but they need to go back to where they originally came from.

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So obviously, this is a real concern. It's a likely danger.

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And how do we... So how do we lose our love? How can you?

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How does your love decay? Neglect it. That's right there.

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Just being caught up in distractions. Distractions. Yeah. Time to get away from things or people.

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Hobbies. I think at least

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I can speak for myself. Obviously, we said before that means of grace.

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If we do fall into that trap of, oh, I'm too tired, right? This event's coming up, so we won't make church.

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And that starts to happen too often. You do lose that zeal.

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And it amazes me how quickly you can lose that zeal.

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If you're not in the word, if you're not among brethren, if you're not praying, if you're allowing the things of the world, either good things or bad things, to take precedent.

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It happens very quickly. Pastor Jensen and then

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Prophet, was there another? Sorry, we'll get right to you. I think it's important to note that you can be doing a lot of good things and still not loving

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God as you should. That was the admonition of Jesus to the church in Ephesus. He had some very good things to say about that church.

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They held to some pretty good doctrine. They hated the Nicolaitans. And yet, what did he say?

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Well, I have this against you. You have lost it. You have lost the first law. You have left the first law. So, it's not just a matter of doing things, but it's a matter of the motivation of the heart behind it.

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Ralph and Alex? Yeah, I'm going through Thomas Watson's book, Marcel, The Motivation of the

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City. The Motivation of the City. And yeah, when he says professors, he's talking about believers.

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Yeah. And this is just for me. You know, in the latter days, the love of many will wax cold.

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But, you know, for me, sorry.

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That's alright. For me, personally, you know,

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I need to get it back together. I need to ask for the legalities.

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I get up in the morning. Maybe I'm going, you know, and I just spend time with the

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Lord. I'm not really praying. Yeah, I'll pray for people. Obviously, my brothers and sisters.

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But just to sit in His presence, you know, and just to I don't want to use the word spiritual experience.

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Just sit in His presence and just to know Him. Just to sit and to listen to Him.

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I'm not talking about any more. Alright, Ralph, we'll talk after. No, I'll listen.

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I understand where you're coming from. I understand where, you know, what you're getting at, you know.

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And, you know, what we're not saying here. I don't think that's what you're trying to say.

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Just have this open mind. It's a baptized version of meditation where you're just clearing your mind and let whatever speaks to you.

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I have the word. You have the word open. You're meditating on the word. You're praying. Yes. You know, that is having community with God.

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God is always present with us. Sometimes it seems like we feel it more than other times.

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But to be in His presence, to be in His word, to be praying, you know, we talk about when we come for worship that we're entering into the heavenly realm, right?

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We are in the presence of God. Yes, He's on the present. He's always with us. But there are those times.

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Jerry? I still got to get back to Alex. Yeah, it's something that just came to my mind. But our minds, the way we think, the things we allow our eyes to see or our ears to hear, and then the thoughts that those develop, those can trap you and actually pull you away from the love of God as well.

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I shared this a couple of times before, but in Ezekiel, there's a section where Ezekiel is brought in spirit to Jerusalem and told to dig through the wall of one of the chambers in Jerusalem and in there were the elders and they were worshiping idols that were on the walls.

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I think it was John Calvin took that and applied it to us and our mindset.

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What is hidden in our minds and what we think about, we think God doesn't, you know.

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Or we become so dull that we don't even think about the fact that God knows what you're thinking.

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That's pretty much what I'm trying to say. A more modern day theologian of sorts,

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I'd say he was, was talking about, you know, we say the Holy Spirit indwells us.

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Our heart is his living room. Like, would you hang up pornography in his living room for him to look at?

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He's there, you know. So yeah, we're to take thought, every thought, captive to the obedience of Christ.

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Because yes, our thoughts can lead us away. Alex? What I was going to say is it feels like just in our sinful nature that any relationship that we have with anybody is so fickle.

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And, you know, even husband and wife, you know, how many times do they lose the love because they didn't fight strong enough for that.

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Or even a child and their parent, the child's rebelling because, you know, they didn't see all that the parent did for them.

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Or they just got complacent or just used to receiving all the gifts that they received.

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You know, you stop caring. Unfortunately, the way that it's within our sin that almost every relationship that we have, we have to fight for to truly keep it.

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And this is the most important of all, obviously. Yeah. That's a point indeed.

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Yeah, our love tends towards growing cold, doesn't it? We have to be intentional about it to maintain relationships.

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I remember, I mean, this example, as far as an analogy, speaking to someone about like, oh yes,

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I love God, you know. Alright, well, you read the Bible? Oh no, not really. If your husband or wife wrote you a letter and said, there!

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It pours out my heart to you and all the love I have for you. Please read that. And you just left it there.

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Would they say, oh, they love me back? You know? This is a way of communication and yet we neglect it.

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Talking about the means of grace and worship and I don't know if you ever heard the story of the man,

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I think it was a Scotland, Scottish preacher. One of his congregants hadn't been to worship in weeks, months.

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You know, was just kind of doing his own thing. And so the pastor came over and he invited him in and he's sitting down in front of the fire.

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And the pastor just sat down. Didn't say a word to him. Just sat there staring at the fire. And he got up and he took tongs and took one little coal and put it away from the rest of the fire.

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And in a moment or two, it just got cold and the flame went out on it.

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Sat there a couple minutes, put it back in, and it went back up in flames.

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And they said, alright, I'll see ya. And the members was like, good sermon, pastor.

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I'll see you Sunday. It's just, I mean, the analogy of fires is a perfect one.

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You know, it's easy to go out, especially when we leave it to ourselves.

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We neglect the means of grace. We neglect the body and worship. Yeah, we can quickly turn cold.

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And so we need to preserve our love. And so, he's got four signs here.

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I don't know if we'll get through all of them. But, there are four signs by which Christians may know that their love is the king.

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Like we said, how can love the king? Obviously neglect. But here's some, a little more specific just to have to give you some signs,

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I guess. That'd be a good way to say it. Number one, when they have lost their taste.

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I was thinking about COVID right now. Providence.

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He who is in a severe illness has no taste. He does not find that savory relish in his food as formerly.

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So when Christians have lost their taste and they find no sweetness in a promise, it is a sign of a spiritual decay.

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If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, time was when they found comfort in drawing near to God.

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His word was as a dropping honey, very delicious to the palate of their soul. But now it is otherwise.

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They can taste no more sweetness in spiritual things than in the white of an egg. This is a sign that they are in decay.

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To lose the taste argues the loss of the first love. So, talking about how can we know if we're doing all those different things.

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Well, here's something for you. You read through the word and it's just words.

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Just words on a page. It doesn't move you. It doesn't convict you. It doesn't encourage you.

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It doesn't fill you with joy. It doesn't bring tears to your eyes. If there's no reaction, you're basically reading an instruction manual to a microwave that you can't get to work or something.

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Lost your taste. I mean, consider how he points out how the scriptures speaks of the word.

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It's sweeter than honey. When we don't have that sweetness,

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I should ask you a question, but I gave you the answers already. But I was thinking about this with COVID.

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That was obviously the first thing that popped into my mind. The idea of losing their taste. And if anyone here had

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COVID, I mean, I remember I lost my sense of taste for a couple days. I started listening to questionable bands.

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That's awful. I'll protect the guilty.

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I won't mention any band names. But I mean, and that really takes away your enjoyment of being able to enjoy your food.

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That's a huge part of our experience with eating. Are we as aware if we lose our taste when it comes to the word, when it comes to the things of God?

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Any questions or comments about that? Thoughts, Chris? I was actually just thinking. John Owen says something similar to this in his book

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Mortification, talking about how when someone's living in sin, they become,

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I think he put it, sermon -proof. All the preaching from the word has no bearing on you because your heart is just not there.

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It's somewhere else. Yeah. That's a good way to put it.

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Yeah. Very hard. Here's the next one.

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Number two. When they have lost their appetite, it regresses. A man in a deep decay has not that relish for his food as formerly.

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Time was when Christians did hunger and thirst after righteousness. They minded things of a heavenly aspect, the grace of the spirit, the blood of the cross, the light of God's countenance.

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They had a longing for ordinances and came to them as a hungry man to a feast. But now the case is altered.

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They have no appetite. They do not so prize Christ. They have not such strong affections to the word.

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Their hearts do not burn within them. A sad presage. They are in decay. Their love is decaying.

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It was a sign David's natural strength was abated when they covered him with clothes and yet he could get no heat.

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So when men are plied with hot clothes, I mean ordinances, yet they have no heat of affection but are cold and stiff as if they were ready to be laid forth.

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This is a sign that their first love is declined. They are in a deep decay. What do you think?

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Loss of appetite. I think what happens is they lost the art of gratitude. You're constantly grateful for things.

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We always say we want to thank the Lord for waking us up. We come in and worship in the house. We're always talking about the

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Lord and yet we still lack the time personally as much as we would want to spend with Him.

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I think it's so important to always remember that without Christ we are nothing. We can do nothing.

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So we get so comfortable and we go to church. We have this. We have that. And then sometimes we just don't really appreciate it.

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We take it for granted. Mostly because we're around Christians all the time so everything's kind of safe sometimes.

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But then when the bill of persecution comes, which we haven't experienced yet, then that's where we lack the gratitude that Jesus always was.

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It's us. We are the ones that stray away when we're uncomfortable when things are not coming our way or whatever. So gratitude is really important to me.

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Gratitude is hugely important. I mean you look at Romans 1 and before you get into that horror show of just the hardness of heart man, where does it start off?

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They knew God but they did not honor Him or give thanks. That's where it starts from.

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Lack of gratitude. A thought went through my mind. I wonder if this isn't typical to the quote church today.

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Because the hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the speaking up when things are wrong.

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We don't see that. And I think this is part of the problem. Considering like safety, here in America we have an abundance of churches and even though there are not as many

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Biblical sound churches today, we still have the word and we still have

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Christ -centered worship. So I think in other areas of the world where there isn't so much of a presence, they don't take it for granted as much.

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And so you see churches on the ground gathering for worship and really cherishing their time with the body of Christ and with the means of grace.

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So it's something that's important. Yeah, there's a sense you guys are touching on talking about having an abundance of things and sort of growing ungrateful, apathetic.

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You're just kind of used to it. You just have that affluence. And so you start not to appreciate things.

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You start to take them for granted. You start to lose that sense of gratitude, and you get very comfortable.

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But after a while, it's possible that you're even starting to lose your appetite, that hunger and thirst for righteousness, where when you have difficult times, persecution,

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Pastor Jensen was talking about Ukraine back years ago when he was there, when the wall fell, and everyone's trying to rush in, all these different ministries are trying to, oh, we've got to get on the gospel.

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And the church was thriving before. And then they brought in their gospel materialism and prosperity, and the church was actually struggling from the help that it got.

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This reminds me of the beginning of Joel, where it talks about the drunkard. And what that actually was referring to was the

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Judahites who had become so enamored with what God had given them, and wine, as symbolic or metaphoric, the blessings, that they forgot to give them.

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And in that way, also became apathetic to worship.

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Yeah. Persecution comes.

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That's who's really clinging to the Lord and who's not.

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That's going to bring about some matter of revival, because you're going to have to pick a side. But I think when we're seeing these hard times, this should be a huge, this should be a clarion call for the church.

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We're seeing all manner of unrighteousness around us. I mean, it's,

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I think what happened was we've, we just kind of took things for granted.

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We allowed certain things to get by. We weren't passionate about the Lord, about advancing his kingdom, about making him known.

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And judgment begins with the household of God. How many of us were concerned enough about remaining orthodox and meeting that balance with meeting the needs of those who are lost, the community around us?

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And we got lazy and apathetic. And now the culture has passed us by and things have gotten really terrible.

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I'm like, oh! Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus! Now we're hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because now we're seeing the fruit of not tending the garden.

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And seeing the weeds grow up so that it's choking out everything that's good. We need revival.

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But that needs to start here. We need to be in awe of the fact that God gave us his very work to know him by.

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Gosh, when we lose the awesomeness of who God is, when we start looking at things on the earth, you watch a movie or you watch a football game, oh that's awesome, that's awesome, you use that word so much, it loses its real meaning.

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God is awesome, full of awe and wonder. That's what we need to focus on.

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Amen. So, again as we look at this, we want to consider these things so we see this in ourselves.

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You know, sometimes we have a tendency to hunger and thirst for righteousness in other people.

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If only our society would be more righteous. If only they would honor God! God's like, you know me.

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And you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. You want the pagans to get their act together. May we repent.

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May revival start with us. He talks about hunger and thirsting for righteousness, craving the grace found in the ordinances.

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Times like this, I'm really glad that we have the Lord's Supper every week. The coming of hungry men to the feast.

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But do we appreciate the grace that is found in the Lord's Supper? Of course, baptism, if you haven't been baptized.

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Do we want Christ and his word? I think we have time for the last slide.

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Maybe. Number three. When they grow more in love with the world, it argues the decrease of spiritual love.

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They were once of a sublime, heavenly temper. They did speak the language of Canaan. But now they are like the fish in the gospel which had money in its mouth.

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They cannot lisp out three words, but one is about mammon. Their thoughts and affections like Satan are still compassing the earth.

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A sign they are going down the hill apace. Their love to God is in a decay. We may observe when nature decays and grows weaker, people go more stooping.

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And truly, when the heart goes more stooping to the earth and it is so bowed together that it can scarcely lift up itself to a heavenly thought, it is now sadly declining in its first love.

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When rust cleaves to metal, it not only takes away the brightness of the metal, but it cankers and consumes it.

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So when the earth cleaves to men's souls, it not only hinders the shining luster of their graces, but by degrees it cankers them.

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Preach this stuff. So, when they grow more in love with the world, what does that mean?

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Can't have two masters. Can't have two masters. You know, the overflow of the heart.

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The mouth speaks. Puritan. You can't list three words and one of them is about money.

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Right? Um, yeah, I mean, what, you'll know what's important to someone by what do they talk about.

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You know? It's funny, writing up my background and testimony for an ordination paper to be, eventually, in the future.

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And, um, I was thinking about my dad and the influence he had on me growing up.

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And I remember when he first got saved, he was going to this church and he said he's never been to a church like it since.

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Um, and it was called Manhattan Bible Church because they were in the city when he first got saved. And he goes, everyone there always wanted to talk about the

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Lord. They always wanted to talk about the Word. Like, it was just so, they were just filled with joy at, you know, speaking about the things of God.

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And he goes, you know, and he's been to churches since and been involved in churches and there's good brethren there and stuff like that, but there's a lot of people who are very content to talk about sports or, you know, current events or whatever.

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And they don't seem to have the same passion about speaking about the Lord, about His Word.

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And, um, I mean, I just grew up going to the churches he brought me to. So I didn't know until I got here.

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And I'm like, Dad! I know what you're talking about now! Because I remember coming here to Hope.

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And I remember, you know, we'd have worship and we'd have the fellowship meal after. And I remember when we were small and it was three tables.

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It was the men, the women, and the kids. And, um, the men, Bibles out, talking about what was preached on.

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We're talking about stuff that we're reading, stuff that we're studying on. Like, ah! That's wonderful.

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Um, that gives you a sign of, that's where people's hearts are at, you know. And that was something where I was trying to encourage us.

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We were trying to encourage us as the elders and saying, you know, we have this Bible reading challenge.

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We'll give something, you know, hopefully everyone's reading on their own, but if they're like, oh, what should I read? Here's a plan and maybe we can discuss those things on, you know, during the fellowship time again.

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Um, just as the church grows and, you know, want to make sure that we're keeping in mind why are we here together?

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You know, um, and we're keeping that fire growing. So, but you can tell a lot about what a person cares about, what their priorities are, based on the things that they talk about.

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So, money, things, those types of things, I mean, you know, it's not sinful or wrong to talk about current events.

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There's some serious current events going on. It bears discussion. but what are we thinking about?

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Where is our heart? You know, where is our treasure? Um, questions or comments about that?