“More Than Gold?” – FBC Morning Light (5/1/2024)

Faith Baptist Church

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Well a good Wednesday morning to you and happy first day of May. April is in the books and beginning a new month today.

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I hope your month gets off to a great start. This is my birthday month. I have a birthday at the end of the month.

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Actually this year it's on it's on Memorial Day so the whole nation is gonna celebrate my birthday this year.

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Well they may but I may not. Anyway, today in our Bible reading we're again reading

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Psalms of David and we're reading Psalms 15 and 16 and Psalms 19 and 20. Psalm 19 is really one of my favorite psalms.

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It's a psalm that praises the Lord for the two ways of revealing himself to us.

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It's two primary ways of revealing himself to man. One way is through creation.

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We call that general revelation and so the first six verses of the psalm talks about how

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God reveals himself in creation. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork and so forth.

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And then the next several verses, verses 7 through 11, extol the

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Lord for his special revelation, that is, the Bible, God's Word.

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And I want to focus on those verses 7 through 11, and the psalmist,

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David, uses several... he's writing poetry, okay, he's writing a song, so he uses several different expressions for God's Word.

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So for example he calls it the law of the Lord in verse 7, and the testimony of the

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Lord in verse 8, he calls it the statutes of the Lord and the commandment of the

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Lord. Verse 9, the fear of the Lord and the judgments of the Lord, and so he uses these synonymous descriptions to stand for God's Word.

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And then in each case he describes a benefit from God's Word. The law of the

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Lord is perfect, it converts the soul, and in verse 7, it makes wise the simple.

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God's Word rejoices the heart, it enlightens the eyes. And then a couple of characteristics, qualities, of God's Word in verse 9.

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It endures forever, and it is true and righteous altogether. So these are some wonderful things that the

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Bible does, and characteristics or qualities of God's Word that are enduring and true.

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The Bible is true, and it is righteous altogether, and it is clean. It endures forever. All right, now what

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I really want to focus on is verse 10. Now when

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I read verse 10, you'll say, yeah, I agree with that. Okay, but listen again, and then let's think.

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Let's think about it. He says, more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold.

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Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. You get what the psalmist is saying here?

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That God's Word is more valuable to me than gold, than a bunch of gold, a ton of gold.

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It's sweeter than honeycomb, which of course was the sweetest thing that they could think of, they would know in their diet.

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Now of course he's speaking poetically, but let's ask ourselves the question, can we honestly express the same sentiment?

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Here's a good way to analyze that question. So it says,

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God's Word is more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Okay, so suppose somebody comes to you and says,

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I'm going to give you this gold credit card, and it's not a credit card, it's a cash card.

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It's a gold cash card, and it has an endless supply attached to it.

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You can use it anywhere, anytime, for anything you want or need, and it will never run out.

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And you're like, wow, really? You mean like I could go buy a house and use that card and pay cash for the house?

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Yep. Or I could go to the car dealer and get a new car and just give him the card, and yep, the grocery store?

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Yep. Anywhere, anything, your heart desires or your life needs, anything whatsoever.

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And so you're thinking, you think, well you know what, for the rest of my life, wow, I can take care of my family, my kids, my grandkids, and man, okay, wow, thank you, that's very generous of you.

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But the guy says, there's one string attached. What's that?

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You can never have a Bible again. You can never open the Bible again.

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You can never read the Bible again. You can never go to church and listen to the

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Bible being read or preached from. You can't go to some place on the

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Internet and read the Bible or listen to the Bible. You have to be completely void of the

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Bible for the rest of your life. Card or Bible?

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Which are you going to take? Now, when we know that that's such a silly hypothetical question, it's pretty easy to say, there's no way

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I'd take that card. There's no way I would take that card. Well, I don't know that we know our hearts all that well, do we?

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I trust that that is true. I pray that by God's grace, if I were ever presented such an opportunity to be set for life, if I just gave up the

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Bible, that I would have the character and the grace and the strength to say, no, thank you.

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No, thank you. I'll take God's Word. I do consider it to be precious.

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I consider it to be more valuable than anything else I have, and I wouldn't want to be apart, I wouldn't want to part from it, part with it.

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I trust that's your attitude, too, and that even if this may seem to be an exaggerated statement, that it's one that comes from a heart that really loves

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God's Word, considers it to be more precious than anything else you have, and sweeter, well, sweeter than your most delightful dessert.

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Our Father and our God, may we love your Word. May we cherish it and prize it and value it above anything and everything else that we might have.

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We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your first day of May.