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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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