Wonderful Words of Life

Providence Baptist Church

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Amen. I said this morning that God has been good to us, and one of the ways that God has been good to us is giving us

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His Word. And so tonight we continue the exposition through Psalm 119.

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I am mindful that next week a lot of things will be happening.

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A lot of people will have to step up and do various things.

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I know that Wednesday night I won't be here to drive the van. Next Sunday, Pastor Jacob will be preaching

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Sunday morning, Sunday night. I know he doesn't mind that. I know he's called. But it's an extra bit of work for him and for others, and so I'm much appreciative of that.

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And God has really been good to us, and so I'm grateful that we have people that are able to do these things.

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So I just want to say thank you for that. In Psalm 119, we have made our way all the way down to verse 129.

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What I want to speak to you about tonight simply is the wonderful words of life.

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And this is going to be one of those sections that we're not going to get through the whole section tonight. Really, I think just the first two verses.

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But let's stand and let's read the stanza together. Verse 129

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Your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore, my soul keeps them.

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The unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple.

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I open my mouth and pant because I long for your commandments. Turn to me and be gracious to me as is your way with those who love your name.

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Keep steady my steps according to your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me.

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Redeem me from man's oppression that I may keep your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes.

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My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law.

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Let's pray. Father, would you help us tonight? I pray that you would grant me power in the pulpit.

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Power from on high. That you would help me to preach rightly and well. Lord, you would show me grace and show your people grace.

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Give us ears to hear. Let us be encouraged tonight and challenged in the areas that we need to.

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Even draw sinners tonight from death to life. And we pray even that we would understand the glory and wonder of the scriptures.

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We'd love them more and cherish them. We would be people of the book. We pray this in Jesus' name.

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Amen. You can be seated. I read those verses and I really see seven things that the word of God produces in the lives of believers.

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We need to remember that the word of God is powerful. I was talking this morning with a brother about the power of the word of God.

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You understand that we live in the Bible belt. And there are things about the Bible belt that make me sad and make me frustrated.

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But I will tell you this. That we see the residual effects of the power of the word of God even in our culture today.

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What I mean is there is a blessing to live in a place like this. Even though there's evil. Even though there's sin.

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There are vestiges of morality and conservatism that's left over here from really decades and generations of the power of the word of God.

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And so that just speaks to us tonight of the power of God's word. Now, in the life of believers,

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I see seven things from our text that the word of God produces. But tonight we're going to cover two of those.

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And when I get back, Lord willing, we'll have a time and cover the other five.

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So first of all, what does the word of God produce in us? Well, first of all, I want to say from our text, it produces delight.

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So look at verse 129. Your testimonies, now listen to this, are wonderful.

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Your testimonies are wonderful. One of the attributes of Scripture, you know an attribute, we've been talking about the attributes of God from Nahum 1 -7.

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An attribute is just like a characteristic or a perfection. One of the perfections, one of the attributes, one of the characteristics of the word of God is that it is wonderful.

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The Bible is wonderful. In Matthew 24 -35, Jesus says,

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Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. We talked about this morning about how creation is wonderful.

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So think about this for just a moment. The sky above is wonderful. The fall breeze today was wonderful.

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Now I know we all know that second summer or fifth summer or whatever is coming back. That is how it is in Arkansas.

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But we enjoyed the wonderful fall weather today. The oceans, the snow, the fall leaves, eventually pumpkins, pumpkin pie.

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All these things are wonderful. But Jesus says, all these things are passing away. And the point is, even more wonderful than these things are the testimonies of God.

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The word of God is wonderful. Of this Hebrew word for wonderful, Alan Harmon notes this.

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So what does this word mean, wonderful? It is a word exclusively used of God's actions or words.

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And marks out what cannot be produced by human effort. In other words, the testimonies of God are wonderful.

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And one of the things that makes them so wonderful is they can't be produced by human effort.

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This means the sense of the word wonderful in English, full of wonder, right? Man's hands cannot produce this wonderful book.

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But God can. His testimonies are full of wonder. They are glorious. They have been handed down to the church.

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They have been preserved for us by His kind providence. And I'm saying to you tonight that the

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Bible really is a wonderful book. And the point that I'm trying to make in this first heading is that the word of God produces a delight in the people of God.

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And what I'm saying here is, specifically, it produces a delight in the people of God for the word of God.

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Do you understand? Do you understand that when we encounter the word of God, when we sit under the preaching of the word of God, like one sure sign of someone in a bad spiritual condition is if they can't stand the word of God.

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If when you quote the word of God, they don't want to hear it. If they always find an excuse for why they can't come to Bible study.

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If they don't like to sit under the preaching of the word of God. That signals a very serious spiritual condition.

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Because believers love the word of God. God's testimonies are wonderful, friends, because God is wonderful.

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Right? And since God is wonderful, He does wondrous things. He works wonders.

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And there's a connection, of course, between God and His word. There's a connection between a paltry view of God and a paltry view of His word.

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Many people, we talked about the blessings of the Bible Belt. Well, let me talk about the problems of the Bible Belt.

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In the Bible Belt, there are a lot of people who say they have a high view of God, but they don't have a high view of His word.

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I'm saying this is impossible. If we have a high view of God, then we say like the psalmist, your testimonies are wonderful.

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We don't say things like, I love God, but I don't like the Bible, it was written by men.

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The Bible's corrupted, you can't trust the Bible. No, these go hand in hand. A high view of God results in a high view of the

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Scriptures. Frankly, I'll put it to you this way. Often when we don't treat the

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Bible the way we should, it is because our view of God is too low. One year about, well, this is 2011, so 13 years ago,

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I went to Romania. Now, they were wrong, Eastern Orthodox, and they were wrong in many ways, but they did have something that stuck out to me.

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And that is when you were talking with people, having conversations, sharing the Gospel, one thing our translators told us that you can never do is you can never set the

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Bible on the ground. So when you're sitting down in a chair or whatever, it's very convenient. If you're just sitting there in a chair, you don't have anywhere else to set your

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Bible, it's very convenient maybe to be tempted to just set it there on the ground. Well, in that culture, it was a huge no -no.

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You don't set the Bible on the ground. Why? Because they had, at least culturally speaking, they had this high idea of the

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Bible. You don't set it on the ground. Well, they were wrong in many regards, but that's something I think that we could have in our mind.

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Not that you can't ever set the Bible on the ground, but this idea that we revere what this book is. This book is the

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Word of God. This book is God's communication to us, and so we should revere it.

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Our view of God should be big. One who is redeemed delights in God's Word because he or she delights in God.

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They desire obedience out of delight, not drudgery.

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Listen to what Matthew Henry says of this verse. So let me tell you a little story about Matthew Henry. There's 176 verses in Psalm 119.

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And so his dad taught him when he was growing up, they would read and meditate on one verse from Psalm 119 a day.

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So if you just do the math, you can get through the 176 verses twice. A little over that, but twice in a year.

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So he loved this psalm. Here's what he says about this verse. Matthew Henry, The Word of God gives us admirable discoveries of God and Christ and another world, admirable proofs of divine love and grace, the majesty of the style, the purity of the matter, the harmony of the parts are all wonderful.

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Its effects upon the consciences of men, both for conviction and comfort, are wonderful. And it is a sign that we are not acquainted with God's testimonies, or do not understand them if we do not admire them.

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In other words, here's what Matthew Henry is saying. This is a wonderful book. It is wonderful because it reveals to us who

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God is. Now, yes, creation reveals God. His eternal power and divine nature, Romans 1 says, have been clearly perceived.

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So we can see that God is real from creation. But we don't know that He's a triune

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God. And we don't know the Gospel from creation. So how do we learn these things?

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From the Scripture. So the Scriptures are wonderful because they reveal the saving ways of God.

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They show us God's glory in a more beautiful way. They show us the way that Jesus saves.

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They show us that we fall short, but that Jesus has come and fulfilled all righteousness. That He has kept the law of God that we have turned our back on and forsaken and broken and gone our own way.

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It shows us that God is just by punishing Jesus Christ in our place. That Jesus willingly goes to the cross, the obedient one, and He dies as our wrath satisfying sacrifice.

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The wrath of God reserved for us falls upon Christ. You don't get that in any other book. You don't get that in the testimony of creation.

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It's only in the Scriptures. This Jesus raises again from the dead on the third day. And the

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Bible tells us all who turn from their sins and look to Jesus, who call upon the name of the

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Lord, will be saved. This is why the book is wonderful. Because the testimonies of God are wonderful because they show us a more excellent way.

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They show us God. They show us our need. Needy is an understatement.

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How we're wrought with sin. We continue in sin. We've been infected with sin, but we're not victims.

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We're perpetrators, if you will, of sin. We follow after our own lust, but God has done something about it in Christ.

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That's the Gospel that you just heard. You wouldn't know this information, I'm saying, if we didn't have

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God's wonderful Bible. The Bible produces in believers delight in the

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Word. We love our Bibles because we love God. Now that's not all verse 129 says.

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Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore, my soul keeps them.

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The word for keep, it has the connotation of observe or guard or watch.

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Basically, I want to watch over God's Word in order to learn what it says and then do what it says.

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You understand? I want to watch over it. I want to learn it. I want to do it. I want to know it. I don't want to just know about God.

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I want to know God, and I want to live for God, and I want to align my life with the

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Scriptures. I want my family to be ordered by the Scriptures and our church to be ordered by the Scriptures and the way that we talk and think and live and see the world.

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We want it all to be ordered by the Scriptures. And some of you tonight, you need to consider that. You need to think about that.

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It's not just the church. That's good. But it's more than that. We want to have our life molded by the

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Bible. You see there's a word there that I think helps us. It says your testimonies are wonderful, therefore, my soul keeps them.

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Now you just think about that for a second. In other words, he's not just saying your testimonies are wonderful, therefore, when

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I think about it, when I don't have anything else better to do, I try to do what the Bible says. No, it's very strong language here.

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My soul keeps them. I'm not just out here doing things externally for people to see.

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I'm actually bought in internally. You understand tonight that this is the way the human heart is designed.

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So, think through this with me for a second. But God has made the human heart.

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I'm trying to think how I want to say this. God has made the human heart to be invested.

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He's made the human heart to buy in. That's what worship is.

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So, for example, this is why idolatry is such a problem.

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Idolatry is a problem because our hearts are made to latch on to things. Right? For example, it's why your day might be ruined because the

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Razorbacks lose a football game. Right? Well, your heart's latched on to that. Or, some of you aren't sports people.

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I'll use the Avengers or something, or Star Wars, or whatever nerdy thing.

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So, the idea is, you're like, okay, you can laugh at the sports people, but your heart does the same thing.

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Right? I've got to know everything behind the scenes and all the other things. Oh, what's a little Easter egg in the movie?

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I'm just saying our hearts are really prone to reach out on things. Ladies, you too, to reach out to things and to latch on to things and to worship things.

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In fact, while I'm on this tangent, let me give a caution to parents. So, parents and young people. I'm thinking about some teenagers in here, people who are almost some teenagers.

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I need you to listen to this. This is a, I'm not trying to like,

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I'm not trying to come down on anybody. We can talk through this more. We can work through it. But, I'm just giving some general counsel, if you will.

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It's not a good idea to encourage boyfriend and girlfriend stuff at a young age.

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All right? It's not a good idea to do that. And, one reason that that's not a good idea is because our hearts are made to really invest.

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And, sometimes we're just setting our children up. There's physical things. Obviously, that could be a problem for sure.

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But, even internally, we're setting ourselves up for our children's heart to be latched on to someone else's heart before it's time for them to be ready for that.

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You understand? Because our hearts were made to do that. Now, here's what I'm trying to say in terms of our verse.

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This is the reality of our heart. But, when we're born again, our heart now has the ability, by God's grace, to begin to do what it was originally designed to do.

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Which is what? Glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So, apart from regeneration, our heart is only reaching out, trying to latch on to idols and worship false things.

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But, when we're born again, we want to worship God. We want to glorify God. We want to enjoy God forever.

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So, while in many areas, we certainly must guard our hearts from becoming wrapped up in things that it should not be, this is not true when it comes to the

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Scriptures. In other words, give your heart to the Bible. Give it all.

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Right? Let your heart feast and be wrapped up. Your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore, my soul keeps them.

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My heart's all in when it comes to the Word of God. Because my heart is

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God's. And I give my heart to God. So, be careful of giving your heart to other things.

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But, when it comes to the Scriptures, when it comes to what God says, and when it comes to who

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God is, and when it comes to the person of God, no, no, no. You don't be cautious there. You give

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God your whole heart. May our hearts be wrapped up in the wonder of God.

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And by extension, of course, what our text says, the wonderfulness of His Scriptures, so that our soul keeps them.

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Now, before we move on, I just remind us here, how do we get to that point? So, if you're a

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Christian and you say, I want my heart to be more wrapped up in the Scriptures, what do I do?

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Now, this isn't going to really probably, you know, motivate you or make you really, really excited, the first thing

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I'm going to say, but one of the things you do is you read the Bible more. You're like, what?

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I thought you were going to tell me something like, if I just crack the code, or maybe if I burn some incense, or maybe if there's some sort of magic formula, and if I just do this, then all of a sudden, that's just how it works.

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God, in His wisdom and the way that He sanctifies us, He has chosen, often, long, discontinued, repetitive exposure to the

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Word of God to continue to increase in us a love for God. So, what am

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I saying? It's very simple. Keep reading the Word, because the Word of God produces in us a delight for the

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Word of God. Keep sitting under the preaching of the Word of God. Continue to invest yourself in discipleship, whether that's being discipled, or discipling others, or hanging around the

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Word of God, because it's through the Word of God that God causes us to grow in delight for Him.

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The power of the Word of God produces in us a delight for the

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Word of God. Now, if you're not a Christian, you need to repent and believe the Gospel. You need to run to Christ.

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You say, I don't love the Bible, and I realize tonight the reason I don't love the Bible is because I don't love

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God. And what I need is for God to break my heart. I need to be born again. I need to repent and believe the

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Gospel. Well, sir, ma 'am, little boy, little girl, do that then. Call upon Christ and be saved.

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So, the Bible, the power of the Word of God in our life is that it produces delight.

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Secondly, this is the last one for tonight. It produces discernment. So now we go to verse 130.

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So your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them. The unfolding of your words gives light.

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It imparts understanding to the simple. So to the natural man, the

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Word is shut up. It seems strange. They may be able to quote a few Bible verses, but it just seems too complicated.

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They don't understand it. They don't like it. It just seems like a waste of time for them. But to the redeemed, they long for God's Word.

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They want to read it. They want to know it. They want to have it explained to them. They want to hear it preached.

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It doesn't mean, you know, every sermon is just like a home run for you. But you like the preaching of the

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Word of God, of course. Why? Because the unfolding... Why do you want to be so exposed to the

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Word of God as a believer? Because you believe this verse. The unfolding of your word gives light.

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You remember Psalm 119 .105? I have it memorized in the King James. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

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So when I read the Word of God... So listen to me. When I read the Word of God, when I hear it preached, when

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I meditate on it, when I pray through it, what is happening is the Holy Spirit is illuminating.

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Oh, He's working in that. He's working by, in, and through the Word. He's illuminating the Word of God so I can see it, and understand it, and know it.

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And it's by that work that I have light. I have discernment. I can see, oh, you know what?

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I should choose to do this, and not do this. I should turn this way, and not this way.

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I should vote that way, and not this way. I should lead my children this way, and not that way.

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You understand? Because the unfolding of God's Word gives light.

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It imparts, the text says, how I love this a lot. This is probably my favorite underrated verse.

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The verse no one knows, that's one of my favorites. It imparts understanding to the simple.

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Now, why do I love that? Because we don't need scholars in the church as much as we just need people hungry for the

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Word. Hey, listen, I have no problem with studies. I have no problem with seminary.

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These are good things. But I also know, I've also seen and been around, and may the

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Lord keep me from this error as well, people sitting around in their ivory towers discussing theological matters.

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Discussing whether or not you have to read Thomas Aquinas. And yet, they're not bringing anything practical to bear on the people of God.

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And I say to us tonight, that the Word of God imparts understanding to the simple.

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You don't have to be a scholar to follow Christ. You just have to love

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Him. You don't have to be born again, and by that being born again, you love Christ and you love

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His Word. You say, but can I follow Jesus? I don't got it all figured out. Hey, amen.

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I don't got it all figured out. But we sit under the continued teaching of the Word of God, trusting that the

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Word of God imparts understanding to the simple. Children, listen to me tonight.

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The Word of God imparts understanding to the simple. I could ask some of you little boys right now if you could tell me what 12 times 12 is, and you don't maybe even understand what

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I'm talking about. But I can tell you this, you may not be able to understand what 12 times 12 is, but you can know that Jesus Christ will save you if you'll trust

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Him, right? If you'll turn from your sins and you'll believe on Jesus Christ, He'll save you.

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He'll save you boys even right here in the front. He'll save you girls. He'll save you here.

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He'll save you. You don't have to be a scholar to understand that, do you? You don't have to have the ways of the universe figured out in order to understand that simple message.

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The Gospel's very simple, isn't it? We are sinners. We've broken God's law. We deserve

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His wrath. Jesus Christ has stepped in and paid the penalty for us. And He's risen again from the grave.

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The Word of God imparts understanding to the simple. I also mention this, the word for light in the text is the same word in Genesis 1 -3 when

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God says, we know this, right? Let there be light. Paul quotes this,

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Genesis 1 -3, Psalm 119 -130, the unfolding of your words gives light.

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It imparts understanding to the simple. We'll actually close tonight over here in 2 Corinthians 4.

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So I'll just say, in 2 Corinthians 4, I've got to turn there myself,

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Paul quotes from Genesis 1 -3, but listen to how he says it. So he'll quote it in verse 6, but we're going to back up and run to it so we get the context.

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So verse 1, Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways.

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We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.

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In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the

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Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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So the text has said, the unfolding of your Word gives light. It gives light to the believer.

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It gives us discernment. It shows us the way that we should go and how to live. But what this text is saying is, that the

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Word of God is also the means by which God shines the light in our hearts.

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That's how salvation works. Did you know that? Did you know that? How does salvation work?

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As the Word of God is shared or preached or read, as the Gospel from the

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Scriptures is revealed, what the Holy Spirit does at the moment that He's ready to,

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He says to the sinner's heart, let there be light. Parents, this should be an encouragement for us.

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We should expose our children as much as we are able in family worship, in Sunday school, on Sunday morning,

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Wednesday night, we want to expose them to the Word of God. Why? Because we know that the

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Holy Spirit is pleased to use the Word of God and impart understanding to the simple, to say to that little boy's heart, to say to that little girl's heart, let there be light.

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And then, that little boy or little girl, in response to that, or that man or woman, by the way, that's why

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He says we don't practice cunning. We don't have to do gimmicks when we go out and proclaim the

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Gospel or knock on people's door. We're not trying to be funny or trying to do gimmicks.

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We're not saying, hey, watch Pop juggle chainsaws. You know, I would like to see that actually, but that would have nothing to do with the

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Gospel. What we do is we say, here's the Gospel. Or as we preach, we say, here's the

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Gospel. Or when you come on Sunday mornings, we say, here's the Gospel. Why do we do that? Why don't we give away a car?

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Why don't we give $1 ,000 to everyone who gets saved, right? Why don't we have a, there's a church, I won't say the name, but there's a church in a different part of the state, but it has a fire truck baptistry.

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And so when children get baptized, it does all the bells and the whistles and confetti falls down.

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Well, what do you think that does to kids? What does it make them want to do? I want to get, are you kidding me?

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I want to get baptized. In fact, there's a part of me in the flesh that's tempted to go to that church and get baptized myself.

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Right? I want to be in the fire truck. Okay? Right? But we don't have to do that stuff. Why? Because the

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Word of God is powerful. It's the Word of God that imparts understanding to the simple.

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It's by the preaching and heralding and teaching and proclamation of the Word of God that the

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Spirit of God goes into the wretched sinner's heart and says, live, let there be light.

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Our hope is not in cleverness, but in Christ as revealed in the

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Scriptures. I'm telling to us tonight that this is the power of the Word of God. So what about you?

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Is God's Word a delight to you? Does it bring discernment to your life? If the answer is no, remember the problem is not in you.

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Or sorry, the problem is not in the Scriptures. The problem is in you. So what do you do about that?

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Well, one practical piece of advice is take up the Bible and read it. But also, most important, go to God.

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Go to God in Christ. Trust Him. Believe the Gospel that you've already heard tonight at a couple of different points.

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God saves sinners by what Jesus has done, by His life, death, burial, and victorious resurrection.

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Now, if you are a believer, let us have this resolve to be people of the

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Book. I'll just close with this. I said I was going to close with 2 Corinthians 4, but I'm really going to close with it.

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I'm just going to read it. And then I'll pray. So that's my word to you. I cannot comment.

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Just reading and then praying. Philippians 2 .12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is

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God who works in you, both to will and work for His good pleasure.

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Father, we thank You for this night. We pray that Your Word would not return void. Sanctify us by it.

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Let us delight in it. Let it give us discernment. Even tonight we pray. Pray for the young men who are here listening so well in the front row.

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I pray, God, that You would be pleased that the Word of God would be planted deep in their hearts and that they would repent and believe the

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Gospel. Pray for others who need to trust Christ that they would. We pray for the church that we would be a people of the

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Book and live according to what it has said to us and we would see the