Thankful for My Bible

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So remain standing with me and turn in your Bibles to the book of Psalms and find your way to the 19th Psalm.
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I want to say Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
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It is that week, of course, where we celebrate as a nation a giving of thanks.
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And I've often said Thanksgiving is, in a sense, one of the more biblical of holidays because even though we often think of Christmas and Resurrection Day as being focused on biblical things, if you look at the biblical holidays, there was always a time of feasting and a time of giving thanks.
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And so it's very much akin to those holidays that we find in ancient Israel.
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So this morning we're going to be looking at the subject of being thankful for the Bible.
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And we're going to be in Psalm 19 and we're going to read the entire Psalm as our focus for the morning.
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To the Choir Master, a Psalm of David.
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The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaim His handiwork.
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Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge.
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There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard.
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Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.
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In them He has set a tent for the sun which comes out like a bridegroom leaving its chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
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Its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
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The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
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The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
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The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
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The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
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The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.
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The rules of the Lord are pure and righteous altogether.
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More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
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Moreover, by them is your servant warned and in keeping them there is great reward.
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Who can discern his errors, declare me innocent from hidden faults? Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.
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Let them not have dominion over me.
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Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression.
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that as I seek to give an exposition of it, that you would keep me from error.
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For I know that I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error and I do not want to do that for the sake of your people and for the sake of my own conscience.
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I pray, Lord, that you would speak through me and by the power of your spirit fill me and help me to know that without the spirit I am nothing in this pulpit.
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And Lord, now as we look at the subject of being thankful for the Bible, may it be that we truly are thankful for the blessing that we have in this day and age to be able to hold the special revelation of God in our very hands.
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And may we cherish that blessing that you have given to us.
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And Lord, may we remember that it is that blessing, the special revelation of God, that causes people to believe that word of God that is necessary for faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.
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May it be, O Lord, today that as people hear the word, if they've come here today apart from faith, that you might use this as an opportunity to convict them and to convert them and to bring them into the family of God.
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And Lord, for those who are believers, may we hold ever tighter to the blessing that you've given to us in your word today.
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And I pray, Lord, for your strength again as I preach in Christ's name.
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Amen.
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If you're new with us this morning, I want to sort of bring you up to speed as to what we've been doing the last few months.
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We have been in a study using the 1646 London Baptist Confession as the backbone of our study and looking at the subject of systematic theology, more specifically, the theology that came out of the Protestant Reformation.
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And we chose the 1646 London Confession, the Baptist Confession, because it most closely aligned with what we teach here at Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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And today we are in Article 8, so if you'll turn in your worship folder to the very back, you'll see Article 8 written on the back.
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Now, I've said from the beginning, my goal in this series is not to give an exposition of the confession, but rather to use the confession as it were an outline of subjects that we could then go to the scripture and study the scripture about.
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So this isn't so much, as I said, a study of the confession as it is using the confession as a study tool to study the Bible.
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But this day we are at Article 8.
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And Article 8 in this particular confession deals with the subject of the Bible.
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And I want to read it to you.
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It simply says, this rule of, or rather the rule of this knowledge, faith, and obedience concerning the worship of God in which is contained the whole duty of man is not men's laws or unwritten traditions, but only the word of God contained or written in the holy scriptures and which is plainly recorded whatsoever is needful for us to know, believe, and practice, which are the only rule of holiness and obedience for all saints at all times and all places to be observed.
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This is our, again, the subject that is leading the sermon this morning, this article dealing with the word of God.
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And as I thought about this subject, as I opened the confession earlier in the week and I began to think about what I was going to preach about this week and I began to read what this confession was saying about the word of God, I began to think and ask the question, what better thing to talk about on the week of Thanksgiving than being thankful for the Bible? We are thankful for many things as believers.
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We're thankful for the grace that God has given us.
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We're thankful for the salvation that comes in Jesus Christ.
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We're thankful for the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, that blessed transaction that was made where He took upon Himself all of our sin and He gave us His righteousness where we can stand before the God of the universe clothed not in our righteousness but clothed in His righteousness, standing before Him as the Bible says, with nothing but the righteousness of Christ.
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Nothing as the hymn says, rather, nothing in my hand I bring, only to the cross I cling.
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So we're thankful for all of that.
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And on Thanksgiving Day, you have so much to give thanks for as a Christian.
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You have a Savior.
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You have amazing grace.
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But you also have something else for which to be thankful, and that is the Bible itself.
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Ordinarily, if I were preaching on this particular part of the confession, I would spend time on the doctrine of Scripture.
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I would talk about the attributes of the Bible, where it came from, how we got it, what its attributes are, and what it means to us as believers.
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And I almost did that this time again.
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I've preached that line of thought many, many times in the past.
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But I don't know how many of you remember this.
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Two weeks ago, we had our Reformation celebration, celebrating 500 years of Reformation history.
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And Brother Mike Gaydosh was here.
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And he preached in the 930 service.
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And what did he preach? He preached on the doctrine of the Bible.
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He preached on the Word of God.
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He preached on the attributes of Scripture.
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He preached on where it came from and what it means.
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And he gave us an outline of seven things to remember.
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The divine origin of Scripture, the perfect nature of Scripture, the absolute authority of Scripture, the complete sufficiency of Scripture, the timeless relevance of Scripture, the God-centered orientation of Scripture, and the Christ-centered focus of Scripture.
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And I said, you know what? If I preached that message, I would just be repeating him.
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And not that that's a bad thing to do, but it's only been two weeks.
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But if you do want to hear those things, I recommend going and listening to that message as it was wonderful.
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And it is a very encouraging message if you wonder about those things about the Bible.
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But rather than simply repeating what Mike said just a few weeks ago, my subject this morning, again, is going to turn rather than the nature of Scripture, rather more look at reasons to be thankful for it.
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And in that, we're going to go to Psalm 19.
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And we're going to give an exposition of Psalm 19 in regard to the revelation or the Word of God.
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So if you have your Bibles open to Psalm 19, I didn't put an outline in your bulletin, but if you want to write the outline down, it's very, very simple.
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Psalm 19 can be broken into three parts.
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Psalm 19 is very simple.
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Number one is the wonder of general revelation.
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The wonder of general revelation is verses 1 through 6.
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Number two is the power of special revelation, and that's verses 7 to 11.
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And then finally, the proper response to God's revelation is verses 12 through 14.
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Alistair Begg, I know many of you have probably heard of him, Truth for Life Ministries, comes on the radio.
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He says, you think of it in this way, it's God's world, God's Word, and God's worshipers.
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That's the outline.
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And I figured I wouldn't steal his outline, but that's a good way to sort of remember it.
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I'd share it with you.
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So let's begin by looking at verses 1 through 6.
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Verses 1 through 6 give us the wonder of general revelation.
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It says, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
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Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
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Stopping right there, just want to make a few comments.
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One of the most important realities that every person in the world has to face is that the world that we live in testifies every moment to the existence of God.
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When we look through a microscope, the complex nature of even the smallest cell testifies to the meticulous design of Almighty God.
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And when we look through a telescope, the immensity of the universe bears witness to His expansive nature.
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You cannot look from the left or to the right without being confronted with the reality of the existence and the glory of Almighty God.
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This is known by theologians as general revelation.
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It's called general revelation because it is given to all men without discrimination.
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It's given to all men in general.
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Every person in the world wakes up and looks at the same sky.
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Every person in the world looks down at the same earth.
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Every person in the world has to be confronted and is confronted daily and nightly with God's presence in His world.
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In fact, recently I heard an atheist and a Christian having a conversation.
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And the self-proclaimed atheist said, You need to stop looking at the Bible and you need to start looking at a microscope.
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The obvious implication of that statement was that Christians are averse to science.
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That we've never thought to look past the simple.
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That we've never thought to look past the basic.
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That we've never gone into the realm of the scientific to consider the reality of Almighty God.
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You need to stop looking at the Bible.
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You need to start looking into a microscope.
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But here's the problem.
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The more you look into that microscope and the further you examine what's under that microscope, the more you see the absolute depth of the intricate design of Almighty God.
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Even the simplest of cells has within it a world of complexity.
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Irreducible complexity.
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That did not come about through random acts of chance.
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But demonstrates the design of God's Almighty hand.
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As I sat in that hospital room with that man who was the atheist, I told the story last week.
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I sat in that hospital room and I told him, I said, look out that window and I said, you see that building? I said, you have no doubt that that building had an architect.
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Only a fool would say that that building came about through the natural processes of erosion and wind and flooding.
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No, you know that it bears the fingerprint of design.
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So too do we bear the fingerprint of design.
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And when we look at the world around us, we are confronted with the general revelation of God.
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Paul tells us this in Romans 1.
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Some of you know it by heart because I've quoted it many, many times.
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And maybe you've heard me.
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Maybe you've memorized it.
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But Romans 1.18 says this.
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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness do what? Suppress the truth.
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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.
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For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.
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So they are without excuse.
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The word in the Greek, anapologetus.
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They are without a defense.
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When they face God, I heard the atheist say once with my own ears, when I face God, I'm going to accuse Him of hiding Himself and not giving me enough evidence to believe.
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The Bible says that every man who faces God at judgment will be anapologetus, will be without a defense.
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And the defense that I just didn't know, I couldn't see, the evidence of your existence will not fly.
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When a person claims to be an atheist, they do so not because of a lack of evidence, they do so in defiance of the evidence.
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The Bible says they suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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Paul says that the existence of God is not only perceived, it's clearly perceived in the things that have been made.
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So we come back to Psalm 19, and it says, The heavens declare the glory of God.
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The sky above proclaims His handiwork.
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And day to day, this is happening.
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It's pouring out speech.
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Night to night, it's preaching.
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Paul, or rather David, in the Psalm, he treats the sky as if it were a preacher.
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He treats the sky, he sort of anthropomorphizes the sky itself.
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And he treats the sky as if it were a preacher.
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And he says, this preacher never stops.
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Again, go with me to verse 3.
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There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
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Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the earth.
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In them, he has set a tent for the sun.
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He goes on to talk about the sun, but just in the verses 3 and 4 there, he says, Right there, the sky never stops.
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It's the greatest preacher in the world, because it never runs out of energy.
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You know me, once I'm about 40 minutes in, I'm tired, I'm ready to stop.
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Sometimes I'll go an hour, and then I get in trouble.
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No, I'm just kidding.
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But you know, 35, 45 minutes, I'm about done.
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The sky never gets tired.
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It never gets done, it never runs out.
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It never wears out, it simply continues to go.
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It's not hindered by language barriers.
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It's not held back by geographical location.
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It's the greatest preacher, it never stops, and every man can see it, and knows its testimony.
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And the sun, which rises on one side of the sky, and goes across the sky, and falls to the sky, and some people say, oh, that's so unscientific.
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We know the sun doesn't rise, and make a circuit, and fall.
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Only the ancient people thought that.
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Yeah, we know.
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We've seen through Galileo's eyes, we know.
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We've seen through the telescopes.
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We know that now the earth is moving, and the sun.
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Wait, it's moving too.
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It's making a circuit too.
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But here's the point.
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When you woke up this morning, and you watched the news, the man on the news didn't say, well, this morning the earth was rotating toward the sun.
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At 7.10 a.m., now what did he say? He said the sun rose at 7.10 a.m.
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He used what's called phenomenological language.
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Phenomenological language, a big 50-cent word, simply means the language of appearance.
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And that's what the psalmist is doing in a poetic way.
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He's saying, we see this sun, this giant orb, and it is passing the sky every day, and nothing can hide from its heat.
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And you know what I'm reminded of by that? The God who created that sun cannot be hidden from either.
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In the same way I can't hide from the heat of the sun, neither also can I hide from the eyes of Almighty God who made the sun, the stars, the moon, and the sky.
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So the psalmist here is giving us a picture of the grandeur of general revelation.
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But some people might think that that general revelation is the greatest that God has to offer.
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In fact, some people might think that's the greatest that God has given.
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But the psalmist would disagree, and so would I.
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Because the revelation of God in the sky above us and the revelation of God in the world around us is nothing compared to the revelation of the word before us.
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Because this, beloved, is the special revelation of God.
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You see, there's two types.
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In theological terms, there's two types of revelation.
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There's general revelation, sometimes called natural revelation.
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And then there's special revelation.
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Special revelation is when God breaks into the natural world and He reveals Himself to someone.
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He did that with Adam and Eve.
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He did that with Noah.
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He did that with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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He did that with David.
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He did that with Moses.
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He did that through Jesus.
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And He did that with the apostles.
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And each of these men were used by God to sit down and write what that special revelation was so that it was not bound to one person and one generation.
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And it wasn't bound to simply being told in stories that could be altered and changed and moved and contorted.
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But it was written down and it was saved and it was kept and it was protected.
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It was called, in the Old Testament, it was called the Torah or the Law and the Prophets.
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And you've heard in the New Testament, you'll read the Law and the Prophets, right? And then we have the New Testament or the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And David here, he describes this special revelation.
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He uses several words.
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He uses the word Law.
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He uses the word Testimony.
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He uses the word Precepts.
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He used the word Commandment, Rule, and all of these words are meant to relate to the same thing, the written Word of God.
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And what's interesting is at this point in history, David didn't have the whole thing.
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David didn't have the whole Bible.
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David was writing what would become Scripture.
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David would have had the writings of Moses.
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He would have had the writings of Joshua.
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He would have had some of the history because he's living history.
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And of course, he would have had the Psalms that he himself wrote.
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And yet, he could look at what he did have.
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He could look in the midst of the inscripturation of the Word of God and he could say, this is perfect.
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He can say, this revives the soul.
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And I think about that and I was telling my wife about this last night.
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I said, if David could thank God for the amount of Scripture he had, how much more should we be able to thank God who we have been given the completed Canon, the Word of God in its fullness.
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As the Scripture calls itself, the whole counsel of God.
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If David had so much to praise for regarding his revelation, so too do we have even more reason to praise God for what we have.
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And David demonstrates in this Psalm how much greater special revelation is to general revelation.
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See, general revelation, we talked about a minute ago, general revelation is important.
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It shows all men that God exists and it leaves all men without excuse.
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But it is insufficient to save.
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Nobody looks at the sky and says, oh, okay, I know now that God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might take upon Himself all of our sins, die on a cross and give us His righteousness if we would simply believe in Him.
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Nobody looks at the sky and learns that.
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Nobody looks at the sky and learns there is God, one God eternally existing in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
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And these three persons are co-equal, co-eternal and distinct.
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You see, special revelation is greater than general revelation because special revelation does what general revelation cannot do.
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General revelation can damn, but general revelation cannot save.
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This is why we send missionaries.
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If general revelation was enough to save, why send anyone out? They've got the sun, the moon and the stars.
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What more do they need? They need Jesus.
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They need special revelation, which is why we pay money to put missionaries on planes and send them.
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Because if it was enough for them, with the sun and the moon and the stars to be saved, we wouldn't need to go.
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But we do need to go.
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And go we do.
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General revelation is important, but it is not sufficient to save.
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This is why Romans 10 says, How will they call on Him whom they've not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how will they hear without someone preaching? And verse 17 of Romans 10 says, Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
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David tells us how precious special revelation is in comparison to general revelation.
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If you look at verse 10, I think verse 10, and this was pointed out by Phil Johnson, I thought it was very insightful.
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He said if you look at verse 10, he says this, More to be desired are they, and they being the word of God, they being the precepts, the commandments, the law.
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This is what he's talking about.
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He says, And more desired are they than gold or honey.
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And when he's saying more desired are they than those things, what he's saying is better than those things.
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And why gold and why honey? Because these are two of the things in the ancient world that represented the good part of life.
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Gold represented wealth, and honey represented joy and fulfillment.
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Can't eat gold.
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Right? I've always wondered why gold was even valuable.
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Can't plant it, can't grow it, can't eat it, but it's beautiful, and it does represent wealth.
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And in this context, he's saying the word of God is greater than the best things that general revelation shows us.
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General revelation reveals to us gold, which is beautiful, and honey, which is sweet, and the word of God is better than both.
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The word of God is greater than both.
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And one of the ways that special revelation is better is what it does to the heart of people.
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Because while general revelation can make people aware of the existence of God, and even to contemplate the existence of God, special revelation is what brings conviction and conversion.
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And that's what we get to when we get to verse 12.
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We get to the response of God's revelation.
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Look at verse 12.
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It's interesting because if you look at it, he says, Who can discern his errors? Why the...
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You know what, as I was reading this, I've spent a lot of time, obviously I do this every week, spent a lot of time with the text I'm going to preach.
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This is three Psalms in a sense.
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You've got all this about general revelation from verses 1 through 6, and then he stops talking about that, and he starts talking about special revelation in verse 7.
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And then at verse 11, he stops that, and he starts talking about his situation.
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Who can discern his errors? And it seems as if it's a whole new Psalm.
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But it's not.
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It's not.
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Because the reason for the question is what came before it.
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When you are faced with the law of God, when you are faced with the word of God, the first thing that comes out is your insufficiency.
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Who can discern his errors? And then what does he call out for? Salvation.
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Declare me innocent of my faults.
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Why? Because the word of God makes us aware of them.
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Think about it.
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When Isaiah saw the Lord, Isaiah 6 says, I saw the Lord seated upon his throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
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And the seraphim were surrounding him, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy.
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And I, Isaiah, had a cup of Starbucks with Jesus, and we talked about old times.
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Now read the text.
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It says, I fell.
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First, he says, I hand over my mouth.
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I said, I, woe is me.
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And woe is a pronouncement of judgment.
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He says, woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord, and I now know who I am.
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The word of God lays us bare.
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It opens us up to our very core.
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It has the power, it says, it is sharper than any two-edged sword, and it is able to divide between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow.
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It's laying us bare and open before God.
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And this is what David says.
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He says, I've got these precepts.
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I've got this law.
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I've got this word.
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What do I do? I need innocence because I'm guilty.
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I need freedom because I'm in bondage.
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And so he cries out for repentance and help with repentance.
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Verse 13, he says, Keep back your servant from presumptuous sins.
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But again, going back to verse 12, he says, Declare me innocent of hidden faults.
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It's interesting that he mentions hidden faults and presumptuous sins.
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I want to ask you a question, and you don't have to raise your hand.
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I don't need any of that, but do you ever sin when people aren't looking? And use that as your reasoning because it's hidden and no one will ever see it.
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That's the hidden sins.
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He's declaring me innocent from these things.
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But then he says a step further.
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Keep your servant from presumptuous sins.
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Presumptuous sins are the sins that presume on the grace of God.
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Sins that are done all the while knowing that we're sinning.
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And this is the thing.
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Every time I hear it, my backbone gets contorted, and I just bend forward when I hear someone say, Pastor, I know it's wrong, but hear it all the time.
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People say, you know, Pastor, I know it was wrong, but David is crying out for deliverance and repentance.
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He's crying out for God to give him the strength, not only when he's hidden, but when he's presuming on the grace of God.
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God, give me strength to live a life of genuine repentance before you.
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And then he says in verse 14, or rather still in verse 13, he says, let them not have dominion over me.
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Don't let them control me.
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Don't let my sin overwhelm me.
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Let me serve you as you deserve to be served and not be ruled over by sin.
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This is the heart of the contrite man.
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This is the heart of the man who's been face to face with the word of God and he needs salvation.
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He knows he needs to be delivered from that desire.
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He needs to be delivered from that sin.
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He needs to be delivered from that dominion.
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And he desires to be blameless and innocent.
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And then verse 14, he breaks into a praise.
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Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.
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Again, this is the picture of repentance and faith.
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God, help me turn from that which is displeasing to you and help me do that which is acceptable in your sight.
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This is what only special revelation can do.
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This is what the word of God does.
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And in the end, David finds his comfort in his redeemer, the rock upon which he stands.
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It's important to understand that in his crying out for repentance, in his crying out that sin not have dominion over me, this is a picture of a daily struggle that the believer battles with.
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I think this would be a good prayer for the morning.
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Because every day we live and we face the world, the flesh, and he who is the devil himself.
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And the Bible says those great enemies that we face are there every day.
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This isn't a one-time thing.
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When people say, you know, I got saved when I was 7 and I prayed a prayer when I was 7 and I haven't talked to God or been to worship or done anything since I was 7, but I got saved when I was 7.
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I tell you, the Christian life is not a one-and-done life.
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The Christian life is a life of daily obedience and it's moving forward in our walk with Him.
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And every day, my prayer is God, don't let sin have dominion over me.
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Give me the spirit to overcome the flesh, to flee, to stand against, to battle, to live for You.
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Not because in doing so I make myself saved or even create for myself any more salvation than what Your Son has done because I can do nothing to add to the cross and I can do nothing to add to the blood of my Savior.
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I can do nothing to make myself more or less saved, but as a man who is saved, I want to be obedient to my Savior.
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Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
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And this is David's heart.
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God, don't let sin have dominion over me.
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You know what the Bible says about that in Psalm 119? Thy word have I hid in my heart that I will not sin against You.
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You see, the psalmist knew, David knew, that if we're really going to be successful in our battle with sin, the Word of God needs to be in our heart.
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The Word of God needs to not just be something that we look at as an artifact on a shelf, but it needs to be something that we carry with us in our hearts every day.
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Based on what we've seen in this psalm alone, I want to finish now.
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I want to draw to a close.
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And I want to point to seven things, and I'm not giving seven more points to the sermon, make you nervous.
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But I want to give you seven things that this text tells us we should be thankful for when it comes to the Bible.
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Seven reasons to be thankful for our Bible, and it's all in Psalm 19.
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I'll go through them rather quickly.
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Number one, it revives the soul.
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That word in the King James, in fact, we have it on our banner.
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I put the King James translation here because I like that it uses the word, oh wait, I'm sorry, the law's over here.
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The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul.
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The word reviving in the ESV is simply a translation of the Hebrew word which can mean to revive, but it can also mean to convert.
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The law is powerful.
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The law shows us our need for a Savior.
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The Bible says the law is our schoolmaster which points us to Christ.
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The law is powerful, and it's the word of God that shows us our need for a Savior.
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It revives, it converts the soul.
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Number two, it makes wise the simple.
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The word of God takes us, the Bible says, the foolishness of God is wiser than man.
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Number three, it rejoices the heart.
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For the believer to hear the word of God is to bring joy to his bones, his inner man, his soul.
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He receives joy in the heart from the word.
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Number four, it enlightens the eyes.
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It takes we who could not see.
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We could see the earth around us and we know God exists, but we don't know who He is.
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It enlightens us to that truth.
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Number five, it endures forever.
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All of this is found in Psalm 19.
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It endures forever.
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I love this text.
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The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God, what? Will stand forever.
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Number six, it is righteous altogether.
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Beloved, we don't have to wonder what righteousness is.
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We don't have to wonder what righteous means.
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It is here, and it is righteous altogether.
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And finally, it is more precious than gold, and it is sweeter than honey.
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That's seven things that we can be thankful for about our Bible right now.
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It revives the soul.
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It makes wise the simple.
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It rejoices the heart.
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It enlightens the eyes.
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It endures forever.
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It's righteous altogether, and it is more precious than gold or honey.
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Beloved, my friends, church, if you have a Bible today, you have a reason to be thankful.
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You are holding God's special revelation of himself.
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And a few years ago, I got to watch a video.
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It was put out online.
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You can still go and see it yourself, but it was of a Chinese church that received Bibles for the first time.
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They never had a hand-held Bible that they could possess on their own and keep for themselves.
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But missionaries had smuggled them in their backpacks and their suitcases, and they brought them into the room.
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And while they brought them into the room, they started tearing at the zippers to get the zippers open and to open the suitcases.
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And here were these stacks of books, and they fell upon them like children at Christmas running toward the Christmas tree.
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All of these Chinese Christians running in, grabbing their Bibles, holding them to their foreheads, kissing them, holding them to their chests.
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And the leader of the group stood and said, this is what we needed the most through tears.
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Oh, what we would have if we could just understand.
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We who have five, six, seven different translations of the Bible on our shelves at home, who have access to hundreds of translations online and access to thousands of pieces of literature to help us understand our Bible.
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Oh, that we would understand the value, the immense treasure that what we have been given and be thankful for.
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Father, thank you for your word.
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I do pray that we would be thankful for your word in a way that is new and fresh today.
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To understand that it does revive the soul, it makes wise the simple, it rejoices the heart, enlightens the eyes, endures forever, is righteous altogether, and it is more precious than gold and sweeter than honey.
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Lord, may we love the word and more so may we seek to apply the word to our lives that we might seek to live for you and not for self.
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For you, oh Lord, love us and you sent your son to die on the cross for us and you have provided for us a salvation that is secured in him.
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And Lord, we seek to be conformed to him.
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To find our joy in the blessing that is our Savior.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Well, now we're going to prepare for communion.
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Let us stand and sing.
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Give thanks.