Daily Devotional – Aug 27, 2020

Faith Baptist Church

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A good Thursday to you and I hope you're doing well this week, getting a lot accomplished and living out the purpose that God has for you, whatever your calling might happen to be and I hope you're doing well.

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I hope if your kids are in school that they're enduring that well too.

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Some of you may be homeschooling your children. I trust that's going well as you get started this new school year and maybe this is your

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Bible time every day, I don't know, but if so, I hope it's a help, it's a blessing to you.

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We've been looking this week at the Song of the Enlightened Mind, speaking of school and teaching and learning and having the minds of these little ones and young people enlightened.

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The Song of the Enlightened Mind, Psalm 19, and we've been talking, we talked earlier in the week about how the psalm opens up glorifying

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God, praising God for his supreme power as it's revealed in creation and creation does that.

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Creation reveals that supreme power of God as the creator.

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But then verses 7 and 9, we've looked at the last couple of days, speak more of the personal

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God, the personal Savior, uses the name Lord or Yahweh in verses 7 through 9.

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And this section refers not to the general revelation of creation, but the special revelation of God taking the initiative to verbally communicate truth to man, revealing things about himself, revealing things about man, revealing that which is true, that which is necessary for eternity, for eternal life, and for living in a way that pleases

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God here on this planet. So these verses, let me read them again, verses 7 through 9.

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We've looked at the nouns and the adjectives in these verses. But today in verses 7 and 8,

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I want to focus on the personally powerful impact of the

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Lord's special revelation of his word. So it says, The law of the

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Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The King James translates that converting the soul.

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The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the

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Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

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It goes on to say, The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the

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Lord are true and righteous altogether. So I want to focus on verses 7 and 8 because those two verses, after a description, an adjective that describes the noun, the psalmist goes on to say, here's what this does.

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Here's what this special revelation from Yahweh does to the individual.

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So he says, first of all, the law of the Lord is perfect or complete, reviving or converting the soul.

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So one of the things that this special revelation does for the individual is it sends you in a completely new direction.

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If we use that term, the word does the King James use it, converting the soul, reviving the soul is the same thing, bringing life to the dead soul.

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Only the word does this. The word does this, God's special revelation does this.

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So here's to contrast general revelation and special revelation. Have you ever gone out at night?

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Maybe you did this last week or so when we had that Perseid meteor shower come through and you went out late at night, pitch dark, you went out into the country, no city lights to obscure the sky.

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And it's just that utter darkness and the sky just full of billions of stars.

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You can see section of the Milky Way and every so often you'd see one of those meteors strike through the sky and its path to oblivion and you're watching this and you're just overwhelmed with awe and it just fascinates you.

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Or like we did a few years ago, have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? It was quite an experience when we went to the

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Grand Canyon. If you've been there, maybe you remember, you go from the town south of the

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Grand Canyon, several miles from that town up to the National Park itself.

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And it's like all pretty flat and kind of boring, dry, desert looking land.

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And you think, okay, well, this is interesting. And you get to the National Park and it's nicer, you've got the evergreens and so forth and you go to the park and it's a nice park and so forth.

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You get to the parking lot and you park and then you walk up the path that's going to take you to the rim.

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I'm talking the south rim, of course. It's going to take you up to the rim and it's like any other sidewalk you walk on, nothing impressive.

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And then as you walk, you're approaching the rim, it's like all of a sudden you just see the horizon.

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I mean, you just see sky, you see land and sky, it's just like a cut line.

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And the closer you get, all of a sudden, it's like the earth drops out in front of you and this incredibly massive expanse of the canyon opens up before you and it blows you away.

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It really does. And if you look around and you look at the other people who are there, you see there are some eyes as big as saucers and they're just trying to take it all in.

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Well, here's the thing about that. I mean, it is impressive and it does awe you, whether we're talking the

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Perseid meteor shower or the Grand Canyon, but it, it doesn't really, that experience doesn't really change your life forever.

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And there can be some of that to some degree when, you know, if you look at an expanse like that, you, you may get the sense of, man,

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I am just such a little thing, such a little creature. And you can walk away from there feeling so humbled and that may affect you, that may impact you for a while.

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But for the most part, you know, you, you get up the next day and you, you go about your, your job and go back to work and do whatever.

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And you, you leave the canyon and you go on to the next place, you go home or whatever. You take, you've taken some nice pictures to remember it all by, but it doesn't change your life.

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It doesn't set you in a completely new direction. Well, the special revelation of the

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Lord does have that ability to revive the soul, to convert the soul, to set you off in a completely new direction.

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Well, another thing it has the ability, the power to do is to equip you to make wise decisions, making wise the simple, this special revelation from the

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Lord can do. It gives you, it equips you with wisdom to make good decisions, to make wise decisions.

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So the, truly the Christian who knows his word, knows the Bible and the principles and precepts of the scriptures will generally speaking, be able to, to make wiser decisions than the person who, you know, has nothing to do, won't have anything to do with the

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Bible. I don't want to say that across the board in every detail of life.

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I mean, for example, there's some people who are, who are very skilled and understanding at finances and so forth.

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You can make good financial decisions that, you know, the Bible would also support those, but there are

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Christians who know principles of the Bible and they, they just don't quite get it when it comes to finance, some details of finances.

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So I don't want, I don't want to pretend that there's an exclusive handle on every aspect of wisdom in this, in life.

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But I will say this, I will say this, the Christian who understands

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God's word, who receives the special revelation from God, the principles and precepts of scripture will make wiser decisions for the welfare, the long -term welfare of his family, of his own personal life, that will, that will have an eternal impact, an eternal impact.

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It makes wise the simple. And then special revelation also enables you to live joyfully.

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It rejoices the heart. Now, just to make clear what I'm talking about, what the scripture is talking about here, it's not talking about a kind of a giddiness where, you know, you're just always d -d -d -d -d -d going through your day as if nothing, nothing can ever make you sad or unhappy or anything like that.

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You know better than that. So what is it talking about? Well, special revelation has the ability to enable you to live joyfully so that even in those times and circumstances where things aren't going so well, where something happens and you are sad and you are grieved, there is an underlying truth that mollifies that grief and that sadness.

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Now, Paul talks in 1 Thessalonians 4 about losing a loved one in death that is a believer in Christ.

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And we sorrow when one passes away, but not as those who have no hope.

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See, it is the having of the hope that is the rejoicing part that God's special revelation gives to the believer and the follower of Christ.

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And then the last thing it says, the impact that is powerfully made by special revelation is that it enlightens you to understand.

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Scripture, special revelation from the Lord enlightens you to understand. Enlightening the eyes, the passage says.

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So, for example, the Christian who has made it his purpose in life to know

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God's word, to understand his teaching, his special revelation, he has an insight and can perceive things that are going on in the world, if you will, and see them from God's perspective.

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His eyes are enlightened. The other night, this last Lord's Day, I actually preached a message on Psalm 19 in the evening service.

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And I had just read that afternoon, somebody made a comment, made a post about the fact that there's these tremendous wildfires going on in California, in a lot of different places.

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And that person said, made a comment about, you know, Governor Newsom has shuttered all the churches, ordered all the churches in the state to close.

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And now his state's on fire. Is there any correlation? Is there any correlation?

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Well, to somebody who has no interest in God and pays no attention to his word and considers it all to be a bunch of bunk, no, none at all.

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But you who know God, you who know his word, you understand that sometimes

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God will bring a calamity or allow a calamity to come upon a people who have renounced him and shaken their fist in his face.

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I'm not going to be so presumptuous as to say that's what's going on with the California wildfires.

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But here's the point. Here's the point. You have a perception. When you know God's word, you have a perception of things that the unbeliever cannot have and will not have.

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You can see a potential reality that others will be completely missing.

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Because this is the power, the personal power of the Lord's special revelation.

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Well, I hope you appreciate these things and I hope therefore you'll make much of his word, get to know it, get to know it better, grow in grace and knowledge of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Heavenly Father, I pray that we would allow your word to have these transformative impacts upon our lives.

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May we make much of that gift that you have given to us, that revelation of yourself to us.

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And this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your

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Thursday and I look forward to wrapping up Psalm 19 tomorrow. I hope you can make it back either at noon or six o 'clock or catch the recording later at your convenience.