Good morning, everybody. Let's turn in our Bibles to Exodus chapter 20. We're gonna be reading verses one through three. Again, this is our third shot at the first commandment. Hopefully you guys are not getting bored. This is called the blessing and the first word, the directive use of the first commandment, starting in verse one, Exodus chapter 20. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. Grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, you have done far more for us than merely bringing us out of the land of slavery and merely bringing us out of the land of Egypt. You have redeemed us from the power of the devil, from the debt of sin that we owed, and from death itself. And so, Lord, we thank you that you have claimed us as your people, that you are our God. Help us now, Lord, to put you before us that we would have no other gods before you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, you may be seated. So last week we looked at the evangelical use of the first commandment and what that meant was that we held the first commandment up to our souls like a mirror and we saw how corrupt and sinful and polluted that we are. It showed us how much we are bound to Jesus Christ for redeeming us from the curse of the law, for standing in our place. This morning, we're going to turn to the directive use of the law. So in the directive use, Martin Luther says this, quote, here the law teaches us Christians what we should do and should not do to lead a God-pleasing life, end quote. So if the evangelical use of the law is a mirror that is held up to our soul, the directive use is a map. that leads us where to go. So we don't get rid of the law once we're saved. Paul said, since we're now justified by this faith, do we nullify the law? And he said, God forbid, we establish the law. So this law is for Christians. Now that I'm a Christian, how do I lead my life? All right, so that's what we're looking at. Let's turn to our exposition. Now, in the Ten Commandments, we see that eight of them are negative, meaning that they say, thou shalt not. One of them is positive, Fifth Commandment, honor your father and your mother. The fourth is a mixed commandment. It says, positively, remember the Sabbath, and then it says, negatively, don't do any work. The first commandment is one of those negative commandments. You shall have no other gods before me. So my question here is, do the negative commandments only forbid things? Do they not also require something from us positively? So children, boys and girls, if your parents tell you don't hit your little brother or your little sister, do they only require you to obey that negative command? No, what do they require? That you love your little brother or your little sister. It's not enough to just simply say, well, I'm not gonna hit him. No, the requirement is love. Jesus himself summarized the 10 commandments by two positive commands. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And what this means is that whenever the Ten Commandments forbid something, you shall have no other gods, for instance, the opposite duty is required. So what positive duty is required in the First Commandment? That you take God to be your God, that you love him with your heart and soul and mind and strength. So what does that look like? What does it look like positively to take God to be our God? Well, let's remember where we're at in this story. So where is Israel right at this moment? They're at Mount Sinai, right? And if you remember, we've said that mountains are so significant in scripture, you can actually trace redemption from mountaintop to mountaintop. So God saved Noah from the flood and rested the ark on a mountain, Genesis 8.4. The promised seed Isaac was saved on a mountain, Genesis 22.2. Solomon built the temple where the covenant of grace was administered on a mountain, 2 Chronicles 3.1. Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins of the world on a mountain, John 19.17. Daniel the prophet calls Christ's kingdom a mountain that will continue to grow until it fills the earth, Daniel 2.36. And right now, the scripture says in Hebrews 12.22, that we have arrived at Mount Zion as we come to worship. So here, Israel's at Mount Sinai, we see this negative command, don't have any other gods. Is there another mountain where perhaps this positive command is better illustrated for us? And I would say the answer is yes. The Garden of Eden was on a mountain. Ezekiel 28, 13, and 14 says, you were in Eden, the garden of God, you were on the holy mountain of God. So let's see how the Garden of Eden will help us to understand the first commandment positively. Please turn with me to Genesis 2, 15 through 17. And my argument here as we turn there is this, that God speaking to Israel at Mount Sinai is an echo of God speaking to Adam on Mount Eden. What my argument is is that these two commands are essentially the same command. So Genesis 2, 15 through 17, the Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So here we see the negative requirement at the end of the verse. Don't eat of this tree. And perhaps you think that this is a rather odd commandment, but this is actually the first commandment. He's saying, don't have any other gods. Don't eat of the tree equals you shall have no other gods before me. It's the Torah or the law of God in the middle of the garden. Remember, this was a test for Adam. Did Adam need any knowledge of good and evil to be a human being? Proverbs 1.7 says that the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. If he just trusted God and feared God, he'd have all the knowledge of good and evil that he would possibly need. To eat from this tree would be to declare that he himself is his own authority, that he himself is his own God. Now we saw this negative part last week, didn't we? What I wanna focus on is the positive part. What does it look like to not eat from this tree? What does it look like to positively obey the first commandment to have God as our God? So let's look at verse 15. Where was this commandment given? What does it say? What's the location? in the Garden of Eden, right? That word, Eden, translated means pleasure, delight, a happy land, a land of bliss. One scholar noted here, Eden was a delightful park full of fruit trees, verse 9, rivers, verse 10 through 13, gold and gemstones, Ezekiel 28, 13. So Eden was the encapsulation of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Michael Morales puts it here, that this happy land, this paradise, was the fullness of life. No matter where you turned in Eden, life was eking out. It was leaking everywhere. And the reason why is because God's presence was in Eden. In chapter three, verse eight, God walked with them in the cool of the day. Eden was where all mankind, Adam and Eve at this point, had the most intimate and intimate communion and fellowship with Yahweh God. So that's the first picture of what it looks like to positively obey the first commandment. It's paradise in the presence of God. Secondly, consider verse 16. Who is this command given to? Verse 16, we read, and the Lord God commanded the man. Stop right there. Notice it says, the Lord God commanded, or tzavah, the man. God's commands are given to men and women and children. They're not given to animals. And this is not a small point at all. My professor this last week was going over this recently, and he pointed out that God's commands are what enable us to be human beings. God's law is what separates us from the animal kingdom. We're made in his image, we're made in his likeness, which means that we can obey his commands. So he provides man the opportunity to be fully human by commanding us so that we're not living like an animal driven by mere animal instincts. I mean, just think about it. What happens to men when they're not ruled by God? Scripture shows us. They revert to being animals, to being beastly. In Jeremiah 5.8, adulterers are called lusty stallions, neighing after their neighbor's wife. Fools who return to their folly are compared to dogs who eat their own vomit, Proverbs 26, 11. False prophets are called ravenous wolves, Matthew 7, 15. Young men who pursue the prostitute are said to be like an ox that goes to the slaughter, Proverbs 7, 22. So in other words, to turn away from God's law is to revert into being an animal of ones. Why do you think American culture is like the way it is right now? Obeying the commandments is what makes us fully human. That's what God is calling Adam to be here. That's the second picture of what it looks like to obey the first commandment. It means to be fully alive, to be fully human. Thirdly, What is the positive command itself? End of verse 16, what is the positive command? God says, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. What you need to see right away is that every command that God gives us is a blessing. Back in Genesis 128, he commanded man to be fruitful. What was the blessing? Marriage and sex. Within that command, marriage demonstrates that God's commands are commands and blessings. And here, God commands Adam to do what? To eat, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, right? In the Hebrew, that word eat here is doubled up. It contains an infinite absolute verb, and it means it intensifies the otherwise terse command just simply to eat, and it renders it eat, eat, you eat. And loved ones, this is the marrow here. Adam's positive duty to make God his God was simple. Feast. Feast in paradise. In this one act we see what it means to positively obey the first commandment. Adam, by eating this tree, was given provision, promise, and pleasure. He was given provision because by eating the tree, he had everything that he needed physically to be sustained. It was given a promise because as long as he didn't eat from the other tree, he would have access to the tree of life and live forever. And thirdly, he was given pleasure. Why? Because feasting is celebration. Feasting is joy. Feasting is communion. This is why the scripture connects redemption to feasting. There are three prominent festivals in the Old Testament and they're all feasts. The Feast of Unleavened Bread or Passover, the Feast of Harvest, the Feast of the Ingathering. And Israel was required, required, commanded, for two weeks out of the year to go to Jerusalem and have a religious party, paid vacations for two weeks a year to feast with God. God promised that he would protect their land and continue to provide for them. And this is why in the New Testament, the kingdom of God is compared to a king giving a feast for his son at his wedding day. It's why we have a feast called the Lord's Supper. Who are these feasts for? They're for those who have no other God than Yahweh. It's for those who have God as their God, their Redeemer. In other words, here at Mount Eden, we see this positive requirement of the first commandment that we make God our feast. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. So that's the third picture of what it looks like to obey the first commandment. It's to have an infinite feast of the soul. So then we arrive then at our doctrine, and here it is. The first commandment invites us to feast our souls on the triune God. And right away, certainly someone is thinking, why are you making this so abstract? Just make it concrete, just shoot straight with us. Why are you talking about feasting? Just speak to us straight. Well, I actually think that this language is straight, and I think it's helpful, and I think it's scriptural. So children, boys and girls, question for you. Do you love eating? That was the most vocal. You guys have been in a long time. Yes. So question, why do you love eating? Because it brings the family together? Isn't that kind of like asking, why do you enjoy enjoyment? Or why does happiness make you happy, right? God hardwired us to love eating and he gave us taste buds and he gave us ribeyes and he gave us hot Brussels sprouts with bacon and cheese and baked potatoes and wine so that we would love feasting, right? Why do you think God designed us to love feasting? It's a picture so that we would know what it's like to have God as our God. Listen, feasting is what Jonathan Edwards would have called an image of a divine thing. An image of a divine thing. An image of a divine thing is a physical reality that points to a spiritual truth. I was discipling a young man here recently and I convinced him that the sky being blue is a divine image of God's happiness in heaven. What would it look like if it was crimson red? What would you think about God? Maybe you're like, I'm not buying that. Okay, fine. Marriage. Marriage is an image of a divine thing. It's an image of Christ and the church loving each other. How do we know that? Because Paul says in Ephesians 5.32 that this is a mystery, this thing called marriage, and I say that it points to Christ and the church. God made the physical world, everything in the physical world, to point to some spiritual truth. Now, feasting is an image that God created, food and feasting, so that we would understand what it's like to have God as our God. And I wanna consider two quick proofs of this, okay? So proof number one is the gospel feast on the mountain. The gospel feast on the mountain. This is in Isaiah 25, six. Please turn with me there. Isaiah chapter 25, verse six. This is what we read, Isaiah 25, six. On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine, well-refined. So what's the first thing that you notice here, the very first thing? Not the second thing, but what's the first thing? Where are they at? What is he saying? What's the location? It's a mountain, it's a mountain. This feast is taking place on a mountain. Redemptive history can be traced from mountain to mountain. What mountain is this? Well, it's Mount Zion, where Christ himself reigns, where the church herself meets with him, Hebrews 12, 22. Who is the feast maker on this mountain? Verse 6 says, it's the Lord of hosts. He's the one who's preparing this feast. Who is this feast for? Verse 6, it's for all peoples. What is this feast? Well, this is the feast of the gospel. How do we know? Well, let's read verses 7 and 8. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations." So, quickly, what is that veil and covering that is cast over all nations so that they're in darkness? Sin and death, right? What is he going to do with it? Verse eight, he will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away all tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth for the Lord has spoken. Who has swallowed up death? Christ, the Lord Jesus. What does that look like for people to come to him? Verse six, a feast of rich food. A feast of well-aged wine, of rich food, of marrow, of aged wine, well refined. The prophet Isaiah compared the gospel to this glorious feast on a mountain. Proof number two, the feast of Jesus's body and blood. The feast of Jesus's body and blood. Please turn with me to John chapter six. John chapter six, starting in verse 48, Jesus is speaking to a multitude here and he says in verse 48, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. And then skip down to verse 54. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. Let's stop right there. Now, this passage has caused a lot of problems for people because we're thinking with our stomachs rather than thinking with our hearts. Jesus is giving an analogy here. To feast on him is the same thing as to believe on him, to trust in him, to hope upon his name. See, Jesus is an infinitely genius teacher. He's not making things abstract and hard for us. He's actually showing us what believing upon him looks like. What does it look like? It looks like having your soul feast upon Jesus. Adam was offered that provision and promise and pleasure in the garden through the tree of life, but Christ is what that tree of life pointed to. Our provision, our promise, our pleasure comes from him alone. That's why he says, I am the living bread that comes down from heaven. If anyone eats of me, if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. If anyone trusts in me, has their feast of their soul upon me, he'll never die. Believing on Him is the feast of feasts. Our souls will never hunger and thirst again. It's to receive Him as food for everlasting life. It's being brought into the presence of God. Does that sound like a feast to you? Yes, absolutely. That's why in Revelation 19, it says, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. So loved ones, Why does God, from the beginning of Genesis all the way to Revelation, compare having relationship with God to a feast? Don't you see? The first commandment is not calling us to surrender our pleasure and joy. Obeying the first commandment is being brought back into paradise. It's being invited to eat of the tree of life. It's being invited to walk with God in the cool of the day. It's a feast, that's the first commandment. And that's our doctrine, that the first commandment invites us to feast our souls on the triune God. So let's consider then our application. How do we do this? Practically speaking, how do we feast on the triune God? We will remember that the directive use of the law directs us, it gives us a map as Christians to know how to live our lives to please Him. So consider, how the larger catechism answers this question in very concrete terms. I think they're concrete. Question 104, the larger catechism, what are the duties required in the first commandment? The duties required in the first commandment are the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God and our God, and to worship and glorify him accordingly by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of Him, believing Him, trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in Him, being zealous for Him, calling upon Him, giving all praise and thanks and yielding all obedience and submission to Him with the whole man. being careful in all things to please him, and sorrowful when in anything he is offended, and walking humbly before him." I'd encourage you, in your own time, go back to the larger catechism and look up all of those scriptures. All of those verbs had a scripture reference. But I wanna know, how do we do these things on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis? Well, I wanna offer you two mountains where we can walk with God and feast upon him, two mountains. So mountain number one, to walk this out practically, is daily scripture reading. Mountain number one is daily scripture reading. I'd encourage you, do a word study and just see that when Jesus spoke God's word, he often did it from a mountain. For instance, when he preached the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, one through two, it says, seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain and he opened his mouth and taught them. My point here is to challenge you to see that daily Bible reading is meeting with God on a mountain. When you feast off his word day by day, what you're saying is, this God is my God and I will have no other God but him. So through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, you'll be able to work out these verbs that the larger catechism calls upon you. Listen, daily Bible reading will help you to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God. When you read the scripture, you're actually coming so close to God that you can feel His breath. Because 2 Timothy 3.16 says that the Bible is God's breath. All scripture is breathed out by God. Daily Bible reading will help you to believe and trust and hope in Him more. Some of you are struggling with believing God on a day-by-day basis. How do you grow your faith? Where does faith come from? Romans 10, 17, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Reading your Bible daily grows your faith. Daily Bible reading enables you to think upon, to meditate upon, to remember the Lord your God throughout your day. Psalm 119, 11 says, I've stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Now, someone might say, well, I've tried this daily Bible reading thing before and it doesn't work. So I have two answers for that. So first of all, how do you know it didn't work? What if your child came to you and said, dad, I don't see how eating three meals a day is working. I'm not really growing. I think I'm gonna stop eating. How long would your son be able to not eat before he realized, oh, that food really was doing something? That's how spiritual food works. I would say that daily scripture reading does powerful things. Just go to Psalm 19 and see all the things that God says his word does to your soul when you pick it up and read. Secondly, reading the scripture is our duty. Jesus says in John 5 39, search the scriptures because they bear witness about me. So even if you think that it's not working, you should do it anyway because God says to search the scriptures and see what blessings will come. So if you've not done this before, if you don't know where to start, then I would encourage you, ask a mature Christian in this body to help you. They would love to sit down with you and say, oh, this is how I read my Bible. This is when I read my Bible. This is what it looks like. This is how you study. Most generally, I would say this. Bible reading is worship. It's not, it includes all of the faculties of your soul, of your mind, of your heart, and of your will. It's not just an intellectual exercise. It is that, it's not less than that, but it's more than that. Come to your Bible like Mary came to Jesus. Do you remember what it says in Luke 10, 39? Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. Reading the scripture is not like reading any other book. It's a time of worship. It's a time of listening to the voice of the triune God. So ask the Holy Spirit as you come to the word that he would open up the ears of your heart so that you can hear him. Have Matthew Henry's commentary open. You can find it online for free so that he can help you through those more difficult passages. He is one of those teachers that God gave to the church to help you. Study with self-application in mind. As you're studying, ask these questions. How is God challenging me to live differently before him? How am I grieving his heart? What promises does he give me that I can trust him? Before you put your Bible down, focus on one truth, one verse, and say, okay, that's the verse, that's the truth I'm gonna focus on today. I'm gonna meditate on it throughout the day. And if you have to, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up, put it in your pocket. When you have downtime, open it up and say, oh yeah, that's what God is saying to me today. So that's mountain number one. Feast upon the triune God through daily scripture reading. The first commandment directs us to have God as our God through the Bible. Mountain number two, secret prayer. secret prayer. In Luke 6, verse 12, we read that, in these days, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued to pray to God. And multiple times in the Gospels, we read something similar. Mark 6, 46, after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. You can see Matthew 14, 23, Luke 9, 28. My point here is not that we have to go to a physical mountain to pray, although there are mountains out there. My point is that in secret prayer, you just are spiritually going to a mountain to commune with God. I'm not speaking here primarily about praying before your meals or that quick prayer that you pray before you read your Bible. Those are great and you should do those things. But I mean dedicated time set apart for prayer. Jesus assumes that secret prayer will be a part of our Christian life. I want you to see this. So please turn quickly to Matthew chapter six. My claim is that Jesus assumes that secret prayer will be a normal part of our Christian life. Matthew 6, he's contrasting the hypocritical prayers of the Pharisees to the way that we should pray. Matthew 6, verse 6, he says, but when you pray, Go into your room, shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. Now, consider three things here. Number one, he says, but when you pray, do you see? He's assuming that prayer is just gonna be something that you do. Two, he instructs us how to do this. Go into your room, shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret. So this is a command that we would have set aside times of private prayer. And then thirdly, he promises a great reward. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. And loved ones, oh, the reward that we miss when we don't pray like this. The catechism puts it in these terms, call upon Him, give Him all praise and thanks, highly esteem Him, honor Him, adore Him, choose Him, love Him, desire Him, fear Him, delight in Him, rejoice in Him, be zealous for Him. The private prayer is the best time to vent all of those things out of your heart. And I would say that's the challenge in our prayer life, loved ones. I would bet that most of us, when we hear the word prayer, we're thinking of asking God for something. Well, that's called supplication, and we should have supplication as part of our prayer, but supplication is not the main part. How do we know that? Because Jesus taught us how to pray in the Lord's Prayer. What is the very first petition in the Lord's Prayer? So it's our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be your name. That's the first petition. Jesus is saying the main thing of prayer is that we would ask God to bring glory to himself. The first and foremost thing of prayer is that when we come to pray, we're joining with the angels in heaven, and we're saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is to come. We're saying, Lord, worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. How do we do that? I mean, we can say those words, but I actually think that this is challenging, because how often when we come to prayer, 30 seconds later, we run out of words and our mind is floating somewhere in the ether, right? So how do we pray like this? Well, let me just offer you the method that I use. I pray with my Bible open and my Westminster Shorter Catechism close at hand. And the reason why I do that is because I run out of words. And we can open the Bible and we can read a couple lines and we can pray those lines. The Westminster Catechism is especially helpful because it gives you those truths of God systematized and then the scriptural footnotes underneath. And so all the prayer that I need, all that fuel is right there. So I pray, I read a line, I pray. I read a line, I pray. And then somebody might say, well, that's awkward and weird. What's more awkward and weird, reading and praying, reading and praying, or I don't have anything? I'm out of words. My mind is wandering. This is fuel, loved ones. This is fuel. Someone might say, well, I just, I don't really have, I don't really have time to have a secret prayer life. Friends, do you have time to talk with your husband or your wife whom you love? Yes, of course you do. And Christ, our Redeemer, has given us His own life. We should have all the time in the world to dedicate to speaking with Him. Or think of the great men of Scripture, Abraham and Moses and David. These were very busy men. One of them was a patriarch, one of them was the slave rescuer from Egypt, and one of them was the king of Israel. And they regularly spent time in prayer. These men were busier than us, and they set aside a time because they saw that prayer is a vital duty of having God to be our God. I would just say that the chief characteristic of the unregenerate man is that he doesn't pray. Psalm 14.4 says, they do not call upon the Lord. So loved ones, start here, do this. Schedule a time to pray. Like you would schedule someone to come over to your house. Like you would schedule a vacation. Like you would schedule any other thing. I'm gonna schedule this time to pray every day. Just start for 15 minutes and build from there. And oh, see how he will reward you. Make praise and honor the chief part of your prayer time and you'll discover what Thomas Brooks, the Puritan, said, the secret key to heaven. Brooks says that, ah, how often has God kissed a poor Christian at the beginning of private prayer and spoke peace to him in the midst of private prayer and filled him with light and joy and assurance upon the close of private prayer. Just look in scripture, see how many times God blessed the saints when they prayed to him. Look at Jacob. When he prayed, what happened? The angel of the Lord showed up and said, I'm going to bless you. Look what happened when Daniel prayed. In Daniel chapter 9, God unfolded the mysteries of the gospel to him in the future. When Cornelius prayed, God sent a gospel minister to his house so that his household could be saved. When Jesus prayed, God empowered him to redeem the world. Luke chapter 22, 39 and 36. Loved ones, a feast awaits you. A feast awaits you. So that's mountain number two. Feast upon the triune God through secret prayer. The first commandment directs us to this. That's how we make God our God. Jonathan Edwards wrote a letter to his son on May 27th, 1755. Jonathan Jr. had just turned 10 years old. And he was staying with the Makikan Indians in New York because he had learned the language of the Indians there and he had become quite proficient. Edwards' biographers believe that Jonathan sent his son to live on this Indian settlement for a time, thinking about his future missionary service. And Jonathan Edwards wrote his son a letter, just turned 10 years old. Dear child, though you are a great way off from us, yet you are not out of our minds. I'm full of concern for you. I often think of you. I often pray for you. Though you are at so great a distance from us and from all your relations, yet this one thing is a comfort to us, that the same God that is here is also with you. And though you are out of our sight and out of our reach, you are always in God's hands, who is infinitely gracious, and we can go to him and commit you to his care and mercy. Take heed that you don't forget or neglect him. Always set God before your eyes and live in his fear, and seek him every day with all diligence, for it is he and he only can make you happy or miserable. as he pleases, and your life and health and the eternal salvation of your soul and all your all is this life. And that which is to come depends upon his will and pleasure." End quote. Edwards continues for a bit more and then he signs it, your tender and affectionate father, Jonathan Edwards. I think that is an amazing letter. Can you imagine sending your 10-year-old son to an Indian settlement in the 1750s? What things would you be concerned about? I mean, other Indian attacks. I mean, war was brewing on the continent. I mean, Jonathan Edwards himself later died of a smallpox inoculation. There was disease everywhere. Would you so freely send your son away? And if you did send your son away, what would you write to him about? Edwards' words are, his chief concern is not dangers of circumstances, his chief concern was that his son would meet the triune God on a mountain regularly and feast with Him. And I would press upon all of us, loved ones, Edwards' same words here. Always set God before your eyes, live in His fear, seek Him every day with all diligence, for it is He and He only that can make you happy. Let's pray. Father, in our best moments, we confess that only you and you only can make us happy. Not, Lord, that you would bring us to another happiness, not that we would use you as a stepping stone, like health and wealth peddlers to some other riches, to some other physical blessing, but Lord, you are our blessing. You are our God. You are our Redeemer. And God, we thank you that you have compared serving you and having you as our God to a feast on the mountain. So Lord, help us. Help us to be directed by your commandment here that we would do just that, Lord. If we're not daily reading our scripture, Lord, help us to recommit to that. Help us to put it in our schedule. Help us to make a date with you where we would say, OK, at this time during the day, I'm going to open up my Bible and read it and commune with you. And Lord, help us to do the same thing with prayer. Help us, Lord, to graduate from childish prayers where we just ask for things. And help us to graduate to where we're praising you and delighting in you and where we're lifting your name up so much where we almost don't have time to ask you for anything. Lord, help us to learn the secret reward that you see when we pray, Lord, that you would give to us a greater communion with you. We thank you, God, and we ask all of these things through your Son by the Spirit, amen.