It is good again to gather and worship in the house of God this afternoon. And turn, if you will, in your Bibles to Psalm 119. verses 15 and 16, I've been threatening for a long time, that's strong a word, but to preach from what I call the blue notes, which is where I've highlighted stuff in blue for myself. And my wife said to me a couple of months ago, you're never going to do that. It's stuff you've highlighted for yourself. And I said, you're right, dear. And I had this all prepared, and I flipped over to my regular Bible, and these verses were highlighted in blue. So in a very roundabout way, you're gonna get a little bit of that. But I say that all to set the context of some things in the scripture you're gonna hear in church. And as we've sung, and as we've heard, and as we've been reminded, the word of God is central to the worship of this church. That's what sets us apart. But some of those things, in fact, I'd say all of those things, you need to take home with you. If you leave your Bible and your religious things at the door as you go out, then you really need to search and say, am I seeking after Christ? Am I living the Christian life? And so one of the things I've found very helpful over the years, and because I don't do it regularly, sometimes it may be two or three years before I happen to read the same reading again, But as I read through Spurgeon's morning and evening, sometimes just to set the tone for devotions, you don't always come to devotions and wake up and go, oh, I can't wait to have devotions. Some days you do, and that's good. But some days you get up and you're like, I really got to get going. I really got to do this. I really got to do that. And so sometimes it helps to set the tone for devotions. I've talked often about singing psalms. There are helps for that if you have difficulty with it like I do. But Spurgeon is another great place where he has a verse and then a short thought about that verse that'll help in some ways get you warmed up, if you will, help you to stretch your spiritual muscles and then move on into the things of God. And so I thought in being asked to do this this afternoon, I thought I'd use this and share this with you. If you're taking notes, it's from Spurgeon's morning of October 12th AM. That would be morning. Anyway, sorry. Psalm 119 verse 15 and 16. I will meditate on your precepts. and contemplate your ways, I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word." And so we're going to look this morning at those four things, or this afternoon, at those four things, meditation, contemplation, delight, and not forgetting or remembrance, if you want to put it in a positive way. And it's interesting because I had a short conversation with someone just before lunch, and this just came right back and fit right in. This was Spurgeon's comment. I'm not reading the whole thing. This is just one section that stuck out to me and kind of prompted a lot of this. Spurgeon says, there are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God and gathering through meditation on his word, spiritual strength for labor in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. And so the thoughts this morning, I'm gonna keep doing this morning. Our thoughts today are on the idea of meditation in particular. That's the first of the four things, and I think they're all rolled together. But in particular, notice meditation on the Word of God. This is not the meditation of the world. You will talk to all kinds of people and hear all kinds of people talking about how they meditate. feel one with the world, and one with nature. All they are doing is talking to themselves, and they're listening to the echo out of their own heads. And that may calm your heart a little, and it may help clarify your thoughts a little. That's all fine and good. But it is not the meditation that Scripture talks about, because the Scripture idea of meditation is meditation on the Word of God. And so Spurgeon carries this a little further, and he talks about it is taking that word and bringing the nutriment out of it. You know, there's some things you eat, and you don't just, like, chew them and swallow real quick. You kind of, like, you enjoy them, and you kind of let them sit in your mouth a little bit longer and kind of try to suck every last bit of flavor out of them. Well, that's what we're talking about. when we talk about the Word of God and how the Christian is to relate to it. And then, just to make sure we understand this context, and I'm pretty sure you all do, Ephesians 6.17, remember where it talks about the armor of the Christian, says, And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. That's why we're talking about the Word of God. That's why the title of the sermon was, A Powerful Sword. When that was written by Paul to the Ephesians, the Roman soldier was equipped with a sword. That was his basic personal weapon. And so it was kind of the epitome of what you would use to defend and attack an enemy. And the scriptures take that, and they turn that into the most important thing we have as a Christian is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, I'm going to, at the risk of you thinking I get my lessons from Instagram, I don't. I was just having to pull up Instagram the other day. I do it every week or two to check on some things that I need to. And CBTS had a posting by Sam Waldron, Dr. Sam Waldron, and he said the notion that the Spirit of God is the rule of life for the believer mistakes the power for life with the rule of life. Now, if you just heard that and said, what in the world is he talking about? Let me give it to you, because I kind of worked through it a little, and then all of a sudden went, wait a minute, that fits right in with what we're going to talk about today. The idea that many people get in their head that living the Christian life is all about the spirit of God, And how do you know what to do? Well, the Spirit led me to do this. Mistakes. That the way we live the Christian life, the rule of life, how do you know what to do as a Christian? The Word of God tells you. The Word of God is the rule of life. The Spirit of God is the power to live that life. And that's important as Christians to understand that distinction. You might say, well, that's just one of those, you know, seminary kind of things. No, that's a basic. belief and foundational teaching of the things of God. Don't confuse those things together. Don't let them get all muddied up in your head because everybody's running around with silly ideas. We live as Christians by the rule of life. That's the Word of God. If you want to know how to live life, read the Word of God. It's not hard. It's not some secret thing that only certain people know. It is the Word of God, the Word of life that guides us. That's how we know how to live and how to do the things that we do. The Spirit guides us in those things. What does the Spirit do? The Spirit brings these things to remembrance. So I thought I'd share that with you just because a number of those things had come together And when I saw that quote from Sam, I just was like, wow, that's an excellent quote. As a reminder, the Word is the rule of our lives. So therefore, as we look at these four things today, the focus is the Word of God. First of all, then, meditate. I will meditate on your precepts. So what is it to meditate? It is to engage in focused thought on scriptural passages, especially with prayer. As you work through a scripture passage, and it's fine, I do this, I'm doing it right now, to read through the Bible in a year or read through certain sections in so much time or whatever, that's fine to have a regular pattern of exposure to the things of God. But that shouldn't be the only exposure to the Word of God. And it's good to come to the house of God and hear the Word of God expounded to us, but that shouldn't be your only exposure to the Word of God. You should, on a daily basis, take the sword of the Spirit and be in it, be using it. It's my closing thought, and obviously I've already gotten there. If you have a weapon like a sword, how do you use it? It's not just to carry around like a magic talisman, okay? You have to know how to use it. Or you pull it out and go to stab somebody with it, and the guy's like, hey, I don't know what he's doing. Whack, bang, and now you're dead. And it didn't do you any good at all. And so the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, it's not something we just carry around on our chain or whatever, or in our pockets, or on our phones now. It is something that needs to be used. It needs to be focused on, and especially with prayer. When you're reading the Scriptures and you have a difficult passage that you're reading through, stop. Yes, do comparative Scripture studies and look at words and look at how it's used in other places, but also stop and say to God, God, I don't understand this. Could you give me more insight into this? And that's what the Spirit does. The Spirit helps us to understand and to be using the Word of God in a right way. So, we are to meditate on it. Some thoughts from meditation. First of all, it is a guide. Joshua 1 in verse 8 says, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. And don't immediately think of riches. and smooth sailing. The Christian life isn't that, we've just heard that. Prosperous in the things of God. Good success in the things of God. Do we pray for opportunities to talk to others about the things of God? Maybe family, maybe friends, maybe work acquaintances, whatever the case. Do we ask for opportunity? Do we look for that to be prosperous in the way that we walk in the things of God and have good success in the things of God? Well, the way to do it is to have the book of the law not depart from our mouths, but meditate in it day and night. Another thought, and this was reinforced by one of the brothers when I mentioned it in a lesson, and then he said something later about it, and I realized I wasn't the only person that struggles with this at times, but we are to meditate in the night. How often do we find ourselves waking up in the night, and what's the first thing we do? We start worrying about what we've got to do the next day. And we start thinking about this, and then we're agitated, and we're rolling around. And instead, Psalm 119 and verse 148 says, My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on your word. So whether the psalmist was saying, I'm up for the night watches because that's my job, or whether I'm awake through the night watches even though I should be sleeping, or whether I woke up during the night watches, or whether I deliberately stayed up during the night watches, it all is for the same purpose, that I may meditate on your word. So sometimes, if not most times, when you're struggling to sleep, when you're struggling to rest, stop and meditate on the Word of God. And think of the things that God has given us in the Word. And yes, you will fall asleep during that exercise more times than not. And that's okay. Because you've fallen asleep not worrying about the world, but meditating on the Word of God. We're also to meditate In order to keep us from sin. Psalm 4 in verse 4. This is an interesting verse. It says be angry and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed and be still. Selah. And there's so much in these, and I'm trying to go through these pretty quickly in order to cover them. But think about this. We are told to be angry. There is a time to be angry, but not to sin. And then we are told, here's a remedy for not sinning in your anger. Meditate in your heart while you're on your bed and be still. And then he ends that verse, the psalmist does, with Selah. And whether it's a musical notice or it's a call to stop and think, it doesn't matter. The point is it's a pause. And you pause because you're stopping to think about it. So stop and think about that. In not sinning against God, one of the remedies for that, even when you have passion, one of the remedies for not sinning against God is meditating in your heart on the Word of God, and doing that while you're sleeping, while you're in the bed. It also, meditation, is to make good a habit. And I wrote that deliberately that way. It's not misordered. To make good a habit, something that you want to encourage in your life. Philippians 4.8 says this, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, Whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things." Now, as you go through that list, think about what are all those different things. There are things that are good habits. There are things that will keep us from sin. There are things that will keep us from impure thoughts. if you're meditating on things that are pure. And so you're making good a habit by meditation. You're ingraining it in your brain. The more I've learned and studied the brain, or read people that have studied the brain, the more I am just amazed by how the brain functions, and that by repetition, it leads to faster processing in your brain, because it recognizes that thing that you're doing. And so you've done it the first time and your brain's like, okay, we're struggling, what do we do? You've done it the hundred thousandth time and your brain's like, we're done, next. And that's how the brain works. Well, this is something to benefit us spiritually. Make a habit of meditating on these things in Philippians that are true, that are noble, that are just, that are pure, that are lovely, of good report, virtuous. If you meditate on those things, your pattern in life will be to act on those things and to act in those ways. And so that leads us also to grow in grace. 1 Timothy 4.15 says, meditate on these things, give yourself entirely to them that your progress may be evident to all. Think about the things of God and progress in the Christian life being the result of meditation on those things. You don't just get to be an Olympic runner. I couldn't help it when Andy read the verse this morning. How many of you had the music in your heads? You know, I can't think of it. Chariots of Fire, I can't think of the group. But anyway, we will be lifted up by eagles, right? We will run. And yes, that's what we want. Well, that doesn't happen by staying in bed until 10 o'clock and driving down to the corner store. It happens by getting up and running and making a habit and growing in grace. Well, the same is true of Christian things. Don't think that Christianity is just, well, I believe these things. That's good enough, right? I believed. No. Meditate on them. Give yourself entirely to them. Why? So that people can see your progress. It's hard to see progress as you go a little step at a time, but at some point you look back and you say, boy, I could barely walk a year ago, and now I'm running, whatever, 5Ks. And I've built that up and I've done it by, in scriptural terms, by meditation and giving ourselves entirely to these things. Let me make a note, because I meant to say this earlier. If you're following along and you're like, that doesn't quite read the way it should, as I was, putting this together, I was writing verses down from the New King James, and I was also writing some down from the NASB, because that's where my strongest concordance is, and I got to the end and realized I hadn't distinguished which were which, and I don't know, so they're both good, it's okay, but I just, if any of you are sitting out there thinking, that's just, that's not quite right, I don't want you to be distracted by that. So that's the reason that's the case. The final thing under meditation, It is our delight. And this is a good one to stop and think about. You see, meditation's not drudgery. Being in the Word of God isn't, oh, I've got to spend my time in the Word of God today or else. It is a delight to be in the Word of God. Psalm 1 and verse 2 says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. Why? Because it's God's will for us. Not for salvation. If you meditate in the law for your salvation, you will be like the man in Pilgrim's Progress, cowering under the Mount Sinai as it falls upon him. The law will crush you. It will kill you. It will drag you to hell. We delight in the law of God because Jesus Christ has fulfilled it for us, and we therefore want to be like Christ. And what did Christ do on earth? He perfectly kept the law of God. There's your motivation to be in the law of God and to delight in the law of God. So those are some thoughts under meditation. Now, the second word that's used here in these verses, and we are to contemplate your ways. Well, what is contemplation? You might think right away, like I kind of did at first was, well, that's meditation. Contemplate is just a different word for meditation. It's not, it's slightly different. It's actually a different word that's used there. To contemplate is to regard something, to pay attention to it, to consider it in order to draw out the implications and applications. So meditation is taking it and making it my own. Contemplation or regarding something is to make it something that I do, that I live by, that I understand this is for me. And so you can meditate on the word and you can think about the things that as it applies to you, to your family, to your church, to your community. But in contemplating, you go a step further to say, what's this for me? What is it that makes this? real to me, if you will. And the first thing I think is this. It is to see God in Jesus Christ. Interesting here, but here's a reference that I came across and I was like, that's perfect explanation of it in a most unusual place. Numbers 12 verses seven and eight. where it says, Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my household. With him, this is God speaking, with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings. And he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses? It's a warning to the people of Israel. But do you see the truth that's contained there? Moses saw God, the Father, who is spirit, who cannot be seen. He saw him through the form of the Lord. He saw him in the pre-incarnate form of Jesus Christ and spoke face to face with him. You will recall, I hope, the disciples said at one time to Jesus, they said, show us the Father. And what did Jesus say to them? Have you, first he rebuked them, but he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And so as we contemplate the Word of God, one of the things that we are to do in doing that is to see God in Jesus Christ. Do you want to see God? Do you want to know God? Do you want to know the truths of religion and God who's created all things? He's in Christ who's in the Word of God. And it's been preserved for us in written form, and we all have ready access to it. Everyone has a Bible. If you don't, I will get you one. But we all do. We all carry phones with Bibles. We all have Bibles in the pews. We have Bibles you can pick up at the cheese shop. They still have the Bibles out front there. The Word of God is everywhere, and yet do we make use of it to see Jesus Christ and therefore to see God in Christ? And the second thing to contemplate in regard to the Word of God is with this, that we may see. Psalm 119 and verse 18 says, Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your law. I'm always reminded of the blind men who Jesus would open their eyes. They were blind. They could do nothing of themselves. They had to be led everywhere that they went. And when they cried out, they had to be led over to Christ. And what did Christ do? He opened their eyes and they could see for themselves. If you want to see, cry out to God that He would open your eyes to behold wonderful things from your law. from the Word of God. That's how we see wonderfully. It's not visions. We don't need stained glass to give us the spooky religious mood and music and sound and lights. We don't need any of those things. We don't need to be out in creation and, oh, it's a beautiful creation. Yeah, it is for everybody. Sinners too. How do we see the things of God? How do we see God? Through his law, through his revelation in the law. And then finally, we contemplate and regard these things in order to walk in the way, 2 Corinthians 5, 7. For we walk by faith, not by sight. You will wrestle with this at some point in your Christian life. I am almost certain of every person here because I think we all wrestle with it at some point. It's just, is it real? Is this really all real? Yes, we walk by faith, but not just blind faith of I made something up and that's what I follow. We walk by faith in the word of God. It is God's revelation to us. It is God saying, this is what I'm like. So why wouldn't we want to be in it all the time and say, I've got this, I can see what God's like right here in the Word of God. It is enabling us to walk in the way. And then the third thought is delight. We are in fact to contemplate your ways and delight myself in your statutes. So we are to delight and to delight carries with it this idea of to look upon or even like a mother fondles her child. Now I told Evangeline earlier, she was gonna be in the lesson and she looked at me like she didn't know what was going on anyway. So, and she's, that's fine. Twice now, and she did it again today. She's walked up to one of the babies, and she just touches him. You know, kind of like on the face, like that. And she's just delighting in the baby. And the baby's mother also delights in the baby. And we see that, and we enjoy that. We go, isn't that great? For Evangeline, at a very young age, she's starting to show those motherly instincts that God created in woman. And if you haven't, if you didn't go to the women's retreat, and all you men didn't, I know for a fact, and some of you women didn't, listen to the three sermons by Luke Mace. They're on Sermon Audio, you can find them under Emmanuel's website. And there's a fourth sermon by Pastor Andy, Andrew, sorry, this is Pastor Andy, he's Andrew. Andrew did a fourth sermon that kind of built on it, and he used his excuse as, well, none of you men were there, so you didn't hear this. They are excellent, and they are excellent not just because he makes clear God's creation order and the impact on the whole idea of what is a woman, okay, but they also, he really, Andrew especially, just weaved in the relationship of the creation and the relationship of man to woman and us to the church. It's excellent. So I highly recommend it. But he made the point that little girls, they start playing with babies at an early age. That's not something we're forcing on them. And if you think you are, then come sit around a couple of boys who will remain nameless, who everything they do is a competition, right? Just last night, there was a few homemade rockets fired off, and what was the first question the second kid asked? Who won? I think mine went higher. I have video proof, I can show it to you later, you can decide for yourself who won. But why? Why do I tell that story? One, to make sure you're with me, we just had lunch. Two, it's natural. Guys compete. We score everything. Women, you don't understand that sometimes. You're like, I don't understand. You're keeping score. Of course we're keeping score. We're men. We keep score, regardless of what it is. And we have to be careful with that. It can lead to some things like rogue rage and sinfulness. But that's because we're always competing. Why? God made us that way. What a delight. And what a perversion of the world to take that and turn it into, I don't like what God made, I'm gonna change it. That's, it's wickedness. And we need to see it as wickedness, not as just another point of view. Because then we'll know how to deal with people that are struggling with those things and how to help minister to them. So we are to delight. We are to look upon the word and fondle the word, just like a mother would look on her child and delight in her child. Because first of all, it is the source of true joy. Again, Psalm one and verse two. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. Now think about that. Don't right away make excuse. I can't meditate day and night. Stop. Think about you delight in the law of the Lord so much. That's one of the first things you want to do in the day or in the night. How many other things do we want to do right away? Maybe we should make practice of meditating in the day and night in the things of God. It is a source of true joy. It is a source of true comfort. Psalm 94 verse 19 says, when my anxious thoughts multiply within me, your consolations delight my soul. Isaiah 66 in verse 12 says, for thus says the Lord, behold, I extend peace to her like a river and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream. And you will be nursed. You will be carried on the hip and fondled on the knees. It's a picture of the nation, which represented the church to come, being carried by God as a mother carries a child. It is a true comfort to be in the Word of God. You want to be comforted and not worry and have anxious thoughts? Recognize that it doesn't matter what happens around you. The world can literally burn down around you, and you are being carried in the arms of God, and he will comfort you. And then finally, in this thought, it is also soul nourishment. We just ate, and I'm pretty sure just from the usual patterns, everybody ate just fine. Everybody ate well. And we nourish our bodies, and we sometimes nourish our bodies a little too much, but we take care of our bodies. But here, in the word of God, is soul nourishment. Romans 7.22. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. Why? Because it feeds us. It nourishes us. Our inward man delights in the law of God. So therefore, delight, look upon the word of God just as you would your own child as that little child is given to you. And then finally, we are not to forget And it's interesting that it's placed in the negative. I will not forget your word. You can look at it, and I kind of did, and then changed it back, but to remember something. I had this conversation with another brother recently about, as we get older, we tend to mislay things, and we tend to forget. Why did I get up and go in that room? And you gotta walk back, and then you go, oh, that's right, and you go back. Some of us have had that problem all our lives. We do that, right? We mislay things. It's human nature. It's part of the sin nature. Our minds are no longer perfect. Every once in a while, you'll bump into or hear about someone with a photographic memory, and I'm like, oh, that would be so cool. Just whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Yep, okay, I'm done. I would have been lazier in school than I was. But why? We are not to forget. Why does it tell us not to forget? Because to not forget, the word to remember means to not mislay from lack of attention or memory. We can say, well, I just can't remember names. I'm terrible with names. Or we can say, I just forgot that. But how many times do we forget things because we just weren't paying attention? Somebody said something, and we weren't really paying that much attention. And so later, we say, what about such and such? And they'll say, OK, your wife. We'll say, I told you that. And I'm like, oh, OK, yeah, I forgot. What'd you say again? I wasn't paying attention. And so we are not to do that with the Word of God. We are to remember the Word of God and not mislay it for lack of attention. So therefore we are to obey the Word of God. Deuteronomy 26 verse 13. You shall say before the Lord your God, I have removed the sacred portion from my house and also have given it to the Levite and the alien, the orphan and the widow, according to all your commandments, which you have commanded me. By the way, if you didn't catch that, you are to set aside part of what God has blessed you with to use for the house of the Lord. It's tithing right there a long time ago. It's more obligation in the New Testament. It's not a hard percentage. It's a you are to give back to God what he has blessed you with. So that's just an aside. But according to all your commandments which you have commanded me, I have not transgressed or forgotten any of your commandments. Can we say that? I think we struggle with that at times. We have to remind ourselves of the commandments of God. It is one reason why I do think it's a good idea to, on some regular basis, read through the Word of God. And you might read the Old Testament once and the New Testament three times or some other combination, but read through the Word of God to make sure you're familiar with it. Every time you do it, you will find some new nuggets that are buried there that you either forgot about or that you just never saw before. And so you will be blessed by them again. The Word of God is unique that way. You can read the Word of God literally hundreds of times and still come away with new teaching and new lessons from it. And it's because you're growing. You weren't ready to see that lesson back then when you were just crawling. But now you're running and you go, wait a minute, I can shave a quarter of a second off my time here if I just change this. Yeah, the same works for the Word of God. The more experienced you are in the things of God, the more you will grow and see things out of the Word of God. We are not to forget in trials. Psalm 44 verse 17, all this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten you and we have not dealt falsely with your covenant. So we are not to forget God when we have trials, when all these things come upon us that are very difficult. And as our brother shared recently, and I've just been seeing it pop up everywhere, there he is. We are not to forget in prosperity either. Jeremiah 2 in verse 32. Can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? I just saw another example of this, because I got on Instagram and quickly got distracted. And there was somebody that I follow who was doing this thing, you know, with pictures. Why? She had an engagement ring on there and she wanted everybody to see it. She wanted them to see that she had that ornament. and that she would become a bride. And it's that same thing in Jeremiah. You look at your ornaments as a bride, and you look at your attire, your wedding dress, and we do this. We've been married 41 years. I was waiting for the nod there. And we still get the wedding album out, and we laugh about our hairdos. And I look at my wife's dress, and I'm like, that is one of the most beautiful wedding dresses I've ever seen. And why? Because it's hers. But we do that. Well, should we not do that with the word of God? Not just when we're in trial, not just when difficulties come in our life, but when we wake up and we go, what a wonderful day God has blessed us with. And look at the things God has given us in the word of God, not just the weather, but what he's blessed us with in the house of God and in the fellowship of the people of God. We should look at those ornaments and those attire and rejoice in them. And then finally, we are not to forget, in order that it might direct us, Luke 24 in verses four to eight. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. They were at the tomb of Jesus Christ. Then as they were afraid and bowed their, I'm sorry, this is not, this is after the tomb. This was on the road. As they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, all right, I should stop ad-libbing sometimes. Why do you seek the living among the dead? They were at the tomb, okay. I should put more notes down sometime. I read a bunch of verses and picked this one. So these were the apostles, the disciples at the tomb of Jesus Christ. Sorry for the confusion there. And the two men in shining garments said to them as they bowed their faces to the earth, because of the men in shining garments and their brightness, they said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen from the dead. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee saying, the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words. They hadn't remembered them a minute earlier. We need to be in the Word of God. We need to remember the Word of God. And especially when we're faced with doubts regarding our faith. Christ is dead. What are we going to do? And the men in the shining armor say, don't you remember? He told you this would happen. You weren't paying attention. You weren't listening. You were distracted. You might've been sleeping. You didn't listen to these things. You didn't remember these words. So in conclusion, God has blessed us. with a mighty weapon to use as a tool in our daily spiritual warfare. Do not neglect it, do not despise it, but rejoice in it, revel in it, spend much time in the word of God. Let's close with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the Word of God and we pray that each of us might use it wisely and carefully and give glory and honor to your name as we enjoy the revelation that you have blessed us with. Father, draw us now to a close and direct us as we walk throughout this week. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.