All right, I guess since we're on camera, I should probably start right at 10. Just felt dark, but I guess that's because y'all are out there in the light. So feeling bright out there, good. It's good to have everybody back in Sunday school. It's good to have everybody back home in Sunday school, all of us at the same time together. So I have a handout for those of you who are here. I apologize to those of you at home, I should have attached it to an email. However, the handout is going to, it's only got Bible verses. So if you've got your Bible and a notebook, you can jot down what the Bible verses are, you'll be in just as good a shape as the folks are here. As we begin, let me pray for us just a moment. Lord, we do thank you for this time together. We thank you for this time together in the book of Deuteronomy, and we thank you for your grace to us in understanding it and working out, loving you and loving our neighbor as we are guided by these things. And we pray for your grace in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so where we are is we are at the point of the Ten Commandments. So we're in Deuteronomy 5. Now, Deuteronomy 5, as we talk in terms of the Ten Commandments, takes a little bit of preparation, right? So there's two things that we've done so far in that preparation. One thing is we've said, okay, let's look at the rules for interpreting the Ten Commandments. And since we this is our first kind of back to live session, I'd like to review that with us. And then the other thing that we've looked at is looking at the New Testament or how Jesus transforms the Ten Commandments. I was going to take some more time on that, but I think I'm just going to. leave what we've done so far as sufficient, and then today what we're going to move on to is how the Ten Commandments inspire joy, or inspire gladness, or inspire those kinds of positive emotions in saved people. All right, so that's really the majority of what I want to look at today. But before we do that, what I'd like you to do is, oh, and one other thing you're going to need at home is, if you haven't already gotten one, is a hymnal. So if you get the hymnal or some copy where you get a hold of the larger catechism, if you want to just fire it up on your phones or however you're doing it. And I do want to look at these rules for interpreting the Ten Commandments again, just as a kind of give us a running start from where we were before. And if you're in the hymnal, you'll find that on page 951, And we're gonna be looking at Larger Catechism, question 99. Larger Catechism, question 99. All right, so, good. I'll give you a second to turn there. Okay, now I think the general sense here, if I was going to try and figure out why we have this, is that this comes from the era when the church was saying, okay, we want to teach society, we wanna teach the culture, we wanna teach everybody in the church how to live. And there were three basic areas of theology that we wanted to teach. We wanted to teach about who God is and the gospel. We wanted to teach you how to live, so we taught you the Ten Commandments. And we wanted to teach you how to pray, so we taught you the Lord's Prayer. How to have a relationship with God, if you will, from your side of you expressing yourself to God. And we did that in the 1500s, in the 1600s. A great number of people thought the best way to do that is through catechism. We did that through catechism. The question to the church that the church wants to teach you is how should you live your life? And the general thought was, well, if you understand the Ten Commandments and you understand the rules for rightly interpreting the Ten Commandments, you basically have guidance for almost everything in life you're gonna run across, right? So that was the general idea there. So looking at number one. So what are the rules? Rule number one. Rule number one is the law is perfect. and that it binds everyone to full conformity in the whole man. So it binds you in full conformity in your actions, binds you in full conformity in the faith of your heart, in your emotions, in the affections that you have, whether you're talking kind of more positivity kind of emotions like joy, or you might say negative rail kind of emotions like fear, those kinds of things, that the law binds you in expressing those things. Your heart is supposed to express those things as you're guided by the law. Okay, and then, of course, entire obedience, and then continuing on from there, forever, so as to require the utmost perfection of every duty and forbid the least degree of every sin. So there's the first one. Secondly, that it is spiritual. That is, when we say that the law is spiritual, when Paul says the law is spiritual, he says, well, it comes from a spirit, right? It comes from God who has a soul and a spirit, who is spirit, and then it comes to us who are spiritual beings. And so then you can see how it describes some of the aspects of what a spirit is, right? If something is spiritual, then it's going to reach to the understanding, it's gonna reach to the will, it's gonna reach to the affections and other powers of the souls, excuse me, powers of the soul. All right, then, number three, one of the things that makes this so powerful to understand the Ten Commandments, that one and the same thing in diverse respects is required or forbidden in the commandments, okay? So then, if the commandment tells you to honor your father and your mother, Okay, so then that would mean, all right, so then you are forbidden from dishonoring your father and mother, right? So that what you are called to do, that you are then on the other side, the flip side, you're called to, you can't do the other side. Or to take negatively something, you may not steal, right? So if you may not steal, then if you flip that positively, you need to promote the welfare of your neighbor's belongings, right? You ought to do things that don't oppress him with respect to that or those kinds of things, okay? Excuse me. Good, okay. That as where a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden, and vice versa, right? Then it says where a promise is annexed, there is a threatening that's included, and where a threatening is annexed, a contrary promise is included. Okay, so if God says, don't take the Lord's name in vain, because if you take the Lord's name in vain, he's going to hold you accountable for that, right? So if he threatens that threat, then positive, what it says here is that positively, if you don't take the Lord's name in vain, there is blessing associated with that, right? It says the opposite is associated with that. All right, what God forbids is that no time to be done, right? So there's just talking about at any time, what he commands is always our duty. And yet, okay, then at the end, yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times, right? So sometimes that there are commands and you can't do those commands at the same time. So, I mean, maybe an easy one is just the command with respect to time, the Sabbath. So that with respect to the Sabbath day, you have on six days, you can do any work that you feel is suitable, but on the seventh day, that's a day of rest. So then on the Sabbath day, you can't do work that is suitable at the same time as rest. Everybody probably understands that very easily. Then what's next here? Okay, number six, the same kind. Okay, so one's sin or duty, all the same kind are forbidden or commanded. So then again, just to take an easy one, thou shalt not steal means thou shalt not commit armed robbery. And it means, so that means you may not point weapons at people and take their money. It also means you may not commit burglary, which means you sneak in their house, you hope without them there or without them knowing, and you take their stuff and you make off with it, right? All manner of stealing is forbidden. Let's see. In number seven, you as a person have people who are above you, you have people who are alongside of you, and you have people under you with respect to authority. And if you have commands that you are engaged in, then you may not cause the people above you to sin or the people below you to sin, those kinds of things. And also then the same thing there with respect to calling. All right, so maybe I'll just stop there and say questions about that or thoughts that might have generated. Right? So those are just some general principles with respect to interpreting the commandments that are helpful in making the specifics of the commandments understood very broadly just according to those various different commands. Good. All right, okay. Then next, what we looked at, so after we looked at that, then we looked at, okay, the interface of the Ten Commandments now in the New Testament, or the interface of the Ten Commandments now that Jesus has come, right? And you see two things. Number one, not really something new, but that Jesus talks about how the Ten Commandments go to the heart. He makes sure that we know that, understand that very clearly, that the Ten Commandments cause, we've got to obey them from the heart. And then, but the main thing there is that Jesus has said he is going to obey those Ten Commandments. He's the way in which we are pleasing to God or don't, yes, are pleasing to God, acceptable to God in obedience as he has obeyed those Ten Commandments and does that on behalf of his people who receive that obedience that he has worked for us by faith. And so those are. And then OK, so that kind of looks to the past. OK, what about the past and my my past law keeping that that failed to meet up to these standards that it always has to be done? It has to be done perfectly and it has to be done from the heart. OK, if I'm if I'm not perfect, then where do I get that perfection? I get it from Jesus, right? And I look to the past and what he's done and I've asked for forgiveness for those things and I believe that he has covered all those sins. Then as I look to the future, of course, I can also say that as a Christian, he's going to cover all of those sins, whatever they may be in the future that I don't know, but also I can look in the power of the Spirit that Jesus bestows upon us to walk in the power of that Spirit and to do these things, right? And that's very important for today because there's With respect to the law, sometimes you talk about the law as in where Paul says that the law cannot help you, right? Or that the law, when you talk about the law in a certain sense, if you're a human being by nature and you try to move the law into your heart and operate your life by it, what's gonna happen? It's going to stir up more desire to rebel against the law. Right, okay, that's the Pilgrim's Progress illustration, right? The Pilgrim's Progress illustration is that there's somebody sweeping, and as they're sweeping, they generate more dust, right? They keep generating all this more. They're making things worse by their sweeping. And what has to happen in that situation is you gotta put some water on it. If you put some water on it, then you'll knock the dust down, and the illustration is that the water is the spirit in the life of the person, right? A person by nature, you bring the law to them and say, obey it, all you're going to get is more rebellion and more sin. However, today, so today what we're going to look at is, for instance, the joy of keeping God's commandments. Now, in the context of the gospel, if you talk about the joy of keeping commandments, you've got to be talking about that with respect to a person who is spirit filled, a person who is born again. The joy of the commandments is not going to come to someone who is in a state of nature. It's not going to come to a person in their default situation. It's not going to come to a person apart from salvation. Okay? All right. Good start. All right, next, Deuteronomy 10. Okay, so, Deuteronomy 10, 12, this is the first verse that I have on the handout for the folks I've handed a handout to here. And so, here's what it says. I like this as a good overarching passage. command here for this. Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Okay. First of all, fear the Lord your God and walk in all His ways, and then, and to love Him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Okay, so this is classic Jonathan Edwards kind of understanding of sanctification, right? There are two basic, so two kinds of motivations in the heart. The first is sort of a positive motivation, joy, or peace, or glory, those kinds of things. And then there's the negative kinds of things, anxiety or, well, fear is probably better in this case, fear of the Lord, and that that motivation should cause you to do what is right. So both of those motivations, okay, or maybe to put it another way, Well, I think very much in our society, this is helpful. In our society right now, what we typically say, if you talk to psychologists, you talk to educators, you talk to people in business or that kind of stuff, what are they all saying? What we want you to do is we want you to be passionate about something. And we want you to be passionate about it. We want you to love it. Right? That's what we want to say. Now, it never occurs again in our culture to anyone to say, well, maybe you are going to love something that's going to get you killed. You're going to love something that's not going to do you any good. There's no sense at all that you need to restrain yourself from certain things, right? Just go ahead and follow your heart. Follow the passion. Do what you're zealous to do. Do what you love. Do what brings you joy, right? Whereas the Bible is much more balanced. Well, of course it is. The Bible is reflecting reality, right? The Bible says there are things that if you pursue them and you think you love them, well, that could be a problem. And the only way to evaluate that, whether it's going to be a problem or not going to be a problem, is because it is objectively either good or bad. It is either right or wrong. It is evil or pleasant. Those kinds of things, right? And so God tells you what those things are, so you'll know what it is you ought to restrain yourself from. And those things are, of course, the fear of the Lord. So just let me say, give me an example in general. In general, one of the reasons that you should fear heading down a path of sin is because sin entangles people who begin to think about it and begin to practice it, right? And in fact, it entangles them in such a way as like a snare. So what bird ever enters into a snare because he recognizes it ahead of time? None, right? Yet, what sin does is it ensnares you because you don't recognize ahead of time the evil of it. In fact, you might be going toward it and saying, oh, this is gonna be great for me, and it turns out it's gonna be horrible. So, we are to be motivated both by the fear of the Lord and by the love, by loving Him, and so we should desire to serve Him out of both of those motives. All right, stop there for a second. Thoughts, questions? And again, remember, we're talking here in terms, when you're talking in these kinds of terms, you're talking about saved people, right? So there's already a lot of work, gospel work that's been done beforehand before you get to this point. All right, so then one of the main things I just wanted to point out here is just the richness of what the scripture says with respect to these kinds of positive, emotional, or affections that are associated with the law, right? So first of all, in Proverbs 15, 21, folly is joy to him who is destitute of discernment." Now you'll notice there I have that broken, okay I'm sorry, in the handout you'll notice I have that broken down into two different lines, or oftentimes in your Bible that will be broken down into two different lines, and that's because Hebrew poetry is often a two-line or a three-line kind of poetry. And it doesn't rhyme like we're used to oftentimes in English poetry, But the thoughts are parallel. And the thoughts are parallel in a way to make you think, right? So sometimes the second line is assuming thoughts that you've already got up there and you're supposed to integrate those thoughts that you heard first in with the second group of thoughts, okay? So folly is joy, okay? And what kind of person is folly joy to? the person who's destitute of discernment. So this is Proverbs 15, 21. I apologize if I didn't say that right off the bat. So then, a man of understanding walks uprightly. So what you're supposed to do is take the concepts from both those lines and put them together. So the second line, what are the concepts in the second line? Yes, understanding and? Uprightness, right, excellent. Okay, so there's uprightness and understanding. Okay, so now put those two concepts into the first line. So in the first line, right, okay, how does understanding fit in there? Pardon? Yeah, it's negative. So it is expressed in the first line negatively as folly, right? So the person, the opposite of understanding in this case would be folly, all right? So then, and so folly then is a joy to a person who is destitute of understanding, all right? So then, now if you take the concepts from the first line and you put them in the second line, you take the concepts from the first line and you put them in the second line, what is that going to tell you? Pardon me? Okay, so folly is not joy to him, right? Okay, good, that's saying it negatively, or yes, that's looking at the negative side of it. What is understanding to him? Joy, right? So the fool, the person who's destitute of discernment, when he considers folly, he thinks that's joy. but the person who's understanding when he can, okay, so we could say it this way, when he considers folly, it's not joy to him, or when he considers walking uprightly, that is joy to him, right? So that's kind of the mind, so this is given to you kind of in this form to engage your mind, to meditate upon it, and kind of put all those things together. Right? So you're supposed to put all those things together. And then, of course, the person who is a fool in the first line and who's destitute of discernment, how's he going to walk? Pardon? Yes. Okay. So good. So Bob says like a drunken sailor. According to the second line, how's he going to walk? Yes, he's going to walk straight. He's going to walk uprightly, depending on how your translation puts that, right? So, excuse me. Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, the person of understanding is going to walk uprightly. How's the fool going to walk? Pardon? not uprightly, right? He's going to follow sin or iniquity or that which is crooked. He's going to follow that kind of path, all right? So that's what that's supposed to help you with. Okay, good. So now the next verse that we're going to look at is in Proverbs, again, this time 21.15. So 21.15, all right? It's a joy for the just to do justice, but destruction will come upon the workers of iniquity. All right, so now I'm gonna just ask you, right, so this is the student's opportunity, okay, putting the second line with the first line, what are all the concepts there that you're gonna put together? And all you have to do, all I'm looking for here is just listing them, so. Okay, joy, right? Justice, good, okay, and then continuing on. Okay, destruction, right. Okay, so workers of iniquity, right. Okay, so as you're putting all that kind of together, all right. So, good, all right. So, well maybe we'll just do, okay, so now just for the first line, okay, if you're a just person, what, and all of the concepts there in 2115, what, how are, how is a just person described according to all those concepts? Okay, they do justice, good. And they have joy in the doing of justice, right? Now wouldn't that, I mean... Theoretically, assuming that voter fraud is possible, wouldn't it be nice if the whole world had a joy in doing justice, right? Okay, just whatever else is going on out there, but just the thought of that, right? So here's joy in doing justice. Good, okay. And if you have joy in doing justice, what's your future look like? Not destruction, right? That's okay, so good. So the first line, you add the concept in the second line there. So as you're meditating upon that, you're saying, okay, and my future is going to be a future of good rather than destruction. And of course, and then how do you describe, how do you characterize the not doing of justice? A worker of iniquity, right? So a person who does justice is doing the right thing. A person who does injustice is a sinner, right? It's a worker of iniquity. Good. Okay, so that's just kind of some sense of those things there. All right, the next passage, and of course what that's, okay, so what you're supposed to think about here, one of the things that you, you think about is you say, okay, I want to do justice. And if I want to do justice, that should be a joy to me. All right. Now, how does that, how does that happen? How does that happen? Okay, there's two ways that might happen. One is it might happen kind of intuitive, let me say it this way, experientially. So the way they would explain it today in psychology class, let me say it this way, is you do something which is good, And as you do something which is good, you get this burst of dopamine, and the dopamine makes you feel good, okay? So, and then you're supposed to connect that joy with the doing of the good, okay? So then when your parents train you and you're young, and they make you do something, right? And so you go off and you go do, you know, you don't want to do it at first, but you go off and do it, and lo and behold, you feel better after having done it. So now, regardless of whether you want to use the secular model or not, I think all of us have felt that or had that experience, right? You've done the right thing and you felt good about doing the right thing. I think that's just a fairly common human experience. You didn't feel like doing it at first, but you went ahead and did it, and after you did it, you felt good about doing it. So that's one way in which it happens. How about another way? How do you say, okay, I'm contemplating doing justice. And I want to associate justice with joy in my heart as I'm doing this, right? Or to say it another way, I don't want to go into this thing that I'm supposed to do saying, I know I've got to do right, but I'm going to grit my teeth and just go ahead and go do right because I know afterwards I'm going to feel joy. You want to actually go into it. You want to say, I'm going to do good. And I know that those who do good, the righteousness, doing of righteousness is a joy to them. So you're asking yourself, okay, how do I have my heart full of joy as I'm going to do this thing, right? So that's my question to you. All right. Okay, so one reason. Okay, one of the ways in which is that the, OK, one reason is you're convinced in your heart it's the right thing to do. Good. OK, John. OK, good, good. So then you begin to look at who you are, right? So if God is you, OK, why am I wanting to do this just thing? Because God is my Lord. Well, if God is my Lord, that fact brings me joy, right? Is that how you were going with it? Good. Okay. Okay, so David says that the object of our joy has to be something outside of ourselves. Let's see. Okay, so give me an example. Right. Okay, excellent, so one of the things I do is I look at God who takes joy in what I'm doing, and therefore, that gives me the joy associated with doing this good thing, right? So yeah, that's, okay. Well, let's see. Can you look at yourself? So there was a point of looking outside yourself. Can you look at yourself and receive joy from that? From looking at yourself. or looking at things associated with yourself. Jesse. I think so, because then you would have that assurance of salvation. You could look and find that joy because you know. Okay, good. So Jesse mentions talking about assurance of salvation, and one of the things that's associated with assurance of salvation is you're assured of your salvation because you're doing the things that a saved person does, right? So the person who wants to do justice, the only way in the world I would know that I want to do justice is because my heart wants to do justice, and the only way my heart wants to do justice is because it's been changed by the Holy Spirit to do that. So I'm looking at myself in that sense. Now, of course, even as I'm looking at myself in that sense, who's done this for me? Yeah, right, it is, if you get to the very ground of it, it is God who's done that in me, and therefore I want to do it, and therefore, but I can take joy in the fact that I'm born again, right? You should take joy in the, I think you should take joy in the fact that you're born again, right? So then, so what you would do kind of comprehensively is you would just look at all aspects of your salvation, right? As you look at all aspects of your salvation, there are blessings associated with that salvation, As you look at the blessings associated with that salvation, should they work in your heart joy as you understand they belong to you? Yes, right? Excellent. Okay, good. So then, so, so Bob mentions the joy of the Lord is a, is our strength. Okay, so then, so then this, so one of the things that you can look here, if you tie that into this, this passage from 2115 anyway, if it's a joy for the just to do justice, One of the things that inspires, strengthens the just to do justice is the joy of doing it, right? I mean, that joy is a strength. I mean, again, how many people will, I mean, just even in and of yourself, if you look at yourself and you say, okay, If I have an expectation of doing a particular task, which set of circumstances do I think I'm going to do the task better in? A set of circumstances of where I'm motivated in joy to do it, or a set of circumstances where I'm not as motivated in joy to do it, right? I think in general, my expectation would be that if I have joy, it's going to strengthen me to do the task in a better way or better sense. It's going to be the ground by which I can do that from, right? Okay, good. Yes. Good. Yes, okay, so Bob mentions that, he's talking about Romans 7, where in Romans 7, it says that there are things I find myself doing that I didn't wanna do, right? So, okay, so, okay, so let me ask this. So explain to me why a person says they wanna do something, thinks they wanna do something, and yet doesn't do it. which I think is a pretty common human experience. Okay, so you have, so we're not perfectly sanctified in this life, so John has said remnants of the flesh. We're not perfectly sanctified in this life. If you're not perfectly sanctified in this life, then there are remnants of the flesh, okay? So then, okay, good. So then, now, how do these remnants of the flesh express themselves in the life of a Christian? Because the Christian says, I know I'm not supposed to do that, right? I mean, at least that's what Paul says in Romans, I know I'm not supposed to do that. So why do these remnants of the flesh express themselves in in your life? Okay, so One of the answers to that, I think, is that you have practiced iniquity to some extent, both before you were saved and even after you were saved. You might practice that iniquity in your mind. And anytime you practice something, unfortunately, you may get better at it, even to the point of having it almost be intuitive. So then, you're put in a situation, a situation that is frustrating. It's a situation with another person that's frustrating, and that your habitual response to that has been to show your frustration. Right? Okay. Now, if you sit back in your quiet time at eight in the morning or six in the morning or whenever you read your Bible at eight at night, you know, and you say, okay, I should not get frustrated when I'm facing this situation. But in that situation, it's almost intuitive. It's not intuitive, but it's almost, right, habitual at that point, because you've done it for so long. And so one of the reasons you don't do what you wanna do is because you have habits and you need to break those habits. And the way you break those habits is to do the things you were thinking about, to think about them and to meditate upon them and to prepare yourself in that situation. And then hopefully over time as you practice the right thing, then the right thing will happen, right? And you have to motivate yourself and all those kinds of things as well. Yes, okay. Right? Good. Okay. So, so Bob made some comments there. The one I want to pick up on is the easy way. Okay. So I just want to say that for myself, right? So the easy way is, okay, I can, Alright, I'll just use Charlie Perkins as a pastor. Charlie Perkins as a pastor has a computer. A computer is a great tool for being a pastor, right? You can search all in your Bible software and all that kind of stuff. The computer is a great tool for taking the easy way. I wonder what's on the news. I wonder what's playing on YouTube that I might find entertaining. I might, whatever, right? Okay, so you're, So here you are in that situation and you say, okay, now, there's some things I ought to do and some things that'll be easy to do, okay? So now, at that point, when I'm at that point, now what do I do? So help me out here, right? So what should I do? Okay, I should do the right thing. Okay, how do I help myself do the right thing? Okay, so I should, all right, I have to start talking to myself about the situation, don't I? Okay, so I might say, oh, doing the right thing is going to be the easier thing to do, right? Okay, if I do the right thing, then maybe I'll sleep tonight, because I won't be anxious about all the work I didn't get done by doing the wrong thing. as an example, right? The path of the righteous is straight and the path of the wicked is crooked, okay? But what am I doing in that moment? Again, I'm motivating myself. When you find yourself being tempted and then subjectively kind of moving down the path of that temptation, one of the things you've got to do is you've got to come in with the biblical motivation to help yourself, right? And that's why we talk about these kinds of things along that line, right? Okay, so what's some of the biblical motivation? Well, my identity is as a person who is born again. I am in a relationship with Jesus, and I have access to that right now by faith. So I can talk to him about this, or I can, you know, and then, I mean, all kinds of things can come in, just, you know, why has God caused me to be born again? So he has done that because there are good works which he has prepared beforehand that I'm supposed to enter into, right? I mean, so you can take any manner of biblical motivations and start feeding your heart with them, right? And I think that that's going to be much more profitable than just trying to sit there at the moment saying, open the Bible software rather than YouTube. Open the Bible software rather than YouTube. Open the Bible software rather than YouTube. I mean, to take my own self as the example, right? To just hit yourself with the command. Now, the command is helpful, right? Because it gives you specifically how it is that you're supposed to love God and love other people, right? All right, that's good. Okay, and yes, or maybe to put it another way, you want to bring your whole heart into the fight, right? If one aspect of your heart is struggling, you want to bring the other aspects of your heart into the fight. So today what we're talking about is emotions, joy. You want to bring your emotions into it to help you. You want to bring your understanding in to help you. You want to bring your affections, what do you love and what do you fear, in to help you. You want to bring all of your soul into this situation so that you do as you are. Absolutely. Okay. So Bob says, well, isn't that a good, isn't that a good illustration of, of, um, helping brothers to, and when they're struggling to just use, strengthen them and encourage them. Exactly. Right. That's exactly right. What you do for yourself, you can do for other people. The illustration I think about this is Martin Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor, and he was a very successful medical doctor. And I guess he comes home one day and he tells his wife, I'm going to be a preacher. Now, of course, what does his wife say? Well, how do you know you can preach? That's what she asks him. How do you know you can preach? And he says, because I can preach to myself. That's what he told me. He said, because I can feed my soul with the gospel, I believe I can feed other people's soul with the gospel. And I think that's exactly what we're talking about, right? So anyway, yeah. So these things not only, of course, are helpful to us, but they're helpful to other people. OK, Psalm 119. The reason I picked Psalm 119 is if you look down to verse 14, Right? So in verse 14, I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches. Right? So then, so, okay, so remember we were talking earlier about, all right, I, I, I, um, I consider the law in a particular way, or I consider God's statutes in a particular way, or His testimonies, or His judgments. So when it says testimonies there, it's in a context. The reason I give you all of Psalm 119 is because you see it's the context of commandments in verse 10, statutes in verse 12, right, of ways in verse 15. So we're talking in terms of how you should order your life. And so these kinds of things, these commands, we're supposed to consider them as a treasure. And so, and again, make sure, just again, so that we don't get sidetracked, we're talking in terms of saved people. Saved people should consider them as a treasure. If you're not saved, they're a treasure to you, but in a different way, right? They're a treasure to you to drive you to Jesus, right? Well, I should say, for a Christian, they're gonna be, they do that to you as well. But predominantly as a unsaved person, if you try to, Rejoice in these testimonies as riches to you to conduct your life what you're going to find out is that you're going to rebel more against them and It's going to be a failure to you, but that failure again ought to drive you to Christ Good, okay So I mean do you think of the commands of God as riches, right? Right, so you're, and you're supposed to do, okay, so now again, okay, so here's another aspect of your soul. So what aspect of your soul now are we talking about? At least one thing I would put for you. So you're thinking about a picture aspect of your soul. You've got to picture riches. You've got to think about, to be concrete maybe, rubies, pearls, that kind of thing. So if you think in terms of rubies and pearls and those kinds of riches, what does that do to your motivation? Okay, the human heart is generally motivated to proceed toward good things, right? Okay, and so this, what it says, what you should think in your mind, you should connect the feelings associated with possessing rubies and pearls and that kind of thing as the same kinds of feelings associated with possessing the law. That's a function of the imagination of the soul. So you can imagine that those things are riches and you, again, as what your parents want to do for you when you're little is connect those emotions that you might feel with having a $5 bill to the law of God. Right? And as you do that, then over the course of your life, you wonder why some people just very readily and easily enter into doing certain things. And it's because they've, again, habitually, intuitively associated joy with those things. And what a wonderful thing that is. Okay. I got a minute or two, so maybe I'll just leave that for comments. Okay. Okay, so if Jesus became poor, that we might become rich. Again, yes, so the concept of rich, so then we think of being rich or being wealthy and associated with the things that Jesus has given to us or done for us. Right, good. Especially because he's brought us out, not of a neutral state, right, but out of a state of poverty where we actually had nothing. Good, all right. Okay. Welcome back. It is good to be here. Let's pray together. Lord, we love you. We thank you so much for your grace to us in Christ. We thank you for working in our hearts, joy with being just. We thank you for working in our hearts to know that the man of understanding has joy in walking uprightly. We thank you, Lord, for the ways in which you've brought many situations in our experience so that we have experienced joy when we have followed your commands. And we thank you, Lord, in the gospel, in the glories of the gospel, which tell us of the benefits that are ours in Jesus, and that as we meditate upon those benefits, that joy arises in our hearts. And we thank you for the blessings of being In relationship to you that causes us joy of having our hearts saved which causes us joy of Having the means of hearing these things through the Word of God Which gives us joy and we pray that you would bless us in a in attaching joy in our hearts to your commands As the Bible describes how to do that and we pray for this in Christ's name. Amen