is to pick up and give me a live stream comment on it, amen. Tomorrow I'll say that. If you want to watch me live stream it. It's like seven days. Amen. Psalm 119, amen. And we're going to read the whole Psalm. I guess all Bibles, all King James Bibles have it. You see Abel there before verse number one. She's there before verse number nine. She's in there before verse number seven. And stop there at verse 18, right under Imel. So that's a big C, I guess it's a C in Hebrew or whatever letters they use. And verse 18 says this, open now my eyes. that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. I'm saying, God, open my eyes. Let me understand. Show me some wonderful things in your book. And we know that Psalm 119, it says it's on a chapter in the whole Bible, but it is dedicated to the word of God. All we know is it was a suffering saint that wrote this. And the saint that wrote it held the word of God in a very high place where we ought to. And it's a beautiful poem about the word of God. I don't know how many of you studied, I taught on it when I did a Bible survey and looked at the book of Psalms, the Mormon and the wisdom of literature, Psalms, Phinehas and Proverbs, those books. I taught on it, he breaks poetry. He breaks poetry, it's different, and man, this psalm, not all of them are written in Hebrew, they're all Hebrew poetry. And not all of them are acrostics, but some of Solomon, part of that. Some of the songs are Proverbs 31, a man, the Proverbs 31 woman. And it's all much different than Western poetry. Western poetry has rhythm and rhymes. Rhymes, and it's got a rhythm to it. And one day we'll look deeper into it, but I understand he creates poetry It's completely different. It has a laid out pattern of cross-stitches and things like that. And Hebrew men would memorize the Word of God. Being a rabbi, another rabbi I struggled with, you had to remember, memorize, I believe the first time, they had to memorize a lot, do the wrong, and maybe, I don't know, say how much, but they had to memorize huge portions of the Word of God. And we kind of struggled to even read the Word of God. And they had the Hebrew Apostles, the cross-stitches would help them So when they look at it, they would look at it, it would help them, it would show them, aid them in the memory of memorizing different things. So Psalm 119 is an acrostic. That's why it's got those Hebrew letters there. And each is emphasizing a letter of the alphabet, and therefore each of the verses in that sanctum start with that first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, or whatever letter it is in the Hebrew alphabet pertaining to that section. And I would just say that many, many Hebrew people memorize this whole song about how important the word of God was in their life. I mean, the theme of the whole thing is God's law, and 173 times out of 176 verses, God's law is mentioned, that's the word of God. And God is mentioned, you find God in every single verse of this song. It contains 70 different prayer requests in this poetry, and prayer requests after prayer requests after prayer requests, and we're focused on that one prayer request that I've already read. where the psalmist stated whoever wants to pray, God, open thou my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Give me discernment, give me wisdom, show me something in your book, God. And tonight, that prayer right there, God's word and prayer, we know that's, I've tried to beat it in y'all's head for years. Is that what being a Christian is? Study God's word in communing and talking with God. That's really the primary core and giving to the work of God. That is the primary phase of being a Christian. But I believe there's a tremendous amount of Christians struggling with it, and there's a reason for that. That's the devil's trick tonight. He don't want you to do it. It's one exciting thing. Man, he don't care if you gamble. care if your kids are the greatest in the sport there is. He don't care if you do all these things. He don't care if you come to church. As long as you don't get in the Word of God, get into prayer calls, and be close to God, he don't care. That point of sight, and he definitely don't want you praying. Open now my eyes, God, and show something in the Word. And one of the most important things that I've always wanted to steal is the people that God's given me as shepherds. and if they don't pick up that Bible and they don't start to read and at least try to see what God is saying in the word of God, and they don't get a prayer life, it's gonna be so easy forsaken to knock them out of this church, knock them out of serving the Lord. I know, and I know this, I don't blame anybody else, but I know there's plenty of churches they can go to, not read the word of God, not pray, and not get bothered by the Holy Ghost, amen, and check their box for the week. But I know this church got a whole lot of praying folks, got a whole lot of loud-shouting folks, and if we want God in this place, that's what we're gonna do. And when people come in and they don't want to get in and be a part of that, I'm telling you, it's starting to feel a little awkward, amen. And we want to see people grow in the Lord. We may have victory over the billions, see, we got a whole new heaven, amen, we got saved. You may have got saved, you may have come to the Lord, believed in the death, death, resurrection, got saved, but you never get victory over the power of sin, and you struggle with your flesh all through your life. I want to preach on that thought. I want to preach on the thought of a prayer for Bible reading tonight out of Psalm 119. And believe me, I'm praying that everybody in the church reads their Bible. And I bet my life savings on the fact that a large number of people in the room do, but I also bet my life on the fact that I bet there's some folk in the room that struggle with it. I guess some of us rarely pick up the book, amen? But there's a bank. out of us that didn't pick up the book and read it. Some of us never change and never grow and never get anything from it. There's plenty of Christians that have trained themselves to do a Bible reading plan and read that Bible every year, every day, but they're simply reading a novel or a history book and they're simply checking them off. And I'm not gonna lie, I've done it many times. When you're trying to read it multiple times a year, and you know you gotta get it done, and you read it in the morning like I do, and you're getting up, and you've got all these things on a busy day, you know you gotta write a sermon, you know you gotta go somewhere and preach, you know you gotta do this and do that, and you get up, you know what you're not doing? You're not just zooming through them as fast as you can, and just read them verses and read them chapters, and it's nothing but a task for you. That's some of what reading the Word of God ought to be. And I want to read this book and I want it to change who I am. I want it to make me a better daddy. I want it to make me a better pastor. I want it to make me a better husband. I want it to change who I am. I want to do exactly what it tells me to do. I want it to speak to me, I'm not an allegorical guy, but I want every verse I read, I want every passage I do, if you will, every chapter, I want something to speak to me. There are times when I sit down and I read my dead body, and I open my mouth, and I haven't gotten anything from it, and I don't have the blood of it, especially in 36. But did you really try your best for God to speak to you? Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy love. Hopefully tonight you'll decide you're gonna be one of the ones that read it, but I want you also tonight to decide to go to that next step and have a bigger desire for God to do something in you every time, every day that you read it, amen? I want you to pray, I want your prayer to be, open my eyes, God, that I might see something wonderful in your book for me. Father, we love you. Lord, help us tonight. Help us to have a desire. Help us to learn. God, we're preaching pretty practical tonight. God, I pray that we apply some things to our life, God, and we'd be doers of the word of God. Lord, if you'd change our life this book, we wouldn't just be readers, God, but we would read it and you would do things for us as we read it. God, you'd change our life. You'd guide us. You'd eliminate things. You'd show us things and help us, Father. We love you and we praise you this morning or this evening in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. So next time you pick up your Bible and read it, I want you to pray some things. Here's some things to go along with that verse. 119 verse 18. Mark me in your Bible. You can open that up and read it every time that you get ready to read your Bible. Meditate on that verse. Memorize it tonight. Open thou my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Open thou my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. You can pray that prayer. Now, I'm gonna show you four things you pray as you say that, amen? Number one, you're praying for illumination. You're praying for illumination, amen? Well, 19 and 34, he said this, look at verse 34. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law, yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. See, God guides us through his word. Now, the pages of this book, and I'm gonna say something, I'm gonna say the next thing, shall I not, you moron, amen? But the pages of this book are magical, and the words in this book are life-transforming. Lost men can read this thing and get absolutely nothing. They read it and it's nothing but history, it's nothing but poetry, it's nothing but words and stories to them, amen? But the Holy Ghost of God that lives inside of you and I is the one that illuminates, that's not charismatic, amen? It is the Holy Ghost of God that illuminates the Word of God. I've told you over and over to be filled with the Spirit. We've got to have the Word of God. We've got to have the Spirit of God speaking to us through the Word of God. And we've got to have an obedience to the Spirit and the Word of God. That's how we're filled with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit illuminates things to us. John 14.26 says, For the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. whatsoever I have said unto you. And I understand in that kingdom document as he's talking to his men, he may have been talking about the words he said to us, but where's the words he said to them? But where are the words he said to us? They're right here in this book. So, if you're saying you've got the Holy Ghost and you don't read that book, he's not gonna teach you things, amen? You understand what I'm saying? He said he will come and teach you things and bring things to your a good Christian without reading the Bible, amen? The Holy Ghost, you have to dig a well, amen? All the preachers said that to me years ago. You've got to dig the well. What does that mean? That's taking the words that he said unto you and putting them down inside of you. I'm no good at it, but by the way, if you can do it, then do it, my friends, because it's highly important. Put the words of God down in you, and then the Holy Ghost, when you go through something, when you've got to make a decision, when something's going on, the Holy Ghost can then take the will you've got, and the words of God, because you know what Jesus said unto you at the end of the verse. He can take those words, and He can use them and teach them to you. He illuminates things through you, and He helps you through them, and He brings them into remembrance when you need them. So for that to work, you've got to have the Word of God inside of you. The Holy Ghost gives you understanding. He teaches you things. It ain't going to happen if you don't bring it out. It ain't going to happen if you don't live with the Word of God, know the Word of God. He'll remind you of the things Christ said. He'll remind you of the promises in this book he gives. I can't tell you how many times I've read in my Bible about the Holy Ghost, brother. Yeah, I know it's living in me and all that stuff, but I can't tell you how many times I've read it. And it's just a book to get it done. And I've heard people say that they do not like the Bible reading plan. And I've heard preachers say it. And they've been discussing the Word of God. And they're going to do both and read them. But don't read it vainly. Don't read it in an empty way. And read it looking for God to give you something, to illuminate something. It's really business to have. Now we're on the one-year plan. We're reading 30, 45 minutes a day, whatever it is. And there's times you sit down, you get distracted, and I'll be sitting there reading it, and I'll have to stop to answer a phone call or do something, and I have no idea where to pick up that phone. I'll agree, but I won't agree. You all know what I'm talking about? Maybe you're reading, but you can't say a single word, the last couple of words are the same. Some of you turn on and listen to it, last three chapters. You think that's really helping you? You think it works like osmosis, fella? This thing ain't osmosis. It don't just suck in, eh, man? I know it might be a joke. I don't want to lay a male hippo that's going to go to sleep playing Proverbs, stuff like that, eh, man? But I'm telling you, for us grown-up Christians, eh, man, you can't just go to sleep with your head on the hook. You gotta be trying to get something from God, amen? I've read about the presence of the Holy Ghost over and over and over again. I don't want to do that anymore. You're wasting your time. The word illumination means spiritual or intellectual enlightenment. It is the light, lighting something up or showing someone something. The only way you can really get what God wants of you is to get out of the Bible. I mean, you can do Bible surveys. You can learn. You can learn content. But if you really want to get something out of the Bible, the Holy Spirit's got to do that. I mean, you know how it is. A preacher can get up preaching on something, and a husband and wife can sit there and get two totally different things out of it. Amen. I wasn't all in. I wasn't looking for what God spoke to me. She was in there probably already in a conviction with some things in her heart and God was speaking to her. When we come out here and the Lord goes to illuminate her sinful state and illuminate things in her, that's the same thing as when you read your Bible looking for God to do something. Read your Bible and ask God to illuminate some things too. Sit down and start reading. Pray that prayer. So many times I read it and I'm not getting anything freaky on that letter. When I'm reading my stuff, that's what I'm looking for all the time. But man, there's times when I need God. I love Christ. I preach the Acts 1 through 8. The Lord stood by. If any of y'all remember it, I preached it here on a Sunday morning. And I told Top Box, if you And before I was going through that rough time with my hip, with worry about dying, with everything else, and I was reading the Bible, I was reading Acts 23, verse number 11, it said, that night the Lord stood by him and said, for you'll be a cheater, don't worry, Jason. For as thou hast testified of me and Jerusalem, keep working, Jason, so must thou bear witness also in Rome. Just wait, Jason. And it's like the Lord stood there and said to him, And God illuminated that to me that night as I was studying the Word of God. And it has helped me. And obviously, I preach the point of God's love to each and every one of us. Let's not read our Bibles just to read our Bibles. Let's read our Bibles for God to illuminate us. He's saying, draw my heart to the things of God, to you, and not to the things I tell you. God motivated us to serve Him and live for Him through His Word. He'll put something in us. When you start reading the Word of God, that's why I want people to do it, because you see the church changing. And you see the people in the church changing. You see things happening. People getting motivated for doing things for God. You wonder why so many folks come to church and very few do anything. I mean, the primary problem may be that we don't read the word of God, but I believe God, that's not big in our church. We've got a lot of readers, amen? But the secondary problem may be that many read the word of God but don't get nothing from it. See, James 1.22 says, be doers of the word and not hearers, only deceiving your own selves. He said, do it, not just hear it. Well, just hear it then. He's just reading it, right? You may just sit and listen to it in your car. But it says, be doers of it. Because if you're just hearing it, you're deceiving yourself. Way too many people that read God's Word are not doers tonight, amen? The statistics from Barnett Christian group statistics say, I mean, they'll say that 70, 60% read the Bible, and different degrees, different amounts, and all that. But it'll say 5% or 10% of the church really does most of the work. I mean, I mean, it's strange. This man had a son that we were dealing with trying to help. And he was telling us some of the things going on in his home, some of the things happened to him. And how back in mercy, I don't understand this preacher. He reads the Bible every single day. He sits down and he reads. He'll read the Bible for an hour. He knows that book, and he reads it. But I'm trying to tell you, he's not a doer of the Word. There's something wrong. There's a disconnect there. That's an extreme example, but if all of us are reading the Bible, guess what? Why is there only a few of us in prayer life? Why is there only a few when we go door knocking? Why is there only a few that have the courage and boldness to tell somebody about Jesus? What you want to say? There's big churches that I know of, big, 1,000 people. We do good if we have 5 or 10 knocking doors, but there's churches up there that have 1,000 people and 5 Especially if all of them dreaming word of God, and over and over they're seeing how they're supposed to share the gospel. Yet they're not doing it. They see how they're supposed to pray informative, but they don't show. There's something wrong with God praying for motivation tonight. To serve God, for Him to motivate us to live for Him. I need this encouragement. I need His correction. I need His reproof. I need His rebuke in my life. Now, I listen to a lot of preaching. I go and listen to God. I respect things like that. I'm your pastor. You listen to me. Listen, you can weasel out of a 30-minute sermon. You can think about mowing the grass. You can do something else. But if you get in that book And on a Sunday morning service when you go to Mexican and you forget all about it. He'll encourage us and motivate us. He said it right on the heart of his life testimonies and not the consciousness. Asking the God to appraise you, to rebuke you, to exhort you. And the gospel on how he used his word to motivate you. something in your word. God, motivate me to do something more for you through your word. Thirdly, pray for conviction. Deuteronomy 35. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments. He said, make me, God. That reminds me of Paul, right about the flesh and spirit, don't it, you? Where he says, I want to do the things that I'm supposed to do. Because I'm slashed. As someone said, make me to go in the path of thy commandments, for therein do I delight. I want to. We've got to pray for God to change us and convict us every time we read his word. But the Holy Ghost will do that through the word of God. John 16 and 18 says, and when he has come he will remove the world from sin. Speaking of the Holy Ghost. Jesus is telling his disciples that the Holy Ghost will come after he's gone. One of the reasons he's coming is to convict the world of sin. I'm glad for that, convicted of the sin of my life, and I believe in the death, burial, and resurrection, amen? And I was sitting on that third PS contract, and I got under such heavy conviction, I got born again to have faithful. Thank the victim in the end, I actually convinced the same person as well. I can't tell you how many times I've been looking at something, reading the Bible. I mean, the first thing you got to say nothing about it, honestly, and it's just like the Holy Ghost, boom, jumps in your face and says, why you been doing that? Why you been that mean? Why you been talking like that? Why you been angry still? Why you doing that? I'm beginning to worry God. He'll just show me something. And all of a sudden, I'm sitting there in a convention. It's supposed to change us to become better people. And when people as wicked as us get in a book as holy as that, I don't see how it don't change us. Especially if we really, if we're real serious about it, we're praying these things. God, illuminate something to me. God, guide me through this thing. God, give me the rest. God, help me. Convict me. All my children, they were meant to be saved. Therefore, the spirit of God will live inside of them. How many of you know that a prophet you said you get real messed up. Never read the Bible, thank God for what Blake's doing. Brock's carrying his Bible reading plan around. Blake gave him an amen. He's got his Bible, he's carrying his faith. Not that I bought him a, a, a, a, I can't even know what it's called. Go Bible app, amen, if he wants to listen to it as he reads today. He'll use that against me. He'll say, I don't do school day. I don't do my pie. You're a schoolboy, son. Amen. Before you go out there, you're going to school. Yeah. But you know what your problem is? Sometimes we don't even think. We don't even cross our minds. It makes us feel great about it. We worry about the hate violence. We worry about the hate violence. It doesn't take the past time. See, they got the Spirit of God living inside of them. In the Word of God. They're not using the Word of God to speak to them. It's got to have both elements in it. I beg God that if my kids ever go in the wrong direction or get too deep and get into something else, I pray for them to get out of it. I really don't want him to hurt him. I don't want his back to be broken. He wants to preach to them he should have been. I don't want that to happen. I don't want things to happen to my kids when I know they're children. It doesn't matter what I want for them. If I want God in the world, I want the Spirit of God to come live for God. If they've got that Spirit of God for them, if I don't get them in the book and teach them how important the book is, all day and remind them of what Jesus said. They got to know what Jesus said about it. I'm advocating for you to put your feet on the Bible and have them sit down and read it. Because I've been begging God to lay conviction on my feet all those years, but I haven't always laid it in my Bible. What am I going to do? Just be convicted with my words? No, I'd rather it be done this way. Make me go in that path. I need to change. God, motivate me to do something more for you. God, show me something in your word. Fourthly, pray for direction. Verse 25 says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. When you pray for direction, that's pretty simple, man. Right? I mean, they're scared. I mean, I just went through some where me and my mom was making split decisions. Put them on a bench, do this, do that. Split decisions, scared to death. Scared to death the outcome. I get tired of these young preachers acting like they know the perfect room to go to all the time. I'll confess to you, I don't know all about it. But I confess to you, I bet you don't either. I don't know how to be the perfect husband. I don't know how to be the perfect dad. I know. I got my dog, I got my dog, I got my heavy opinions. I got, and I got a Bible, amen. I really, it's a struggle to know. And we need God's direction, man. Anybody that's got in the middle range of being a nun, man, sometimes you just don't know what to do. You've been married, sometimes you just don't know what to do. It's not where it has to go, and that's the only thing that's gonna help us. Young men ain't gonna help us. But this right here is a magical moment. And don't get too confused. We need to look for God and thank him for the love he's given us, to guide us, to predict us, to encourage us, and to use it well. I said it this morning, we don't know much about these pastures. We don't know. I don't want drugs. But the closer I got to her, the more she was after me. She used to pat me on the head. That's the way I needed her. Now she's telling me. She's telling me to make the test, but she made it a circumstance. This man got up from his bed and took the test. It was wild. I saw it. I said they were ready to kill me. I want the direction for my life. I want the direction for my marriage. I want it for my kids, and I want it for Grace Hospital, and I want it for you. So here's what you've got to do. You're going to read it, but you're not just going to read it. You're going to pray and you're going to do it. Bible. Thank you, Lord, for your work. I'm thankful that you had me and reported, God, so that we can have it. I thank you, God, that you guide us through it. I thank you, God, that you convict us through it. We've got to pray our church. I know we've got wonderful folks, God, that spread church on the planet, and I thank you. God, we've got great people that love you. Men that pray, women that pray, people that read about you. God, I want us to go to the God, I want you to guide us for our families, for our children. God, I don't want to be in the church with all them kids running out to work. God, I pray that people in this church would have such a love for the Bible. God, they don't even need to force their kids to sit down and read it. joy, and other kids would want to read. God, I pray that all of us would be reading the Bible, studying the Bible, and giving thanks to the Bible in our homes, Father. We love you and thank you. Amen.