Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Tuesday, January the 16th, 2024. It is currently 2.52 PM Central Time, and I am coming to you live. Well, I used to call it the Theology Central Studio, but I can't really call it the Theology Central Studio because I am coming to you live from what is now my bedroom, my entertainment room, my studio, my, I don't know, my prison cell. Let me explain what is going on. Currently here in my home, someone has COVID. And I have now isolated myself to try to ensure that I do not get it. I don't want it. I don't want to experience it. I don't want anything to do with COVID in any way, shape, or form. So I've kind of locked myself away up here in the studio. So everything I own is up here. Well, okay, not everything I own. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, a little bit of hyperbole, but I feel like I brought as much stuff with me as possible. to stay locked in so that I can up here, try to stay as far away as possible other than when help or assistance is needed. Everything else, just try to stay up here as much as possible, far away from it. Obviously it's worse for the person who has COVID, far worse for them, but I'm just like, okay, if I isolate myself here and I'm here hour after hour, after hour, after day, after day, after day, after day, well, on one hand, you would think, well, I mean, you're right there. The microphone is right there. The computer is right there. You're in that room. You should have been, I mean, you may be thinking you should have done 20, 30 broadcast. Well, in some ways I feel like I should have. In some ways I feel like, well, what am I doing? I'm here. Just turn on the microphone and just go hour after hour, after hour, after hour, after hour. But it is amazing, at least to me. I don't know about you, when your whole routine, when everything kind of gets turned upside down, when everything just kind of gets all discombobulated, how it can so mess up your thinking. And so as I was sitting here today just struggling with, okay, what do I do? Do I do a broadcast? I don't know if I want to broadcast. I mean, because if I'm doing a broadcast, If I'm doing a broadcast about scripture, about theology, if I'm trying to do a devotional, if I'm trying to do something spiritual, well, I need to be much more spiritually minded. And it is weird how just a little bit of disruption and immediately, I can't speak for you, I'm not spiritually minded in any way, shape, or form. I'm much more material or fleshly or earthly minded, right? I'm focused on the situation. I'm allowing the situation to basically control my thinking and my emotions, and I'm frustrated and irritated. And then I start thinking, well, I could be locked up here. I can stay here seven, 10, 12 days, wait till after there's a negative COVID test and then slowly reemerge. But I could try to take all the precautions possible, but I'm still gonna have to go downstairs for things. So there's a high probability that even after all the isolation, I could still come down with it. So then should I just not even worry? So then you start trying to think about that and you're like, well, how frustrating would that be? And then next thing you know, I'm just completely preoccupied about the situation. and the situation then begins to impact me. So I started thinking that in a symbolic way, it's kind of a picture of all of our lives every single day. Every single day we have all of these things happen, right? Sometimes things fall into a nice routine, but things always disrupt your day, right? Things don't go as planned, this happens, this happens, this happens, and it always impacts us. And so I was thinking, how quickly can we go from being spiritually minded, setting our affections on things above, right? Putting our focus on things of God, desiring the things of God, thinking about the things of God, meditating on the things of God, being so focused on that to just almost instantaneously going, boom, and just like, boom, I'm thinking about my situation earthly. material. You know, it's just a materialistic, earthly, fleshly way of thinking. Not necessarily sinful, it's just you're preoccupied with everything other than the things of God. And then how other times you find yourself like, whoa, I'm really focused on scripture. I'm really thinking, I'm thinking about spiritual things. I'm really desiring spiritual things. Oh wow, this is, and you're like, you feel like this, this is the way it's going to be for the next, for the next year. I'm really in a good spot, and just one little thing can go boom. And then next thing you know, you're preoccupied, you're focused, and you just kind of drift away. I hate that never-ending battle. I mean, it's a real battle, and you can see why it's a real battle, because we're human beings, right, with a sinful nature. Our natural predisposition is not to the spirit. Our natural predisposition is not spiritual. It's earthly. It's material. It's fleshly. It's of this world. That's where our normal focus... We have to fight against that sinful nature. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing really well. In some ways, it's kind of frustrating because when I kind of first thought about it, I'm like, you know, I'm going to be locked into the studio. You know, I could do this and I could do this and I could do that. But then soon it was like, I don't know if I want to do this. I don't know. And the next thing you know, one hour turns into two hours, two hours turns into four hours, four hours turns into six hours. And I'm like, I haven't really done anything. And I'll literally just be sitting here going, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? I don't want to read, but maybe I should read or maybe I want to do. I shouldn't do this. And then on top of the COVID situation, if you've been keeping up, I know most of you are probably experiencing the same thing. Texas, at least, got hit with this absolute massive Arctic winter apocalypse. Well, I mean, and when I say winter apocalypse, just as temperature, we didn't get ice or snow or anything, just these absolutely horrific temperatures. And then the next thing you know, I'm up here going, okay, how do I stay warm? Okay, let's hope we don't lose any power. And then, okay, well, I got the, well, if all of that's going on, I can't be running downstairs. And so then I think at one point we did lose power We threw some breakers, so I had to go downstairs, go into the garage, and I'm like, OK, so now I'm down here where the COVID is. And it's like the whole situation has just been one that, if you think about it this way, it kind of reminds me of the whole COVID pandemic in the first place. When the COVID pandemic first kind of emerged and the world went to lockdown, the world shut down, whether you agree or disagree with the shutdown, it did. Remember my initial thinking at the time? See, my initial thinking was very spiritual. Because at that point, I was driving out to Victory Baptist Church in the middle of nowhere, 20 minutes from the house to broadcast. And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to, I mean, the world is in lockdown. I'm going to get in my car, drive to the church there. There's nobody there. So I'm just going to sit there and just sit behind that microphone hour after hour, trying to give people something spiritual to think about. something spiritual to focus on, something. And for me, I kind of fell, the pandemic kind of led me to fall into a more spiritual-minded pattern. It literally, the pandemic had more of an opposite impact. I mean, I was like, look, hey Christians, we have this great opportunity. The world is shut down. This is a bad situation, but we can use this to come out of it more spiritually-minded than we went into it. We could come out of this more godly, more discipled, know more doctrine, know more theology, have listened to more sermons, read the entire Bible. And it's like, I was really thinking, now every church could use the technology available and we could do more teaching and more theology. And I thought, this could be a positive thing. So in that situation, I fell into a more spiritually minded thing. But we know how everyone else went. Then it turned into arguments about lockdowns, and mask work, and don't work, and the hospitals are lying to us, and it's a conspiracy, and then it just turned into politics and conspiracy, and we're gonna try to prove a point, and we're gonna do this just to show the world that we're not gonna follow their lockdown, and it just turned into everything. In fact, everyone, in many cases, the church became more, I think, fleshly-minded, earthly-minded, worldly-minded, than spiritually-minded. So it had kind of that, well, negative impact. Even though for me, I fell into a good one, a good position, a good space, but I felt everyone else kind of fell into the wrong one. And here I am, if you think about it, still COVID related. I'm up here, right here with the microphone in this very room. I don't have a lot of options up here. There's no TV up here, so I have an iPad Pro. I have my typical iPad I use for sermon prep and everything. I have notebooks. I have journals. I have books. I have a radio. I have a lot of... But it had the... It was kind of like, what's the point? What's the point? Now, I've only been up here a couple of days. It all really started Sunday. So I've only been here Sunday. Now, Sunday I did, you know, I did two hours of teaching at the church. Then once we realized, hey, I've been exposed to COVID, then, you know, well, I can't, I'm not gonna go back and possibly carry it with anybody else. So then I was like, okay, then I'll broadcast from here. I did that. So I think Sunday I did pretty good. Then Monday kind of went just like, I don't even know what happened on Monday. I'm still trying to look back. I don't even know what happened on Monday. Did I even, was I even conscious? I don't know. And now here it is Tuesday, And I'm here going, what? It's now 3.02 p.m. What am I going to do? The day is almost over. So, here's what I decided to do. I told everyone about this challenge called the Sermons 2.0 App Sermon Challenge. where you're supposed to randomly, every day, grab your tablet, phone, open up the Sermons 2.0 app, and pick a sermon as randomly as possible. The other day was a very specific topic you were supposed to be looking up sermons on, right? 1 Samuel 3, about the light going out, right? You were supposed to have done that. But I'm gonna be honest with you. I didn't participate Monday. I didn't. I had the time, had the opportunity, clearly had the situation. I'm always not much else I could do. I just wasn't spiritually minded. And then here it is Tuesday, three o'clock, guess what? When I first got up, I didn't immediately grab my iPad and go to sermons 2.0, I did not. In fact, I didn't really go to anything. I typically would even go to podcasts. I didn't, like my whole, I so out of sync, not spiritually minded. And what good does it do? Of what value does it do to sit around going, oh, this situation. Instead of focusing on the situation, I should be focusing on what I can do in the situation. So I'm like, I've got to figure something out. I got to figure something out. I got to figure something out. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to use the challenge as it was designed, and I'm going to force myself. So I've grabbed a random sermon from the Sermons 2.0 app, we're going to listen to it and I'm going to talk about it. And even if you don't get anything from this, even if it's of no value or benefit to you, it's of great value and benefit to me because at least it's getting my mind focused on what it should be focused on, right? It should hopefully at least accomplish that. Maybe it will get me going in the right direction, but it requires great discipline and struggle on a consistent basis to do that. All of us, look, you may be much more spiritually minded than you are earthly minded. You may be one of those people, it's just, it comes easy for you. For me, well, sometimes I think it goes great and then sometimes it doesn't. Right now, I don't even know, it's, yeah, a little bit of upheaval. And I'm the one really in the good right here, right? I'm not sick. I don't have any symptoms. So I should be celebrating right now. Now, maybe I'm not celebrating because there's a little part of me that says, hey, you're going to be isolated for seven to 10 days. Then you're still going to come down with it. So you're going to have all of that period of isolation where you can't, your whole life is turned upside down. Oh, and then add on top of that, you're going to get it. And then you're going to be sick for five to seven days. So, hey, you're going to get the best of both worlds, right? Well. I'm hoping, I'm hoping that's not the case. I'm hoping, I'm hoping that's not the case, but we will see, right? Because at that point, if I get it, then I'm just gonna be, I'll be living in this room for like two weeks, three weeks of my life. 2024 is gonna start with three weeks living in the studios. Yeah, we'll see, we'll see. Let's hope it doesn't work out that way. But I picked a sermon and we're gonna listen to it. I'm only gonna listen until I kinda, If I find one major spiritual point, one major issue, then that's maybe what I'm going to grab onto. Maybe I'll stop right then, and maybe that will become the topic that we're going to choose for tomorrow for our Sermons 2.0 app challenge. Maybe it'll turn into a Bible pop quiz. Who knows? I'm just going to let it Whatever happens is whatever is about to happen, and hopefully it will be beneficial. But hopefully, in all of that, that 14-minute introduction, you will think about just being spiritually-minded versus kind of more fleshly, earthly-minded, and how you can kind of fluctuate between the two. And sometimes, what can be the catalyst? For me, just a little upheaval. Next thing you know, I'm kind of like, oh, boy. Woe is me. Woe is me. And, well, woe is me, doesn't usually lead to spiritual-minded. I could have been like, I'm going to have an option. I'm going to be locked in a room. I'm going to make the most of this. And I haven't really. So here's my attempt to move me from a more fleshly, earthly, material-minded mindset because of my circumstance. And in discipline, using hopefully a little bit of discipline, move myself much more to the spiritual side. Now, is it going to last? I don't know, but it may be a start. So here we go. I don't know what we're going to find out. This sermon is called What's Next. I think it comes from Ambassador. I think it's Ambassador Baptist College. Hang on, let me pull it up on the Sermons 2.0 app. I do follow them. I always forget the name of the college. All right, give me one second here. Let me find the name of the college. It's Ambassador. Ambassador Baptist College. Ambassador Baptist College out of North Carolina, and they did a sermon called, What's Next? It was published today, January the 16th, 2024. It's on the book of Psalm, or it's from Psalms 119. I don't know anything else about it. The only thing I know is the volume was a little too low for my liking, so I amplified it, and so I then have now that uploaded, and hopefully it will be loud enough for you. What's Next? Sometimes the title just caught my eye. I kind of just scroll. It's still random, but I just kind of looked. When you're scrolling, even though I try not to look, sometimes I just close my eyes and point, sometimes I'll see a title and if a title jumps out at me, sometimes I'll grab it based off a title. I know that's not technically the way I try to do it. Sometimes I just try to close my eyes, but when you first go there, you see a title and, well, what's next? I was kind of like, Yeah, what is next? What's next for me? What's next? Do I stay in this room for the next two weeks? Am I going to get sick? So, I'm like, well, I'm having a lot of what's next questions. Let's see what they're talking about. What's next? And let's listen to it right now. I'd like you to take God's word and let's go to the 119th Psalm. Psalm 119 and find the ninth verse, please. Psalm 119. and verse nine, Psalm 119, verse nine. I'll have you stand for the reading of God's word. I'll give you a little movement there. Okay, so I'm finding out other people are looking at titles as well. Someone else just said that they're guilty and they, in the speaker chat, that they're guilty of looking at the title. Well, I cannot believe people are looking at the titles of your random sermon picks. I can't believe, I would never do such a thing. I am above that because I said to make them random, so I don't even look. It's hard because you click on the Discover tab. If I go to the Discover tab right now, so I've got the Sermons 2.0 app open. If I click on the Discover tab right now and I go to Newest Sermons, Okay, boom. Now, even if I try not to, I know the first one is Daniel 6 devotional. I know that, right? I know that. I know the second one is why so fearful from, I believe, Mark. So now I'm trying to look away. So I'm going to at least see the first two. Now I can just scroll and not try to look. Okay, I just picked out, I just now chose one at random. Case Laws 1. Case Laws 1. What in the world is that? Case Laws 1? Okay, I gotta, Case Laws 1. Okay, we've gotta listen to that one. Okay, now I'm gonna just download that one now. Case Laws 1? Okay. I don't know what that is. Okay. I know it's 39 minutes. Okay. I'm going to keep that one. Hang on. I'm going to, I'm going to hang on. I'm going to hit play really quick. No justice, no peace. I've been excited about this for a little while. All right, okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I hit play so that it'll be in my history, so I'm gonna do that. So I try, that's what I try to do, but even, see, now the point is, if when I first open it, if one of those first two, if one of those first two would have caught my attention, then I would have went with it. Yeah, if someone now is laughing, say, I didn't mean to distract, well, distracted. So yeah, now I'm preoccupied with that. All right, but the point is, it's almost impossible not to see the titles, but if possible, if you can, As soon as the discovery tab, you click on the discovery tab, close your eyes, wait like 10 seconds, then just hit, you swipe up, and then boom, hit play. Or just hit, tap the screen, and whatever shows up is whatever shows up. Try to make it as random as possible. But today, I saw the title, and I clicked on it. So here we go. He's having people stand for the reading of God's word. Yeah, we could have a discussion about that, but we won't. Let's see what we're going to find out. Here we go. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from my commandments. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Father, you know how I need your help this morning on so many levels. Lord, I pray you strengthen me. You have put something on my heart, and I pray that you help me to communicate it and be clear in that which you want these students that you love so much to hear. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you. All right. I talk about this every single time. Every single time I listen to a sermon, because I know my way of doing it is radically different than others, and I get emails criticizing me on it. Well, you didn't pray, and you didn't pray, and you didn't pray, and you didn't pray, and you didn't pray, and you didn't pray. People get mad that I don't pray on the podcast. I'm supposed to open the podcast in prayer, and I'm supposed to close the podcast in prayer. And in my sermon, you don't pray, you don't pray, you don't pray, you don't pray, you don't pray. That may be one of the most common emails that I get, and it's like, do you have anything to say about what I said? Okay, well, all right, I digress. All right, but I mean, this is a real important question. Real important question. We have thousands, thousands upon thousands of different churches in the United States of America. Who knows how many different denominational groups and different kind of theological positions and theological streams are represented in all of those kinds of churches. We've got church after church after church after church from this denomination and this denomination and this group and this theology and this theology and this theology and this theology. And we all know desperately that those theologies contradict one another. They claim things that are completely opposite. Both cannot be true. A Lutheran understanding of taking a baby, putting water on its forehead, and it becomes a magical Christian, you know, baptismal regeneration, is not in any way, shape, or form in agreement with me as a Baptist saying, no, you only baptize a believer and the baptism does not regenerate. It's symbolic of what has happened. That's a radically different position. It's different than a Presbyterian, and some of them claim that it's sacramental as well. But if you baptize a baby, now it becomes a member of the visible church. And I would be like, I don't know if I want a baby who's an unregenerate person, knowing it's an unregenerate person, as a member of the visible church. And if it's already a member of the visible church, when do you start serving it? Okay, well, then you should start asking all kinds of questions. And I don't even know about baptizing babies because I don't see it in the Bible. Radically different approaches. from Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, Arminian, Calvinist, Augustinian. We could go preterist, non-preterist. We could go covenant theology, dispensational, premillennial, amillennial. I mean, just the theological differences and disputes are innumerable in the world of Christianity. Yet, pastor after pastor prays before they preach, God, help me. Help me say what you want me to say. Help me teach what these people need. Help you put this on my heart. So prayer after prayer says God is the one who has told me what to preach or God is the one. Well, if God is helping and if God is guiding the preaching, shouldn't there be like, I don't know, universal agreement in what is preached? That always blows my mind. Because on one hand, if I say, hey, this is what God laid on my heart to preach, the minute I say that, how dare you criticize my preaching? I'm preaching what God told me to preach. So that means you can never criticize me. And if I'm praying God help me, and if God is helping me preach, how can you then disagree with what I'm preaching since it's God the one helping me preach it? Like, on one hand, it makes an argument for almost an infallibility, right? How dare you criticize me? God's the one who gave me my sermon. God is the one who helped me. God is the one who guided me. I mean, I've heard people say, you know, Lord, hide me behind the cross so that they can only see you. Let my words be pleasing to you. Well, if we say all of this in our prayer, either God answers the prayer or He doesn't answer the prayer. And isn't it amazing? I guess He only answers the prayer when you agree with the sermon, but God didn't answer the prayer when you disagree with the sermon. So, in a roundabout way, I don't know how we can ever disagree with the sermon. And if God is helping us, then why isn't he helping the church preach the same thing, instead of radically different doctrines that completely contradict one another? Now, when I ask these questions, Christians get very mad at me, and they... But I'm just saying... And if God was actually doing those things, You know what? God, give me the words to say. I've heard preachers say that. Give me the words to say. Lord, you guide. Well, then why do we even prepare sermons? Just go to the pulpit and say, God, tell me what to say. Well, then you, well, you definitely no longer, you're kind of walking into the world of charismatic theology, believing God is continuing to speak to you outside of the word, that he's talking to you directly. He's giving you direct messages. Look, I wish God would help all pastors, and that, well, he would help us to a degree that we would, I don't know, maybe never sin, only say the right things, and that all of our doctrine would be true, because how refreshing that would be for the people sitting in the pew. That every church was teaching the same thing, and there was nothing but universal agreement. They could relax. At this point, though, they never know from sermon to sermon what they're going to get. Thank you so much. So we've just come off of a tremendous week, a great week of revival, and we were confronted with the Word of God. Just about everybody I've talked to, students and staff and faculty, God worked in all of our hearts. He did a great work, and you know, all of us, and of course when God's word is given, you know, He will work in our hearts. And we responded to that, and the Holy Spirit searched our hearts, He showed us our sin, we confessed, we made things right, we got forgiveness, we were broken. And you know what, to be clean and right with God is a place that's a place of real freedom. It's liberating to be there. My heart's desire for you this morning is that you'll stay there. A lot of times when I was a youth pastor, kids would say to me, pastor, I don't wanna go to camp. Why? Well, I'll make some big decision, you know, Lord, and I'll make a big decision and then I won't follow through. And then sometimes young people, teens would go to camp with me. And sure enough, the Lord would work in their heart, and a great decision was made, and sin was confessed. And then they'd come back in a few weeks to see me, and they'll say, well, it didn't last. It didn't last. You know what I did? I would remind them and say, listen, the decision you made was not an end point. It was not a point in time. It's a beginning. It's a beginning. What happened to you last week shouldn't be a point in time and you just had a mountain top and you say, well, I can't wait till the next mountain. That's not the way it should be. Oh, this raises so many issues. This raises so many issues. This is a common experience. Now, this is why I never went to church camp, why I loathe church camps, why I never sent any teenagers in my church to church camp, did not support a church camp, and I'm absolutely opposed, never let my kids go to a church camp, because I completely disagree with the entire mindset. I believe church camp is nothing more than isolate, indoctrinate, and manipulate You isolate the kids, no phones, no outside influence. OK, now we're going to teach this, teach this, teach this, teach this. And then in many cases, you use strong manipulation techniques and emotionalism. And the kids make some grand decision. I'm going to go home. I'm never going to listen to secular music again. I'm not going to even hold my girlfriend's hand. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. And they're weeping and they're crying because they're isolated. They're being indoctrinated. They're being manipulated. And they have all of these emotions and they come home and in two, three, four weeks later, the bottom falls out and it's right back to normal. Now, you can put the blame on the kids. Well, you know, you should have realized when you made that decision. That wasn't the end part. That was the beginning part. But see, what you forget to tell them is you're going back home with the very same sinful nature that you arrived at camp with. The same nature you brought to camp is the same nature you're living with, because that's the nature you're going to possess all the way until you are glorified. Now, positionally, yes, you're dead to sin. Positionally, you're a new creature. Positionally, the old is passed away and all is new. But practically, you still have a sinful flesh, you have a sinful nature, you have sinful desires, you have biological desires, all those other desires. You are a human being who's gonna have ups and downs and struggles. You're still going to struggle. Now you've been isolated from some of that influence and you've had this great experience, wonderful. Now you're gonna go back and guess what? That sinful nature is still there. And trust me, plenty of sin is going on in church camps as well. Okay, to act like they're not. My church, when I was a teenager, was a very, very, very, very, very conservative Southern Baptist church, and they sent their kids only to very conservative, conservative church camps. And my best friend, his girlfriend, he didn't get to go that year to church camp. He didn't get to go that year to church camp because he had to work. His girlfriend went to church camp. His girlfriend came back from church camp. Pregnant. Yeah, so, yeah, something else was happening at church camp. something else was happening at church camp, because sinful people. But they have these emotional experiences. Now, there's nothing wrong with an emotional experience, but you've got to make sure you don't manipulate and manufacture And then guess what? You have these revival services and everybody's confronted and they're convicted and everyone goes to the altar and they're like, okay, okay. And then, well, then guess what? It doesn't last. It doesn't last. It doesn't last. It doesn't last. It doesn't last. Because any emotional experience never lasts, whether it's a secular emotional experience, whether it's a religious emotional experience. Whether it's an emotional experience because of relationship, because of work, accomplishments, they don't last. Because emotions don't last. They fluctuate. And when anything related to your faith gets connected to your emotion, then it's going to go up, down, and it's going to be a roller coaster, which typically leads to feeling stupid, foolish, and possibly reconsidering what you're doing. And so you should be moving forward in your Christian life. And I tell them, I would tell them this, what you got you there will keep you there. And what got you to that place of real freedom and joy in the Lord was you're humbling yourself, you're confessing your sin, you're getting right with God and getting right into his presence. And that has to be an ongoing thing as a believer. And there's no need for you to lose it. or to say, well, it's gone. No, what happened last week should just be a building stone or a foundation or just a beginning for you. And so if you think you can move forward, not staying in God's presence, not staying close to God, you're mistaken. You're mistaken. Now, I definitely have heard and seen this many times. This is a common kind of sermon that is preached. So, I've heard these sermons preached at church camps, not because I was there, because I already gave you my view in church camps, but hearing sermons preached from them or hearing sermons preached at the end of a revival. It's always like, okay, we've been to the mountaintop. We've seen the transfiguration. We've seen the glory of God. We have seen him move in mighty ways. Now, What's next? What do we do next? Well, we have to go back. Now, we need to take this experience with us, and it always is preached that way. Now, what is crazy, it's always preached in a way like, okay, you're going to go back, and you're still going to seek God first, and you're going to, and it's, basically, you go back with a list of rules, right? Hey, you better do this, and you do this, and you do this, and you do this, and you do this, and you do this, and you do this, and if you do this, you'll maintain. Well, when it says maintain what? Maintain sinlessness? And if we do go back to maintain it, because it sounds like what you have to do to maintain it is you must seek first to God and you must do this. Well, how does that work when you go back to your everyday life? When you go back to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Are you telling me then, what should I be doing? How is that supposed to play out in everyday life? Hey, you better wake up, and guess what? You better spend two hours in your morning devotion, and then you better have an afternoon devotion, and then you better have a two-hour evening devotion, and you better do this, and you better do that, and you better pray, and you better be fasting, and you better do this. Now, that all sounds good, but when you put it down into a practical reality, it sounds like what you're telling me is basically I need to leave the revival service and join a monastery. And if you don't, well, then you're going to fall right back into the trap that you were. Why do I keep falling back into the trap that I was in? Why do I keep sinning? Because you have a sinful nature. It becomes this very like, you almost feel like you're on a hamster wheel just running in circles and you can never get anywhere. And then at some point you just feel trapped and you feel like, okay, I gotta do better. I gotta do better. I gotta do better. I gotta do better. And you can never do enough. Until the next revival service where then you get greatly convicted because you're not doing enough. And you're like, okay, this time I'm going to do it. This time I'm going to do it. And I think it's just this cycle. Obviously, I know what he's getting ready to offer. He's going to offer Psalm 119. Let's look at some of the suggestions that we're about to be given. I guess, what's next? After revival, what's next? I guess that's where we're going with this. And the key to that is God's Word. It is God's Word. Sometimes we minimize that. I don't know if you remember this or not, pastor or not, but one time we went down to Johnson and Wales. Carl Guggenmoss was in our church and he was an instructor. That was a culinary school and they taught people how to be chefs and professional chefs. And sometimes they would invite people down there to have one of their meals, and that was really a treat, because it was like one of those several course meals, you know, they'd serve you, you could barely get your drink empty, and somebody's come pouring more water in there, and they'd come in, you'd finish a plate, they'd take one plate, bring another, that was really cool. That was a neat thing. What would you think, of course, there were students, it was a college, they were, training to be those and so what would you think and the students sometimes would sit at the meal and you know that were prepared by other students that's how they learn. And say they were going to have one of those meals and there were several courses and they said, you know, we want you, all you that are not preparing the meal, you need to be there and you can partake of this meal. It's going to have several courses. And one guy says, I don't have time to do that. I'm too busy reading a book on how to make food to eat the food. What? Yeah, you can do that later. This is a great time. You need to come and you can learn from this and see how it's prepared. I don't want time for that. I'm too busy studying about how to make food. I don't have time to look at it and partake of it. I'm not gonna do that. That sounds foolish, doesn't it? Almost sounds like a Bible college. I don't have time to meet with God and read his word because I'm too busy studying about God. It's not the same thing. It's not the same thing. Okay, now, this is an important topic. I've heard this topic discussed a lot, a lot. If I go through all the Bible colleges I've attended, all the Bible institutes I've attended, seminaries I've attended, if I take all of my Bible education, this topic has probably come up in every single school, in every single school at least once. In fact, some cases even almost courses trying to draw this drastic distinction, right? This drastic distinction. A lot of times this also shows up in classes dealing with being in training for the ministry. It will show up. So, basically, you come up with kind of this division, all right? There is, in a sense, feeding upon God's Word, meditating on God's Word for devotional benefit, or in a devotional way for spiritual edification and for spiritual growth. then there is studying the Bible in somewhat of a more academic way so that you can understand it, so that you can possibly exegete it. But then you would be told, don't ever conflate or confuse the studying it for to exegete it, to understand it, to interpret it in a hermeneutical way. Don't conflate that with the studying and feeding upon God's word in a beneficial way. In other words, there's a feeding upon it where you're benefiting from it spiritually, And so there's a feeding upon it versus a, what would you call it, a studying of it. Studying and feeding upon it, they would say, is two different things. They would tell you preaching it is not the same thing as feeding upon it. You can preach it, but you're not actually feeding upon it. So that you've got to try to make sure, okay, I'm preparing a sermon. Or then they would tell you, sermon prep is not the same thing as feeding upon it. So I can spend, if I spend 14 hours preparing a sermon, I still need to have then other hours of spiritual devotion where I'm just feeding and meditating on it. Because the two are different. If I'm doing an intensive study, right, an intensive study, well, that doesn't count. See, I've got to be doing some kind of spiritual feeding upon it. Now, that can be maddening. That could be maddening because you could be like, I'm going to be spending all of these hours doing this work, but it doesn't really count because I've got to feed upon it. Now, I understand that there is a level of truth here, because you can become someone who just studies things from an academic standpoint. You're studying it to, you want to study this theological issue and this theological controversy, and you want to see how they're right or they're wrong, and you want to understand it, and you can just go, go, go, go, go. Well, okay, at some point, then Christianity just becomes an academic pursuit, and you're not really growing spiritually. So there is a level of truth to this, but at the same time, it can be maddening. It can be like, I just spent 14 hours studying God's word to prepare a sermon, and you're telling me that that wasn't spiritual food? And sometimes I'll get a little frustrated by that. Well, you spent four hours broadcasting, but that doesn't really count because you got it. Well, see, I think sometimes it's not so easy to draw this distinction, right? I think what we have to do is whenever we're engaging God's Word, whenever we're engaging theological issues, whenever we're engaging God's Word, no matter how we're engaging it, in study or in devotion or in preparing for preaching or to understand a theological dispute, whenever we are engaging it, what we must do is learn not just to take the mental benefit or the knowledge benefit, we must also at the very same time be trying to get the spiritual benefit, seeing how it can convict us, how we can see our own error, our own fault, how it can do spiritual surgery on us that we come out of it spiritually beneficial. Now, when I'm said and done and I'm not coming out of it, there's not a spiritual benefit for me coming out of it, only gained knowledge. Well, then that's, I don't think it's because I need to do something different. I think it's just, I need to try to accomplish both and whatever I am doing. Sometimes it would be very confusing trying to go, well, so it would be like, well, now here's what you need to do. You need to be spending two hours just involved in and meditating and studying, studying God's word, not for a sermon. And it's like, well, why can't I benefit spiritually from the sermons that I'm studying for? Why does it have to be different? Again, I understand there is a conflict. And sometimes I can get worried about myself. You can get worried about anybody else where you're like, okay, all right. You've got to just stop worrying about all this stuff. You've got to, how are you spiritually benefiting from it? How are you growing? You've got to do something from that. So, and I tried to emphasize that in our study, in our Bible study exercise on Jeremiah. And I think sometimes we try to make this distinction I think sometimes it's a distinction without much of a difference, and I think sometimes we just cause more confusion. But there is a distinction that must be made. The question is, whenever you engage God's Word, for whatever reason you're engaging it, whatever theological issue you're engaging, when it's said and done, only you know what you got from it. Were you able to go, wow, those people are really messed up and that position is stupid? Or did you go, man, I realized how messed up that is, but then I was convicted by this and convicted by this and I learned this about my Christian life and I need this and I need that. Did you gain something from it? If I'm reviewing a sermon, if all I get is I disagree, I disagree, I better get something from it. So this is an important distinction, but I don't think it has to be, we've got to do two different things. The key is whenever I'm touching it, whenever I'm holding God's word, I'm holding it up right now. Whatever I'm using it for, whatever I'm engaged in theologically, biblically, I need to ensure that I'm trying to get spiritual nourishment from it. Challenges that we have tried to put before you this year, and I've heard it in different speakers, is the importance of God's Word in your life. Two statements have really profoundly impacted me this year in chapel. One was by Dr. Bill. He may not even remember this. I think he just made it off the cuff. And he was talking about his own personal Bible reading, how it had taken on a new dimension and a richer and a fuller meaning. And that really impacted me. I said, you know, and I see in him the importance of God's word. And that just really struck my heart. And then the chapel before Christmas break when Dr. Comfort spoke, and he talked about how precious God's word was to him. Remember he said, no Bible, no breakfast. And he talked about how precious the scripture was. No wonder God uses these two men. And how precious is God's word to us and how important it is to us. I used to think that the primary motivator for me getting in God's Word was my devotion. In fact, sometimes we call it our devotions, and that is a good motivator. My love for Christ, because I want to get into it, because I love God, and God, of course, is the author of the book, and since I love Him, I love His Word, and that is a good motivator. But you know what? I have another one, too. It's desperation. I need Him. I need God's word. I need God's word. Yeah, I want to read because I love him, but I need it. I need it for my life, my heart, my soul. And I'll tell you what, many times that's what gets me out of the bed. You say, well, you don't know I have a seven o'clock class. Well, so do I. Okay. So do I. And I had to get up early just like you. So if you're gonna whine about that, you need to just find somebody else. It won't work with me. I do think that that's an important statement to put down. When was the last time you studied God's word or you opened God's word out of a sense of desperation? desperation, because you desperately needed it. You felt the need for it. You knew you had to have it. You had to have it for the spiritual nourishment that comes from it. When was the last time you picked up the Word of God? Because you need it. You needed it. You felt that need. Now, I think sometimes the only time we, I think sometimes the only, I think the thing that sometimes leads to that feeling of need is tragedy, pain, suffering, or great sin. You just, guilt, shame, humiliation, You just fall on your face, and it's embarrassing, and you feel the weight of it. Sometimes you're drawn to God's Word, finding some kind of comfort. Now, sometimes pain, tragedy, and great sin or scandal can actually drive you away from God's Word. You want to run and hide. So I think sometimes desperation will drive you to it. Sometimes desperation may drive you from it. But when was the last time you felt a desperate need for it, a true need for it? And if you've never felt that, why not? And so, but you know, I have my morning routine. I've got it almost to the minute because I know what I need. but it's desperation. I need God's word. Now I want it because I love him, but I need it. And it's that desperation. So I wanna just leave you a few thoughts from this passage this morning that I wanna encourage you, I wanna challenge you, I wanna exhort you, whatever word you can think of, I wanna do to you to get in God's word. Don't let this book become your textbook. only this book needs to be the living word of God needs to be alive in your life. So there's a, there, there are a few words here that I want to, to leave you with this morning. What is the word apply? The word apply. Look at verse nine, whether with all shall young men cleanse his way by taking heed according to thy word. Desperation takes me to God's word because I need God's word for my life. We struggle with our old nature. We struggle with sin. And I so appreciate what Brother Clark said, you know, my humanity is real. I'm more human than I want to be. And so I need the word of God to be where I want to be, where my spirit wants me to be. And I have to have that in the psalm. It's not just for young men, it's for all of us. But you know, every season of life has its challenges spiritually, but you had one unique to your age. And you need to recognize that. You need to recognize the importance of God's word in that attack, in the attack on the flesh. And there's so many struggles that we can have. And we talked about all the issues last week. Brother Clark did very clearly. And so, We need to be in the Word in order to have that clean life, that life that's pure and holy and righteous. And so many believers just don't read God's Word. When I was pastoring, I... I wanna stop right there. I was hoping he was, I mean, he may do so, but... Psalm 119, and I think it's an important question. So, we'll get some points here. Desperation, is desperation a motivation for you when it comes to God's Word? Is desperation a motivation for you to read God's Word? When was the last time desperation motivated you to read God's Word? And why do you not feel that desperation? And then number two, It says, wherewithal, Psalm 119, 9, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Cleanse his way. How does God's Word cleanse your way? When was the last time you felt the cleansing effect of God's Word? How did it work? How did it cleanse you? Now, it seems the way you're cleansed is by taking heed, by taking heed. Now, I'm gonna go, I'm opening up the intilinear. If we look for that idea of by taking heed, taking heed is this Hebrew word, it's this Hebrew word. Strong's H-8104, shamer, shamer. Now, Shamir has a lot of different definitions too. It's to hedge about, to guard, to protect, to be circumspect, take heed, keep, mark, look, to look narrowly, observe, preserve, regard, reserve, save, sure, wait, watch. There's a lot. It's used 468 times. the outline of biblical usage, to keep, to guard, to observe, to keep, have charge of, to keep, guard, keep watch, to wait for, to watch, to observe, to keep. It seems there are really two ideas. God's Word cleanses us, or cleanses us as it says, it cleanses our way, it cleanses our life when we take heed to it. That means, number one, by, well, trying to keep it. If you're pursuing, look, if you are pursuing to keep God's Word, Right? If you're pursuing to keep it, well, that's obviously going to provide some cleansing because to keep it requires you to do things that maybe, well, things, it's going to require you to abstain and not do things you want to do, and it may cause you to do things that you probably maybe not necessarily would pursue. So it means to keep, but it also means to observe, to look to, Well, if we want to cleanse our way, if I'm trying to keep it, well, you can see how that's gonna move me away from sin. It's not gonna make me perfect in any direction, but it's gonna at least be cleansing. It's gonna move me to a clean direction. And observing it, if I'm observing it, how that cleanses my way, is if I'm observing it, it constantly reminds me of what isn't clean. It shows me the difference between what is clean and is clean. It convicts, it changes my mind. It tries to give me a more biblical perspective. So, how is desperation motivating you? And when was the last time the Word of God cleansed your way? And what way is it cleansing your way? Now, it's directly related to you taking heed to it, which means keeping it and observing it. I'd like to take people out, particularly men, and I'd talk to them, and one of the first things I would, after we talked a while, I would ask them about their time in the Word. Most of the time, I would say 90% of the time, there is no time in the Word. And you know what? You know what I found else to be true? I find that to be true of a lot of students in our school. I hear that all the time in Bible college. I heard it all the time in Bible college. 90% of the students don't actually spend any time in God's Word. Well, what in the world are they doing in Bible college? You can't say they're not spending any time in God's Word, because they're studying the Bible in every class. But see, that's where they try to draw that distinction back to what I said earlier. Well, see, you're just looking at it from an academic perspective, and I don't think that's fair. If you're studying it academically, you're in God's Word. The issue isn't, well, you need to spend more time. You just need to spend more time in a different way. No, the key is, while you're studying it academically, also allow it to do this other work. But I believe it is true. Far more than we want to admit if you go to church after church after church after church after church. I won't speak for women, but you pull Christian men aside. Hey, how much time did you spend in God's word this week? What were you really doing? What did you read? What did you study? Time and time again, you'll find out that there's a lot of men not doing much with it. So we can say, when was the last time desperation motivated you? Right? How is God's word cleansing your way? And are you spending time taking heed to it, observing it, watching it, and studying it? So is desperation a motivation? How is it cleansing you? And are you spending that time taking heed to it, observing it? We'll just focus on that aspect of the definition of the word. Really, time in it. There's no personal time in God's word. And that's tragic. And that will catch up with you. And so you have to be there. Some people say, well, you just don't understand. I don't have time. I have my studies, I'm working, and I just don't have time. Really? Let me illustrate just for a minute. Let's say, for instance, I came into some money and I want to help somebody out here at school. So I have $1,440. Now, let's say I want to give it to a student here in the auditorium. Not just today. I want to give you that amount of money every day of your life. $1,440. Would anybody be interested in a deal like that? Nobody's in it? Raise your hand. Would you be interested in that? I think it's almost here. Wait, there's a catch though. There's a catch. There's some strings attached. Out of that $1,440, you have to every day take $20 out of that money and buy something for me. or do something for me. You can take me out to eat, you can buy me a present, and you might, and so, would you still be interested, if you had to give $20 out of that $1,440, would you still be interested, even though you'd have to give me $20, would you still be interested in that? Okay, good. Now, I mean, people say, are you kidding $20? They say, that's nothing 1000 man, I could pay my school bill and probably everybody else's do. You think man, this is great. I'd love to do that. Well, that's this is an illustration. The truth is, I don't have that money. But I do have another gift to talk to you about. You know God has given you 1,440 minutes every day. So out of those 1,000 let's say for instance 20 minutes 20 minutes out of that 1,440 minutes. Do you think that's too much to ask. I don't think so. Say wow. and make me feel bad. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm trying to help you and challenge you and to get perspective. And you know what, if you use that excuse, I don't have time, you'll be using that excuse in your ministry. The only thing that, okay, they're literally sitting in chapel. That's more than 20 minutes. They're going to go to classes. Old Testament survey, New Testament survey. That's more than 20 minutes. See, this is this weird distinction, which I was trying to articulate earlier, and I got distracted because things going on here. So hopefully I made sense of it. But all these Bible colleges always draw this distinction that there's the studying of it in an academic way, and then there's this other magical, powerful devotional way. And the devotional way is what's really going to give you the great spiritual benefit. Well, they're like, hey, hey, you, I know you've got classes. They're in a Bible college for crying out loud. They're in a Bible college. They're going to be studying the Bible. Somehow that doesn't count. On top of that, on top of going to Bible college, on top of doing their Bible college homework, on top of going to chapel, they also better throw in another 20 minutes of devotional time because that's where it's really going to count. And I just don't understand that distinction. If you're going to chapel, if you're studying, that's got to count. Now, the issue is, what are you doing with it? Now, this chapel service, I don't know what time it airs live in the morning. I think it's around 7 a.m. my time, 8 a.m. my time. It shows up on the webcast on the Sermons 2.0 app. You can look for it, Ambassador Bible College, or Baptist College, I think, because I have subscribed to their All the Bible colleges, all seminaries, I've always loved to subscribe to their podcasts because I like to see what's going on in those areas of education, seeing what the next generation is learning. So that message that we're listening to right now happened early this morning. Those students, I don't know where they are right now. Maybe they're in class. Maybe they're at work. Maybe they're in their dormitory. Maybe they're at student center. Maybe they're having a snack. Maybe they're talking. Maybe they're texting. Maybe they're playing video. I don't know what they went and did, okay? Now, the question is, what did they take from this? What did they take? Even if they don't, even if they don't, some of the sermon, they got Psalm 119, nine through 11 was handed to them. Have they meditated on it? Have they given it any thought? Have they discussed the text? Did they discuss the sermon? Or, and even if it's not the sermon, did they discuss the text? Did they learn in class? What you do with it, it's not that you need to do something different or need to add more to it. It's what you do with it. It's not that you need to add more or something different. I don't like this weird distinction. Wait, you can't give 20 minutes because you're saying you're busy or you have class? You're talking to students at a Bible college. They don't need 20 minutes more. They need to just take what they're given and then finding a way to use that in a more spiritual, edifying, devotional way. You will. When I was in college, I used to think, oh, I'll be so glad when I get out of college because I won't have to get up early. I won't have to go and stay up late. That was a myth. That didn't happen. That never happened. Now, I'm probably getting up earlier than I did in college, except when I was working. You know, you've got to determine what really is important to you and make that happen. And some people say, you know, I'm not really a good reader. I don't like reading. Well, that's a lame excuse because your love for the author should prompt you to read and your desperation to have the truth should cause you to read. I think I told one of my classes when I was in college, We communicated with the girls through notes. We had a note system. This sounds sort of crazy now that I talk about, but when I lived there, it was sort of cool. And you would write notes, and it was really neat because you never had to ask a girl to her face for a date. You could write a note. and send it, and that was really good of me, because I was sort of introverted, and you send the note, and she could reply. Usually they would say yes the first time, but after that, you're on your own. But anyway, she'd send the answer back, and so people that were serious about each other, I don't know what you call it now, some people call it going steady, some people call it friending, some people, I don't know what, whatever you call it, they were doing it, and they were serious, And so the letters got longer, you know, more pages, you know, they just seen each other. They just saw each other at lunch. I mean, they had lunch together. So between lunch and the time the notes went out, they had a lot to write. Okay. It was probably a lot of adjectives and things in there, but, um, but they would go on and on and on. I watched guys and I had, you know, we had roommates who are five of us in every room. So, you know, there are a lot of people in there. And they would bring that letter in, they would read it, and read it again, and read it again. And I would say, how many times are you gonna read that letter? It doesn't change, it says the same thing every time you read it. I know, I know. I'd say, oh brother. You don't know. You know what she says in here? I really don't want to know. She says, I love you. Let me read that again. You've already read it four times. Never once, never once did I have to say one of my roommates. And they would just throw the notes out on the floor and you'd just sort of scramble. and pick the one up from your girlfriend. I never once did I have to say, you know, there's a note up there from your girlfriend. You know, I don't have time. I'm really busy. You know, I have work to do and I have studies to do and I don't have time. That never happened. And they always picked them up. They were there waiting for those letters to be dumped on the floor. Why they cared about the person who wrote the letter. say what you will, when you neglect this book because you're reading it because you want to, and you neglect this book that says something about your love for Him. And so that word needs to be taken and needs to be applied. All right, well, everything just crashed on the Spreaker app, so that's unfortunate. So I'm gonna finish here. I wanna finish with this, all right? Now, please go listen to that, all right? Please go find it. That's, again, let me look for it really quick. Let me look for it here. That's Ambassador. Hang on, let me go to my search bar here. Let me go to my search bar. That is... Hang on. All right, hang on. Let me find it. Let me find it. All right. All right. That is... Why is it not working? Okay, hang on. Hang on. Nothing is working all of a sudden here. Okay. There we go. Ambassador Baptist College, Ambassador Baptist College, and it is what's next? Psalm 119, nine through 11 was the message that we were listening to. Please go find it, download it, listen to it for your challenge, the Sermons 2.0 challenge. And I will just leave you with this. When was the last time desperation motivated you to God's word? How is God's word cleansing your way? How much time do you spend taking heed to it, observing it? And do you feel the love for the author leads to a love for his word? Those are some very important spiritual principles that we can take from this, whether you agree with the time thing and agree with some of that. And I think this division between an academic and a devotional, I understand that, but I think we have to find a way to merge the two. And so we've talked a little bit about that, but that desperation, that cleansing, that taking heed, and that love for the author, leaving you to love for his word, that is something for you to think about, meditate on, and hopefully, hopefully, will be beneficial to you today. Thanks for listening. I apologize for the technical difficulties that happened on the Spreaker app. I have no idea why it crashed, but it did. And I'm going to try to take what we did on the Sermons 2.0 Church One app, edit that down, and then upload that. And hopefully, this will all work. If not, well, then I've just spent 60-something minutes, and I'm not gonna have anything to show for it. But then, see, that's a fleshly way of thinking about it, right? Because what I should be more worried about See how I began this, the fleshly material way of thinking? Right now my way of thinking is, it's going right back to the fleshly. It's not the spiritual. I talked about the spiritual versus the fleshly, spiritual versus the material. See right now, you know what I'm thinking? I just spent 60 something minutes and it just crashed. So I'm gonna lose all of this. So what was the point of doing the broadcast? Well, the point of doing the broadcast was to try to move me from a fleshly material way of thinking to a spiritual way of thinking because of my circumstance. Well, now a circumstance just happened where something crashed, and now I'm immediately saying, who cares that I spent 65 minutes thinking about God's Word. I'm worried about now a broadcast. See how easily I just go right back to the fleshly way. After spending 65 minutes hopefully taking away something spiritual, I'm sitting here now frustrated because I'm like, the podcast app crashed. And now guess what? I may have just wasted 65 minutes. See how utterly fleshly and materialistic and earthly that is and not spiritual? Even after 65 minutes, because that sinful nature never leaves me. So maybe what you take from this is don't be like that guy who does the podcast. All right, thanks for listening. Everyone have a great day. God bless.