Well, we just sang a song that describes two different folks. One is described like a tree, a man like a tree planted by watersides. And the second one describes those who are just like chaff that just get blown about by the wind. And what's the big difference between the two? What's the man doing to be like that tree? He's meditating on God's law. Pornography is meditation. But it's meditation on the wrong thing. And God wants our minds meditating on what they were created to meditate on, which is him and his word. And so to help us to understand this more, I want you to turn to the law of God, Deuteronomy chapter 22. We need strength as men. The godlessness of our age combined with all this amazing technology that's at our fingertips have really created, you know, the internet. Some people call it the world wide web. I think it might be better called the world wild web. because there's just so much that's possible for people to be doing. I was just talking with one of the elders here during the break, and we were just, you know, when we were boys, pornography, again, the only way that you could get it was through maybe a Playboy magazine. And even they, in the stores at the time, were kept behind the counter in brown wrappers. You had to be maybe 21 to purchase one. And so you just rarely, rarely saw pornography. When I wanted to call a girl, and my wife of 32 years was actually my high school girlfriend, when I wanted to call her, I had to use a landline. I don't know if you guys, younger people, know what that is, but it's a phone that was attached to your house. It actually had a line that ran out. all the way across town to your girlfriend's house and if I called her home her parents knew she was on the phone with me and it was hard really to even though sometimes if we were the only two on the line you know did mom and dad pick up another line so you tended to be a little more careful. Today with the advent of the cell phone young people can create immediate intimacy and it's amazing how many young people I see, college students I see, getting all of a sudden within a few weeks or months head over heels with someone and they're communicating through texting that nobody else can see their hearts. And it's not only led to what we might call texting, but also what young people call sexting. which is sending pictures of themselves over the internet and sometimes again over the cell phone and sometimes this has tragic consequences. Young ladies have been asked by their boyfriends to send a picture of themselves without clothing and too many young girls wanting to please and satisfy have done that. There was a young gal in Cincinnati named Jessica Logan who did this with her boyfriend of only a couple of months. Well, you know how high school romances go. Pretty soon they turned sour. And this boy took these photos and began to send them to his friends. Pretty soon, I think about seven different high schools in the Cincinnati area, young people had these pictures. And they began to bombard this poor gal, Jessica, with texts. They made statements. They called her names. Whore, slut, those kinds of names were being sent her way. And it came to the night of the prom for her high school. And she went into her room to get changed. And her mom was waiting on her and waiting on her and waiting on her. And when she finally didn't come out, her mom opened the door to find out that her daughter had hung herself because of the shame and the abuse and the bullying that she had taken because of this. She was the Logan's only child. Her mother said this, my only baby that I'll never be able to touch again, I'll never have grandchildren. I'll never be able to hand down my heirlooms. I'm just devastated by these parents that allow their children to do and say anything they want. And you know, your heart goes out to this mother. But you also have to feel a little bit, there's a finger pointing here that doesn't come back this way. Because again, we allow our children sometimes to have access to things that they're not ready or mature enough to handle. And it feels like this stuff has just enmeshed us. And sometimes again, we can just feel so helpless in the light of it. What do we do? Well again, nothing takes God by surprise. And wouldn't it be interesting to find out that a long time ago, God knew his people were gonna go into a culture like the one that we're in and that he prepared them to do so. And that's exactly really what you find out as you really think about what God was doing in sending Israel into the promised land. They were getting ready to go into a land that was filled, as I mentioned earlier, talk with idols, but also all the illicit practices that those idols brought forth. And to prepare them, Moses, their leader, after 40 years out in the wilderness, in a sense, sets them down and he preaches to them what we know as the book of Deuteronomy. And I wanna read a portion of this to you from chapter 22. I wanna begin with verse nine, and then take you down to verse 30. And as we think about this, remember this talk is called Guarding the Garden, Guarding the Garden. using the wisdom of God's law in overcoming sexual sin. Our minds need to meditate here on what God is teaching us, and I think we'll see that he puts some word pictures in our minds that are gonna help us in this battle against sexual sin. Let me read beginning with verse nine. You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown and the yield of the vineyard. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself. If any man takes a wife and goes into her and then hates her and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her saying, I took this woman, And when I came near her, I did not find in her the evidence of virginity. Then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her. And behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity. And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him. And they shall find him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house, so you shall purge the evil from your midst. If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman, so you shall purge the evil from Israel. If there's a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city, and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones. The young woman because she did not cry for help, though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife, so you shall purge the evil from your midst. But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lays with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman. She is committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, because he met her in the open country. And though the betrothed young woman cried for help, there was no one to rescue her. If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed and seizes her and lies with her and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young man 50 shekels of silver and she shall be his wife because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days. A man shall not take his father's wife so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, your word does command us to meditate on your law. But we confess as we read passages such as this one. Some of these things we can maybe understand, others seem strange to us, and so we need your Spirit's wisdom that we might understand what the scriptures teach and apply it properly in our own day and age. So please grant us that hope this morning, Father, for we ask it through Christ, amen. I want to remind you that the first wedding took place in a garden, a garden paradise between Adam and Eve. And so will the last one. The last wedding will take place in a garden paradise as we read in the book of Revelation. Matter of fact, tomorrow night in the evening service, I'm going to be speaking about that. And what we need to remember is that in that garden paradise, as we'll see, God's word says there'll be no immoral persons to be found there at that marriage supper of the land. For at that wedding, the only ones that will be there, as the scriptures describe, are those who are clothed in fine linen, which are defined to be the righteous acts of the saints. And so, in the Bible, its progression from the beginning to the end is of a marriage in paradise that's supposed to be perfect. The first one didn't end that way because of the fall and descend. And really, the rest of the story of the Bible is how are God's people gonna be brought to that great marriage feast of the land. Really, what we need to be thinking about is that our time here on Earth is to get ourselves ready for that time. Well, God, to teach his people, gives us many examples and illustrations in the Old Testament to remind us of this truth, and one of those was by him taking out Israel from Egypt. He often explained that relationship with Israel as one of marriage. He was married to his people. Israel was his bride. and he was her bridegroom. And what he was promising is, I'm going to take you out of the slavery of Egypt after these 40 years of wilderness, and I'm going to bring you into a paradise. It's a land that flows with milk and honey, and I want us to live together in holiness in this land with one another. But we've got a problem. This land, as I said, is filled with idolatry and immorality. And so for you to live in this land, you're going to have to protect yourself from those sins. And so as God does this, he gives them what I'm gonna be calling really with you a picture laws to that end. Four of which we're gonna have here. And those pictures are found in verses nine through 12. The four pictures I want us to look at. And then some of the description of this, as we will see, comes in what follows. Now, look again at verses 9 through 12, particularly 9 through 11 here. We've got a command about not sowing different seeds in the vineyard. One about an ox and donkey not being yoked together. And a third one about not mixing different fabrics together when you're making clothing. And when you think about these laws, it raises the question, what kind of laws are these? Traditionally, when theologians have looked at the laws of the Old Testament, they've put them into one of three categories. They're either moral, ceremonial, or judicial laws. But sometimes those categories, as helpful as they are, like for instance, the Ten Commandments we think of as the moral laws of God, or the sacrifices and how they were to be conducted in the temple were part of the ceremonial law. Sometimes it's hard to think, well, what category does this fit in? I mean, an ox and donkey being yoked together, is that a moral law? I don't think so. It's about animals, not about people, really. I don't think there's really that much morality behind it. Is it a judicial law? You know, a civil law? Well, I think they did this, or they weren't supposed to do this, in other words, but it kinda makes God like this modern bureaucrat who's gonna, the nanny state, telling everybody about their little, I mean, this just seems, Just common sense. You wouldn't put an ox and a donkey together. So I don't know if it's a judicial law. It's not a ceremonial law because it doesn't really have anything to do with the priesthood or the sacrifices or whatever. And so it's kind of a head scratcher. Which kind of law is it? We'll get there in a moment, but I just wanted to remind you about one aspect of the nature regarding God's law that in the Westminster Confession of Faith is given to us. In the Westminster Confession of Faith, it says that the laws of the Old Testament, which were binding on Israel, are no longer binding in the same way upon us, except where there is general equity to be found. except where there is general equity to be found. And I've always wondered, what does that actually mean? And by definition, general equity is a system of law that is developed to enlarge, supplement, or override a narrowly defined rigid system of law. In other words, we might have this in the case of like a case law. You have your laws, but then you want to understand how that law is to be applied, then you have a case law that kind of broadens its application and our understanding of what God is saying. And so what the Westminster Confession of Faith is saying is that there's general equity to be found in the law of God. And this is what I think we're to be doing as we meditate on the law and we realize we're not to live out life exactly like it says here, verses 13 on down, but what are the principles there? As we think and chew upon it, what should we learn? And as we look at Jesus in the New Testament, we see him doing this with the law of God all the time. He, you know, when he was accused of breaking the Sabbath by picking some grain, as he was walking through a field, he said, well, no, I'm not, because don't you remember David? ate the bread in the temple, and you think, well, how does he, well, he gets there, because he's chewing, he's meditating on the law of God. How do we know whether we should pay pastors or not? There's two places in the scripture, I'm gonna grab my water bottle, two places in the scripture that tell us that pastors are to be paid. You know the New Testament justification for paying pastors that Paul uses? Don't muzzle an ox. when he's threshing. I mean, if you don't muzzle an ox when he's threshing, when he's working for you, then when a pastor's laboring for you in spiritual things, then you should pay him. And so Paul draws that principle, that general equity out of that Old Testament statement. And I think if we keep this in mind, If we ask the Lord based on the principles, based on the pictures that you're putting here before us, what would you have us to do to live righteously and wholly like you wanted Israel to live? And so let me give you four of these principles. I think you'll get what I'm getting at here in just a second. First, principle. Ensure that your seed is sown in only one vineyard. Ensure that your seed is sown in only one vineyard. Verse nine, the Israelite was commanded that in his vineyard not to put other seeds there. It was to grow grapes. If you wanted to grow something else, you put that in a different field. And to not to do so, according to the text, would be to defile the fruit from both the vine and the wheat stalk. And yet again, is that all that God's concerned about here? I don't think so. One commentator has said that we need to remember that particularly with the book of Deuteronomy, but really all the Pentateuch, it's not just this rigid system of laws, but actually particularly in Deuteronomy, what we have here is a sermon. Moses is preaching. He starts off by reminding them of their history, how God brought them out of Egypt, all the different places that he took them to in their journey. So you got this historical recounting. He talks about the lessons that they learned at some of these different places when they disobeyed him and when he responded to them. And then he does talk about laws, but he's always thinking about applying it into where they were heading. And so we need to make sure we get the point of the sermon here as we listen to this particular passage. And I think we can often, oh, don't sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed and we just sort of blow it off. That's just some old thing that we don't need to worry about in our day and just kind of move on to other, maybe I can find something else here to read. Well, I think when we do that, we're like the disciples with Jesus. Remember, one point he says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they start talking about they don't have any bread, and they're missing the whole point of the sermon. I think that's going on here as well. If I say, if I'm talking about being satisfied with life and being content with what you have, and then I say, a bird in the hand, beats two in the bush, well you understand I'm not talking about going out and hunting birds. But that I'm using that phrase proverbially. And I think that's what's taking place here. If you look down at verses 13 through 22, I think there's a connection between verse nine and 13 through 22. Basically, what Moses is saying is if a man takes a woman for his wife, And then on the wedding night gets the idea that she wasn't a virgin to begin with, that he could argue his case to the elders and the parents could bring out evidence to her virginity which in the Reformation Study Bible they say is presumably the stained bedclothes of the wedding night that you could tell from that whether the woman was a virgin or not. And if he was wrong, he was to pay a fine for humiliating her publicly. Of course, if she was actually lying and wasn't a virgin in Israel, there was a death penalty that was to be enacted for adultery. So with these laws in mind, With this saying about sowing your vineyard, if I say to you, ensure that only one seed is sown in your vineyard, you start getting the point. Do you hear the proverb? Do you get the warning? When God wants to be direct, he just says, you shall not commit adultery. When he wants you to think a little bit, and meditate and give you a word picture. He says, I want you to realize that a woman is like a garden. As a matter of fact, in tomorrow morning's sermon, that's what my sermon's really about, cultivating the garden that's your wife. All through the Bible, a woman is pictured as a vine, as a vineyard, as this garden that men are to cultivate And one of the ways that we cultivate that is to make sure that there is only one seed that's sown in that vineyard. We can draw a few applications from this. First, notice this man that's described here suspects his wife of not being a virgin. This is speaking against the sin of fornication. You are not allowed to have any kind of sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage. I've had college students, college students, tell me that they haven't committed adultery because neither he nor she were married. And I like to tell them, do you know what the word adulterate means? It means to add something that doesn't belong. If I were to give you a cool glass of water on a hot summer's day, but right before I handed that cool glass of water to you, I took some dirty oil, maybe from the lawnmower that you were using and dripped it into there and swirled it around and then handed it to you, would you want to drink it? No, because I've adulterated the water. And God tells us that we are to drink water from our own cisterns, from our own well. And we need to make sure that we are keeping ourselves in holiness. Young men, if you're here today and you are a Christian, you are saying that I am in communion with Christ. I have become his bride as part of the church. And that's ultimately a pledge of holiness. to follow Christ means that every day is a day of self-denial. Because he says, if anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me, Luke 9, verse 27. That's a hard thing. You know what a Christian really is? A Christian is really a person who everyday is putting himself to death. That's what a Christian is. That's what a Christian does. And so you need to tell the Lord that you do want to follow him and you are pledging yourself to keep yourself unstained from this world, that you will not be involved intimately with members of the opposite sex until you are ready for marriage. And you should be so committed to this that the very last thing you would ever want is what Moses describes here is your parents and your elders speaking publicly about your sexual activity. That thought should drive you away from participating in illicit sexual activity. That's what you're called to do. And it's not just the young men. All of us are called to do this. But tell us also in other applications that we need to treat Christian young ladies, sisters, or all ladies for that matter, with very guarded care. We need to make sure that we don't see women as just, again, objects of our own sexual pleasure. Imagine for a moment that there was a little old lady that lived in your neighborhood And maybe like my grandmother used to be, she loved to grow flowers and roses out in her yard. And one morning you woke up and some punk had been out there in this dear old lady's garden who has you over and sometimes brings a baked pie to your house. You just love this little old lady. But some punk had gone out there and trampled all over her garden and dug up and pulled out her flowers and made a mess of it. You'd be enraged over that. And if you knew who it was, you'd probably want to deal with that punk. How do you think a dad feels when you take his beautiful daughter and trample her for your sexual pleasure. How do you think God thinks when we use women in that way? We must treat them with great respect, these beautiful, beautiful people that he has created. And another application, if you've committed fornication, Think about how serious it is in God's eyes. I mean, here it deserved the death penalty, and I'm not gonna get into all that this morning, but it does deserve the discipline of the church. There's one application we can make of it. I've sadly had to do that. Even with a member of my own family, I've had to do that. My oldest son was excommunicated from our church. and I had to bring the charges because of his ongoing behavior. But, I'll tell you this later, just the last few weeks we think he's been converted after 15 years of being away from us. Yes, praise God. And he's repenting over these things. Realize there's another proverbial saying from the scripture that applies here. God is not mocked. What a man sows, he will also reap. God warns so strongly against adultery in the scriptures. You know, the book of Proverbs, I almost just thought about preaching from there because there's so much about this in that text as well. But the book of Proverbs is really a father sitting down his young son saying, give me your heart, give me your heart because I want to tell you something. There are women out there in this world, do you know that? Of course he knew that, it's all he's thinking about. And he warns them so often against adultery and the consequences. This is like taking fire on your lap. It's like just desiring to go down into hell. Its path will lead you to the grave every time, the father says. And he basically says, there's these two women in this world that want your attention. There's woman wisdom and lady folly, Proverbs 9. And you've gotta listen to woman wisdom because she will give you life and success and the outcome will be, how does Proverbs end? What's the very last chapter of Proverbs? An excellent wife who can find. God will bless you and give you a wife. But if you listen to Lady Folly, who's a harlot, she will steal everything that you have away from you. And so the warning here is that if you commit adultery, your garden will be cursed beyond belief, your family will be affected, your children will be affected, often scattered and broken and suffering no end of hardship. And so don't let your garden be defiled. Allow the Lord and his mercy to keep your garden pure by making sure only one seed is sown there. Second picture. Take care that the yoke is an equal one. So ensure that only one seed is sown in the garden and then take care that the yoke is an equal one. Now maybe this is starting to get a little easier for you. Where it says here in verse 10, you shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together. I mean, that's a silly thing, really, to even think about. You've got the big old ox and the donkey, and just trying to even create a yoke to fit on both of those animals would be almost impossible. when you have this massive bull next to this little beast of burden. And I don't think, again, you know, is this law really necessary in one sense? No, I just, again, think it's more of an idea, a picture. Even Paul, when he quoted the Old Testament law regarding ox, he says, God's not really concerned about an ox, is he? So I don't really think this is what is in view here. But more it's these cases, and in verses 23 through 29 he talks about these different cases of a young man and a young woman, one who's betrothed, the woman who's betrothed, lying with this man. And if it's a case of rape then his life is to be taken, but if it's a case of adultery on both of their parts, then they both were to be punished. It talks about them being out in the country where she couldn't have help versus being in the city where she could. And so he's differentiating here different scenarios that could happen in the life of Israel. And if she's not engaged but these two commit fornication, there was redemption possible, they could pay a price and then pledge themselves to get married and never divorce. A number of years ago I got to perform the wedding, actually it was on my anniversary date, August 3rd, of Brandon and Megan Fisher who are now in Australia. Brandon grew up in our congregation. They're a lively couple, fun-loving kind of couple. And Brandon, throughout his college years, drove this beat-up old van that had bench seats running in the back so he could take college kids everywhere. And it was painted like the Dukes of Hazzard's car. Does that car have a name? I forget. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what is it? Yeah, General Lee, that's right, the General Lee, painted like the General Lee. And to kind of just go along with the theme of all of that, they came out there and they found out their dad had made this wooden sign that he attached to the top of it and carved out in big letters was done been hitched, done been hitched. They'd been yoked together in marriage. And that's really what God is speaking about here. If a woman was engaged or betrothed, in other words, hitched to another man, then even though she was not yet married, it was an abhorrent idea that she would be playing around with someone else. Taking a girl that was engaged to another is like putting an ox and a donkey together. It was not meant to be. And so we can again think of other applications that we can make regarding this. If even engagement is to be seen in this light, then God's law considers marital relationships as to be regarded with the utmost reverence and sobriety. I don't think we're to be playing around on the dating circuit, but rather being intentional. You know, we can get to know someone of the opposite sex, But if we're gonna start pursuing them with any kind of vigor, then we need to be very careful that it's not just for the fulfillment of sexual pleasure, but it's with the idea or the intent of marriage. And we need to help young people through this time. You know, a lot of times we think that our children, when they're in the household, need a lot of counsel and help, and so they do. But it doesn't stop just because they move to college or even graduate from college. Young people from 18 through their 20s and 30s need a lot of counsel, and that's okay. That's why parents are there, is to help provide that counsel, to help you journey through this time, and so make sure that you're listening to it. Again, Solomon in the book of Proverbs, he just keeps saying, son, my son, give me your heart. Give me your heart. I say that to my children. I just say to them, give me your heart. Realize I'm not trying to control your life. I'm not making these decisions for you, but I wanna walk with you. I wanna help you. I've seen the damage. I've seen what wrong decisions do to others. I just want to give you the counsel, and I wanna send you to others who can give you the counsel so that you can make wise decisions and get through this time in your life and particularly find the right person that God has for you for a life of fruitfulness and prosperity. In the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 6 applies this law to warn Christians against marrying unbelievers, non-Christians. Remember Paul asked this question, 2 Corinthians 6, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What communion does light have with darkness? Many believers are in trouble because they've not heeded this warning. Many a guy has gotten trapped because he thought he would do dating evangelism. I think she'll become a Christian. I think she'll become a Christian. And then he ends up in an unhappy marriage and unbelieving children years later. We need to remember that our playing field has been narrowed significantly because we can only pursue those who are also believers. I think maybe another application of this is I see some marriages develop what we might call an ox and donkey relationship, where spouses refuse to walk faithfully together in the Lord. You know, it's not a very pretty picture to see a man who's as strong as an ox dragging a woman around who's as stubborn as a mule, or vice versa. I've seen it both ways. This really communicates the whole idea of unity, that the two are to become one in marriage. And that's something you have to be thinking about, especially if you're a single person, you're evaluating someone for marriage. Is this someone that is going to come and we are gonna be able to walk truly together? Or is she gonna be pulling me away? I was just with a young man at the seminary. He's a great student, new student there. He's gotten involved in a relationship that's gonna require him to pursue it, to stop for a time. And that's one of the things we were talking about. Is she pulling you away? Or in proper evaluation, is this a way for you to get to make sure that she's the right one so that she can join you back as you pursue the pastorate? And we have to make sure as men that we have a wife who is truly gonna be a helper, a companion to walk in covenant with us. Andy's getting nervous because of the time, so I need to keep moving here. Third principle, keep the fabric from being mixed or torn. Keep the fabric from being mixed or torn. We see that in verse 11, you shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. Of course, if you do that in our modern fabrics, we might be able to get away with this, but particularly back then, if you had just cloth and wool and you start washing and all that, it's just gonna pull apart, it's not gonna work very well. If you go down to the last verse of our chapter, verse 30, it says a man shall not take his father's wife so that he does not uncover his father's bed. He's prohibiting a son from lying, presumably, with his stepmother, of getting in bed with her. That's abhorrent, a man slipping under the covers of his father's bed. In case maybe you're not convinced that these proverbial sayings go together with the law, listen to Leviticus 19, 19 and 20. Leviticus 19, verses 19 through 20. God says, you shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed, nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you. Whoever lies carnally with a woman who is betrothed to a man as a concubine and on it goes. God keeps linking these things together. And these laws against mixing materials is found right in the immediate vicinity of those against sexual immorality. For God doesn't want the fabric of society torn. The covenant homes that he desires to be established prohibits a man from being with other family members, his aunt, his daughter-in-law, he goes on to outline all of this. And we use the same language today. Here's a columnist who's commenting on how many children in America now are being born out of wedlock. 40% of American children are not being born under the covenant of marriage. That's an awful statistic. And commenting on this, she said, assaulting the institute of marriage is a perversion of the American social fabric. We're ripping the fabric of our society apart by not upholding God's standard of marriage. And again, if you think that this only happens out there, Think again, remember Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter five about a sexual immorality among them that even the heathen don't participate in and it was this exact case of a man being with his father's wife. In my ministry in Kokomo, I got into things I never thought, I was never trained for in seminary. I had incest cases that I had to, Try to counsel through that one driven by pornography, by a father that came down into his children participating in ancestral relationships. I had child abuse cases, a transvestite. A man who liked to put on women's clothing and he'd been a soldier in our United States Army. And on and on it seemed to go. And these things are happening not only just out there. but they're in the church and we have to exert all effort to keep ourselves in the purity of Christ. I hear these things and think about these things and it raises the question that the psalmist raised, how can a young man cleanse his way? Psalm 119 verse nine, the answer that follows, by keeping it according to your word. Your word I have treasured in my heart that I might not send against thee. I think God has a reminder of that here in this part of the passage as well. Look at verse 12 again. Here's the fourth principle. Fourth and finally, clothe yourself with the word of God. He says here, you shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself. And just kind of standing there, you might think, what does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with anything? Well, these tassels, as we see in the law, were to serve as a reminder to meditate on God's law. We find that elsewhere. Numbers 15 verses 38 through 40 says, speak to the sons of Israel. Tell them they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations. And they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes after which you played the harlot so that you may remember to do all my commandments and be holy to your Lord. Friends, I've got a word for you. Keeping God's law is not legalism. It's only legalism when I think it's my means of salvation. When I think that I can do this, this, and that and it will make me justified before God. You can't justify yourself before God. Only Christ can justify you by faith in His act at Calvary and dying for your sin and then being buried and raised from the dead. You trust in Him and He will grant you life and salvation. But what that salvation, that justification immediately brings into the life of the believer as the Holy Spirit is planted in his heart is the Holy Spirit wants you to be holy. He wants the church to be holy. The church is His temple. And the means, the primary means of that holiness is his word. He's given us his word so that we can keep it with us and as we meditate and think about it, we can become more holy. How I thank God, how I thank God that when I was converted as a college student, that the ministry I was involved in, one of the things they said to me and taught me was to memorize God's word. And I began to just memorize the word of God, and lo and behold, as I brought God's thoughts and made them my own thoughts, it led me to a path of holiness and righteousness, and I was able to escape these kinds of sins of which I was involved. And by his power and by his grace, I've been married, I've lived for 32 years with a wife I adore. I'm gonna tell you about how much I adore her tomorrow morning. and I have children, and I praise God for sanctifying my life. I struggle with sin, I struggle with lust, but I've been able to fight it and battle it because of the word of the Lord. 15 different times in the book of Deuteronomy, God's people are told to remember. Seven more times they are told not to forget. And so important was God's law to his people. He said that they were to write them on their foreheads. You can think of that as purifying your mind. They were to bind them on their doorposts, purify their homes. And as we're seeing here, they were to put reminders of God's word even on their clothing, purify your bodies. Make your mind, make your home, make your body holy unto the Lord. And you can do that by the power of God's word if it's deep within your heart. And in the next section, next session I should say, we're gonna talk about how to do that. But I'm gonna leave it here, let me pray. Heavenly Father, as we come before you as men this morning, we confess that our minds and hearts can grow so dull and lax in our love for you. And Lord, that is immediately seen in what we meditate upon. And Lord, you told us if you love me, You'll keep my commandments. You told us that he who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and I will disclose myself to him. Lord, you will reveal yourself, unveil yourself to us as we study your word and not just hear it, but as we seek to do it. Lord, help us to trust you and believe those promises and help us to give ourselves over and recapture our thoughts so that everyone, every thought is captive to your obedience. That as soon, as soon as a temptation arises, to go and pursue our lusts, to go and look and gaze upon something else that we're not allowed to do, that immediately your word would spring to life and that we would desire to follow it by the help and assistance of your Holy Spirit. Purify us, Father. Cleanse us, cleanse our minds, cleanse our bodies, cleanse our homes, oh God, so that we will live holy lives devoted to you. And Lord, as we do that, show us more and more of your son, his grace, his power, his love for his people. And God, instead of becoming like the idols that men worship. Help us to become more like the God that we worship. Help us to become more like your son. For we pray it for his sake and for his glory, amen.