along in your copy of the scriptures this morning. I'm going to share a section from Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is almost in the exact middle of your Bible, if you still, like I, have a hardbound book. And in Psalm 119, I would like to read the section that begins that verse Psalm 119, beginning at verse 97. Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Thou, through thy commandments, has made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from my judgments for thou has taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through thy precepts I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. Title of my message this morning is Personal Passion for the Word of God. Personal passion for the Word of God. And I would like to focus on the idea of personal. It's individual. And I would like to focus on specifically the word of God. And so in your mind for this morning, set aside downloaded sermons and set aside commentaries and devotional books and all those very necessary and very good helps. But I want to just focus on the word of God this morning. The word of God, the psalmist said, was something that he loved. And it was not an exaggeration. It was not hyperbole. He really did come to a place in his Christian experience where he could say he loved God's word. I'd like to share with you five. The message this morning is not going to be exposition. I'm not going to go verse by verse. I just want to give just a little bit of background on Psalm 119, but then I want to give five remarks or five observations about this idea of loving the Word of God in its proper perspective and why it is that the true child of God, in fact, can say with David, oh, how I love thy law. Well, let me give you just a little bit of background from Psalm 119, and then we'll move into these five specific areas. Psalm 119, as you probably know, is the longest psalm. It's actually the longest chapter in the Bible, and it deals, of course, with the word of God. The Psalms themselves are a very interesting book. And actually, you may not know this, but it used to be that they would align the book of Psalms with the first five books of the Bible. So the first section of the Psalms is tied to Genesis, and then the second section of Psalms is tied to Exodus. and through those first five books. And each of those five sections actually ends with a doxology. And I can share those scriptures with you later. But there's these divisions of the Psalms and a concluding doxology that align with the five books of the Pentateuch. The Psalm 119 rises as the Psalm that over and over and over again embellishes and marks out for us the remarkable nature of God's Word and how it has become enmeshed in the life of the psalmist. Humanly speaking, when he constructed Psalm 119, it was very I don't mean that in a negative way, like the serpent was crafty. It was very, very sharp, very intricately put together. Psalm 119 is an acrostic, so there's 22 stanzas, and each of those stanzas is marked out with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So in English, we would have the first section A, the second section B, the third section C, D, all the way down to the end. And in each of these 22 stanzas has eight verses, and those eight verses begin with the letter of that corresponding section. And each stanza deals with a different element, a different theme of the word of God. The psalmist knew the word of God so well. He could write 176 verses about the word of God in such of a depth, in such of a way that we understand he knew the reality of the living word of the living God. Throughout his entirety, he's expressing these different ideas and different themes of the Word of God. And we see his experience and his history and his character being very spiritually minded because he's able to touch all these areas of the Word of God and bring out his innermost being and his history relative to the Word of God. The first time you read Saul, 119, you might think it's repetitious. You might think he's just rehashing ideas, but he's not. Read through it once a day for a couple of weeks, and you'll see how this thing just blooms like a flower. Now, in Psalm 119, by way of background, he uses nine different words to describe God's word. Each of these words is different. In the same way, there is different words to describe different parts of the sacrifice of Christ. We have atonement, reconciliation, sacrifice, redemption. In the same way, each of those words has a different aspect of the sacrifice of Christ that it wants to bring out. Each of these different nine words brings out a different element. of God's Word. Let me mention them briefly just to give you a little bit of understanding of the Word of God as he details it out. He uses the word law. Law comes from a verb that means a rule of conduct that's given by a sovereign, given by a lawgiver. God is the lawgiver. He can give out a law for a rule of conduct. He uses the word testimonies. Testimonies is a word that often is tied to the promises of God, and it's witnessed to with a confirmation of God, and it's oftentimes given in the way of types and representations and shadows. And so the spiritual mind could look through the testimonies of God and see what's behind it. He uses the word precepts 21 times. Precept is something that talks about trust. It's been entrusted to man. God's word has been entrusted. And so man is responsible for, in the whole of our life, all of the duties, all of the concerns of our life, precepts have been given. He uses the word statutes. He uses the word commandments. A commandment is often given with a positive emphasis, thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do the other thing. He uses the word judgments, judgments that is how we will be judged or how we judge other things. He uses words, he uses way, way is a tenor of life, and even uses the word righteousness. God's Word is described as a righteousness whereby we are to know God's will. Other words are used to describe God's Word. Other similes or pictures like the seed that is sown, for example. But those are the nine words the Holy Spirit uses here in Psalm 119. to describe the Word of God. And what the psalmist is getting at in using all of these different words and descriptors is that the child of God is to embrace all of the Word of God in its entirety, whether it's a judgment, a precept, a testimony. Again, all of these words focusing on a different aspect of the Word of God. It's kind of like an all-inclusive psalm. to try to embody what the word of God in general, how it is described. Psalm 119, again, rises up out of the book of Psalms as the psalm that describes for us the word of God. With that brief background to the psalm, I want to focus on five things that, in general, this psalm points to. And I'm not gonna specifically address from the scriptures here each specific one, although I'm gonna point out a few of these verses that we read. But you'll see very quickly that the idea comes from God's word as general. And the takeaway today, the takeaway today is that as we leave this place, The one thought that should be in our mind is, if you name the name of Christ, there should be no difference between you and the psalmist. You should be able to say, I love the word of God. So five remarks about this idea of the psalmist, who, by the way, meditated all the day. He meditated all the day. upon the word of God. So five thoughts. Number one, and you know this, but I want to develop it with you. Number one, the nature of God's word is that it is God's revelation to man. The nature of this book that you are holding in your lap is that it is God's revelation to man. When we think about the Word of God, often we think about the attributes of the Word of God, right? So the Word of God, we would say, is quick and powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It compares to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrows. It's a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of our hearts. The Word of God, as we think about the attributes or the characteristics of the Word of God, It does many things. It guides us. But I don't want to think about all of these different attributes of God. I want to stand back and take a global, an overarching view of this Bible in general. And that thought, that general overarching view is, it is God's revelation to mankind. The Bible is not an antiquated book. It's not a relic. It's not outdated. It's the living word of the living God. It's not dead letter. It's living and abiding. It's not fable or fiction. It's truth. The psalmist understood that it was a revelation of God to mankind. The psalmist probably only had 8% of the scriptures. The psalmist probably only had in written form at his quick disposal the first five books of the Bible, which is about 8% to 10%. And he rejoiced. He was happy. He was blessed just to have that one portion. We, of course, have the entire scriptures. This revelation of God to mankind It's eternal, there's an eternality to the word of God. What does that mean to you, that God's word is eternal? It doesn't mean that it just lasts to the end. It means that with its profoundness, its efficacy or its power, that it always has contained that power, that truth, that profoundness. In John chapter 12, Subscribes and Pharisees were arguing with Jesus. And Jesus made an interesting comment, thinking about the eternality of God's word. He said, the same word, remember he said, the word of God is not abiding in you, you've not received it. And he said, that same word that you will not receive, that exact same word is gonna judge you on judgment day, on the last day. That word that was spoken has not lost any of its power. It's not like a top that we wind up and then it slowly winds down to the end of time. It contains the same eternality. We think of God's word, his revelation, just the power when God speaks. God speaks and he creates the world just by his spoken word. God speaks and water is turned into wine. God speaks, he says, take up your bed and walk, And the paralytic can get up, he's been lame for 38 years. One day God is gonna speak and roll up the cosmos like a parchment, like a piece of paper. The entire expanse of the cosmos. God's revelation to man is purposeful. You know that verse in Isaiah 55 where we quote in prayer, well God's word will not return to him void. And we have this narrow application of where we want to apply that. Well, I shared the word with this individual and it will not return void. That verse is talking about the entire word of God. This word will not return to God empty or not able to accomplish the purpose for which it has been sent. I want us just for a few minutes to think about this idea that the nature of the word of God that the psalmist saw and grasped is it is a revelation of God to man. It is what God wants us to know. Does it mean anything to us that this is God's revelation to us? Is there anything more important in the entire universe that's more important than the Word of God, something that we should study more, pay more attention to, meditate upon than the Word of God. Think about the two distances that the Bible had to travel to get into your lap. Think about the spiritual distance. Here we have God in the heavens, God who is thrice holy, transcendent, perfect in glory, glory, and holiness, separate from sinners in eternity. He is the personification of true wisdom and knowledge. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. He's perfect. He is so far separate from mankind. Here's God in the heavens, and here are we, creatures of the dust, fallen. Stupid, sinful, without God and without hope in the world. Kicked out of paradise, kicked out of Eden. And then, miraculously, you became saved. The word of God, James 1.18, was the seed God planted in you to bring about new life. And you understood that this word of God was that special means, that special revelation, whereby God wanted to reveal to you himself and his purposes, that spiritual distance for God's word to illuminate your heart and then bloom and give you that spiritual understanding, that spiritual distance is infinite. Think about the physical distance. God is rational. God uses means, God uses history, God created history as a bucket to put his will in and contain what he wanted to do, his purposes. In the physical realm, God took human authors moved by the spirit of God over the course of 1600 to 1800 years, different human authors, different types of people to be that vessel God divinely preserved his word, Psalm 12. God raised up this man, Johannes Gutenberg, to be wise in physical things, to create a printing press with movable type, so that 570 years ago, he could print a Bible so the Bible could get into people's hands. And through this entire physical process, you have the word of God in your lap, this revelation of God. How can we undervalue God's special revelation through all of the courses and channels of human history and its persecutions, attempts to destroy it? And here it is available to us, this revelation of God to man. The psalmist saw this as a portable sanctuary. The psalmist saw this as a door to heaven. The psalmist saw this as God speaking to him personally, which is why he had a personal passion for the word of God and said, I love it because I can see it for what it really is. We need to be reminded that it's God's revelation to us, to whom much is given, much is required. And I'm suggesting this is much. This is very, very much. Number two, the second remark on this passage. The action word of love is not too strong of a word to describe the believer's relationship to God's word. Love, oh how I love thy law, he said. That word is not too strong of a word to describe our relationship, what it should be, to the word of God. This word love means there's a strong, demonstrable, emotional attachment to be in the presence of, to possess, to own, He loved God's word. This word love, as we read a little bit in 1 John and mentioned a few things at communion time, we understand this love is this emotion, this drive, and this action word that is hard to be faked. It's very real. And God puts this love for his word in our heart. But the psalmist is portraying this idea that he could not live without the word of God. Oftentimes, believers, professing believers, others, see God's word in a lesser way. It's a task. It's a task that's been imposed upon us just to satisfy our conscience. Paul said, sometimes the veil is upon our heart. And so there's a darkness that pushes out spiritual apprehension. And so reading becomes dry. And when reading becomes dry, there's no subsequent meditation or thoughts or deeper diving into God's word. It's a task, it's a duty. It's just all work, no spiritual delight, no enjoyment. It's a chore that's bounded by a clock prescribed start time and end time, predetermined end time. And there's no latitude for the Holy Spirit to enlarge our hearts, to open up things to us. The Holy Spirit had great latitude with David, because he meditated upon God's word all the day. It becomes routine. When it becomes routine, we open up God's word and we already are conditioning ourself, well, there'll be no new truth, no new sweetness, no new application of God's word to my heart. It's undervalued. We forget this is God's revelation to mankind. It's ordinary. The Bible, we have an abundance. Last night I tried to mentally count how many Bibles we have in our house. I couldn't. Between cassette copies, believe it or not, digital CD copies, hardbound copies, I couldn't count them. It's so ordinary. The word of God, using this word love, having this emotional attachment to God's word, that's not too strong of a word. to use. Some of you might have heard of Pastor William Hughes from Scotland. He tells this antidote from his own personal ministry. An individual became converted under his ministry and this man went out, a middle-aged man, he went out and he bought a Bible at a second-hand bookshop there in Scotland. The one he found was, if you're familiar with the pulpit Bible, one of these great big Bibles. But he didn't care. He had a Bible, and he carried it around, and he read it. And very soon after he purchased this Bible, he calls up Pastor Hughes on the phone. And he says, Pastor, I was just reading in the Bible where there's this guy named Daniel, and he was thrown in the lion's den. And God miraculously stopped the mouths of the lions, and he preserved Daniel, and Daniel trusted in him. Do you know that, Pastor? Have you read that story? And Pastor Hughes said, well, yes, that's Daniel on the lion's den, and he gave a few thoughts on that passage. So he ended that conversation. A couple days later, the same man calls up Pastor Hughes again, and he says, Pastor, I was just reading where God's people were escaping from the Egyptians, and God opened up this river, and they were able to cross over and be safe. And miracle of miracles, then God closed the river on their enemy and destroyed them to save his people. Do you know that story? Have you read it? And Pastor Hughes says, well, yeah, that's the deliverance of the Israelites. And he went on to talk about it. And the next day, Pastor Hughes gets a call again. And the man says, I was just reading in the Bible when Jesus died, and I hadn't seen this before, but there was this man that they call the good thief. And this man, like the bad thief, was cursing God and railing upon the Savior And God's grace enveloped him in that final hour, saved him, and Jesus said, today you will be with me in paradise. Pastor, have you read that story? Do you know what this grace is about? This free grace that would save even a thief on his dying situation? Have you read that? He was really excited. And Pastor Hughes said a few things, and he said, he hung up the phone, and Pastor said, I started to shed some tears. He says, here was a new believer who was so infected with the word of God. He had this emotional attachment to it. And even though he was helter skelter all over the Bible, he couldn't get enough of it. And he says, here am I, a pastor, but I'm just a sermon machine. I have to crank out these sermons. He was preaching twice or three times a week. I have to hurry up and study to get a sermon together so I could hurry up and finish it so I can get on to my next sermon. He goes, I needed to stand back and read the scriptures for myself and enjoy the scriptures and reevaluate the word of God. This man loved the Word of God. And I had become kind of clinical towards it. I wanted to feed the sheep, I wanted the sermons to be good, but I was missing certain things. Do we love the Word of God? Do we see it as our spiritual food and spiritual medicine, our light, our comfort, our wisdom? As I said, a portable sanctuary, where we can meet with God. It's interesting, isn't it? This law of liberty used to be the thing that condemned us. It used to be the thing that we didn't want to read or meditate upon because it was a light that was exposing that darkness. We became saved and now we love the very thing that once condemned us because we see the other side. Do we love God's word? Thirdly, God equips the child of God to love and meditate upon his word because God himself is the teacher. God the Holy Spirit is the teacher. Notice verse 102. I have not departed from my judgment because thou has taught me. Thou has taught me. God the Holy Spirit teaches us. This does not mean that everything that comes to our mind as we're reading through the scriptures or everything that jumps into our mind as we're meditating upon the Word of God comes from God, nor does it mean we eliminate Bible teachers and and all of these other helps that the Holy Spirit utilizes. But in the final analysis, Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but it's God who gives the increase. And God does that work. Listen to a couple of scriptures, Christ speaking. How be it he, when he, the spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. Earlier, Jesus says, when the comfort of the Holy Ghost, when he comes, the Father will send him in my name, he shall teach you all things. And he shall bring you into remembrance of everything I have said unto you. And again, earlier in the scripture, speaking about the salvation experience, the writer has says, written in the prophets, they shall all be taught of God. You is in the emphatic position. The you, God has taught me. He is the one who initially teaches. This author of this book is the one who opens it up in our mind, in our heart. Let me read a couple of verses from 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10 through 13. God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. Do you know any deep things of God? And the Bible also intimates that when we learn deep things, we just don't blab them all over. Sometimes God wants to reveal deep things that we cherish in our heart, and it's between us and the Lord. deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God, okay, the things of God, who knows them? Knoweth no man but the spirit of God. And that parallel passage where the spirit teaches us. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. He goes on to say, which things we also speak, not in the words with man's wisdom or man teaches, but the Holy Ghost teaches. There's this spiritual dynamic where the Holy Spirit, not all at once, not like a dump truck that backs up and opens the door and it all falls out, but little bit by little bit, like the manna that had to be collected every single day, sufficient for the day. the Holy Spirit, and he builds upon all of that foundation. Two questions. First question, what makes a good teacher? Well, a good teacher can invigorate us to the subject. A good teacher has a wealth of knowledge and experience. A good teacher can teach us, even if we have a low IQ, in that particular subject. A good teacher will identify with the class in a way that we could walk into the class and say, well, that's the teacher there, but not be separate from the class as though holier than thou. Or I'm really up here with my PhD and you guys are down here. A good teacher will set high expectations and meet those expectations. This is what the Holy Spirit does. This is the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. And this is why I said today, I want to confine ourself to the Word of God and not commentaries, not downloaded sermons from sermonaudio.com, not all of these other places. Why? Because when you read a commentary, then your teacher is John Bunyan or John Gill or Spurgeon or whoever. But when you're in the Word of God, Your teacher has to be the Holy Spirit. What kind of teacher do you have? The Holy Spirit. Second question. It's gonna hurt a little bit more. What kind of a student are you? Do you show up to class early? Do you daydream looking out the window, just waiting for recess? Do you do your homework? How about extra credit? What kind of students are we in the classroom of the Holy Spirit? Not everybody gets into this class. Seriously, think about that. Not everybody gets into that coveted class to be taught by the Holy Spirit. What John wrote about Christ, we could say identically with the Word of God. That which was from the beginning, of the Word of God, but it's talking about Jesus, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked upon, that which our own hands have handled, the Word of life, He's talking about their relationship to Christ and how that relationship opened up. But we could say the same thing. We should be able to say the same thing about the word of God. We've heard it. We've seen it. We've handled it with our hands. That word of life is integral to our life. It's a spiritual mystery. Judas, not Iscariot, but the other Judas, one time asked the Lord, he said, Lord, how is it that you're gonna manifest yourself to us, but not the world? And the answer is kind of left in this, it's a spiritual mystery. It's a divine mystery. The Holy Spirit is able to do that. If you think about it, it's amazing. the body of Christ, the church, down through time, from Adam and Eve to the last person who's saved, from every geopolitical and tribal and country and background. The Holy Spirit can teach anybody. The Holy Spirit can teach Paul, the Apostle Paul. The Holy Spirit. I think sometimes we don't make ourselves available to the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. Number four, the true believer loves the Word of God because he's found it to be immensely practical. Immensely practical. Imagine for a moment if I were to drop you off in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, and you had no map, no compass, no light. And you were tasked to make a journey of 70, or if by reason of strength, 80 miles. It would be a very difficult journey. You probably could still make it, but it would be difficult. Now imagine you dropped off in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. You have to make the same journey of 70, maybe 80 miles. But you have a map, and you have a compass, and you have a light. It would still be a difficult journey, but what confidence you would have, what assurance, what purpose of direction you would have. Living in this world is hard enough, let alone without the provision of a map. Where am I going? What's my destination? How do I navigate to get there? To do it without a compass, where am I heading? What direction should I go? without a light to see during dark and difficult times. Even though we live in a fallen world, God still governs the world. He created the natural laws. He is over and against the entire world. Consider the sparrow that doesn't fall to the ground without your heavenly father. God is a rational God, and the word of God lends itself in a very practical way to enable us to live in a way that will glorify him. All scripture is given by your inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, training, and righteousness, so that you, the person of God, can be, what? Thoroughly furnished unto every good work. It tells us how to live godly in a godless world. It equips us to go through this society. We are able to see ordinary things, eating and drinking, marriage, raising children, property, human relationships. We're able to see everything from God's vantage point. The psalmist, if you read through these verses, the psalmist, in a very practical way, says God's word is so practical. He even says, I know more than my enemies, I know more than my teachers, I know more than the ancients, verses 98 through 100. He says in verse 98, you've made me wiser because you were ever with me. If you think about the psalmist's life, what a checkerboard of some good friends, Some not so good friends. Some situations that there was this ultimate protection that God was hedging him in. Other ones where he was in difficult places. There were some devious people that were hidden among the ranks. Some of these people had soldiers and weaponry that they could use and did use against David. All these situations, how was the psalmist to deal with them? What should he think? What should he say? How should he act? It was the practical wisdom of God that he was able to employ in this lost, dying world. So his deportment, in God's eyes, would be good, would be God-glorifying. It's the Lord God who gives wisdom and understanding. and discernment. He had more understanding than his teachers because God's testimonies were his meditation all the day. Oftentimes, I believe or say that the Christian life is very impractical. You know, being heavenly minded and no earthly good, you hear that all the time. But God's word is written in such a way that because it changes the whole man, It changes how we live in this physical world. The psalmist focuses in the section that we read on meditation because that repetition of God's word in our mind where the Holy Spirit then is able to open it up. Meditation is hard because I don't think it comes easy. It takes work, it takes time. We have to have the ability to stay focused which is hard for us, I think, in this fast-paced culture. It takes practice. It takes diligence. But this wisdom, this discernment that the psalmist got, he got from God's word. He became wise. He became understanding. He meditated on God's law, statutes, word, testimonies, commandments, way, precepts, judgments, and righteousness. God's word was immensely practical. Fifthly and finally, the true believer loves God's word because he's found it to be immensely spiritual. Immensely spiritually spiritual, transcendentally spiritual. The word of God which alone can satisfy that spiritual hunger that we have as a new believer. The reality of this word is, as Jesus said, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. Your spiritual DNA cries out for his spirit and his life. Spiritual DNA to meet God, to dwell in his light, to be nourished at his table, to feed on his spiritual manna. These two go together, spirit and Life, they both operate, they're conjoined because they operate together. Again, think about the dynamic of the true believer. Just the dynamic of what has been undertaken. They were born, you were born again, and when you were born again, the Holy Spirit takes up residency in your heart by faith. And the Holy Spirit who lives with inside of you has a burning desire to glorify Christ. That's what Jesus said, that he's going to testify of me. He's going to glorify me. And that Holy Spirit who lives inside your heart, who wants to testify of Christ, he wrote this book. And the Holy Spirit, the scripture says, when you became born again, he took away the veil And the spirit of the Lord, with the spirit of Lord there is liberty. And then the scripture says, so now we all with open face beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord were changed from one degree of glory to the next by the spirit of God. This new dynamic of the believer is tremendous. The Holy Spirit in you, he wants to glorify and reveal his son. He wrote the book. He's gonna use the book because the veil has been taken off of your heart. All these things are ready. Now, in a confrontation with the Jews, Jesus told them they did not have their word, his word abiding or living in them. And he said this, this is the scripture that our brother George quoted when he was praying after the reading, excuse me, during his prayer time. Jesus said, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. Okay, so these scribes and Pharisees are searching in the scriptures because what do they want? They want eternal life. They wanted a knowledge base. They wanted a knowledge set. And in that set, they thought they could have eternal life. But Jesus is saying, the scriptures isolated, or the scriptures alone, are not eternal life. He says, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of me. Jesus said it this way as he prayed, John 17. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." The true knowledge of myself, Jesus prayed. He told the Pharisees, you're searching the scriptures, thinking that has eternal life for you there and then and there, cut and dried. But these testify of me. So what it's like is it's like you're driving down the highway and you get off an exit too early. They got off at the exit of the scriptures alone. Jesus said, you have to go past that and meet me on the pages of scriptures. They stopped at the testimony. They stopped at the law. They stopped at the precepts. Scripture says Jesus Christ is the end of the law. He's the destination place. This is why he could say, how I love thy law. He loved the road to get there, and then he loved the destination place when he got there as well. got to Christ, the scriptures were so perfect for him because he could see Christ. Do we see Christ in the book of Leviticus as easily as we see him in the Gospels? Do we see Christ in the poetry books, that is Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon? Do we understand that these are they which testify of him? This is the revelation of God to mankind. Would it not make spiritual sense? Would it not be spiritually symmetrical that he wants us to know his son, the savior of the world, our friend, our redeemer? The Holy Spirit is zealous and jealous to testify of Christ from every page of this book of books. No wonder the psalmist said, I meditate all the day. No wonder he said, oh, I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day. So we've made five remarks upon this section. Number one, the nature of God's word. We shouldn't have to be reminded of this, but the nature of God's word, it's the revelation of God to man. Number two, the action word love is not too strong of a word to describe the believer's relationship to the scriptures. Number three, we said God equips the believer to love his word because he's given us the Holy Spirit as the teacher. And number four, the word of God is immensely practical. We love it for that. But fifthly, we love the word of God because it's immensely spiritual. That's the true warp and woof of the nature of God's word. Let me close with a quote. I beseech you, let your Bibles be everything to you. Carry this matchless treasure with you continually and read it and read it and read it again. and again and again. Turn to its pages by day and night. Let its narratives mingle with your dreams. Let its precepts color your lives. Let its promises cheer your darkness. Let its divine illumination make glad your life. As you love God, love the book, which is the book of God and the God of the book, as it has rightly been called. Might we have that same spirit that was in the psalmist where we could say, oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the scriptures of truth. Where would we be if we did not have this light unto our feet, this lamp unto our path? We pray, oh God, that your word would always be not dead letter, but that it would always be that living and abiding word, that it would be spirit and life, that it would be our wellspring of joy and wisdom and understanding. Father, forgive us if we've ever undervalued thy word, treated it lightly, read it by rote or duty. Lord, make it alive to us once again. Give us that joy. just that personal investment in thy word for all of thy people today. Do it for thy glory and our good, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.