We're reading a few verses from Matthew's Gospel, chapter 4. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 4. The first eleven verses of the chapter. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward and hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.' But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.' Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. Amen. The Lord will add his own blessing to the reading of his precious word for his name's sake. This morning we return to the second part of Psalm 119. And I emphasize we're coming to the second part. There are 22 parts to this psalm, eight verses each. Some people thought perhaps I was going to try to preach verse by verse through the whole lot. Even with the length of my sermons, that would be difficult in one lifetime. But we're just looking at this section, verse 9 through verse 16. Today we come to verse 11. Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee. Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee." Many a time, most of us have glibly quoted the words of this text without giving too much thought to its very extensive meaning and message. On the surface, it's a simple text. A child can memorize it in a matter of seconds. There are no words in it that are particularly difficult to understand. So on the surface, it is a simple text. We can commit it to memory. We can say that's the meaning. It's not a simple text. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I come to realize it's the very opposite. There's something here that goes to the depths of Christian experience, to the heart of every believer's life. Today we're continuing with our theme, the general theme from this section, set by verse 9, of living clean in an unclean world. And as we do so, I want us to try to enter in more fully to this great text of Scripture in verse 11. There is in it what I will call, and I'm actually half taking the title of what was a series of sermons, became a major part of a book by one of the great Puritans, Thomas Brooks. taking His title, more or less, as a sure remedy against Satan's devices. The more you look at this psalm, the more you'll realize it's about more than simply memorizing passages of Scripture, though that comes into it. A sure remedy against Satan's devices. Now, there are three things that We can notice very simply here, first of all, the psalmist had a deep perception of spiritual reality. I want you to get this perception of spiritual reality that the psalmist had. You read these words, "...Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee." In other words, the psalmist smelt danger. Danger to his soul. Danger to his walk. Danger to his enjoyment of his God. Danger to his work. Danger to his witness. He smelt it all around him. He was aware that there were arrayed against him powerful spiritual forces that were out to destroy him and all that he held dear. And he knew that he couldn't just ignore this, he had to take some steps to overcome this danger. Now, this is not something unique to the psalmist. You take your Bible and you'll find anything that the writers of scripture bring before us with some regularity. We come to the New Testament, think only of the apostles of Christ. Paul the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians 2 verse 11, warning them lest Satan should get an advantage of us. Now listen to what he's saying. This was Paul's concern, his worry, about the church at Corinth. That lest by some means Satan would get an advantage over them. And then he said, for we are not ignorant of His devices. And the word devices simply means thoughts, His purposes, His intentions, His designs. We are not ignorant of what the devil is planning for us. Now let's stop there for a minute. We may be ignorant of many of the ways that He'll go about putting the plans into operation. That's obvious from Christian's lives. We may be ignorant of the various ways in which He will seek to deceive us and entangle us. We shouldn't be, but we may be. But one thing we cannot be in ignorance of, and it doesn't matter whether you're young or whether you're old, You know as well as you know anything that Satan means no good to you. He means to destroy you and everything that you hold dear. Everything about the devil and his power is destructive. Even when it appears to be otherwise, it is entirely, solely destructive. So Paul says, we are not ignorant of the devil's thoughts. We're not in the dark about His purposes and His intentions. And I'm worried, says the Apostle, I'm concerned, lest the devil is getting an advantage over some of you. Any preacher who did not echo that concern for his own congregation must be living in a fool's paradise. I have to be concerned for myself in this. And I have to be concerned for you. It is a matter of deep concern that there are Christians in this congregation. And if you're honest with yourself today, the devil's got one over on you. Perhaps he's crept up unawares. Perhaps he's just steamrolled you. I don't know what has happened. But Paul is saying, I'm concerned about this malignant power getting advantage of you. In chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, he said, I fear. There will be people who tell you fear is sin. All fear is sin. I always marvel at these super-spiritual characters who are greater than the apostles. There is a wise fear. There is a godly fear. There is a spiritual fear. Paul had it. And he says, I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. And the word subtlety means craftiness. I fear, lest as the old serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness, so your minds..." Notice where he now puts the emphasis. He's been talking in chapter 2 about the devil's mind. Now he's talking about the devil getting into your mind. He says, I'm fearing, lest the devil subtly, craftily, Corrupts your mind from the simplicity that is in Christ. What a big subject that is. Christians going around thinking wrongly. Thinking without thinking through the gospel. Facing the problems of life from some other perspective than the perspective of the gospel. Thinking through their problems but not thinking through the gospel. Christians thinking corrupt thoughts, wicked thoughts, immoral thoughts, bitter thoughts, angry thoughts, selfish thoughts. The devil corrupting the minds. Tell me, is Satan not having a field day? And we'll see this as we go on in this text. When Christians know more about just about any subject under the sun. Nowadays, because of the talking heads on television and what you read in the newspapers, everybody is suddenly a professor of economics. Everybody understands the stock market. Everybody understands what's wrong with America. Everybody understands the political system. Everybody has an opinion on every social welfare thing. Everybody knows what he believes about those things. But you get the same Christians and they know very little about God's word and they know little of the gospel and how it applies to their hearts. We have Christians who know everything but the one thing that needs to be known. I fear," says Paul, I fear not only what's in the devil's mind, but I fear what the devil has got in your mind. That's serious. That is serious. In Ephesians chapter 6, he commands us in that famous command, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against. The wiles, the wiles of the devil. In 1 Timothy 2.26, he speaks of the snare of the devil. In Revelation 2.24, the Lord Jesus, speaking from the throne of glory, warns of the depths of Satan. Now this is what I believe the psalmist was perceiving and so must we. I've mentioned Thomas Brooks and his great series of sermons. His full title was Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. And I'm going to do something I very rarely do. Thomas Brooks, I better not preach these things otherwise This will be a series of sermons. Thomas Brooks started off that series with twelve devices by which Satan seeks to entangle souls in sin. I want you to listen to them. This is what I rarely do, that I would read twelve points of somebody else's sermon is unheard of. But there's more insight. There's more insight in the old Puritan doctor than all the modern professors of theology put together. Number one, he presents the bait and hides the hook. Think of it. This is how the devil comes to you. He presents the bait, but he hides the hook. Second, he paints sin in the colors of virtue. He can take the most heinous sin and represent it to you as something worthy. That's why we have churches all across America with adulterers sitting there rejoicing. They have broken their marriage vows, they have traded in the first wife for a new model, or the first husband for a new model, and this is love. Isn't love a lovely thing? Isn't it a good thing? How the devil takes the vilest thing and he can paint it to you in the fair colors of virtue. The third thing he does, he makes light of sin. Don't listen to those old Bible-thumping, old-fashioned, narrow-minded bigots. He makes light of sin. Before a thing, He shows you the sins of good men. Without showing you much of their virtues, He shows you their sins. Without showing you their sorrow and their repentance, He points to their sins. He might whisper, they're all hypocrites. But the whole thing is, look at those. Those are leading men. Those are Christian men. Those are good men. Those are the paragons of virtue. And look at their sins and all the faults you find with them, as if finding fault with them justified your sin. But that's what Satan does. And then he'll get a little theological. present the mercy of God as an excuse for sin. God is all merciful. God is all good. God is all love. Not a word about the chastening or the judging of the Lord. So, the mercy of God becomes actually an excuse for sin. Sixth thing he does, he represents that, well, don't worry about it now, just go ahead and sin. You can always repent. Repentance is easy. And here's the twisted lying of the devil. When he's inducing you to sin, he'll tell you, look, you can always confess it. Doesn't the Bible say, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins? You can always confess. You can always repent. You can always get forgiveness. That's when he's inducing you to sin. But as soon as you sin, he'll tell you there's no way back. Repentance is impossible. It's not easy anymore. It's not impossible. Then I want you to listen up very carefully, for the old Puritan doctor was right on the mark here. He induces, in the seventh place, he induces you to toy or trifle with sin, telling you that you can play a little with it without actually committing it. You see, you don't need to be a real separatist from sin. You don't really need to be so bigoted as not to have anything to do with the world. You can trifle with it. You can play with it as a baby with a toy without actually committing it. Another device of the devil is he'll point to you. I point out to you how good and how easy sinners have it in the world. Look at them. Look at them and look at you. You're trying to do right and everything's going wrong. They're living in sin. So you say this sin is so bad and yet they're having the times of their lives. Everything's going well for them. No trouble with them. There's nothing new about this. The 73rd Psalm takes you right down that road. The psalmist was much afflicted, the psalmist Esau, much afflicted with the same thought. Points out how easy sinners have it. And then the converse of that, number nine, he induces you to sin by showing you the sufferings of the godly. I've just talked this morning about man tortured to death. Mothers and their children. thrown in containers to die unless they curse Christ. The devil will come to you and say, well, look at that. I've shown you the ungodly. They're having a ball. And here, you look at these people. They're supposed to have the God of all power on their side, and godliness is supposed to be with great gain and all that. But look at them. Look at the sufferings. The tenth thing he does is he hardens your heart by getting you to compare yourself favorably with some people you think are worse than you are. You know, I'm not all I should be. But look at him, I'm not as bad as he is. I may not do this and I may do that and I may not be this and I may be something else. It's not all what you'd want but There's a whole lot of people a whole lot worse than I am. So what? So what? But that's the snare of the devil. The eleventh device that Brooks mentions is that Satan corrupts the minds with error to lead you to carelessness and loose living. We read this morning how he sought to tempt the Lord Jesus. I'm not going through the temptations of Christ. The reason for reading that passage, I think, is already clear and will be clearer before we're through the Savior's preparation for it and his use of the Word of God. But see how the devil came. Would it not be a good thing for Christ to show to heaven, earth, and hell His power as Almighty God? manifested in flesh, would that not be a good thing? That was the temptation. And then quoting scripture. Be very careful any time the devil quotes the Bible. I always tell you, be careful when an apostate or any servant of the devil starts spouting scripture. The devil never quotes scripture unless he intends to pervert it. Never. He would corrupt your mind by introducing error into it. He'd take a godly truth, usually what he'd call a godly principle, and he'd try to use that as a lever in your mind to get your thinking all corrupted. Let me give you, I could go down a list of these here, but we'll not do that. Let me give you one of them. This is a thing that's very widespread today. And I say this particularly among the Reformed, who are more deformed than reformed and are a shame both to the Reformed faith and a disgrace to Christianity at times. I hope I'm making myself clear. I'm trying to work on expressing myself with clarity on these subjects. We have reached the stage in most reformed churches in America where if anybody has any standard of personal separation and godliness, if you separate from Hollywood, if you separate from Las Vegas, if you separate from the whiskey-swilling, cigar-sucking, gambling crowd of the world, that's legalism. So we're told. No, it's not! That's just a bunch of people who have been corrupted in their thinking, whose thoughts have been corrupted with error, and they're just allowing the devil to do what he tried to do with the Savior, to take the Bible and misuse it to lead to loose living. That's what the devil will do. The final device that Brooks mentions is that He leads you into evil company. He leads you into evil company. We read this last week in Proverbs 1, "'If sinners entice thee, consent thou not. Go not with them.'" Now, I want to bring two texts together. And I'm not turning them up because I don't want to get off on a tangent preaching them, but I want them to be together in our minds. The psalmist prayed, gather not my soul with sinners. That's a great prayer. I want to tell you something. There's nobody here. I don't care how careless you are about the things of God. I don't care how hardened in heart you've become. how seared your conscience has become when you hear the preaching of the gospel. I am willing to make it a blanket statement. There's not a man, woman, or young person here who could look God in the face and say, Lord, on the day when you're gathering sinners to burn them in hell, number me among them. I want to be there. Not one. Oh, that's the prayer, Lord, gather not my soul with sinners. Good prayer. The only way to escape that is to get to Christ, who is separate from sinners, and who will separate you from sinners. But if you are praying, gather not my soul with sinners, then Proverbs 1 says, do not go with sinners. In other words, you can't walk in the company that's going to hell, go all the way down the road with them, and think that somehow or other it's going to lead you to heaven. You can't do that. Don't go with them. Now that's plain. If sinners entice thee, consent thou not, go not with them. Go not with them. are some of the dangers that confront us. As I say, the psalmist smelt danger everywhere he went. And I think, you know, if we don't have that perception, if we fail to have that perception, we're going to be living very dark and defeated lives. Danger's everywhere. Everywhere. In the natural life, haven't you heard it? That most accidents, most injuries, happen in the home. Haven't you heard that? Statistically, I think that's established. Most of the injuries people suffer happen in their own home. There's danger there. I want to tell you, most of the injuries that are happening spiritually are happening in our own homes. Serious thoughts. Every time I dedicate an infant up here, I read the passage, the promise of God. But first of all, the command, I take two portions from Deuteronomy 6 and then Deuteronomy 11. And in Deuteronomy 6, the Lord is saying about the place of the Word of God in the life and in the heart and in the home. I've been asked this question Probably a thousand times, all over the world, wherever you go, Christians ask the same question, as if there were some recondite or difficult answer. There's not. How do we have a family altar? How do we have family worship? I've addressed this, I don't know how many dozens of times. Every time I read that portion, it's there to be clearly seen. You take this Bible. First, as a family, you read it. That's what you do. You read it. Then you talk about it. That's what it says. Talk about it. Is that happening? In most homes? I figure not. I mean, what do husbands and wives talk about nowadays? Do they talk? What do they talk about? Where is the talking together of the things of God? Where is the building up of each other in the faith of the Gospel? There's nothing esoteric about this. This is right on the plain page of Scripture. This is what we're told to do. There's danger in the home. There's danger in the workplace. I was just a young fellow going out into my first job. I had felt terribly the failure of teenage years and my fear to take a public stand for Christ. As a little fellow from A working class family in a public school surrounded by people of wealth and station and position and all the rest of it. I, to be quite honest, was intimidated, overwhelmed, and very often just intimidated so much to keep my mouth shut. You find that hard to believe, but that's true. My mouth was shut. And I remember going out into what was, in those days, quite a prestigious firm. And I said, Lord, whatever it costs, from the very first chance I get, I am going to nail my colors to the mast, and I'm going to take my stand for God. And God blessed that, but there was danger there, danger in the workplace. And I saw this. I don't know if the people were saved. I've told this story before, but some of you young people, you would need to learn this. I was just a kid. There were other young people there, from a church background, professing Christianity. God knows whether they knew anything of Christ or not. I would doubt, to be quite honest, very much doubt. I've often told you we had in our office a girl of rare physical beauty, which made the other girls hate her, and they talked about her for the most part out of sheer jealousy, and it made all the young men love her. I remember seeking to give her the gospel. I could honestly say, I could see she was beautiful. I had no more interest in her than. .. That's well, I didn't because she'd never had any interest in me, but I had no interest in her whatsoever, except I'd love to see her saved. She was a professing atheist. She was no more an atheist than I. But she stood and listened to me as I gave her the gospel. And seeing that she was standing, spending time talking to me, a young Presbyterian fellow decided he was the son of a director, and he had wide eyes for this beautiful girl. He thought, well, if it's religion's going to get her talking, then I'll talk religion. And so he butted into the conversation. I never forget the devastating reply. man was I glad that by the grace of God I had sought to stand for him." She withered him, withered him. She said, you are just a dirty little hypocrite. When there are all the stories and the yarns and the filthy jokes going about the office, you're there and you're in it and you're talking and you're telling them what the best of And yet when he's talking religion to me, you come and you'll be religious." And then she said this, she said, it's people like you who have people like me the way we are. Now I'm sure when that young fellow went into the office, he didn't go with the intention of being a dirty little hypocrite, but that's what he was. I don't think he went with that intention, but he got corrupted. I know a man went into a work. He went in as a professing Christian. In fact, I believe he was saved. The Lord has since restored him, and I believe that he was a genuine believer because he was a Christian. He was entrusted. with special funds that his fellow workers were gathering. A lot of money. Times got hard. He got inveigled, if my memory's right, into gambling. The next thing, the money began to disappear. Of course, I'll put it back next week, or the next week, or the next week. And he never did. He lost his job. Worse still, he lost his testimony. Dangerous place. Wherever you go, the devil's out to destroy you. So that's the perception. Now over against that perception, the psalmist had a noble purpose. It was to live in holiness. His purpose was that I might not sin against thee. Now I want you to notice the words against thee. You see the psalmist was powerfully affected by what he knew of the Lord. Sin was hateful because of what he knew of the Lord. What defines sin in the psalmist mind? Now you can give a theological definition of sin. You can give the catechism definition of sin. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. That's a good theological definition in succinct terms. But you can deal with it much more simply. Sin is anything that's against God. Sin is anything that comes between you and the Lord. Sin is anything that drives you from Christ. It may be acceptable to others. It may not have even the same effect in others. That's why just because I do something, it's not reason why you may do that. The thing in itself may have no effect on me and yet have a terrible effect on you. Anything that is against God, anything that's going to drive you away from the Lord, it's going to antagonize you toward the things of God or alienate you from the things of God, that thing for you is sin. That's how he defines sin. And what made it hateful to him was that it was hateful to God. You remember how David who was not the psalmist, I believe, in Psalm 119. David felt this. You remember he sinned? He sinned terribly. And it just shows you how Christians, and I take David was a genuinely saved man, a man after God's own heart, but it just shows you how even good people can become hardened and twist it in their thinking and justify themselves. I mean, you've seen this many a time. I have looked in the face of liars and they have been able to justify their lies and give me some spiel. Thieves, and they can justify their thieving. David was an adulterer and a murderer. And you would think to hear some preachers, you know, that David did this and then he just got so suddenly convicted. David went on for months like that. Months. And in the 32nd Psalm, he traces that period as a period when I kept silence and God was dealing with him. But yet he hardened his heart. He said, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me, and my moisture was turned into the drought of summer. But still, no repentance. But then finally, finally, when Nathan came and nailed him Thou art the man. And finally, when the babe that was born of adultery died, David came to realize Psalm 51, verse 4, against Thee, Thee only have I sinned. I was talking to the in theology class the other day about that text. Theologically and philosophically, that is a very, very deep statement. You see, on a human level, it's ludicrous to say, I haven't sinned against anybody else. He had sinned against himself. He had sinned against his family. He had sinned against Bathsheba. He had sinned against Uriah. He had sinned against Ahithophel. He had sinned against his whole nation. He had sinned against a whole bunch of people. So how on earth could he say, against thee and thee only have I sinned? Here's the philosophical and the theological point. Nothing that I can do to anybody could be counted sin unless it were first against God. It's because God is holy, and God is just, and God has given us His law. It's because of all that that makes contraventions of that law to be sin. And so David felt this. He was overwhelmed now with the holiness, and the majesty, and the glory of God. And he says, against Thee, the only have I sinned. And of course, he pleaded for cleansing, and he got it. But you know, as Thomas Brooks said, It's better to be kept from sin than cured from sin by repentance. Just as it's better for a man to be preserved from disease than to be cured of the disease. I think everybody here would rather be preserved from having cancer than get cured of cancer. Right? Well, says Brooks, so it's better for us to be kept from sin So the psalmist therefore announces this purpose of heart, Lord, that I might not sin against Thee. That's my purpose. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I living the way I'm living? Why do I worship where I worship? Why? Because I want not to sin against God. That's my purpose. I'm going to live my life by the grace of God. I'm going to run my home by the grace of God. I'm going to conduct my relations in my family by the grace of God. I'm going to live in society. I'm going to work in my business. I'm going to worship among God's people by the grace of God through the faith of the gospel with the purpose that I do not sin against God, that I do not grieve the Holy Spirit. That's my purpose. Remember that was how Joseph lived? When Joseph was inveigled to do great wickedness by Potiphar's wife, he said, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? How could you expect me to sin against God? What you're asking me to do, no matter how well it would pay me in terms of fleshly indulgence, no matter how it may even prosper me, no matter what would happen, if you're asking me to sin against God, the price is too big. I won't do it." That was his purpose. That was the principle that guided Daniel. He went into captivity. It's easy for us to read this, you know. These boys were captives. They were slaves. Daniel and his friends were selected for special treatment, but they were still slaves. And that treatment was to make them fit servants of the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon was an absolute autocrat. He just batted an eyelid and quite literally you would lose your head. And so when he presented, this is your diet, you eat it, the other Jewish boys did it. But Daniel and his three companions said no, for Daniel purposed in his heart he would not defile himself. It might have cost him his head, but he was determined to keep his heart. That's a very noble purpose. Could I again appeal to you, and especially, not only, this is true of us all, listen, the notion that you get holier as you get older, it's a load of rubbish. You don't get holier as you get older. You may lack the physical energy and drive to do some of the stupid things you did when you were young, but you're just as corrupt by nature, and your flesh is just as rotten as it always was. So age in itself does not confer holiness. So this is for everybody, but especially I would address this to the young because the devil would come to you and he would paint holiness as such a dreary thing, such an old-fashioned thing. That's for old people. Sin is so exciting. See the bright lights? Man, sin is so exciting. No, it's not. No, it's not. Sin is damnable. Sin is the way of the weak-kneed and the wimps. Anybody can do it. Anybody can go with the filthy flow of the world. When Paul wrote to a young man called Timothy, I want you to notice how he addressed him. He said, Thou, O man of God, not a boy, not a youth in years perhaps, but no, no, no, you are being called to flee youthful lusts. So you're being called as a man of God. There's a manliness, there's a strength, there's a nobility, there's a glory, and there's a beauty, there's a majesty in this purpose that I may not sin against God. But of course, the psalmist recognized something that simply saying, well, I'm going to do that, I want to do that, without making the needed preparation is absolutely useless. So he made a necessary preparation. Thy word have I hid in my heart." Now, what does that mean? One great commentator said it. He not only heard it and read it, but he received it into his affections. Notice the parts here, into his affections. Mixed it with faith, laid it up in his mind and memory. for future use, preserved it in his heart as a choice treasure, where it might dwell richly and be of service to him in many occasions. Do you notice when the devil came to the Lord Jesus, he didn't need to say, hold on Satan, till I find the place in my Bible? No. He knew the precise scripture to use for the precise situation in which he was found. Now, I know that he is God manifested in the flesh, and as God the Savior, therefore, is omniscient. But he was also truly man. And I read that he grew in knowledge. In other words, as a little boy, the Savior was a student of God's Word. He hid it in his heart. This is what the psalmist is saying. I have hidden God's Word in my heart. Not, I'm going to hide it. If you haven't started, then start it. But he says, I have hidden Thy Word in my heart. What does that mean, in the heart? Well, remember, the psalmist said, my heart is inditing a good matter. Now, what does the word inditing mean? It means it's boiling over. Psalm 45 verse 1. My heart's bubbling over. It's boiling up. When Paul said, let the word of Christ, Colossians 3.16, dwell in you richly, that's what he meant. Not just read it. Well, I have a chapter to read today. I hope it's a short one. Let it dwell in you richly. I would need you for another hour. Time is gone. I was told last Sunday morning I preached for a long time and I didn't realize it. And before I know it, I'll be back there. So I better get ready to quit. But I'm going to tell you what is wrong with most of our lives and what's wrong with most of our homes. I'm not being critical. If you don't know the problem, you can't get the answer. But I'm going to tell you why many Christians are living in defeat, why many Christians are living in absolute despair and misery, why their life is an empty shell. There's no secret about it. That book is an almost entirely neglected book. Although there are Christians who read it. How many Christians do you know actually study the Bible? Study the Bible. Now you tell me, how many do you know who actually study God's Word? I don't know how to study. Don't tell me that. You know how to study. You study geology, geometry, whatever all these things are you study at school. You study them all. You can't study God's Word? No, don't tell me that. And furthermore, there's no book has more help provided to enable you to study. We have given out hundreds of our little Bible study leaflets. You keep it in your Bible. You just do it every day, and you'll be studying God's Word. But I'll tell you what's wrong. We're all so busy. Now, we treat this as if this were something so modern. It's not. It's not. You can be so busy that you have no time for the word of God. If that's the case, then you're just too busy. And it's time to re-evaluate. People are running around like headless chickens. You ever see a headless chicken? You ever see a chicken wants to cut the head off? Man, that thing's going round and round and round. It has speed and energy like you never saw. Of course it's dead, it's only all muscular, but it's going nowhere, it's doing nothing, it's all to no avail. That's the way Christians are living their lives, like headless chickens. To what effect? I learned, this is a man I've mentioned from this pulpit with thankfulness on various occasions, I learned a lot from an elder in our church in Mount Marian. He was just a very ordinary man, he was not a perfect man. He was not a paragon of all the virtues, but he was a good and godly man. Converted drunkard, man of the world, and God saved him. He became for me like a second father and a very beloved friend. As I said, Jimmy was just an ordinary fellow. His first job was he drove a huge gas delivery tanker. When the roads were icy and nobody else could take it up to that place that I mentioned, Wrath, Fryland and the Hill, and the hospitals needed it, he was the one who could do it, even at the risk of life and limb. Good man. He ran a second job running a little sort of a pig farm business, fattening pigs and selling them, mostly to keep the doors of a church going open. We have a thriving work there today. I wonder how many know the price that he paid. Jimmy worked long hours. His job was an arduous job. His home was like a second home to me and to my friends. We didn't need an appointment. We could go there any day, any night, any time, and we were always welcome. That's why I say I owe him so much. I remember many a time we would go, and Ann, his wife, would say, Jimmy's got home, but we would know Jimmy was up the stairs. He'd been on the go from early morning. He'd sought the Lord for that day, but when Jimmy got home before anything else, it didn't matter who was coming to see him or what. I have an appointment with the King of Kings. I have an appointment at the throne of grace." And Jimmy would take that Bible, and he would go get alone with God. And you could have been the king of England or the queen of England, unless it was life and death. You would wait till the king of glory had finished with him. He studied this Jimmy had left school when he was 14 years old. He had no particular education. Though never, never, never be so stupid as to think that people who leave school and don't have the education don't have brains. He had more brains in his big toe than many a person with degrees has in his head. And he had enough brains to get before God and study that book. And that's what's wrong with us. You know, one of the things that really is distressing, we have got to the place where everything in life has to be, quote, fun. Fun. Where does the Bible teach that? How did we ever get into that mentality? There's a vast difference between pleasure and fun. I can think of the greatest pleasures I have ever known. The highest and most exalted moods I have ever felt had nothing to do with fun and had everything to do with getting through to God, meeting with Him and learning from His Word. When I was a young fellow and we had our Christian endeavor, as we called our young people's Did we have fun? Yes, we did. We enjoyed each other's company. Came a time when we'd go out and we'd have our little soccer team. We'd kick soccer, ball, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, we could have fun. The school I went to, rugby was the game. It's still the world's greatest game. I was never particularly great at it, but I loved to play it. Second greatest game was cricket. I loved to play it too. Not particularly good, but I enjoyed it. Yeah, we had fun. But you know, when we met together as young Christians, It wasn't for fun. Before we went to that meeting, the demands of what we were doing demanded we be studying that book. And we were studying, and we were coming then to be taught more. We were learning the things of God. It took time. It took time. And that's the thing that so many people are not willing to give. Psalmist says, I've hidden your word in my heart. You can't do that. if you're not taking time with the Bible. You can not do it. You're five minutes glancing over the Bible where you're reading and you forget what you've read. You're like the man that James talks about. You look in the mirror. You don't like what you see, so you forget about it. You come to the Bible and it's in one eye and out the other side of your head and you've forgotten it. Listen, that's not how to hide the Word in your heart. Brethren, sisters, there's no difficulty in understanding the problem. It's getting to the root of it now and making the preparation. If you will prepare, this Bible will keep you from being deceived. You'll know which scripture to use when the devil comes. You'll know exactly where to turn to. That's a big, big thing. You will know precisely where to go, and when you get on your knees, to be able to lift that up before God. You remember, Elisha was able to warn the king of Israel, Syria is going to attack here and here, and the king of Syria says, Who? Who's the traitor? No, no. Elisha's telling them what you're doing in your bedchamber. That's what the Word of God will do. It will forewarn you. So you'll be kept from being deceived, and you'll be forewarned. Remember what Isaiah said of the farmer and sowing his seed? It's just as true of the Christian. His God doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him. Isaiah 28, 26. His God doth instruct him to discretion. And it will forearm you. Listen to the book of Proverbs. When wisdom, chapter 2, 10 and 11, when wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul." Listen, here's the promise. Discretion shall preserve thee. Discretion shall preserve thee, and understanding shall keep thee. I close with the words of a heathen. He was a Stoic philosopher in the city of Rome, and his name was Seneca. This is what he said, "'I am too great and born to greater things than that I should be a slave to my body.'" Now, that's said by a Stoic, but I want you to lift it up to the level of Christianity. Born of the Spirit, I am too great. Born to greater things than that I should be a slave to sin and to Satan, to the flesh and to the devices of the devil. I'm in Christ. I'm inhabited by the Spirit of God. God has set before me the purpose of His eternal glory, and He's given me in this book the way of victory. Am I going to live a slave? No, sir. I'm justified. I'm free. When Lazarus came out of the grave, Jesus said, Loose him and let him go. That's what this text is saying. There's a way to be prepared for the danger before it comes. There's an answer for every device of the devil. And here's where you get it. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. May God make us to have the perception of the danger May He give us that noble purpose to be holy and enable us to take these steps of necessary preparation to hide the word in our heart that we might not sin against God. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Let us all pray. In just a moment, the meeting will be over. I trust that the Lord will speak to all our hearts after the feeble voice of man is silent. If the Lord has spoken to you, there is a place of repentance and there's a place of forgiveness. Sinners can be saved and backsliders can be restored. There is a place of victory. No more excuses. No more fancy arguments. Don't let the corrupting thoughts of the devil get in to corrupt your mind. Let's get God's Word there. May God bless you. If I can help you in these things of God, I'm your servant for Christ's sake. Come, let's open God's Word, for the Bible has the answer. Father in heaven, thus warned us that we do confront a terrible foe. You warned us about the wiles of the devil and the snares of the devil and the depths of Satan, the craftiness. O Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Grant us to be aware of the danger. Give us, O Lord, we pray, a burning purpose and desire to be holy, not to sin against our God. And, O Lord, we pray, give us grace to hide Thy Word in our heart. Remember any who have fallen. Oh, how the devil would induce them to fall and then mock them when they've fallen and tell them, you've no hope, you've no hope, there's no way back. Thank God there's a way back to God from the darkest path of sin. We thank Thee there's a room at the cross for every sinner who'll come, and there's room at the cross for every Peter backslidden in his heart who's willing to come. Lord, we pray that Thou will do the work produce fruit for the preaching of Thy Word. Hear our prayer. Bless Thy Word to every soul. Part us now with Thy blessing, the blessing of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Be the portion of all Thy blood-bought church, both today and evermore, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.