Well, good morning. I'm genuinely pleased, excited, thankful to be here this morning. Not just to be here with friends and even some family who's joined us today, but primarily excited just to be able to open up the Bible together over these few days. What better way to start the year? For most of us, this is our first event, I presume, of the new year. A lot of us probably made all sorts of plans and promises coming into the new year that this would be the year we're in God's Word. And now here we are getting to spend a few days just immersing ourselves in the Word of God, to talk about the Bible, to grow in our love for the Bible, and I hope to grow in our confidence in the Bible. And as Joshua was just explaining, if there's anything that's going on around us culturally today, it's that there's so many people in so many ways trying to undermine our confidence in the Bible, thinking that if they can cause us to lose our confidence, they've done their work. The Bible is such a gift. It's a gift from God, who did not owe us this revelation of Himself, but who chose to give it to us. And it's a gift from history, as well, as you can see in that exhibit, even the Bible that he had up here before. Men and women gave up their lives to protect it, and to preserve it, and to translate it, and to keep it for us. And it's a gift that we can far too often, I think, overlook and underappreciate. So I'm glad that we're taking just these few days to talk about, to look at, to hear from God's Word. As I was preparing for this weekend, I was reminded of what's probably one of the best insults anybody's ever lodged at me before. I had written a book review, a review of the book The Shack. I'm sure you've heard of that book. And I'd written this review to express just some of my concerns about this book, and some of my concerns about the fact that it had sold millions and millions of copies. And I got an email from someone who was absolutely furious with me for writing a review and for writing what turned out to be a negative review about this book, because this guy, he loved The Shack, and he spoke about how it had changed his life, all the things it had done to make him a better person. Then he wrote this in his email. He said, I can just imagine you there. It's like you had the shack in one hand and you had the Bible in the other hand. And I said, that's exactly, that's exactly what I did. That's exactly what God calls me to do. That's what God calls each one of us to do in all of life. And I bring that up because I think I speak not just for myself but for the other speakers when I say, that's the way you participate this weekend. As you hear about the Bible, as we open up the Bible and teach what it says, we want you to validate absolutely everything we say by the Bible. Our authority doesn't come from the platform. It doesn't come from being up here. The only authority we've got comes from right here. So you honor the Bible, not by accepting everything we say, but by discerning everything we say according to the Bible. So it's my hope and prayer that as people are speaking up here, you're constantly going back to God's Word and checking absolutely everything against the light of God's truth. And with that in mind, let's turn to God's Word together. I'd like to turn to Psalm 19. Psalm 19. I don't know if we're allowed to say this, but I think this is one of the best psalms, one of the greatest psalms. It's certainly one of my favorite psalms. I love to read this one and I love to meditate upon it. Psalm 19 is a psalm of David This is what God says through David, through his word. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. We have some unusual cultural traditions. We've got some unusual cultural superstitions here in North America. And I don't know that any of them are stranger than the traditions we have surrounding who can make wishes and when you can make a wish. So for some reason we've determined that when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, you're allowed to make a wish. Or when you crack the wishbone for the turkey, you're allowed to make a wish. When you toss a coin into a fountain, when you see a shooting star, when you see the first star after sunset. In all these ways, somehow we've determined you can now make a wish. We like to wish for things, because there are so many things we want that we do not have, and wishing is a way to, I guess, tell the universe what it is that we want. Wishes are interesting to me for this reason. Wishes are things we want, but not enough to actually work for them, right? They're things we want just enough to ask fate to somehow deliver these things for us. And so we make wishes, but we're never really surprised when our wishes don't come true, right? Because you can blow out the candles on your cake and wish for a new car, but sooner or later you'll probably just have to get a job and work hard and earn money and buy the car yourself. See a shooting star and wish for a girlfriend, but sooner or later you're just going to have to ask somebody out, right? That's just the way it works. But I wonder if sometimes we treat prayer kind of like making wishes. We pray to God and we say, do this thing for me. Make me this way. Take this thing away from me. But we don't really intend to do anything. We're basically just asking God through this prayer, through this wishing, would you please just zap your will into existence around me? So you pray to be a better husband, and that's a good thing to pray. But what do you intend to do to be a better husband? Or you pray that God would deliver you from that addiction, whatever that addiction is. But what do you intend to do about it? How will you take action? Because prayer needs to take form in our action. God answers prayer. He truly, truly does. But it's our experience in most of life that God answers prayer through our action. His answer to our prayer is usually not zapping that thing away from us. It's not immediately removing that sinful behavior. It's not immediately giving us new and righteous behavior, but giving us the will and giving us the desire and giving us confidence in His ability to put that sin to death through us. And in Psalm 19, we see David praying. This whole Psalm leads to David's prayer. He's praying to God. He's asking that God would grant him something. But he's not wishing upon a star here. This is something he's going after. This isn't a wish, this is a prayer he's making that he will work for. He knows the actions he also needs to take, so he'll pray, but then he'll do. David's prayer is a desire, but it's also a plan. And so I want us to start today at the end of this psalm and talk about David's prayer, because that prayer is a beautiful one. It's a great one. I think it can be very motivating for us this weekend as we spend all these hours together looking at God's word. As I think about Psalm 19, I like to picture David maybe sitting down one morning and watching the sun come up, and he's meditating on scripture, and he begins to write these words. Or it could be that he was out in the field tending sheep, and he's looking up at the heavens and just seeing all of those stars, and the words just begin to flow. And as that happened, here is what he wished, here is what he prayed. Psalm 19, right at the very end. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. And that is a great prayer, and I want that to be our prayer for this time together. I want us to be able to pray this prayer knowing what it is we're asking. We're not just making a wish, but pray this prayer knowing what this prayer calls upon us to do. So here's what I want for our time just in this hour we have together here. I want us to understand what David was asking God for so we can pray that prayer together. And then I want to see what motivated David to pray that prayer and what he was going to do about that prayer. In other words, we'll pray what David prayed and then we'll read what David read. So here's David's prayer. Again, right at the end of the psalm, what the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Now, what is David asking for? David is a man who wants to honor God. He's a man who wants to please God, and for that reason, he's asking if God would give him a clean mouth and a clean heart. So as he prays this prayer, he's making a statement about himself, and he's also making a statement about God. As he thinks about himself, he's understanding this, without God's help, Without God's strengthening, without His power, the words that flow out of David's mouth cannot and will not please God. David might be having one of those moments like Isaiah had, where he saw just a glimpse of the glory of God, and all he could do is say, woe is me. For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. Just that small glimpse of the glory of God and Isaiah was completely undone. He saw himself as defiled and filthy, tainted by sin. David knows that he is a sinful man. David knows that too often he's a man who pursues sin, who loves sinfulness. He loves doing those things that dishonor God, but that's not what he wants to be. That's not who he wants to be. So he prays about the outer man. He prays about that part of him that other people see. The words that come out of my mouth, God, could those be acceptable in your sight? He didn't want to just look good, though. He also wanted to be good. And so he prayed about the inner man, the meditation of his heart. May everything I think, everything I think about, everything I ponder, everything I desire, everything I dream, everything I long for, may this, may this be acceptable in your sight as well. Because David knew those things are connected. He knew that the words that would simply be the overflow of his heart, that what his heart ponders, his lips will speak, that what comes out of his mouth will simply display what's going on within his heart. And so in this prayer, he declares his utter, his complete dependence upon God. He knows if my words are to be pleasing to God, if my heart is to be pleasing, God, I need your help. I want to be without sin. Won't you help me? I want to be free from sin on the inside. I want to be free from sin on the outside. God, would you give me your help? So here's a statement about himself. I cannot be who I want to be. I cannot be what I want to be, not without your help. He declares his own weakness, his own inability. He also makes a statement about God in this prayer. He says, God, you are my rock and my redeemer. When you are a sinner, you're aware of your sinfulness and you want to do what's right, you want to be good. When you've realized your own love of evil, your own propensity towards sinfulness, that's what you need. You need a rock and a redeemer. God is a rock. He is a firm and an unmovable place to set yourself. Last summer we vacationed with the family and we found ourselves kind of glimpsing two different Canadian beach traditions. So Canadians, like Americans, like to go to beaches and they'll build sand castles. And there are people who can make amazing castles. What they can do with sand is amazing. But you know what happens. The sun beats down and the waves come up and even the best castle within hours is just obliterated. By the next day, it's gone. You might just see a little lump, a little bump in the sand where that thing used to be. God is not sand. David's not saying, God, you are my sand. Well then we went to a different beach, a stone beach. So here's a whole beach covered in rocks. And Canadian tradition, it's a new tradition, it's kind of a neat one, I really like it, is to build on beaches like that something that's called an Inukshuk, that's an Inuit word, and it's just a statue of a person. So you take stacks of rocks and you build legs and you put a big rock across as the body and then other rocks to form a head. And we went to this beach and there were just hundreds of these things all the way down the beach. It was amazing to see how many people had taken the time to build these statues, these Inukshuk. And you know what? They were standing firm. They were not going anywhere. These things were made of rock and they were standing on rock. David says, God, you are my rock, because God is immovable. He can count on him. David knows that this God will help him. So God is a rock. He's also a redeemer. He's one who saves by keeping his covenant promises. He's the God who redeems, who buys back, who ransoms his people from slavery to sin. God can take sin away. God can give us a new longing to do what is right, to do what is good. And so David said, you are my rock. You must help me if I'm to be acceptable in your sight. You are my redeemer. I know you will help me. I know you will help me with this longing to do what is right in your sight. So when you pray this prayer, when you pray this prayer, you're asking God to help you worship him rightly so that every word, every thought, every desire, every action, everything you are and do is informed by who God is. You're acknowledging your own weakness and you're acknowledging his strength. You're calling on God, use your strength so I can honor you. When you don't know how to end a prayer, just pray this. It's a great way to end your prayer. When you're finding yourself stumbling into a situation of temptation, this is a great prayer to pray. When you're about to open God's word, you're opening God's word in the morning to read it, pray this prayer. When you're about to hear the Word of God preached, there's no better prayer to pray than this one. In fact, I'd like to do that. Can we just pray this prayer together out loud? Will you join me in praying it? And let's make it our prayer for the time we have remaining. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Amen. Do you believe that God can answer that prayer just in the next few minutes we have here, that God can answer that prayer throughout this weekend? Do you believe that God will answer that prayer, that over this time He can just transform your heart so that your thoughts, your words, your desires, all of it are pure? And wouldn't that be the best outcome from spending these days pondering God's Word together? So that was David's prayer. That was his prayer. Now, what had David done that generated this prayer? What would David do to make this prayer a reality? What actions would he take? Because he knew that God wasn't just going to zap this into existence, right? David wasn't going to just pray this prayer and then go out and live his own life however he wanted. He was going to do something. But what motivated this prayer and what David would do to continue bringing this about was to meditate on God's revelation of himself. This was the cause and the solution to this prayer. The thing that David was doing that generated this prayer is the thing he would keep doing. He thought big thoughts of God and those big thoughts of God then generated this big prayer. What did David ponder? Well, that's what the rest of Psalm 19 is about. As we read the rest of the psalm, we see why David was able to pray this prayer. He's praising God. David is praising God in the psalm for the two books. He's praising God for the two books that God has given us. That's what David tells us here. God has given us two books, two great sources of revelation about himself. He's given us the book of nature, the book of creation, and he's given us the book of scripture. And David loved them both. David was committed to them both. David studied them both. If you want this prayer to be answered in your life, you've got to imitate David and do the same. So let's look at these two books. First, we'll look at this book of nature, this book of creation. The first way that God reveals himself to us is through what he has created. And this puts a responsibility on you, on each one of us. Do you read this book? Do you read this book of nature, this book of creation? Do you study it and do you look for God right there in its pages? That book is there, it's been written. But are you reading it? Theologians call this natural revelation. The ways that God reveals himself through nature, through what he has created. The fact is God reveals certain things about himself in mountains, in trees, in stars, in animals, in people, in cells, in atoms, in all of it. We need to be careful. God is not nature, and nature is not God. Rather, God reveals truth about himself through nature. God reveals truth through what he has created. Let's see how David said it. Verse 1, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. There's a few things David wants us to know about this book of revelation, this book of natural revelation that God has given us. He wants us to know that its words are universal. that its subject is God, and that its purpose is limited. Let me explain these to you. First, its words are universal. Nature is a book we all access. It's a book we can all read. There is no one in the world who is illiterate when it comes to reading this book. This book is written in the sky. It's written in the heavens. It's written in creation. It's written in you. Do you know that song by the Gettys, Creation Sings, the Father's Song? Love that new hymn. What I love about it is it says nature sings, creation sings. It's telling us something. I often get to teach people how to read their Bible. And one of the first places I like to take them is Psalm 19, because there's just so much going on there. And usually the very first thing people observe is all these words about communication. So much communication is going on here. There's all these words about speaking and proclaiming. So the heavens declare and the skies proclaim. Every day pours out speech. Every night reveals knowledge. The voice goes out everywhere. All of creation is singing and shouting and proclaiming and declaring. Do you hear what it's telling you? When you're outside and you're looking up at the sky, you're outside looking at a forest, do you hear creation telling you something? Is that communication reaching your ears? When is the last time you just went out expectantly, looking for God to reveal himself through what he has created? David wants you to listen to this book, this book of nature as it tells you about God. He illustrates with a bridegroom. It's interesting. And that day before the wedding, the bridegroom would parade through town. And as he paraded through town, everyone would come out of their houses, and there would be singing and dancing and celebrating and music. You couldn't miss it, right? If that guy was going right through the middle of town, you could not miss the celebration. David's saying the sun comes up every morning, it sets every evening, and the whole time it's just yelling, it's screaming, it's communicating. Are you listening to what it's saying? The whole time it's singing, it's telling you about the power, the existence of God. You cannot miss it. You cannot. This book is one we all have access to. Everyone in the universe, everyone in the world has access to this book. No one can say they haven't read it. No one can say they haven't understood it. We've all read this book. Second thing we need to see, this book's subject is God himself. The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky proclaims the handiwork of God. It's creation. You go outside and you look up. Just look out. You're not seeing creation declaring fate, or chance, or randomness, or evolution, or a Big Bang. None of it is declaring God. Creation is singing the Father's song. It's proclaiming His power. His existence, His care, His handiwork, His beauty, His majesty, His everything. It's just screaming and shouting about God, His love, His justice. It's all there. More than anything, it's proclaiming He is. God exists. If you've seen anything that God has created, you have no reason to doubt the existence of God. You have no excuse for doubting the existence of God. We see His fingerprints and flakes of snow, as the song says. His breath upon the spinning globe, even the flight of the eagle, even the baby's cry. All of these are orchestrated by the Father. All of these are evidence of the Father. Everyone, everyone in the world knows that God exists. Everyone in this world knows that He created the universe. Everyone in the world knows that He is glorious, that He is worthy of praise. When you go outside, you can say, what a beautiful landscape, what a beautiful view. That's absolutely true, but don't stop there. Look for what it says, what a beautiful God, what a glorious God. The other day I was reading the notes in the new Reformation Heritage Study Bible, a great new study Bible based on the King James, edited by Dr. Joel Beakey, who was here last year. I was reading the notes in that Bible and I learned this. You remember when God told Abraham, go out and count the stars. So imagine if you were assigned to actually count the stars. Let's say you decided to count them in increments of 10 million. So you're going to count 10 million stars per second, just to shorten the time frame a little. So 10 million, 20 million, 30 million, 40 million, and so on. Do you know how long it would take you to count all of the stars in the universe at that pace? It would take you 63 million years, counting 10 million stars a second. I mean, God is just showing off, right? He is showing off His glory, His power, His majesty, that we can't even get our minds around these numbers. So we can just go outside and see, see the glory of God and what He has created. This book of creation, it's all about God. And if you're outside, and you're even looking at just yourself, wherever you look, you see evidence of God. Third thing we need to see is that the purpose of this book of nature is limited. We all read this book. It tells us about God, yet its purpose is limited. This book doesn't tell us everything. This is a book that is insufficient. That's not to say that God made mistakes, not to say that God wasn't powerful enough. This book does absolutely everything that God intends for it to do. But God made this book to only say certain things. Listen as I read from Romans 1, where Paul writes, For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. to get that. Since creation, God has revealed to all people universally the fact that He exists, that He is Creator, that He is God and that we are not. Everybody knows this. God has created all that He's made to display that. That has been clearly perceived by all men. Yet in their unrighteousness, in their sin, people suppress that truth. Anytime they feel that truth rising up, they squash it down. It's like a whack-a-mole. As soon as it comes up, they just bash that thing back down. They will not face the truth. And so they deny God. They deny that God created all this. And so they come up with ludicrous explanations for how it all came about, which we see all around us today. The end of that section, we see an implication. Paul says, so they are without excuse. God reveals himself through creation. Therefore, there is no excuse. Not a single human being who has ever lived has an excuse to deny God's existence and his power and his authority. This book of nature that's all around us, it tells us enough to condemn us so that nobody has an excuse to deny the existence of God. But it does not tell us enough to save us. God did not intend for this book to say that. So we need another book. We'll talk about it in one moment. Now, you remember that David prayed that the words of his mouth and the meditation of his heart would be acceptable to God. If you, if you want the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart to be acceptable to God, I know you'll go to God's word, the Bible, and that's great. But don't miss this first book as well. You need to read that book as well. So there's a call on us here to study that book, not to lose sight of that one. You're here at a conference about the Bible, so I think that probably says something, something good about you. You love theology, and you love the Bible. That's good, that's great, that's a beautiful thing. That's our whole purpose in being here. But it might be a weakness in our culture. in our little corner of the Christian world, the kind of people who come to this conference, it might be our weakness that we miss out on God's revelation in Scripture. We love the Bible so much, and again, that's good, that we allow it to diminish what we can know about God through what He has created. We don't emphasize that one as much as David did. These aren't meant to be in conflict with one another. These two books are meant to be perfectly complementary. The Bible is meant to drive us outdoors, meant to drive us into creation, to see what God has made. And then the more we see what God has made, the more we'll marvel and we'll want to go back to his book to learn more about who he is, to learn more about what he calls upon us to do. And so let this psalm drive you outdoors to look, to look up, to look at the sky, to look at the trees, to look at all that God has created. Or maybe let it drive you to a microscope to examine the microscopic world as well. I told you before how long it would take to count all the stars if you were to count them 10 million at a time. So people think there's something like 10 sextillion stars in the universe. That's just a one with a lot of zeros after it. A single grain of sand has more than 10 sextillion atoms in it. So a single grain of sand has more atoms in it than there are stars in the universe, those stars that would take us tens of millions of years to count. Which means that in many ways, that microscopic world, it's even more marvelous than the one we see when we woke up, the one we're more accustomed to talking about. And for all we've learned about this world, this universe, we're just scratching the surface. We have so much more to learn about it, and every single part of it is proclaiming the existence and the glory of God, if only we will look If only we'll see it. I don't want us to be scared by all these weird Eastern religions that are coming into our society and conflicting God and nature. We know who God is. We know that God has created nature, but we can still, we of all people, get to experience God in creation by seeing He is over and above it, but He made it. It displays Him. Maybe God will show you his immensity. He'll show you his power. And you'll realize from that book of nature, as you go out and see it, that you just haven't been thinking high enough thoughts of God. Because if you stand under the night sky and look up, you cannot think big thoughts about yourself, can you? If you look at that sky and just begin to count the stars, it's hard to think that you are powerful. Maybe God will show you His grace. He'll show you His grace in that He's just given us so much beauty. He's given us this beautiful world that displays just the smallest fragments of His beauty, of His glory. Or maybe as you go to God's book of creation, God's book of nature, maybe He'll show you His love, His love in caring for you. He might even convict you of anxiety, just like Jesus said, consider the lilies. Here's Jesus saying, look at this book of nature. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these, but If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Maybe he'll convict you of laziness, just like Solomon. Go to the ant, you sluggard. Right? Go to the ant and learn how to work hard. Or maybe you'll just be like that hymn writer and say, O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the world Thy hand has made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed, then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, how great I am now, How great thou art, right? You can't see God as He reveals Himself in this world and say, look at me, right? It draws you to God. So read this book of nature. This book will convict you, it will convince you to pray a prayer like the one David prayed. So that's the first great book that God has given us. The second great book is the one that's the subject of our weekend. Theologians call this one special revelation. The first is natural through nature. The second is special through unique, through special means. And when David read this book, he wanted, he longed for the words of his mouth and the meditation of his heart to be acceptable before God. And he knew this book will show me how. This book, if I apply myself to this book, it will do this. This is a very different book. These two books are very, very different from one another. Where the book of nature is available to everybody, literally everybody who has ever existed has been able to read that book, the book of Scripture is written. It's in words, and it goes out only to those who have access to those words. only to the people who have the privilege of encountering those words. Which is why Christians will not rest until everybody in the world has access to those words. This is why Christians have expended so much effort in translating those words into every language, and there are still many languages to go. This is why we rejoice to see a collection of Bibles, This is why wherever missionaries go, the first thing they do is translate the Word of God into a language those people can understand, so they too can have access to this second great book. Because this book tells us far, far more about God's power, about God's divinity, about His strength, about His holiness. Where this book is insufficient, this book is all-sufficient. It's all we need for life and for godliness. And you know how much David loved this book. David didn't have much of this book. He had just the first few books of it, right? Just the Pentateuch. David read that, and he gloried in it. He loved it. So he could say, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. He was a man who loved this book. And if he had five or six books of the Bible, you've got all of them. How much more should you delight? You've got the complete revelation of God. How much greater should your delight be? David considers this book and he gives us six reasons, six reasons we need this book. If the words of our mouths, the meditation of our hearts will be acceptable to God, he gives us six ways, six great reasons to read the Bible today and every day. Let's look at those. First reason David wants us, needs us, to read the Bible is to be safe. He says the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The Bible makes us safe. What God tells us through Scripture is perfect. Right? He says the law of the Lord is perfect. It's complete. There's absolutely nothing lacking. It's completely without blemish. And as we read it, As we apply it to ourselves, it does something remarkable. It revives the soul. It transforms the soul. Really, it converts the soul. It calls upon the soul to repent and to turn toward God. If you want to be safe, if you want to be saved, you need to read God's book of Scripture. Safe from what? What would I want to be saved from? No one says this better than R.C. Sproul. He says the grand paradox or supreme irony of the Christian faith is that we are saved both by God and from God. We are saved by God, from God, we can even add to God. We're saved by His mercy and His grace. We're saved from God's wrath, His justice, and we're saved to an eternal relationship with Him. We read Romans earlier, it goes on, it says, because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. You have sinned against God. You called down God's wrath upon yourself. So you need to be saved from your sin. How can you be saved from your sin? How can you find that path to deliverance by reading God's word? It will show you. It will tell you. It will tell you how you can be saved from the wrath of God. If you want the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart to be acceptable to God, you first need to be safe from God's wrath. You can't worship God in terror. You need to worship God in love. This book will revive your soul. You'll be safe eternally. Second reason to read this book of Scripture is to be wise. Read it to be wise. Verse 7, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. In Scripture, God gives His own testimony. He tells us who He is. He tells us what He requires of us. And this testimony is sure. It's reliable. It's trustworthy. It makes us wise. When the Bible talks about foolishness, it's talking about people who just don't know how to honor God. They don't have the knowledge they need to live in ways that please Him. But the wise are the people who are skilled in living in the way that God demands. If you want to go from foolish to wise, there's no other way than by reading the Word of God and obeying the Word of God. If you want the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart to be acceptable to God, here it is. Here's the way to move from folly to wisdom. Open up God's word, read it, understand it, obey it. Third reason, read the book of scripture to be joyful. David says the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. God's Word, the Bible, is meant to generate joy. The precepts of the Lord, those are the principles, the guidelines He gives us, they are right. They show us the right way, they show us the right path. Maybe you've gone out for a walk. You've gone to see that first great book of nature. You've gone down a path. Maybe over time you wandered off of that path and you found yourself lost and wandering. Maybe the sky is starting to darken a little and night's coming. You know that feeling of panic. That feeling of, I don't know. I don't know where I am. I don't know where to go. And then you find the path again, and you are joyful. You rejoice. It is so much better to be on the path than off the path. Well, if you want the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart to be acceptable to God, you need to follow His path. You need to be on the path that He has set out for you. That path brings so much joy. There's so much joy to be had when you're following God's way. Number four, read the book of scripture to be clear, to have clarity. David says the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes, the commandment of the Lord, that's all the instruction we get from God. It's all the instruction we receive from God's word, all those things he tells us. You must do this. You must be this way. You must not do this. You must not be this way. Those commands are pure. You don't hear that from other people, right? It sounds so burdensome to have to follow God's commands, but we know those commands are pure because we get to live the life God means for us to live. Those commands are clear. They're bright. It's an amazing thing that God allows us to see the world his way. The Bible is like this pair of glasses we get to put on that suddenly shows us the world as it really is. We've been looking through these clouded, sinful eyes, and we now look through the Bible and now we see the world the way it is. We see ourselves as we really are. God's word brings clarity. You might have seen some of these videos on YouTube where missionaries go into villages in third world countries and they'll take doctors with them, eye surgeons. And they can do very brief surgeries, very simple surgeries that in a moment can restore sight. And it's amazing to see. Imagine that that was you for years. You had lived in darkness. And then suddenly, just in a moment, somebody came and fixed your eyes so you could see. Everything that was obscure is now clear. Well, you don't have to imagine, right? Because you've been there. You've been there. Just remember the day John Newton spoke about when he said, I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. You weren't able to see. And then God gave you clarity through his word and you saw yourself for who you really are. And he saw Christ for who he really is. Only God's word can bring that kind of clarity. Fifth thing, read it to be clean. Read the book of Scripture to be clean. David says the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. When we read God's word, we come to fear God, not really that frightened, trembling, terrified fear, but that respectful, that awe kind of fear. God's Word is clean. It's pure. It's without error. It purifies those who read it and obey it. God's Word cleanses us, not just those short-term behavior modifications. We can all do those. But it changes us from the inside out. It brings lasting change, true transformation. God's Word is so bright, so pure, so holy that as we're exposed to it day by day and week by week and year by year, it does its work in us. It has to. It's too powerful to do nothing. As we're exposed to its light, it purifies us. Finally, read the book of Scripture to be godly. David says the rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. The rules here he's talking about, those are the judgments. The judgments of the Lord are true. I don't know that anything would be more intimidating than appearing before a judge whose standard is always changing. who rules arbitrarily. One day he he rules by the law of the United States. The next day he's ruling by just whatever mood he's in. The next day he's gone to Sharia law. You never know which judge you'll appear for. He's arbitrary. God is not like that. By reading God's word, we can know how God will judge before he hands down his ruling. He opens up the books to show us here's exactly how I will judge, exactly how I will judge you. And when we know how God will judge, we can conform our lives to Him, to do those things first, to put our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, then to do those things that bring Him glory. If you want the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart to be acceptable to God, to avoid a terrible judgment in the future, you need to read this book now. You need to know it and obey it. If you want to live a life that's pleasing to God, you need to read the book of Scripture. David gives us those six great reasons, then he just can't hold back, he has to pour out his praise. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, buy them as your servant warns, in keeping them there's great reward. David just looks at what God has given in the book of Scripture and he says, this book is precious. It's worth more than gold. This book is pleasurable. It's sweeter than honey. This book is protective. It warns us away from sin. This book is profitable. There is great eternal reward in living by it and keeping it. What a blessing that we have it. Do you ever doubt God's love for you? Do you ever doubt God's goodness? He gives you this gift, this precious, pleasurable, protective, profitable gift. That's just part of the measure of his love for you. So here are the two great books, the two great books that God has given, that book of nature and the book of scripture. Do you read them? Do you love them? Do you thank God for them? Do you see their beauty and their sweetness? David did. Look what it did to him. Verse 12, he said, who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. He says, God, I'm reading your two books. You've given them to me and I am reading. So speak to me through them. Speak so I can be free from sin. Make me blameless. Make me innocent. Let these books do their work in me. David saw God's revelation of himself in these books, and that made him have this longing to be free from sin. He saw God. He saw God's handiwork. He saw God in these books. And he now hated his sin. He hated anything that would dishonor God, that would distance him from God. So what was his solution? I'm going to keep reading these books. I'll commit myself to these books. And I know that I will be more and more conformed to you as I read these books. So no wonder, then, that at the end of it all, David can pray this prayer. No wonder he concludes the psalm with this prayer. He's not wishing upon a star. He's not saying, God, just zap this into me and I'll go my merry way. He's saying, I'm reading your books. I'm committed to reading your books. So, God, do your work in me. Teach me what I need to do. Teach me what I need to be to honor you. I will read your books all the more. I'm committed to that. Christian, do you want to be holy? Do you want to be holy? You need to read these books and they will motivate an even greater and purer desire for holiness. Read God's word and let it interpret creation for you. Go into creation and see glimpses of God there and marvel and let that drive you straight back into the word to learn even more about God. Read the two books. They will teach you how to be holy. Read the two books. They will make you long. They will make you long to be holy, make you long to know this God who's revealed himself to us. And then you, you will be able to pray just like David did. Can we pray it one more time together? Let's pray it. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. And Father, that is our prayer for right now, that's our prayer for this weekend, that's our prayer for our lives. that as we commit ourselves to reading your books, as we commit ourselves to your revelation of yourself, that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts would be acceptable in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.