Tonight we turn our attention to Psalm number 19. Psalm number 19. And we continue to do our series of sermons in the Belgian Confession. Last week we covered the first article regarding the existence of God and we learned about the being of God and of his attributes. We also learned what are the consequences that we believe Or when we believe in such a God, what are the consequences in our life, in our practical lives, to believe in a God that is all-powerful, incomprehensible, simple, and the overflowing fountain of all good? This evening we turn then to Article 2. If you would like to read that article, that's on page 70 at the back of your hymnals. We'll read that when we finish reading Psalm number 19. Psalm number 19. The exposition of this psalm will demonstrate to be one of the foundations of Article 2 of the Belgic Confession. Please give heed now to the reading of the holy and inerrant Word of God. To the chief musician, a psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork Day unto day utter speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tabernacle for the Son, which is like a bridegroom coming out of His chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure. making wise the simple. The statutes 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 judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumption's sin. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression. By the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." We confess together in the Belgian Confection, Article 2, the means through which we know the only true God, and we confess that we know Him by two means. First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters, leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God, even His everlasting power and divinity, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1.20, all which things are sufficient to convince men and leave them without excuse. Second, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine word. That is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life to his glory and our salvation. Let us pray together. Great God in heaven, Your Word has been read. And as we meditate upon Psalm 19, as we meditate upon these words, we pray that it would reveal to us again how You can be known. And as we learn all this over again, Father, we pray, stir up our desire to know You more. As we know that You reveal Yourself, as we know that You are knowable, Oh Lord, we pray, make the main desire of our hearts to know you until our very last breath. In Jesus' name, Father, we pray. Amen. Young ladies, what would you do if during a pastoral visitation I would say something like this to your parents? Don't worry about this young lady's marriage. I know the perfect match to her. All we need to do is set the date for the wedding. That's it. How would you react? Would you like that? I'm pretty sure you would say, I don't want this pastor to come here in my house ever again. You would probably be very, very scared, right? And the reason is very simple. We want to know the person we are going to get married, right? You want to know the person first. Yes, I could say, well, you need to trust your pastor. Well, I know that that will not do. And that's part of our relationship, isn't it? We want to get to know the person. We want to know if that person is compatible with what we desire, is compatible with our thoughts, compatible with the things that we desire, compatible with our plans. We want to know the person before we get married. Young lads, how would you react if I said the same thing? Don't worry about this young man being married. I have the perfect lady in Brazil for him. I'll bring her, I'll train her in English, and when she's ready, I'll bring her to marry him. I'm sure he would not like that as well. Maybe even you parents would not like that at all. But you know something? You are married already. All of you. Young and old. I know you're probably saying, well, yes, I know, I am married, I have a wife, but that's not what I'm talking about. If you know the God of Scripture, you know that the God of Scripture always treats His people as their bride. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Church of God, both in the Old Covenant and in the New Covenant, are always compared as a bride to God. Now, if you really desire to know our bride or our bridegroom, because of this marriage covenant, because of this marriage relationship, it's the person that we're going to live with for the rest of our lives, shouldn't we want to know God even more? Since we are married with Him? Since we are in this blessed, beautiful covenant that He Himself has brought us into? Of course we should. We need to know our bridegroom in his triunity, in his unified personality. We need to know him just as a fiance wants to know his future or her future spouse. And blessed be God, brothers and sisters, because he made himself knowable. He made it available for us to know Him. He's not a distant God who is disconnected from us, but He reveals Himself to us in many different ways and He has given us access to these ways so that we may know more Him and love Him more and give ourselves more to Him day after day. As we look at Psalm 19, this is exactly what we learn. Psalm 19 teaches us that we worship and believe in a knowable God, in a God that we can know personally as much as He reveals Himself to us. You see, this is exactly what we learn when we turn our attention to Psalm 19. It's that God is knowable. God reveals Himself through creation and through the Word. making us aware of who we are. You see, that's what you need to learn tonight. That God is knowable. He makes himself knowable to us through creation and through the Word. And as he makes himself knowable, he makes us to know our own selves. We're going to consider this psalm under three headings. These are the natural three division of the psalm. It's the division that the Spirit himself have given us. First of all, we consider that God reveals himself through the book of creation. God reveals himself through the book of creation. We see that in verses one through six. Then we'll see that in verses seven to 10, God reveals himself to us through the book of scripture. God reveals himself to us through the book of Scripture. And lastly, in verses 11 through 14, we will see that God reveals ourselves through all his revelation. God reveals ourselves through his revelation. So, God reveals himself through the book of creation, God reveals himself through the book of scripture, but God reveals ourselves, who we are, through all his revelation. God is knowable, Christians. Praise and be God. And He has made Himself knowable through creation and through the Word. And as we get to know Him, we know who we are and what we need. We turn our attention then to verse one and we see this beautiful declaration in the very beginning of the verse. This is, as we notice from the title, this is a music. It was written by David and given as a music to be sang. And the very beginning of the psalm declares boldly that the heavens declares the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. And as we consider the verses, especially 1 through 4, we see that there is a beautiful transformation of creation into a preacher. Creation becomes a personified preacher of God's glory. Listen, day unto day utter speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. In other words, the psalmist is saying that the heavens that the Lord himself has created is in this eternal state of proclamation. It's always proclaiming. Proclaiming the glory of God. Proclaiming with silent words, like a silent sermon, that affects our vision, that makes ourselves aware that there is this God, there is such a God, that is wonderful and powerful. Creation then is this personified preacher that makes God's revelation available for all. Look again at verse 3 and 4. It says, their voices are heard where their voices is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. Every single person in this planet has heard the proclamation of creation. All words of this silent preaching coming from heavens are being uttered to all human beings scattered all over the world. That's why our confession calls this a general revelation. That's why we confess that it is by two means, the first one being creation, preservation, and government of the universe. And look, we say, I mean, in our confession, our writer, our instructor says that it's a most elegant book. Now, why is it such an elegant book? Look again at the end of verses 5 and 6. Because now the psalmist is going to make a mix between the heavens and the sun, and you have this beautiful, elegant picture of a powerful man, a powerful fighter, and a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, as we read. In them, the heavens, He, the Lord, has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its race. Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. Well, as we see this beautiful and marvelous picture, we kind of understand of what kind is this revelation. What is this revelation really revealing? Well, going back to the very first verse, we know that this revelation reveals the glory of God. There is something extremely specific about this revelation. The knowledge that it conveys, and it does convey knowledge, if you look again in verse 2, the psalmist says that it reveals knowledge, but it is a limited knowledge. It's a specific knowledge about the glory of God. And as anyone sees the heavens and the trajectory of the sun and the power and the glory of the sun coming from one end of creation to the other end, Everyone, every human being is able to see the beauty of God, the constancy of God, the power of God. In other words, as we confess, creation leads us to see the invisible things of God, even His everlasting power and His divinity. Creation shows to all human beings that there is one God who is glorious, who is wise, who perfectly created all things, who perfectly upholds all things to the point that every night that you go to sleep, you can wake up again knowing that the sun has risen and that it's going to set. This is what we call in science the uniformity of nature. We Christians are the only ones who does have a reason to believe in the uniformity of nature. For atheists and those who do not believe in God, this is just an assumption. It's just a hope. But us? We can truly go to sleep and we can sleep soundly knowing that the Lord who created all things is the same Lord who will preserve the earth that he himself has created and who will make the sun to rise and to set again and again. You see, Christians, what a beautiful, beautiful reality we have here in this psalm. You believe in a God that is knowable. Isn't that such a comfort? Isn't that such a comfort? I'm sure you all have here your favorite persons in the world. Maybe it's a writer. Maybe it is an actor. Maybe it is a leader. Maybe he's still alive or maybe he's already passed, but you don't know them. You can't know them. They're too distant from you. They're not accessible to you. But you see, the Word of God reminds you this evening that the Lord of hosts, the creator of this world, and the redeemer of your soul can be known by you. And the first way you can know Him is looking at creation. And isn't it a pity that we so many times drive around this beautiful state of Michigan, surrounded by natural beauties, and we don't connect the dots? We look at this, the marvelous Upper Peninsula, the pictured rocks, the beautiful seashore, and we don't connect the dots. We look at these things as something that brings us leisure, that is beautiful to our eyes, but we fail so many times to look at these things and to get a grasp of who God truly is. And there's no one else out there that can do that better than Christians. When we look at creation, when we are planting the crops, when you're milking the cows, When you are working in different trades, as you're driving out there in your truck, you can look at all things around you and you can be reminded, God is powerful. God is knowable. God is constantly upholding and preserving all this creation for my sake, for the sake of the elect. As we look at creation, We know that God reveals himself through this beautiful book. What's the purpose of this creation? Well, if we look carefully in the first six verses, we don't really get to know the purpose of the creation. the purpose of such revelation. But if we turn back to Romans chapter 1, the Apostle Paul interprets that passage for us, and in chapter 1 verse 20 he says, that for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. You see, if in one sense, God's revelation, God's general revelation in creation is to be a great encouragement for us, for unbelievers, it is a sentence of condemnation. In this very first six verses of Psalm 19, we have one of the main encouragements for missions that we could have ever have. You know, the Indian, The lost tribes in different countries that people talk so much, they're not innocent people. Sometimes we like to think about them as such, don't we? People that civilization didn't corrupt. People that our Western values and Western society didn't approach and didn't ruin. Well, we should know better than that. Because the Scripture reminds us all the time about the fallen state that this creation exists. And they are not uncorrupted. They are just as corrupt as any other society. But what's really clear, according to the Apostle Paul, is that they are without an excuse. They are without an excuse for not worshiping the true and only God. Regardless where they are, if they are in the midst of the Amazon jungle, or if they are in the deserts, in the savannas, in Australia, it doesn't matter. The heavens proclaim that there is only one God, the true God, that must be worshipped, who is powerful and control all things. And this in itself makes all of them that do not worship and bow down their knees to this great God without excuse. They are all condemned right there because of God's general revelation. That's the limit of God's general revelation. As a commentator puts it, he says, God's general revelation is good enough to condemn, but it's not enough to save. God's revelation condemned those who, looking at all this evidence, at all this beautiful, natural preaching, do not bow down to the true and only living God who created all these things. Therefore, what a great incentive for missions we have tonight. Tonight we are reminded that all those who are without Christ, they are perishing without Christ, for they know better. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter one and two tells us that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They know that God exists. They know that there is only one and true glorious God that they should come and worship, but they suppress that. They do not want to hear that sermon that nature preaches. And that should pierce our hearts to know that there are thousands out there that hear this sermon but their eyes are shut, their ears are shut and their eyes are closed, they cannot understand it because of their fallen state. And all that they hear, although they see beauty and power and glory, is condemnation. They are without an excuse. Now God reveals himself through this book of creation, through this general revelation. There is a second one, as we can see in the psalm, that the Lord God reveals himself. And as we move on in the passage now in verse 7, we see that the Lord not only reveals himself through the book of creation, but the Lord reveals himself through the book of scripture. And the first thing I want to call your attention is to the change of name that is in verse 7. when the psalmist addressed the Lord. If you go back to verse 1, you will notice that the psalmist began addressing the Lord as, or through the general name of God, Elohim, the powerful one, the mighty one. But look what happens now in verse 7. There is a shift in the name. The psalmist is moving from the general God that everyone knows to the particular God that only the people of Israel knows, Yahweh, the covenantal God. And how do they know them? Through the law. Look at verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes 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 judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. The psalmist offers us six different terms to talk about one single thing. God especially revealed content of himself. He begins with the general term, the law. Here, the word we find in the original is the Torah. We all know what the Torah is. The Torah is the word designed to refer to the five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy. But later on, using what is called, what is known as parallelism, the psalmist begins to develop, to unpack the concept of the law through different names or through different terms. Testimony, status, commandments, The fear of the Lord that is the product of knowing the law of God and the judgments of the Lord. These are all the written word of God or the written revelation of God that was oral at one time but was later on registered in paper. Initially in the two tablets of stones and later on registered in different ways recorded to God's people ultimately in different kinds of paper. In other words, when addressing the private, particular, the intimate God of our salvation or of Israel's salvation, Yahweh, there is one way to know Him. Not only as Elohim, but as the God of the covenant. And the only way to know Him as such is through the law. Now there are two ways in which the writer explains to us what the law is. You see that the law is perfect, it is sure, it is right, it is clean, and it is true. Basically, we could subdivide all these adjectives in two different categories. This beautiful, special revelation, first of all, it's free from impurity. The law of God is free from impurity. There is nothing wrong, there is no error in it. But second, the emphasis is, it is free from error. So there's no impurity, there's nothing wrong with it, and there's nothing that lead us to believe something that we should not believe. Perfectness, surety, righteousness, cleanness, and truthness can be definitely divided or subdivided under these two categories. But what's really beautiful is verse 10. It's really the climax of the argument of the psalmist. He says, more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. In other words, the law of the Lord that reveals him to us in an intimate and a special way is excellent. It is most excellent. It is delicious. It is delightful. It is appealing to us. And that's exactly why we confess with the Belgic that there is a second way that God reveals himself. We read, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine word. That is to say that as far as is necessary for us to know in this life to his glory and our salvation. And you see, when we know, when you really look closely to the reason or to the purpose of this beautiful law, from verses 7 through 10, you clearly understand that this revelation, this special revelation of the covenantal God through His law, leads really us to His glory and to our salvation. First of all, look at verse 7 again. First of all, it converts the soul. The law of God converts the soul. It changes us from within. General Revelation cannot do that. General Revelation does not change the soul. But the special revelation according to this verse, yes it does. Look again at verse 7, it gives wisdom. It makes wise the simple. It brings gladness to the heart. It enlightens the eyes. It endures forever. It is righteous altogether. You see, the application of a special revelation, in other words, or in some, as we confess through the Belgic, truly brings glory to God and works out for our salvation. Of course, we know that that only happens when the Spirit acts in our hearts with the Word. But you see, Christian, today you are reminded of your great privilege. You can open the special revelation of God and that makes sense to you. Isn't that wonderful? Do you remember the eunuch back in the book of Acts? He had a scroll of Isaiah, right? And do you remember what was his plea? What was his problem? He couldn't understand it. He read the scroll all over and over again and he couldn't understand it. And then come Philip and preaches the word to him. And the spirit works in his heart and all of a sudden his eyes are open, his minds are open, and he reads and now he can understand. Isn't that the same for you, Christian? As you sit down and you open the word and you can truly delight in it as you are putting some delicious honey in your mouth. It melts. It delights your soul. What a privilege. And the Word of God reminds you this morning that not everybody in this world has this privilege. But you do. You have it. The special revelation of God, different from general revelation, has been given to His people, to His church, so that they would be truly edified. Do you know how we know that for sure? It's when we look at Christ. How is Christ identified in the very beginning of the Gospel of John? Who is He? The Lord God wants us to know Him such in an intimate way that He has made His own Word to embrace flesh. The Word became incarnate. Yes, my brothers and my sisters, we can rejoice this evening because we know truly this knowable God better than anyone else. because of His blessed Son, because the Word became flesh. His perfect revelation, His final revelation, and as we cling to Him, and as we come to Him, and as we confess with the atonation creed that He's the Lord of lords, that He's the God of gods, that He's holy and eternal and co-powerful with the Father and the Spirit, we are indeed saying, God's special revelation is for me. I have embraced it. I love it. I delight in it. What a great sign of conversion. What a great sign that our soul was truly converted according to verse seven. Therefore, if you sit here today and you delight in the word of God, as you read it, it is as if you are putting a honeycomb in your mouth. Be assured of that. A special revelation of God has been made special for you through the work of the Spirit in your heart. But at the same time, this portion reminds us, brothers and sisters as well, of the great need that is out there. Again, this portion of the psalm reminds us that there is only one solution for those who are condemned by the general revelation that they have. Yes, I am talking about your co-worker. I'm talking about your friend at school. I'm talking about your neighbor who do not bow their knees to the Lord. They are without an excuse and there is only one way that it can come to a blessed state before this great God. is if the special revelation of God is made special for them as well. That's not our work. That's the work of the Spirit. But we do have a work to do. And it is to preach it. It is to talk about it. It is to tell it. It is not a popular preaching. That's why they look at creation and their ears are shut. They can't understand it and they can't listen to it. It's not because it's not being preached. It's because they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. But you see, as we come before this psalm this evening, and as we confess together, there is only one way to really know this Lord for salvation and to bring Him glory, and it is through His special revelation. What a great responsibility is placed upon our shoulders to talk about this special revelation to those who perish. And we know them. And so many times they're so close to us. And sometimes we are embarrassed, we are ashamed. But the Word of God calls us this morning, this evening, to this great responsibility. You have been given this privilege in Christ, through the Spirit, to know the special revelation of God as truly it is, as a special revelation. Communicate it. Proclaim it. Creation won't do it. The mountains, the heavens, the sun will not proclaim to all other human beings, fallen human beings, that there is a God that has made His Son incarnate so that sinners could be saved. The Word of God calls upon us to do that duty. And what a pleasant duty it is. You see, God is knowable. God truly reveals himself through creation, but especially through his word. But as he does that, he reveals who we are. And that's where we come at the end of the psalm. Beginning in verse 11, you will notice that there is a change complete. There is a complete change in the mode of the psalm. The psalmist now turns to himself. He's talking about, he was talking about The general revelation of God in the third person. He was talking about the special revelation of God in the third person as well. But now look at verse 11. He says, Moreover, by them your servant, me, I am warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. And what we see in verse 11 is basically two things, dear brothers and sisters, that as we know God and as we got to know Him, we begin to figure it out about ourselves. The first one is in the first part of the verse. We are warned. We are warned that we are sinners and we need to repent. We see that particularly in verse 12. Look, he says, who can understand his errors? Who can look at himself and truly acknowledge that he is a sinner deserving hell? Who can do that? He answers, cleanse me from secret faults. It's only when the Lord comes and cleanses us. It's only when the Lord comes and points those sins and those errors and clean them out. Well, we know how the Lord does that, don't we? It is through the law and the gospel. The Lord points us our sin through the law, through the special revelation, and then he points us to the gospel. Again, special revelation. But you see, as we are approached, as we get introduced to such revelation, we are warned. We are warned that we are sinners. And we come to repentance. We come before the Lord confessing our inadvertent sins. That's what he's asking in verse 12. But also in verse 13, in the first portion of the verse, you see that he also asks forgiveness or freedom from the deliberate sins. Look again, he says, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, from sins that are done in accordance to the will, sins that are deliberately committed. Let them not have dominion over me. You see, Christians, as we get to know God, in His glory, in His power through creation. And as we get to know God in His special revelation as the Redeemer, the Savior, and the glorious only true God, we cannot avoid, just like the psalmist, then to begin to know ourselves better. We begin to know who we are, that we are not that good. We should not at all be self-confident before the Lord. On the contrary, we should cast ourselves totally and completely upon His feet. Because as we are revealed who God is, He also reveals who we are. Sinners who commit inadvertent sins or deliberate sins and who need repentance and forgiveness urgently. But go back to verse 11. The second portion of verse 11 tells us the second thing that is revealed about us. You see, the first portion reminds us or tells us that we are revealed, that we are warned. We are warned about the peril, the danger of our sin. That's the warning. But at the part B or the second portion of verse 11, he says, and in keeping them there is great reward. Keeping them what? Keeping the law. Keeping what the Lord commands. The second thing that we learn about ourselves, brothers and sisters, is that when we come to this special knowledge of God that is revealed to us in the Scriptures, we ought to be holy as He is holy. Look again at verse 13, the second half of verse 13. He says, You see what the psalmist is asking here? The psalmist is asking to be righteous. He says, if I truly understand my sin, if I come before you repenting from it, if I come before you asking for me not even to commit those sins and to forgive me about them, then I shall be blameless and I shall be innocent of great transgression. He's asking for righteousness. He knows he needs to be righteous before this great God who generally reveals himself as this glorious, everlasting, powerful divinity, but as well as the merciful and great God who saves gloriously sinners. At the end, he concludes in verse 14. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. The very last petition of the psalm, the psalmist actually ends the song with a prayer. He prays. He prays that he would persevere in holiness. He prays that the words that come out of his mouth and the thoughts that populate his head would be acceptable according to the standards of Jehovah. What a bold petition. What a bold petition, isn't it? You know, brothers and sisters, as we come to the end of this psalm, We come knowing that God reveals himself both generally and especially. He reveals himself both through the book of creation, but through the book of scripture, and as he reveals himself, he reveals as well who we are. Do you understand who you are, Christian? Do you understand your need of repentance and forgiveness? Do you stand here today saying the same words as a psalmist? that the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart would be acceptable before Jehovah. If we do, we finally know ourselves, and we know as well that there is only one way that this petition could be attended. There is only one way that the Lord would accept anything coming for us, is that He would stop seeing us and He would begin seeing His Son in us. There is the only way that any thought, word, or deed that you can bring before the Lord could ever, ever be accepted. It's only if the stains of your sin would be removed completely of all these things, and it's only when the Lord Jesus and His perfect obedience is seen in your place. You see, because of God's special revelation, Christian, we can come before God with a more confident spirit than the psalmist. The Word has been incarnate. He has lived perfectly for us. Oh, come. Come and pray the same prayers with assurance that your Lord look at you and He listens to your words and they are acceptable. He knows the meditations of your mind and they are pleasing to Him, not because you are sinless, on the contrary, because your sins have been paid off by the Word incarnate revealed in this special revelation. You see, if you sit here today, and you are apart from this beautiful and saving special revelation of God, you can never pray this prayer. Your thoughts are despised by God. If you are outside of Christ, if you are apart from Christ, the words of your mouth, they are hated by God. You need to understand desperately this today. You are without excuse if you are apart from Christ. And you need to desperately come to Him. Oh, may you repent of your sin this evening. May you truly confess that the only Lord and Savior of all is the God of Scripture, as He is revealed both in creation and in His Holy Word. Young ladies, young lads, I am not going at all to say that ever in my pastoral visitation, because I know you need to know your future spouse. But it is my prayer that all of us today know that we need to know our God, that He's knowable, He's approachable. We can look at creation and learn from Him. We can look at the scriptures and learn from Him. And as we learn Him more and more, we learn who we are more and more, and how desperately in need of Him we are. Let's pray together. Great God in heaven, we thank you for your word, and we thank you, Lord, for revealing yourself to us. Thank you, Father, for this blessed assurance that you have given us through the Psalm 19, that you are knowable, you are approachable, and you bring those whom you have set aside from general revelation to special revelation. Oh, Father, may we love to know you. May we really appreciate the means we have available for us to get to know you. May we use them. May they be honeycomb in our mouths. And as we get to know you, O Lord, give us knowledge of ourselves. Give us knowledge of our weaknesses. Give us knowledge of our own desires and of our own sins and make us always cling to you in the hope that in Christ Our words are acceptable and our thoughts are pleasing to you. In Jesus' name, Father, we pray. Amen.