Amen. Let's take our Bibles, please, and turn to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, please. I love to do word studies. We're going to do a word study on every word of this chapter. Psalm 119. Hope you had a good night's sleep and are raring to go. How many of you have finals within this week or next week? Let me see your hands. Next week, finals begin. How many feel like you need a little prayer for finals? Let me see your hands. How many need a lot of prayer for finals? OK. You know, I hope you enjoy your college years. Seriously. Don't just endure them. Don't just try to get through. But enjoy every minute. Because right now you're in the midst of some of the biggest decision-making times in life. Questions like, who am I going to marry and what should I do next summer? And who am I going to marry and what should I do with my life? And who am I going to marry? All these big-time questions. And in the midst of this, you want to make good choices during this stage of your life to learn as much as you can. I highly recommend that you spend at least one summer at a camp somewhere. Why? Well, because of what you learn from eight weeks, now, by the way, I do know a couple great camps. One's called the Wilds in North Carolina. The other's called the Wilds in New England. But there are other great camps out there. When you go to a camp, it's twofold. You're learning. First of all, you've got your staff training. And you sit for hour upon hour learning how to take this book, the Word of God, and use it to truly impact lives. Like, for instance, what does God's Word say about Facebook? Anything? Sure it does. Philippians 4a, what sort of things are true? You ever lie online? What sort of things are honorable or honest? You ever kind of, you know, dishonor mom or dad by what you say to your friends or put on your wall? So again, the Word of God is very relevant there. These are the kinds of things that you learn. What do you do when a kid comes up to you, 15-year-old girl, she says, I hate my mom, and I wish she would die. What do you do? Where do you take them in the word of God? Or a 16-year-old boy walks up to you and says, hey, man, I'm addicted to porn. I hate it, but I don't know what to do. What do you do? Ah! No, you don't scream. How do you help? How do you take them to the word of God? And that's one of the things camp will do. You spend time here in school, and you get such a good, strong foundation. But then you need to go to camp, where not only are you learning people where they're hurting, I do need to say this. I've been in camping now for over 30 years. Privilege I've had to serve with the wilds. And I've met a lot of rebels in my lifetime. A lot. And I mean, I was preaching and about a thousand kids out there. One boy wouldn't quit talking. And I did all my tricks to try to get him quiet. And finally, I said, son, that's enough. No more. He got angry, stood up, took his Bible, threw it across the auditorium and told me to go to hell. Now, what do you do when you're in front of like a thousand teenagers and somebody tells you to go to hell? You look at them and say, huh, I can't. I got that and taken care of, bud, yeah. I remember another time I was called in. They said, man, there's a guy going berserk outside. Two counselors had a boy's arms. I ran out. I said, let go of him. When I did, this boy took his left hand, grabbed me by the shirt, took his right fist, pulled it backwards, just ready to deck me. When I said, don't even try it. Now, I'm not sure what I would have done if he did try it. I mean, I have watched Walker. I do know how to fight, OK? But in all these years, never one time, never one time have I ever met a rebel, get this, who was not a hurting kid. I'm serious. And I don't care how they look and how they come across. They're hurting kids. Why do teens do drugs and drink and have sex? Because they're wicked and terrible. We're all wicked, terrible, and bad, OK? You know why? Because they want someone to care. They want someone to love them. They want a relationship. And the greatest relationship anyone can have is a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. You know Christ. You need to introduce Him to these kids who are hurting. This is one of the joys of camp. Plus, you get to study the speakers. Yeah, why does he do that? Why doesn't he do this? How does he use the word of God? And every, you're sitting three services a day. You guys want to preach you can learn from these evangelists come through I really encourage you to spend a summer at a camp now You got to think ahead and plan early like for the wilds in New England We already have our staff lined up But if you want to hear about what a wonderful camp it is one of your students Lindsay Dean She's worked with us since the beginning. She's a great. She'll be a counselor this next summer She knows all so ask her and she'll tell you what to do. Okay, and maybe pray about 2013 whether or not you'd like to work there, or the wilds of North Carolina, especially guys. It is a little bit tougher to find good, godly guys today. Don't waste your summer, OK? Don't just spend it at Starbucks or Kentucky Fried. And I'm not saying we don't need to work, OK? And lattes are good to drink sometimes, but don't waste your summers. You only have a couple of them, so use them for the Lord, OK? Commercial is over Psalm 119 verse 9 wherewithal shall a young man Cleanse his way How do you stay clean in this incredibly wicked world that we live in? You can't watch a ballgame. You can't go downtown shopping. You can't turn the TV on you can't surf the web You can't do anything without being attacked in some way. How do you stay clean in this wicked world? I just finished reading a couple books, one by Ken Ham, Already Gone, reading the statistics from Barna Statistics. And this breaks my heart, but right now they're all saying in evangelical Christianity, 60% of high schoolers and college students, here's how they put it, are already gone. that once they graduate, they quit on God. I'm not saying they go to bad churches. They don't go anywhere. There's a number of reasons in the books and so forth. If you look around at your friends right now, like half of you, are you going to quit on God when things get tough? I would hope that you folks would really mess up their statistics really, really bad, OK? But the kids we work with, when you go home to your churches, How do you stay close to God? How do you walk with God day after day, month after month, year after year? Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Look what it says. By taking heed thereto according to thy word, with my whole heart have I sought thee, O let me not wander from thy commandments. When I was a kid, my folks split up. lived in a very difficult home. And for three years, I lived on and off with my grandparents. Granddad lived in a very, very rural section of northeastern Pennsylvania. And in the summers, I spent all summers there. Told Granddad one more. I was about eight or nine. I said, Granddad, I think I need to go and explore the woods. He said, no, that wouldn't be a good idea. You'd probably get lost out there. I said, not me, Granddad. I know those woods like the back of my hand. I taught Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett everything they know. I can do this. And so finally, I talked him into it, down in the woods. And I'm exploring, you know. And I'd gotten a string and put it on a stick. So I had my bow and arrow. And I was the mighty hunter ready to go. And I saw a deer. I'm not sure what I would have done if I actually caught up with that deer but I'm chasing the deer through the woods and of course the deer is gone and then I hiked a little bit more and a little bit more and I'm looking around and nothing really looks familiar and one hour turned into two hours turned into three hours. And now I'm getting scared. Again, I'm only nine. It's getting dark. I have no idea what's out there in the woods. It could be like, I don't know, lions and tigers and bears. Oh my, yes. And I do know I was really, really scared. I'd wandered off the path. And for a nine-year-old kid getting dark, lost in the woods, it's a bit dangerous. But you know, there is something that's much, much more dangerous. That's when you wander from God. You don't wake up one morning and think, ah, I'm going to quit on God. I'm going to throw away my testimony and my family and my ministry. Uh-uh. We wander. Sometimes it's wandering thoughts. You could be sitting in here right now, or chapel after chapel, and these men get up to preach, and they've studied, and they've got a message for us to learn. And you're sitting there thinking, I'm never going to make it through that math test. History of Civ. English? Why do we need English? And your mind wanders. You can be sitting in church on a Sunday morning, and your head's going like this, and your hand's going like this, and you're thinking, Outback or Olive Garden? It's easy for your mind to wander. Sometimes it wanders in areas that are pretty sad. And remember, as you think in your heart, you are. What you're thinking today, you're becoming tomorrow. Sometimes it's a wandering tongue, where it's easy to talk about others. And that's not just a teen thing, where you used to be out of weight until the end of school, and now you just grab your phone and underneath the desk, start texting. Do you see that outfit that Cindy has on? It makes her look like a barn. You know all this kind of stuff. We can get kind of mean with our tongues. It doesn't stop. Because we just make it grown up when we get older and start attacking everybody else. I spent 25 years as program director in North Carolina. You know who I hung out with? Teenagers. Yeah. And we talked about the relationship with their moms and dads and what they're doing in their devotions and the pressures that they have from their friends to get into sin. And then the last 10 years or so, I've been more on the road. And I have to hang out with some pastors. And you know what I want to say sometimes? I say, when do you guys have time for all this ministerial espionage, where you look around and find out what everybody else is doing? Do you not believe in the autonomy of the local church? I do. Study. Serve your people. Love them. Go visit them. You won't have time to worry about anybody else. Wandering tongues, wandering thoughts. Sometimes it's wandering eyes. whether it be lustful things for the flesh or material things, always wanting more, never being content with what God has given us. These are the little areas of life that we begin to wander away from the Lord. How do you keep from wandering? How do you stay close to God? What is the bottom line on this? Wherewithal? How can a young man stay clean and cleanse his way? The next phrase, by taking heed, thereto according to thy word. The phrase take heed is very interesting. It literally means to encircle about. It's a military term, to build a castle around, to thicket around, to completely engulf yourself in, to wrap yourself up in. Now, people ask me why I still work with teenagers in that camp. I am 40, 15. You can figure that thing out later. I'm not going to do the 50 thing, OK? But anyway, I love what I do. That's the number one reason why I'm still working with teenagers. But there is another reason. At our camps, we have what's called program staff. These are the guys that help with the preaching, and they help with the singing, and then just get time in leading hikes and running activities. And they normally come for four or five years and learn, and then go on to other ministries. And when they leave, we normally have a going away party for them. But it's not always fun. Sometimes they get thrown down a water slide or in the lake or something like that. I remember one guy, Dan, we took him out to a real fancy restaurant and fed him really good. And then as we're standing out in the parking lot of Pizza Hut, we're just standing there talking, you know. And all of a sudden, there were six of us surrounding him. He goes, guys. We threw him down on the parking lot. I just happen to have the duct tape with me. I duct tape his legs together, his ankles and his wrists together. One of the other guys brought one of those big rolls of that saran wrap stuff, that clingy stuff, you know. And we literally made him a money, let him breathe. We took him, put him in a shopping cart, took him to our Ingalls, put him right in front of the checkout counters, put a sign on him, we'll work for food and left him there for a half hour. Finally, I said, guys, this isn't much fun. We got to go get Dan and do something. Hey, guys, you want to go bowling? So we went and got Dan, threw him in the back of the van. I said, we'll throw Dan in the lane next to us. He can flop around while we're bowling. And if he can get out, he can bowl with us. The problem came when we pulled in the bowling alley. The police pulled in, surrounded us. And I did have some explaining to do, you know? But Dan, Dan was so wrapped up in that stuff, he couldn't think. He couldn't speak. He couldn't do anything. Hey, would it be so amazing? Would it be so cool if in our lives we were so wrapped up with the very words of God That we couldn't speak. We couldn't think we couldn't do Anything that's what it means to take heed. How do you do it? Look at verse 11 Thy word have I hid my heart that I might not sin against thee blessed art thou O Lord teach me thy statutes To wrap yourself up with the very words of God, number one, verses 11 and 12, realize who said it. Say that with me. Realize who said it. All scripture is given by, say it, inspiration. What does that mean? It means that the Bible is what? God breathed. Take your hand right now. Now you know I work with teens, okay? Take your hand, put it in front of your mouth. Repeat after me. Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? Did you feel that? Did you smell that? You can't speak without breathing. And God says, teens, college students, I have something I want you to know. So I'm going to ask some of my dear friends like Paul and Moses and David and Jeremiah and Isaiah to write it down for you. So you have no excuse to say that you have never heard it. All scripture is breathed by God. God said it. When you were a little kid and you had an argument with a brother or sister, what do you do? Mom said. Dad said. God said it. So to wrap yourself up with the very words of God, remember, realize this is not just an academic book. This is actually God's thought life before any word ever reached the pen of man. It went through the mind of God This is how God thinks Look at verse 13 With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth To wrap yourself up with the very words of God not only realize who said it but number to repeat it say that with me Repeat it. What do you talk about? Seriously I've got it figured out for teens and college students. You know the number one thing that college girls talk about? College guys. You know the number one thing that college guys talk about? Food, sports, drugs, and finally girls, yeah. I say, what do your parents talk about? Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Weather Channel, When I Was Your Age, that stuff. I think I got it figured out. You talk about what you think about. And you think about what you really, really love. Do you love the Lord? Do you talk about Him? I'm talking about in your rooms. I talked to one of you already yesterday who said, everybody in my room has a boyfriend. So what is being talked about? The guys. Did you guys ever just walk in your room at night and say, oh, you won't believe what I got in my devotions today. It was so cool. I was reading there in Psalms where the Lord reminded me that he doesn't impute to me sin. It's God. It's so wonderful. Did you ever just talk about God? Did you ever talk about maybe even some issues that you don't understand about the Lord He's past finding out and what heaven will be like. That can be wonderful. What do you talk about? Look at verse 14. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches. to truly wrap yourself up with the Word of God, to take heed, to surround yourself with God's Word so you cannot speak, you cannot think, you cannot do anything aside from the Word of God. You realize who said it, you repeat it. In verse 14, you rejoice in it. How do you rejoice in the Word of God? He tells us, as much as in all riches. I do work for the Wilds, and I travel a lot, but to make a little bit of money on the side, I also am a representative for IBM Computer. And whenever I get to speak at the colleges like this, after chapel today, out into the lobby out there, they have given me five laptops. We're going to have a little hat, and you just put your name in it. And before I leave, we'll draw those names out, and five of you get to go back to your rooms with a brand new laptop. I also am a representative for Ford Motor Company. I have 12 2012 Mustang convertibles coming into the parking lot. And we're going to do a little drawing, and some of you get to drive away in your brand new Mustang with your new laptop next to you. You think I'm lying? I am about both of them. You go, oh, stink, you know? But you know what it's like to get a new computer, a new iPod, iPad, ay-yi-yi, whatever it is? There's something about a new car, a new outfit. There's just something about that newness, the way it looks and the way it smells. It's exciting. You do. You look forward to getting that. Have you ever done that with the Word of God, where you're just having your time with the Lord and you're reading and you go, oh, man, I never thought of that before? A lot of you struggle with your school You wonder how in the world you're going to take your exams or get your permit to do your exams. Lord, I'm here. And I need some money. How do you pray? When you come to God, is it always give me and forgive me? Philippians 4, 6 tells us not to worry. Be anxious. Be careful for nothing. But in everything, prayer and supplication, there's a word there. In the middle of the verse, it's the word with. With Thanksgiving. What does with mean? And when you study the word, you find out there's actually various Greek words that are defined or translated with. But this one is cool, because it literally means in the midst of. It doesn't mean prayer, supplication, ask, and then add Thanksgiving to the end of your prayer. That's not what it's talking about. Be careful for nothing but everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving. Here's what it means. Don't worry about anything. But while you're in the midst of thanking God, let your requests be made known. I did what you guys are doing. I had to work my way through school. My dad, he did. He sent me $5 my sophomore year. That was it. And after a couple of years of this, praying and working and working and praying, God supplied every time. So I quit asking God for money. This is what I started doing through my junior year and senior year. Lord, thank you. Thank you ahead of time. I know you're going to supply. I don't know how, but thank you. I encourage you to thank God ahead of time and watch him supply your needs. That may not be in our timing. You wish it could be. Don't brother comfort. I wish I was a multi-millionaire and I could walk back to the business office and pay everybody's school bill off for the entire year You wish I was too, huh? Yeah When you understand that God will supply all our needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus you see that's one of those truths that you can rejoice and That's one of those truths that you can just Express to God your Thanksgiving What else can you do? Look at verse 15. I will meditate in thy precepts. Realize who said it. Repeat it. Rejoice in it. And here, number four, reflect on it. To meditate, to think, to concentrate, to contemplate, to ponder, consider, mull over in your mind, to speak to yourself. I personally believe that this concept of meditation is one of the reasons that we live such anemic Christian lives today. I do. Because when the Bible says in Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe. Give me the next two words to do. How do you do it? How do you live for God? How do you say consistent devotions and pray and witness to your friends? How do you trust God to supply your needs and keep walking with God? How do you do this? Meditate. Change your mind. Think. Don't just read it and race away. Don't do drive-thru devos, where you give God like five minutes, okay? Learn to sup, to banquet, to dine, to feast with Him. Spend time with God. Meditation, as you know, is an agricultural term. How many of you live on a farm? Let me see your hands. Okay. How many have ever been on a farm? Let me see here. How many ever sang O McDonald Had a Farm? Let me see your hands. But I'm going to make this real easy for everybody, OK? The girl cows. I grew up in a farm. The girl cows. Those are the ones we get the milk from. The white ones, white milk. The black ones, chocolate milk. You got all that, OK? They get up early in the morning. They go out. And they chew the grass or eat the grain at 6 in the morning. And they ruminate. They chew their cut, as we would say. The same concept of the meditation. So if they eat at 6 in the morning and they get hungry about 10 o'clock, What they can do, this is the way God made them. They take that food from one stomach, burp it back up into their mouth, chew it up again, swallow it, and put it in another stomach. Isn't that cool? Get hungry at 2.30, you know, hey, get hungry again, just puke it back up in your mouth, chew it up again, swallow it again. Girls, aren't you glad that God made cows like cows and not guys like cows? Because they could be sitting here right now thinking, how long is rain going to go? I'm getting a little bit of hunger here. Breakfast, ooh, those honey nut Cheerios, boom, and bring it up in their mouth, all right? Now, the reason that Cal does that is she wants to get every nutrient. She doesn't want to let one little bit get by. I encourage you, even at Christmas time, get up 30 minutes earlier than normal. You say, Rand, it's vacation. I'm serious. 30 minutes earlier. You can go back and take a nap later. 30 minutes earlier than normal and take a verse and chew it up. Meditate on it. Like one of my favorite verses Isaiah 26 3 just the beginning that will keep him in perfect Peace whose mind is stayed on thee thou is talking about God. I want you to help me raise your hand I'll point to you if you can give me one characteristic or one character trait of our wonderful Lord Okay, thou meditate who be first raise your hand one characteristic of God. Yes Sovereign he is in control Because he is omniscient, omnipotent, a sovereign God, that's the kind of God that I can trust. Yeah. I can trust him with my life, my future, even my school bill. Uh-huh. He's a sovereign. Somebody else. Yes. He has righteous anger. You know, I wouldn't want a God who did not get angry at sin. And God is a wrathful God. It actually is tied in with his jealousy. And you study that. And God is not jealous of. He's not like some of you guys who get upset because this guy now likes a girl that used to like you and all that kind of, none of that, okay? God is jealous for us. And he knows what kind of love can reach down and grab ahold of your heart and pull your heart away from him. And God gets angry at sin. He's a wrathful God. He's a wrathful God, but he's righteous in his wrath. He's a sovereign God. Somebody else. What else? Yes. He's merciful. He keeps from us that which we truly deserve. How many of you have asked God to forgive you for something in the last two weeks? Let me see your hands. OK. Have you ever asked for his mercy? What if he forgives you but allows the consequences still to come of that thought, of that action? He is merciful. What if He really, really gave to us everything we deserve because of our selfishness? We'd be in trouble. He's merciful. Somebody else, another characteristic of God. Almighty, none other greater than Him. It goes with His omnipotence, His might, His strength, His dunamis, His power. He's a very powerful, sovereign, merciful God. Somebody else. Looking for a girl here, OK? OK? Love. He's a loving God. In fact, he loves us, even when we're very unlovely or even when we're not acting like we love him. Here in his love. Not the we love God. But that he loved us and he sent his son to be that substitute that propitiation for our sins I'm not amazed that we would love God. Why wouldn't we forgives us and sends us to heaven? What amazes me is that God would love me He's a loving powerful Sovereign merciful God couple more couple more. Yes He is faithful even come on even when we are unfaithful. He's still faithful to us. Think about that. He is God. As we talked about yesterday, He is immutable. He doesn't change. So He is immutable in His faithfulness. He is always, always faithful. He will never give us something that will hurt us, but only that which will help us. That's amazing. Two more, two more characteristics of God, okay? Holy. Holy has the concept of being unique, one of a kind. Sometimes we simplify it, maybe even to the hurt of the definition that holiness is sinlessness. When in heaven, the heavenly host would say, holy, holy, holy, they weren't saying sinless, sinless, sinless. You see, the Sabbath day is holy because it's unlike the other six days. The holy place was holy because was unlike the other places of worship Jesus Christ himself four times in scripture is called the holy one of Israel There's no other like him. He's unique one-of-a-kind and this holy God. There's none other like him He is holy in his wisdom. He is holy in his love. He is a holy unique one-of-a-kind God That's why he doesn't want us to mix him with the world because we lose Our uniqueness as Christians. One more. One more. OK? In the back. Caring. Casting all your care on him, for he what? He does care. I'm serious. And when you study that word deeply, it's not just an affection, but he not only knows where you're hurting, but he's willing to get alongside of you and help you through the difficulties. He's a caring, loving, merciful, gracious, faithful God. Thou will. There's a promise. Keep. That means guard. Him. Who? Little old me. In perfect peace, knowing I'm right with God and others. What's the condition? Whose mind is stayed or committed on Him? Do you know what we just did for five minutes? We meditated on God. And you, like, forgot you were in chapel. You forgot your next test. You're thinking, characteristic of God. He might call on me. What am I going to say? You can do this with your roommates over coffee. When you get married, you can do this with your kids, your husband, your wife. Meditate on the Word of God look at the end of verse 15 and have respect into thy ways respect the Word of God Respect is living with the words. Yes, sir, and the tip of your tongue. God says I want you to be holy and you say yes, sir I want you to be pure. Yes, sir. I want to be loving and kind and reach out to other people. Yes, sir I want you to trust me Yes, sir Respect the Word of God look at verse 16. I would delight Myself and thy statutes To delight is to take pleasure in to enjoy to appreciate find satisfaction. I use the word to relish the Word of God Learn to enjoy God's Word Acquire a taste that results in a constant hunger. Let me say that again acquire a taste That results in a constant hunger Years ago, when we were just beginning the whole process for the wilds in New England, we're preaching through New England. It was the middle of February. Uh-huh. We're in Maine. Not the best time to be in Maine in the middle of February. Cold. Wow. The birds up there wear earmuffs. It's unbelievable. It is. People we stayed with, they asked us, have you ever had Maine lobster? I said, no, never had. Maybe in a salad or something, but never just a great big guy, you know? So they said, we're going to have it this week. So they brought a bunch of them home, and they were huge. They were this big. And I was taking my pencil and sticking it in the claw and trying to mess around with it, you know? And I didn't know. I'd never been that close to a real lobster, you know? And I said to the lady, well, how do you Cook a lobster? She said, well, it's not hard. We just take this pot over here, we get the water boiling, and then we put them in. You boil them to death? And my wife is very loving and very kind, and so she loves animals, and so she conveniently went into the living room. And as she was walking out of the kitchen, I asked one of those stupid questions. And I didn't know. I said, well, do they, like, make noises when they die? And the lady just shook her head, but my wife didn't see that. So I'm standing in the doorway. Here's the kitchen. Here's the living room. And I said, here they go, hon. She's picking them up. She's lifting the lid off. She's putting them in the water. They gave us these little forks and we dipped it in that white meat and we dipped it in that low-sodium, low-cholesterol, low-fat butter and oh man, when I took a bite out of that, I could not wait to get another bite. You know, I acquired a taste that resulted in the constant hunger. Hey, do you know what my Bible says? Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. You start digging into this book. You get up early. You meditate. You let the Word of God warm your heart. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to wake up. Your alarm's set for 6. You're going to wake up at 5.30. And your first thought is, yes, I have 30 extra minutes with God this morning. You'll be sitting there studying the Word and look at the clock and think, oh, I've got to go to work. Come on. I only have 40 more minutes to spend with the Lord. That will happen if you learn to wrap yourself up with God's Word. Finally, the end of verse 16, I will not forget thy word. Remember it. Right in the middle of temptation, Christmas vacation is coming. There's all kinds of temptations that you have not had for the last couple of months. So what are you going to do? Here's what we normally do. Temptation, sin. Remember the word of God, ask God to forgive us. Temptation, sin. Remember the word of God, ask God to forgive us. Don't live your life like that. Do it like this. Temptation, remember the word of God. Obey the word of God and thank God for the victory. Temptation, remember the word of God, obey it. Thank God for the victory. Right in the midst of temptation. right in the midst of trials, right in the midst of a time when everything is going great. Remember the word of God. I was only nine, and I was really, really scared. It was almost completely dark when I came to the edge of the woods. I came to a big field, and there was a farmer leaning against his farm truck, looking my way, almost like he was expecting me. Do you know why? You see, my granddad knew the woods a lot better than I did. And he knew if I got lost where I'd probably come out. And he called his friend and had him waiting there for me. If you've been wandering away from God, he knows exactly where you are. And he wants you to come home. Listen, you can be as close to God as you want to be. How do you stay clean? How do you stay pure in a wicked world? Wherewithal shall ye, O man, cleanse his way. Take heed. Wrap yourself up with the very words of God, so you cannot speak, you cannot think, you can't do anything. Anything. Have you ever been closer to God than you are right now? If you have, then you've been wandering. Let's bow our heads in prayer, please. The busyness of college life, it's easy to get very academic and plastic with your walk with God. Christmas is coming, and how many would just simply say, Rand, I don't want to wander from God. I've probably been as close to God these last couple of weeks or months. I've been a long time. And I know a lot of that has to do with the environment I'm in, the constant exposure to the Word of God. And I do, I get a little scared. I don't want to wander. But maybe your devotional life has really been lacking. Maybe you've already pre-planned some sin that you were involved in last summer that you're going to be involved in again soon. I don't know your hearts, but God does. How many would simply say, Rand, as you pray, would you please pray for me that I would not wander from my God? I'm struggling with some of these things you've preached about. Please pray for me, because I see your hands all over. God bless you, many, many hands. I'm going to do two things. I'm going to pray for you. Seriously, I'm going to talk to God and ask him to put not only the power in your heart to do what is right, but the desire. That's grace, Philippians 2.13. And then the instruments are going to quietly play. And so many of you raised your hands. And if you want to come to the aisle, maybe just turn around, kneel right there at your seat or down the front. If I got to be with you personally, and we were talking through this, I would ask you to ask God to forgive you where you failed him. Thank him ahead of time for his grace, his power, to give you victory in the weeks and the months to come. And then you finish the prayer this way, Lord, I'm not depending on my own strength or desire, but Lord, I'm trusting you to keep me pure. I'm trusting you to keep me clean. I'm trusting you to keep me close with you. I want you to pray that to the Lord. Father, thank you for the tender hearts of these students. Thank you for this time that we've been able to be in your word. It's so practical. It's so simple. Help us to live it, to do it. Help us to truly know how to meditate, to fill our hearts with that which you want us to think. Lord, please help us not to wander from you. And even as these students pray, give them the assurance of your forgiveness and the awareness of your presence as they walk through this wicked world. But stay clean. Thank you for working in our hearts. Your heads are bowed, eyes are closed. As the instruments quietly play, let's talk to God.