Psalm 119 verse 97, O how love I
thy law!
It is my meditation all the day.
It's a mark of maturity when a person
knows the difference between prices and values.
You ladies who are value conscious when you
go shopping are careful to see whether you're
getting the right amount for the money that
you're spending.
And if you get the large economy size,
it may not be economy, it might be
waste.
If this is true materially, it's also true
spiritually.
It's really unfortunate when people do not mature
in the Lord and therefore don't have the
right values.
Life is made up of values.
The things that are important to you determine
what you do.
It says of Jesus Christ who for the
joy that was set before him endured the
cross.
It says of Moses he endured as seeing
him who is invisible.
He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures of Egypt.
And the thing that made Moses what he
was was the fact that he had the
right priorities, the right values.
Now this can be true of us and
Psalm 119 tells us that one of the
greatest priorities in our lives must be the
word of God.
This is the longest chapter in the Bible
and it is devoted to one subject, the
word of God.
All of the 176 verses except four mention
the word of God.
There are eight different names, possibly ten different
names given for the word of God in
these verses.
They're all listed in the first section.
Now if you have the right kind of
a Bible, you'll notice that Psalm 119 is
divided into 22 sections of eight verses each.
It follows the Hebrew alphabet and in the
Hebrew language the first eight verses all begin
with Aleph and the next eight verses all
begin with Beth and the next eight verses
with Gimel and right down the line.
You say why was it written like this?
You'll be amazed at the answer.
Several times in the Psalms you find Psalms
that are written alphabetically, acrostic Psalms.
In some cases they just follow 22 letters
of the alphabet.
Other times they take two verses for each
of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
You know why?
To make it easy to memorize.
You say memorize Psalm 119?
I had a rough time memorizing Psalm 1.
Well I think that God is saying to
us here, here's the most important subject I
can talk to you about, the word of
God.
I'm devoting 176 verses to it and to
make it easy for you to remember it,
I'm dividing it up into the Hebrew alphabet,
22 sections of eight verses each.
It's all about the word of God.
Now if this is what God is saying
to us, we'd better pay attention to it.
In verse 1 of Psalm 119, the word
of God is called the law.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way who
walk in the law of the Lord.
25 times in this Psalm the word of
God is called the law of the Lord.
Not something we guess about, not something we
say, well should I do it?
It's the law of the Lord.
We just don't argue with it.
Verse 2, it's called his testimonies.
23 times you find testimonies in Psalm 119.
God is testifying in his word what he
wants us to know.
Verse 3, it's called his ways.
18 times the word of God, his ways.
Verse 4, his precepts, 21 times.
Verse 5, thy statutes, 22 times.
Verse 6, thy commandments, 22 times.
Verse 7, thy judgments, 23 times.
Down in verse 9, thy word, 23 times.
So here the Lord uses eight different names
in 22 different sections in the longest chapter
of the Bible to talk to us about
his word.
And even an unbeliever would have to say,
well, it must be very important then.
Now, in view of the fact that the
Bible is so important to God, it certainly
ought to be important to us.
That's good logic.
In view of the fact that the Bible
is so important to God, it ought to
be important to us.
And so we're going to seek to answer
two questions tonight.
Question number one, how much is your Bible
worth to you?
Not how much did you pay for it?
How much is it worth to you now?
And secondly, if it is worth something to
you, what will this do for you?
How much is your Bible worth?
And is it worth it all for the
Bible to be worth something to us?
Two very important questions.
Question number one, how much is your Bible
worth?
Now, we aren't sure who wrote Psalm 119.
We usually attribute this to David.
Some people think Jeremiah wrote it, and there's
a little bit of evidence it's possible.
We don't know.
But whoever he was, he loved his Bible.
In fact, 11 times in this long chapter,
he uses the verb love.
Verse 97, O how love I thy law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Verse 47, I will delight myself in thy
commandments, which I have loved.
Verse 48, My hands also will I lift
up unto thy commandments, which I have loved.
Over and over again, he expresses his love
for the Word of God.
Now, I think you know that when we
love the Word of God, we are loving
the Son of God.
We sang, O Word of God, incarnate.
Jesus Christ is the living Word.
This is the written Word, but essentially they
are the same.
Everything the Bible says about itself, it says
about Jesus.
Jesus said, I am the light of the
world.
Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet,
a light unto my path.
Jesus said, I am the bread of life.
He also said, man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God.
He is the Holy Son of God.
This is the Holy Word of God.
He is the eternal Son of God.
Forever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in
heaven.
When you sit down and make a list
of the attributes of God's Word and the
attributes of God's Son, you'll be amazed to
see they agree.
You know what that means?
That means that the more we love God's
Word, the more we love God's Son.
Now, how much did this man love God's
Word?
How much was his Bible worth?
Well, let's just page through here and find
some verses.
Verse 103, He loved God's Word more than
food.
How sweet are thy words unto my taste,
yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
That sounds like Job.
Job made an interesting statement.
Job 23, 12, I esteem the words of
his mouth more than my necessary food, which
parallels something Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah chapter 15,
verse 16, when he said, Thy words were
found and I did eat them, for they
are the joy and the rejoicing of my
heart.
For I am called by thy name, O
Lord of hosts.
Here's a man who says, I'd rather have
God's Word than have food.
Have you ever missed a meal to spend
time with the Word of God?
Now, we've all missed the Word of God
to spend time at a meal, but have
we ever given up necessary food to spend
time with the Word of God?
Now, the Bible talks about fasting.
Many people misunderstand fasting.
They think that fasting means you go without
food to bargain with God and say, Lord,
I made a sacrifice now, and so you've
got to give something to me.
That's not what fasting is at all.
Fasting simply means that because I love something
else better, I just don't want to have
any food or sleep.
Fasting simply means the giving up of something
good to get something better.
And this man says, I'd rather have God's
Word than have food.
If you and I had to make a
choice between the Word of God and food,
what choice would we make?
I know what Jesus said.
Jesus said, my meat is to do the
will of Him that sent me and to
finish His work.
I feed on the will of God.
I feed on the Word of God.
When the devil tempted Him in the wilderness
and said, turn these stones into bread, Jesus
said, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God.
Our Lord could have turned stones into bread.
Our Lord could have turned stones into beefsteak.
But He did not use His own power
to satisfy a legitimate need if it was
going to rob Him of the Word of
God.
Now, you and I don't have to perform
miracles to get our meals that may come
someday.
We can't do that.
We say, well, man's got to live.
Does he?
Does he really?
Jesus said to the devil, I'm going to
feed on the Word of God.
He said to His disciples, I've got meat
to eat you know nothing about.
Peter wrote to the Christians in the cities
of his day and said, as newborn babes
desire the sincere milk of the Word, the
Word of God is bread and the Word
of God is milk and the Word of
God is honey and the Word of God
is meat.
Paul said, I fed you with milk and
not with meat.
You weren't able to take it.
Now, if you can't make a meal out
of that, there's something wrong.
The inner man has to be fed just
as the outer man has to be fed.
The Lord is not denying the feeding of
the outer man.
He didn't say man shall not live by
bread.
He said man shall not live by bread
alone.
He's not saying that one is pitted against
the other.
He just simply says one is more important
than the other.
And the psalmist said, I'd rather have God's
Word than have food.
This kind of convicts us.
Because very few of us, if any of
us here tonight are going hungry.
There are people in this world that are
going hungry.
But the greatest famine in this world is
not a famine of food, as bad as
that is.
It's the famine that Amos talked about, a
famine of the Word of God.
There are millions of people who go to
churches and never get the Word of God.
Would you rather have God's Word or have
food?
Now, he says here, How sweet are thy
words unto my taste, Yea, sweeter than honey
to my mouth.
I'm thinking of a man in the Bible
who had to make a choice between God's
Word and honey.
Back in this day, they didn't have Fannie
Mae candy and turtles and all these kinds
of delicacies that we have today.
And they're probably better off.
The sweetest thing they knew, the most marvelous
dessert they could have was honey.
And of course, honey is natural sweetness.
Honey is the sweetest thing that nature produces.
And he said, I'd rather have the Word
of God than have honey.
You'll remember that Samson had to make that
choice.
Samson went and found himself a wife, came
back to his parents and said, I want
to marry this girl.
And when a year later, he came back
to get her.
You remember what happened?
When he went the first time, this lion
came and jumped at him.
And Samson just took the lion and that
was the end of the lion.
Threw its carcass off to one side.
When Samson came back about a year later
to get his wife, he heard a buzzing
sound and lo and behold, there was the
carcass of the lion.
But some bees had made some honey in
the carcass of the lion.
This is not unusual.
Now, Samson was a Nazarite and a Nazarite
was never to cut his hair.
He was never to drink wine or strong
drink, and he was never to touch a
dead body.
And Samson had to make the choice.
Am I going to pick up this dead
body and get this honey?
Or am I going to do the will
of God?
Am I going to feed on God's word
or feed on the honey in the carcass
of the lion?
And he made the wrong choice.
And from that day, Samson began to go
down.
You say, what's so wrong with what he
did?
He'd made a choice.
His values begin to deteriorate.
I'd rather have the honey from the carcass
of the lion than to have the pure
word of God.
It finally ended up with Samson losing his
power and losing his blessing and losing his
life.
Someone here tonight says, well, I'm going to
make a choice.
I don't want God's word.
I'll take this.
It could be the beginning of the end.
That could be the first step down.
I'd rather have God's word than have food.
Now, the psalmist is an even greater fanatic
than this.
If you think that's fanatical, look at verse
55.
I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in
the night and have kept thy law.
Verse 62.
At midnight, I will rise to get a
snack out of the refrigerator.
At midnight, I will rise to give thanks
unto thee because of thy righteous ordinances or
thy righteous judgments.
Verse 147 and 148.
I anticipated the dawning of the morning and
cried, I hoped in thy word.
Mine eyes anticipate the night watches that I
might meditate in thy word.
This man is really a fanatic.
He says, I'd rather have God's word than
have food.
And I'd rather have God's word than have
sleep.
Now, you'll forgive me, but this gets a
little bit close to home.
The older we get, the more difficult it
is to get up.
And when the alarm goes off in the
morning, we sing that old army song.
Oh, how I hate to get up in
the morning.
I suppose the secret of getting up in
the morning is going to bed at night.
That sounds pretty logical to me.
But the psalmist says there are three watches
in the night.
Now, the Romans had four watches.
The Jews had three watches from sunset to
10 o'clock and from 10 o'clock
to 2 o'clock and then from 2
o'clock to sunrise.
These were the watches in the Jewish calendar.
The Jewish clock.
And he said, before that new watchman shows
up, I'm awake to meditate in your word.
And at midnight, in between watches, I'm going
to meditate on your word.
And before the dawning approaches, I'm going to
meditate.
Does he ever get any sleep?
The point he's making is that he'd rather
have God's word than have sleep.
You know, it's so easy for us to
excuse our laziness.
It doesn't take much.
I've noticed that people who are good at
excuses are rarely good at anything else.
Over in Psalm 119, verse 164, he says,
seven times a day do I praise thee
because of thy righteous ordinances.
So seven times during the day and four
times during the night, he's meditating on the
word of God and praising God for his
word.
This kind of beats our record.
This never got in the Guinness Book of
Records, but it's there.
He'd rather have the word of God than
have sleep.
I mentioned to you this morning in this
matter of sleep, the two great mistakes the
disciples made.
They went to sleep on the Mount of
Transfiguration and missed that marvelous Bible conference.
Moses and Elijah and Jesus discussing the cross.
They went to sleep in the Garden of
Gethsemane and missed that wonderful consecration service.
When Jesus prayed, not my will, thine be
done.
Would have done Peter some good to be
awake, wouldn't it?
Jesus said, now wake up, watch and pray.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh
is weak.
You know what makes the flesh strong?
Sleeping when we ought to be praying.
I suppose everybody here tonight at one time
or another has been sleeping when he should
have been praying.
Now I'm not suggesting that we necessarily all
the time have to spend all night in
prayer.
I have spent nights in prayer.
Some of the greatest experiences I've had have
been with Peter Danica Sr. in all nights
of prayer.
But you can't keep this up night after
night.
Somebody asked D.L. Moody one day, have
you ever prayed all night?
He said, yes, I have.
When I woke up the next morning from
kneeling all night, ooh, was my body hurting.
Some of us just aren't called to this
kind of a thing.
But that's not what he's saying.
He's simply saying there are choices to make.
There needs to be some discipline in our
lives to be able to say no to
the comforts of the body, no to the
pampering of the body, and yes to the
feeding of the soul.
I'd rather have the Word of God than
have sleep.
Now he's following a good example here because
this is the way Jesus was.
I read in Mark chapter 1 that after
a busy, busy day, a busy Sabbath day,
my Lord had been preaching and healing and
helping people.
I'm sure He got to sleep very, very
late.
But you know the next morning He was
up early and went out to pray.
Went out to listen to His Father, give
Him the Word of God.
Now we have all kinds of excuses.
We all have physical deficiencies.
We all have body clocks and lifestyles.
We know this.
And we can use these as excuses if
we want to.
I'd rather have the Word of God, says
the psalmist, than have sleep.
Have you ever missed some sleep to spend
time with God's Word?
You say, I have a rough time getting
up in the morning and being awake enough.
Try going to bed at night.
It works.
Verse 14, he has a third expression here,
and he gets so fanatical you'll never believe
it.
I have rejoiced in the way of thy
testimonies as much as in all riches.
Verse 72, the law of thy mouth is
better unto me than thousands of gold and
silver.
127, therefore, I love thy commandments above gold,
yea, above fine gold.
162, I rejoice that thy word is one
that findeth great spoil.
I'd rather have God's Word than have food.
I'd rather have God's Word than have sleep.
I'd rather have God's Word than have money.
That comes even closer to home.
Now, you can't live without money.
Your Father in heaven knows that you have
need of these things.
Jesus said that.
It's not a sin to have money.
It's a sin to love money and to
be covetous.
But the psalmist says, in spite of the
fact that riches are not of themselves sinful,
I'd rather have God's Word than have riches.
You know, many times in the Bible, God's
Word is compared to treasure.
In Proverbs chapter 2, he talks about digging
for hid treasure, searching after God's Word the
way you'd go through a mine.
Go down to one of these diamond mines
and dig for the diamonds.
Get into a gold mine and dig for
the gold.
You won't find the treasures of God's Word
falling out by themselves.
You have to dig them out.
God doesn't want us to be a bunch
of lazy people who just open the Word
and put it in a nickel and push
a button and out comes the treasure.
Oh, no, you have to dig for it.
He says, I'd rather have God's Word than
have treasure.
I think verse 162 is an interesting verse
because in verse 162, he doesn't just talk
about money or treasure.
He talks about spoil.
I rejoiceth thy word is one that findeth
great spoil.
You know what spoil is?
First, you fight a battle.
You get out there in the battlefield, you
fight a battle, you win a victory, then
you get the spoil.
You know what he's saying to me?
When I come to my Bible to get
treasures from it, the devil is going to
fight me.
When I come to my Bible to get
treasures, spiritual treasures I can invest in my
life and in the lives of other people,
it's not going to be easy.
It's going to be a battle.
I've got to battle against the carnality of
my mind and the selfishness of my heart
and that spiritual law of gravity that drags
me down.
The devil fights me.
He wants to put the weeds in my
heart and pull the seeds out.
The birds come flying over and try to
snatch the seed.
It's not easy to study the Bible.
It's not easy to meditate in God's Word.
It's difficult, but it's not impossible.
And we have the Holy Spirit of God
living within us to teach us and to
help us mine out the treasures.
And so he says, I'd rather have God's
Word than have spoil.
I'm thinking of a couple of people who
didn't believe in that.
I'm thinking of a fellow named Achan.
Remember Achan?
They were going to take the city of
Jericho and Joshua said to the army, don't
touch the spoil.
That belongs to God.
And Achan, while he was cleaning things up,
saw some wedges of gold and some silver
and a Babylonian garment and he took the
spoil and forgot God's Word and buried the
spoil under his tent.
Remember that?
And then Israel went out to fight the
battle and they lost.
They were defeated by the little old city
of Ai.
They had taken Chicago, but they couldn't take
some little city like St. Charles.
And they wept before God.
And God came down and said, Joshua, stop
your weeping.
Stop your praying.
There's sin in the camp.
And so he got all the tribes together
and narrowed it down to one tribe.
Got all the families together and narrowed it
down to one family.
And then he narrowed it down to one
man and it was Achan.
And Achan confessed and said, I saw among
the spoils.
And Achan died and his family died with
him.
Achan's sin was he'd rather have the spoils
than have God's Word.
I'm thinking of somebody else who made that
same mistake.
His name was Saul, King Saul.
God sent him out to destroy the Amalekites.
He said, wipe them off the face of
the earth.
Kill their cattle.
Don't leave anything alive.
And Samuel came to see how Saul was.
And Saul said, I have performed the Word
of the Lord.
And just about that time Samuel heard the
bleating of the sheep and the lowing of
the cattle.
You know, sin cannot be hidden very long.
Samuel says, oh, you have performed the will
of the Lord.
What's this noise I hear?
Oh, he said, that's from the spoils.
We're going to give that to God.
Samuel said to obey is better than to
sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of
rams.
And you know what?
Saul lost his kingdom because of that.
Saul lost his crown because he'd rather have
spoil than have the Word of God.
I'm thinking of some people in the New
Testament named Ananias and Sapphira who would rather
have money than have the Word of God.
And it killed them.
Our values determine our lives.
And the psalmist said, I'd rather have the
Word of God than have riches.
Verse 23.
How much is your Bible worth?
Princes also did sit and speak against me,
but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes.
Thy testimonies also are my delight and my
counselors.
The Hebrew of verse 24 reads, Thy testimonies
also are my delight and the men of
my counsel.
If I want some counsel, I go to
the Word of God.
It's my friend.
Verse 51.
The proud have had me greatly in derision,
yet I have not declined from thy law.
Verse 95.
The wicked have waited for me to destroy
me, but I will consider thy testimonies.
Verse 115.
Depart from me, ye evildoers, for I will
keep the commandments of my God.
I'd rather have God's Word than have food.
I'd rather have God's Word than have sleep.
I'd rather have God's Word than have riches.
And he says, I'd rather have God's Word
than have friends.
If it's a choice between being popular with
the world and having the Word of God,
I'll take the Word of God.
Even if princes try to convince me, I'm
going to meditate in the Word of God.
Now, you can just walk through your Bible
and meet all kinds of people who made
that decision.
Abraham made that decision.
He'd rather have the Word of God than
have friends.
He even broke up with Lot, his beloved
nephew.
And Lot went to Sodom, and Abraham stayed
in his tent.
And which of the two did God bless?
He blessed Abraham.
David had to make that decision.
Daniel had to make that decision.
Daniel could have compromised in Babylon.
When in Babylon, do as the Babylonians do.
Who was there to care?
His mother couldn't see him.
His father couldn't see him.
Joseph could have compromised in Egypt.
Do what the world does.
Oh, no.
He said, I'd rather have the Word of
God than have friends.
And if standing true to the Word of
God means everybody's going to be against me,
that's all right.
I'd rather have the Word of God than
have friends.
Now, this comes pretty close to home.
It's very easy for our young people to
go back to school and compromise.
I don't mean we have to be hateful.
Joseph wasn't hateful.
Daniel wasn't hateful.
He was very kind and gracious.
But they stood true to the Word of
God.
And how easy it is for our young
people to go back to school and say,
well, it's five days a week on this
campus.
I can compromise.
And then I'll straighten myself up for Sunday.
No, it doesn't work that way.
All day long, all week long, said the
psalmist, I'd rather have God's Word than have
my friends.
Which leads us to question number two.
If our Bible is worth this much to
us, what will it do for us?
What happens in the life of the person?
What do you have when the Word of
God is that important to you?
Well, we'll just quickly turn the pages of
Psalm 119 and find the blessings that God
gives to those who make the Bible important
in their lives.
Verse 9, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse
his way by taking heed thereto according to
thy word.
Verse 11, Thy word have I hidden in
my heart that I might not sin against
thee.
Here's the first blessing, victory over sin.
So often people come and say, Pastor, I've
got a problem with this temptation and that
sin.
And we all do.
We all do.
Each of us has some area where Satan
tries to get in.
And we strive in our own strength to
fight him and we can't do it.
How did Jesus fight the devil?
Paul said, take the sword of the Spirit.
The psalmist said, you know, because the Word
of God is so important to me, God
has given me a special blessing.
The Word gives me victory over sin.
Thy word have I hid, and that Hebrew
word hid is treasured.
Thy word have I treasured in my heart
that I might not sin against thee.
Several times in Psalm 119, you find him
using an old English word, quicken.
Here's the second blessing.
Look at verse 25.
My soul cleaveth to the dust, quicken me,
revive me according to thy word.
Verse 37, turn away my eyes from beholding
vanity, and quicken thou me, revive me in
thy way.
Look at verse 40.
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts.
Quicken me, give me life in thy righteousness.
Verse 50, this is my comfort in my
affliction, for thy word hath given me life.
Thy word hath quickened me.
Verse 88, quicken me after thy lovingkindness, so
shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.
Verse 93, I will never forget thy precepts,
for with them thou hast given me life.
Thou hast quickened me.
You know, there's some Christians who are dead.
They're just spiritually dead.
I'm not talking about personality.
We have different personalities.
Nor intelligence, nor talents, nor gifts.
I'm just simply talking about spiritual fervor.
There are only three spiritual temperatures in the
Bible, hot, cold, and lukewarm.
And what he's saying here is this, because
I spend time in the Word, because the
Word of God is important to me, I
have life.
There's a reviving in me, and God quickens
me.
It's a good thing to have.
Verse 28, here's a third blessing that comes
to the person who values the Word of
God.
Verse 28, my soul melteth for heaviness.
Strengthen thou me according to thy Word.
The Word of God gives you strength.
Now you say, I've never faced that problem.
Then you may not be fighting too many
battles.
There must be something wrong.
When you try to live for the Lord
and serve the Lord, you sometimes come to
a place where you have no strength.
Everything has just melted away.
The burden is heavy, and the battle is
heavy.
And you can say with the psalmist, my
soul is melting with heaviness.
And what do you do?
Resign.
That's the logical thing to do.
Quit.
Give up the Sunday school class.
Leave the choir.
Quit.
The psalmist said, no, if I want to
get strengthened, I turn to the Word.
And how many times you and I have
experienced this.
We've been ready to quit.
The going has been tough.
And we've opened the Word of God.
And what has the Word done?
The Word has strengthened us.
How about verse 66?
Here's another blessing we get if we make
the Word of God valuable.
Verse 66, teach me good judgment and knowledge,
for I have believed thy commandments.
The Word gives us wisdom.
Now, you don't find good judgment in the
books that men write.
You don't get good judgment by taking vitamin
E.
Good judgment comes from the Word of God.
It's amazing how many people don't have good
judgment.
You know, common sense is very uncommon.
You say, I need wisdom.
I need good judgment.
Then read your Bible.
The Spirit of God, who is the Spirit
of wisdom, will take the Word of God,
which is the Word of wisdom, and give
to you wisdom beyond yourself.
You say, I don't believe it.
Well, look at verse 97.
Oh, how love I thy law.
It is my meditation all the day.
Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser
than my enemies.
You better be smarter than the enemy, for
they, thy commandments, are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers.
Now, don't take that verse back to the
institute with you.
You might get into trouble.
He's saying here, the fact that you've read
books and gotten degrees does not mean you
have wisdom.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for thy testimonies are my meditation.
Verse 100, I understand more than the ancients.
How about that?
Age is no guarantee of wisdom.
Old people can do stupid things just as
much as young people can.
What he's saying here is, I don't have
to get my fingers burned by experience to
get smart.
I've learned it from the Word of God.
I'm a little fearful of these people who
say, well, maybe the only way I'll learn
it is by hard experience.
Why must you have scars?
Why must there be tears and heartache and
bitter experience?
You don't have to have it that way.
Say, well, the school of experience is the
best way to learn.
Don't learn about sin in the school of
experience.
Don't learn about the world in the school
of experience.
That's foolish.
All you need to know about living this
life is right here in this book.
And when you treasure the Word of God,
God gives you wisdom.
Verse 130, the entrance of thy words giveth
light.
It giveth understanding unto the simple.
You say, my IQ is not very high.
It doesn't make any difference.
God gives understanding to the simple.
In fact, some of these people who think
they're so smart can't learn anything from the
Bible.
Jesus said, I rejoice, Father, you've hid these
things from the wise and the prudent and
you've revealed them unto babes.
By the way, this word entrance in verse
130 means the opening up, the unfolding, the
expounding of the word giveth light.
Verse 169, let my cry come near before
thee, O Lord.
Give me understanding according to thy word.
Beautiful.
When you treasure the Word of God, you
get victory over sin and quickening and strength
and wisdom.
And here's another blessing you get.
You get guidance.
Verse 105, thy word is a lamp unto
my feet, a light unto my path.
Verse 133, order my steps in thy word
and let not any iniquity have dominion over
me.
It sounds like Roman six.
Order my steps in thy word.
When we treasure the Word of God, we
get guidance.
People say, Pastor, what am I supposed to
do?
Do what God tells you to do.
I don't know what He wants you to
do.
Then keep reading the Word till He tells
you what He wants you to do.
And make no step until He does show
you.
This is the roadmap, my friend.
This is the compass.
This is the atlas.
This is the guidebook.
It's all here.
I like verse 45.
Here's another blessing we get from treasuring the
Word of God, freedom.
And I will walk at liberty, for I
seek thy precepts.
I hear young people saying, well, we want
freedom.
For what?
Now, what do you want the freedom for?
The big thing in life is not to
find your freedom, but to find your master.
You get the right master, you'll have your
freedom.
And my Bible says that the more of
the Word of God that comes into my
life, the more freedom I have.
And I've experienced this.
Gives you freedom from selfishness and freedom from
sin.
Doesn't mean you're perfect.
Oh, no.
Not till Jesus comes.
But it means that the Word of God
just sets you free.
You want liberty?
Then spend time in the Word of God.
It'll set you free from some of the
foolishness going on in the world today.
Another blessing from the Word of God is
friendship.
Friendship.
Verse 63.
I am a companion of all those who
fear thee and of those who keep thy
precepts.
On what basis do you choose your friends?
Oh, they all love guitar music.
Fine.
Great.
Or they love opera.
Wonderful.
Or they live in my block.
Fine.
He says, because I love the Word of
God, I have run into people who also
love the Word of God.
And we love each other.
That's what the church is all about.
People come and say, oh, pastor, I want
to get a wife.
Or I want to get a husband.
Fine.
He that findeth a wife findeth a good
thing.
She may find you first.
But you don't go through life looking for
a wife or looking for a husband.
You know what you do?
You just love the Word of God and
obey the Word of God.
And before long, God brings into your orbit
the kind of people that you want to
know.
And the greatest friends in the world are
those who are friends of the Bible.
Verse 50, you have another blessing that comes
from loving the Word of God.
Comfort.
Verse 50, this is my comfort in my
affliction.
For thy word hath quickened me.
Verse 76, let I pray thee thy merciful
kindness be for my comfort according to thy
word unto thy servant.
I tell you, the comfort of the scriptures
is a marvelous thing.
Over in the book of Romans, chapter 15,
Paul talks about the patience, the encouragement and
the comfort of the scriptures.
Where do you get your comfort?
I know people that when things are going
rough and they've had a bad time, they
get their comfort out of a bottle.
That's a shame.
Or they get their comfort out of taking
it out on their family.
They had a rough day, so why should
their family have a good day?
The psalmist says, you know, because I love
the Word of God, when things are going
rough, this is where I find my comfort.
This is God's balm in Gilead.
This is God's medicine for a broken heart.
165, another blessing we get from loving the
Word of God.
Great peace have they who love thy law
and nothing shall offend them.
You find some Christians saying, well, I was
offended by that.
Quote verse 165 to him.
When Christians love the Word of God, they
aren't offended.
They have peace.
Great peace have they which love thy law
and nothing shall offend them.
Now, if you want to have peace in
your heart, the way to get peace is
to love the Word of God.
Peace is a byproduct of loving the Word
of God.
Finally, answers to prayer.
Verses 169 and 170.
Let my cry come near before thee, O
Lord.
Give me understanding according to thy word.
Let my supplication come before thee.
Deliver me according to thy word.
The Word of God and prayer go together.
If ye abide in me and my words
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye
will and it shall be done unto you.
And those Christians who love the Word of
God know how to pray.
They know their Father's heart and they know
their Father's will and they can come and
pray in the will of God.
I'd say it's worth it to love the
Bible.
This is not idolatry.
Oh, the liberals call it bibliolatry.
They invented a good word for us, bibliolatry.
You're making an idol out of a book.
No, we're not.
We don't worship leather and paper and ink.
Beyond the sacred page, I seek thee, Lord.
My spirit pants for thee, thou living Word.
This book, when we open it, opens to
us the mind and the heart of God.
We aren't worshiping a book.
We're worshiping the God of the book.
Of course, you couldn't expect a liberal to
understand that.
His mind is darkened.
Well, how much is your Bible worth?
And if it's worth that much to you,
are you getting the blessing from it God
wants you to have?
I'm afraid some of our people are missing
a great deal by ignoring the Word of
God.
And so my closing suggestion is simply this.
Treasure the Word of God and prove to
God you do treasure it by giving your
best time to it.
I can't dictate for you because spiritual legislating
is beyond my responsibility.
But many of us have found that beginning
the day with the Word of God works.
Jesus did this.
The psalmist did it.
The great saints down through the ages have
done it.
Maybe your schedule is such that you can't.
But at some time, your best time, give
it to God through the book.
Oh, how love I thy law.
It is my meditation all the day.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the precious gift
of the Bible.
Holy Bible, book divine, precious treasure thou art
mine.
I pray that you'll help us to value
the book, to feed on it, to live
in it, to let it live in us,
to meditate, to digest it, to appropriate it,
to practice it.
That we might be all that you want
us to be this coming year.
We ask for Jesus' sake.
Amen.