We already did Jeremiah 17.
Psalm 26 says this in verse 1, "Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity.
I've trusted also in the Lord; therefore, I shall not slide.
Examine me, O Lord, and prove me.
Try my reigns and my heart, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes, and I have walked
in thy truth.
I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.
I have hated the congregation of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked."
Now here's what jumped out at me when I looked up these two verses on the rains that tie
in most closely with the Revelation 2 scripture, because in Revelation 2, Jesus said, "I search
the rains in the hearts."
Jeremiah 17 said, "I search the rains in the hearts."
In verse 2, where you're there, in Psalm 26, it says, "Prove me, try my rains in my heart."
But you know what I noticed about both of these passages is that they both reminded
me of Psalm 1.
Did anybody else think that in your mind as we were looking at this?
Because if you remember, Jeremiah 17 talked about being planted by the rivers of water,
and this passage talks about not sitting with vain persons, not going in with the dissemblers,
not sitting with the wicked.
Go back if you went to Psalm 1.
So this is, you know, one way to study the Bible is looking for patterns and comparing
scripture with scripture, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
Notice that the two passages that talk about searching the rains and hearts, trying the
rains and hearts, they both sounded like Psalm 1.
They both talked about being a tree planted by the rivers of water, or not sitting with
the wicked, not going with people that are ungodly.
Look at Psalm 1 verse 1.
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the
way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the sworn fool."
That sounds like Psalm 26.
"But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night,
and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water," that sounds like Jeremiah
17, "that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.
His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
And what I want to point out here is the central verse there, verse 2, "But his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
And when the Bible is talking about searching the reins and the heart, you know, what do
you delight in is what God's searching.
Because remember, the reins are a seed of emotion or feeling, and one of the most important
feelings that we should have is love for Christ, love for God, love for the Word of God.
We should delight in the law of the Lord, and if we delight in the law of the Lord,
then in his law we're going to meditate day and night.
You know, when we delight in something, when we feel strongly about something, we think
about it a lot, don't we?
I mean, if you're in love and you're feeling those kind of stabbing pains in your abdomen,
well then guess what?
You're going to think about that person every day.
You're going to think about that person in the morning, you're going to think about that
person at night.
What if you're scared and nervous about something and you've got this big deadline coming up
or you're going to have to speak in front of people or you've got to meet with the boss
and you might get fired or something like that, you know, and you're feeling those kind
of pains in your abdomen?
You know, obviously when you have those kind of dreads on the negative side or love and
affection on the positive side, you're going to think about that a lot.
You're going to think about it in the morning, you're going to think about it at night.
And what the Bible's saying is, you know, we should delight in the Lord, the Lord should
be on our mind.
And what the Bible says about wicked people, God is not in all his thoughts.
They don't have affection or love or emotion toward him and therefore they don't think
about him.
And here's the thing, we should actually have all manner of emotions toward the Lord.
You know what should be in our reigns is delight, love and affection for the Lord.
Also in our reigns we should have the dread of the Lord.
The Bible says let him be your dread, let him be your fear.
We should fear the Lord.
We should love the Lord.
We should delight in the Lord.
We should serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, the Bible says.
And so there's a whole gamut of emotions that we should be feeling toward the Lord and God
knows that.
He doesn't just know what we're thinking but he actually goes deeper than our thoughts.
He goes to the heart and he even goes even deeper than that to the reigns.
Okay, something even more visceral than the heart.
Because stop and think about, you know, what we think.
Sometimes what we think isn't really the deepest part of who we are because sometimes we lie
to ourselves.
I mean, think about that.
When you think in your heart, you sometimes lie to yourself, don't you?
And you kind of tell yourself, "Oh, well, you know, I'm only doing this because of X,
Y, and Z."
But deep down, you know why you're doing that, okay?
And so even when sometimes people are lying to themselves or kidding themselves, the Bible
says the heart's deceitful.
Above all things, who can know it?
Well, the Lord searches the heart, and He also searches the reins.
He even goes deeper and more visceral about how you feel, not just how you think, but
how you feel.
We need to feel strong feelings toward the Lord.
We need to love Him deeply, and we need to also fear the Lord.
Go to Psalm 7, Psalm chapter 7.
The Bible says in Psalm 7, verse 8, "The Lord shall judge the people.
Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to my integrity that is in me.
O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just.
For the righteous God trieth the hearts and reigns.
My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.
God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day."
Go if you would to Jeremiah chapter number 11.