And speak to us through the word of God.
And Holy Spirit, I just pray that you would lead me as I preach,
to preach what you would want me to preach, dear God.
And fill me with your power, dear God.
I don't want to get up and just preach some kind of a little speech
that some man came up with, but dear God.
Rather, help me to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Help me to preach the Bible as it's meant to be preached, dear God.
And we love you, and thank you for bringing us to church tonight.
And speak to us in a special way.
Help us to go out of here different than when we came, dear God.
And in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
Now, the shortest chapter in the entire Bible is Psalm 117,
right before where we just read Psalm 118.
You can look in your Bible there and see that it's only two verses long.
And interestingly enough,
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the entire Bible with 176 verses.
Now, right between those two is Psalm 118,
which actually happens to be the center chapter of the Bible.
Isn't that interesting?
There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118,
and there are 594 chapters after Psalm 118.
So it's right in the middle, and it just happens to be
between the shortest and the longest chapter.
Not only that, but the central verse of the entire Bible
is found in Psalm 118.
The middle verse of the entire Bible is verse number 8,
Psalm 118, 8.
It has 15,551 verses before it and 15,551 verses after it.
So it's just right in the dead center of the Bible
as far as verses are concerned.
And not necessarily, but it actually does fall
right in the middle chapter of the Bible, not coincidentally.
And that just happens to be between the shortest and the longest chapter.
And then if you look at the two center words of Psalm 118, 8,
you'll see that they are the Lord of the two words right in the middle
because the verse has 14 words in it.
So it has an even number, and the two middle words are the Lord.
Of course, nothing in the Bible is incidental, coincidental, or accidental.
I mean, the Bible is written by God. It's designed by God.
It was laid out by God.
That's why it all just fits together so perfectly and marvelously like that.
It could not be written by any man.
I mean, these books were written by completely different people.
They're compiled by topic.
You have the history books, the poetry books, the prophecy books,
the four gospels, and the book of Acts, and then you have the epistles,
and then you have the prophecy at the end there in the book of Revelation.
And yet it just falls into place, the perfect masterpiece of the Holy Bible.
And it's interesting also that if you take the 594 chapters on this side
and the 594 chapters on this side, and you add that together,
that's 1,188 chapters that surround this central chapter.
And if you look at the verse, Psalm 118, 8, it's 1, 1, 8, 8.
I mean, that's the way it is also, 1,188 chapters around it,
and the middle verse is 1, 1, 8, 8, 118, 8.
And I believe that this central verse, not coincidentally in the center of the Bible,
happens to be the theme of the entire Bible.
This happens to sum up the great message of the entire Bible in one verse.
This is the center verse of the entire Bible, and what does it say?
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
You see, from Genesis to Revelation, that's the truth that God is proclaiming
throughout the entire Bible.
You see, that's salvation in a nutshell.
You want to know whether you're saved tonight?
Is your trust in the Lord, or is your confidence in man?
If your trust is 100% in the Lord, then you're saved.
If you have any confidence in man whatsoever for salvation,
you're not saved tonight. You're going to hell when you die.
You need to be saved immediately.
And of course, God wants you to be saved.
All you have to do is just take your faith that you've got somewhere else,
put it on Jesus Christ, and just cry out to God and say,
I want you to save me. I'm trusting you 100%.
You see, if you're trusting tonight in your good works to save you,
then your confidence is in man.
It's in yourself. It's in you.
And it's in the people that taught you which good works.
You know, supposedly going to get you to heaven.
If you're trusting in your church attendance tonight to get you to heaven,
well, then your confidence is in man.
If you're trusting in the fact that you've been baptized,
then your confidence is in man.
You were baptized by a man, and you're the person that went and got baptized
to somehow earn your salvation.
No, if you think that being sincere,
a lot of you will say, why is this person so sincere?
I just know that they're going to heaven.
Well, look, if being sincere is what you're trusting to get you to heaven,
then your confidence is in man. It's in yourself.
If you think that repenting of your sin and saying,
well, I'm going to be willing to turn from my sins
is going to get you to heaven tonight, then your confidence is in man,
because that's a man-made decision,
and that's a man-made action that you're doing there.
If you believe you can lose your salvation,
then your confidence is in man,
because you must live a certain way or do something
or be something in order to keep your salvation.
But I'm going to tell you something.
If your trust is in the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of Jesus Christ alone and in his blood to save you,
then your trust is in the Lord, and that's salvation.
See how simple it is? Don't make the gospel complicated.
You know, I go through the plan of salvation with people in death.
You know, I show them that they're a sinner.
I show them the punishment for sin.
I show them that Jesus died on the cross.
I show them how he was buried and he rose again.
I show them I shed his blood as an atonement for the sins of mankind.
I show them how if you call on Jesus Christ for salvation
and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
then thou shalt be saved,
that if thou shalt confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus
and believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.
And I go through all that.
You know, you can sum up the whole gospel really simple
and say, is your trust 100% in Jesus Christ or is it in something else?
That's all.
Don't tell me about drinking or smoking, cussing, fornication.
Shut up.
That has nothing to do with salvation because all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God.
There is none righteous, no, not one.
There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sineth not.
And so nobody is good enough to go to heaven.
Nobody is bad enough not to go to heaven.
It's all by grace through faith,
not of works lest any man should boast.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Son of God hath everlasting life.
I mean, I don't understand how it could be any simpler than that.
And people try to make it complicated.
Religion tries to make it complicated.
The world tries to make it complicated.
It's so simple.
Everyone has faith in something.
Is it 100% in Jesus or is it in religion?
Is it in yourself?
Is it in, fill in the blank?
And Jesus said, if thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest,
is what Philip said in Acts 8, 37.
If thou believeth with all thine heart,
does that mean that you just squeeze really hard and,
I know I believe it, you know, I believe, I believe, you know,
click your heels together three times
and believe that you're going to be in Kansas?
No, I mean, what it means is that you're believing with all your heart.
You don't have some of your faith somewhere else.
You took all your faith and just said, I'm putting it all on Jesus
and if I'm not going to heaven because of Jesus, then I ain't going.
Because that's where all my hope is.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
Great song.
But not only is this the key verse for salvation,
not only is this the central verse of the Bible in regard to salvation,
but how about just the Christian life?
How about just everything about what you believe?
How about everything about how you live your life
and what you do, what you believe, what happens to you?
All of it is based on this.
Are you trusting the Lord or do you have your confidence in man?
Now, I couldn't help, I just can't help but bring this up.
Forgive me for bringing it up, but I just can't help
but bring up what's been in the news the last several days
about this pervert in Colorado.
Has anybody heard about this?
Well, that's good, you guys live in the bubble that I should be living in.
But here's the thing, I was out in California on a business trip,
working, driving around, driving through the desert for hours as always.
And I'm driving down the road and I've been listening to the Bible
and memorizing the Bible and everything.
And so I was just like, my mind was just a little bit worn out.
And so I just said, you know, I'm going to see what's going on in the news.
And the president of the, what's it called?
The National Evangelical Association is what they call it.
And it has 40 million members supposedly in the United States.
It's some big association of all these different churches all over America.
And his name is Ted Haggard.
And this guy is a pastor of a church in Colorado Springs, Colorado
that runs 14,000 on Sunday morning.
And he got busted this week for, and I'm trying to put this in a way
to not pervert the minds of my children,
but he basically was using a gay prostitute for the last three years.
Okay, this pastor of this church.
Okay, and anybody hear about that or no?
It's like all over the news, big huge thing.
You didn't hear about it.
Big deal, you know, big thing.
And he was also using methamphetamines,
buying methamphetamines from this gay prostitute for the last three years.
And he's this pastor, you know, and supposedly this is like he's conservative.
You know, and of course to us, and they're acting like, oh,
it makes all of Christianity look bad and it makes like conservatism look bad.
But I mean to us, he's like a flaming liberal.
I mean he couldn't even be further from what we are.
So we're like, duh.
You know, somebody said to me, somebody asked me this week,
what do you think about that?
They're like, do you hear about this?
What do you think about it?
I said, am I supposed to be surprised?
Am I supposed to be surprised that some tongue-speaking charismatic
with a service full of rock music,
who's got people falling on the ground and doing this kind of stuff,
you know, they show pictures on the internet of the church on the news site,
and they're showing this little girl, like a young child,
and she's just like, oh, you know, she's swooning and got her arms in the air,
and it's like rolled eyes back in her head,
having some kind of a demonic experience.
Yes, that's what tongue-speaking is.
Show me, oh, you don't think so?
Well, show me in the Bible somebody speaking with a voice other than their own
from Genesis to Revelation.
I'll show you several places.
It's called being demon-possessed.
You play a bunch of wicked rock music.
You preach a false gospel that says that you can lose your salvation
if you don't live right.
You play a bunch of worldly music, and everybody gets all emotional,
and it's demonic.
People get demon-possessed.
You don't believe me?
Go down to a charismatic service and sit down
and tell me if those people aren't demon-possessed,
and then I'll listen to you, because I've been to one one time.
One time, actually, I went there by mistake.
Somebody told me this is like a fundamental church.
This is like, this is Baptist.
When I was a teenager, and they're like, yeah, you're going to like this.
This is King James Bible.
I'm like, really?
I was like, great, you know?
And I wasn't very wise back then.
When I was a teenager, I was just very ignorant and everything.
So I'd go there with some friends, and I'd sit down in the service.
It was a Wednesday night, and I kept waiting for the preaching.
First they'd get out the rock music, and I was like, oh, man.
I never liked that stupid sound.
Even when I listened to rock music, I didn't like the Christian rock.
It's so stupid.
I always wanted the old hymns, but I'm sitting there,
and they're playing this Christian rock and everything,
and it's real emotional.
This girl next to me starts doing really weird things.
A couple seats down, and I thought she needed help.
I thought that somebody was going to get a medic.
I mean, I'm not kidding.
Then this other girl puts her arm around her,
and she's walking back and forth.
I thought she was having a seizure.
No, recently.
You think I'm kidding. I'm serious.
I worked at Round Table Pizza,
and the video games would sometimes trigger people into seizures.
If people smoke marijuana, it makes them more likely to have a seizure.
They already have that tendency.
Then combine that with video games.
I'm at Round Table, and this girl just had a seizure recently.
She falls on the ground flopping around.
I grabbed the phone and called 911.
I'm looking over, and I thought, two seizures in one week.
This girl is having a seizure.
This other girl is putting her arm around her.
It's okay.
But then other people started doing it.
I'll tell you one thing I know for sure.
The people who were doing it were not in the driver's seat.
They were not in the driver's seat at all.
Something else was controlling them.
It wasn't God, because I know how those people lived the rest of the week.
I know what they preached in the pulpits, a bunch of lies out of hell.
It wasn't God.
God never talks in gibberish in the whole Bible.
The Bible says in Acts 2, when they speak with other tongues,
first of all, it lists 17 foreign languages.
It lists them off.
It says these are the nations of the languages they were speaking.
And they said, how is it that we hear in our own tongue?
Everybody was understanding the word of God.
No gibberish was involved.
Nobody sat and said, what in the world is that person saying?
No, it was people understanding something.
It was very much an orderly thing.
It wasn't some confusing mess.
I'm sitting there. I'm seeing all this happen.
I'm getting real nervous.
I'd never been exposed to tongue-speaking, so I didn't know what it was.
So I'm just sitting there like, good night.
And I kept waiting for the sermon to start.
It just never happened.
They just had more music, more music.
And then they would just talk for about 30 seconds and then have another song.
And they never had the sermon the whole time.
But finally, this guy comes out, and I thought that the sermon hadn't even begun yet.
I'm waiting for the preaching.
And he starts having the invitation.
If you've been in churches a lot, you know what an invitation is,
where they have people come down the aisle or whatever.
You have an invitation, and he says,
if you just need to recommit yourself to God.
This is some feel-y thing.
It's like something vague.
It's not even really specific at all.
Or maybe you just haven't spoken tongues in a while.
Then just come on down.
And when I heard that, I was like, whoa, that's what this is.
Duh.
Now I get you down.
I'm like, ding.
Now I understand what's going on.
I got out of my seat.
I walked out of there scared to death.
And I just sat outside for a while, and I was waiting for my friends to come out,
but I could just still hear the music just pounding inside.
Just pounding and pounding, just on and on and on.
So I just picked up, I think I borrowed, I'm trying to remember what I did.
I think I might have walked to a pay phone,
because it was in downtown Roosevelt, California.
I walked over to a pay phone and just called my friends.
I'm like, Mom and Dad, can you just come pick me up?
And then they came and picked me up, and I got out of there, thank God.
But that was my experience in a charismatic church.
Now that's the only time you're going to find in the Bible,
somebody talking with other voices, somebody slobbering on themselves,
somebody falling on the ground when they're demon-possessed.
You may not like that, but it's the truth.
And how about this?
Ted Haggard, Ted Faggard is what I'd call him,
and this great leader of evangelicalism, Ted Faggot,
well, he was caught with this, you know, gay posture.
Guess where he graduated from college?
Oral Roberts College.
I don't know if you know about him.
He's the guy who saw the 900-foot Jesus.
He's like, send in your money.
You never heard of this?
He had a vision where he saw a 900-foot Jesus,
statue, an image, a graven image of a 900-foot Jesus,
and he's like, send in your money, we're going to make this a reality.
We're going to build this 900-foot Jesus.
Okay, you heard about this stuff, come on.
But anyway, he's a charismatic, you know, he's like a Benny Hinn,
like, you know, like, slap people on the forehead and all that kind of stuff.
And that's who this guy is.
And that's who this guy graduated from his college.
He's a charismatic, he's a liberal, and you say,
Pastor Anderson, why is it that you are not afraid to get up
and just rip on another church?
I mean, good night, you shouldn't be criticizing anybody now.
Look, we know what he's like now, don't we?
We know what the devil is like now, don't we?
That devil who called himself a pastor,
who's teaching 14,000 people that you can lose your salvation,
who's teaching 14,000 people to speak in tongues
and be worldly and liberal and not believe the Bible literally
and use the NIV, you know, use the King James Bible, use the NIV.
And what's he doing on the weekend?
He's out with some gay prostitute, filthy animal.
Now, look, and this is what made me sick about it.
And, you know, getting a little bit off track with the sermon,
but that's all right.
But this is what made me so sick about it.
So I'm driving down the road, you know, in the middle of the desert,
listening to this on the radio, you know, getting the news.
And they're playing the phone calls of the guy on the news
where he's saying, like, hey, how you doing?
You know, I need another $200 supply.
And he's just, like, cheerful.
He sounds like he's ordering a pizza.
And he's, like, ordering more drugs and more, you know what,
from this guy on the radio.
And he's playing it, you know.
And the guy admitted to it.
I mean, he said that he did it, right?
But at first he was only admitting to part of it,
and then today he, like, admitted to everything and just said it's all true.
Well, these conservative talk show hosts are getting on the radio,
and they're, like, defending the guy.
And I'm just, it made me sick.
And then, you know, I'm just flipping channels.
And it's, like, then there's some religious program.
And he's defending the guy.
People show terrible when people, when pastors fall into sin.
Fall into sin?
That sounds like he's a victim or something.
Fall into sin?
He's a pervert.
He's an animal.
He's filthy.
He's ungodly.
He's a liar.
He's a hypocrite.
Fall into sin?
They're nuts.
These people are crazy.
I heard somebody once say liberalism is a mental disorder.
I think they're right.
I like that.
I think that couldn't be any more true,
that liberalism is, like, a mental disease.
I mean, if you want to put somebody on dope,
you know, put the liberals on dope.
Give them something for their disease
where they're so stupid to call somebody who solicits
this kind of a sodomite.
He fell into sin.
That's what they're saying.
Well, you know what?
As long as he repents, you know, like,
he just needs to repent,
and then maybe he could be restored to the ministry.
Like, and then one day he can pastor again.
I mean, are these people nuts, or is it just me?
I mean, sometimes I just feel like,
hello, is anybody out there?
I have a brain in their head.
I mean, as long as I just feel like I'm just on some island
of reality, and the whole world's like the twilight zone,
when I hear these people talk, I mean, to me,
it's just insanity to say that the guy,
yeah, we should restore him.
You know what God, this is how God says to restore him.
Put him in the center of a big group of people.
Everybody pick up a rock and throw a rock at him until he's dead.
That's how you restore him.
That's what the Bible says.
If you don't like that, you need to read the Bible.
You need to read the Bible.
You need to read the law.
The law of the Lord is perfect, the Bible says,
converting the soul.
So read the laws of God,
and then compare them to the laws of our country,
and see which one you like better,
because I'll go with God's laws.
And God says the death penalty is for homos.
And so I'm not here to tell you whether I like that or not,
or whether you like it or not.
And by the way, I do like that.
But I'm not here to tell you.
I'm just here to tell you what the Bible says.
And go read it for yourself and say to show that self-approved,
and you'll see that that's the truth.
And so I was just enraged.
You should have heard me.
You should have been in that car with me
and just heard me screaming and yelling at the radio,
just yelling.
And then these conservative talk show hosts,
who are supposedly just so right-wing and so right,
they're defending the guy.
Why are they defending him?
I'll tell you why.
Because they say it hurts our little political agenda.
It hurts the elections on Tuesday,
because people are going to think that this is a joke,
or his Christianity is a joke.
Why don't you just face the truth?
And you know what?
If it was an independent fundamental Baptist,
I'm not going to defend the sucker.
I'll cast the first stone.
I'll be the first one, friend.
I'll be there with the rock, and I'll be the first one to do it.
Because I'm going to tell you something.
Nobody is above the laws of God.
Nobody is above being judged by God.
And so don't tell me that...
Just like they make excuses for Mark Foley.
Mark Foley, the Republican senator who was molesting children.
And he got found out.
And he said, well, a Catholic priest molested me as a kid.
It was a shock.
And he said, and that's why I do it.
And he resigned and everything like that.
Doesn't go to jail for it.
And I can understand this, why these people don't go to jail.
Doesn't go to jail, he just loses his office.
And these Republicans are, oh yeah, I don't know why they're just crucifying the guy.
Oh, they're just trying to destroy these people's character.
Trying to destroy this pastor.
Look, he needs to be destroyed.
The Bible says that people like him are made to be taken and destroyed.
That's what the Bible says.
Look it up.
And so I'm going to tell you something.
I'm not going to defend somebody because they are supposedly Christian.
Or they're supposedly conservative.
And by the way, all those people are just flaming liberals compared to the Bible.
They're like so left wing it's not even funny.
They're so far in left field, I can't even see them.
I don't even know where they are.
I can't even see them, they're so far away from what I believe.
But they're considered the right wing, you know, fundamental.
Because the rest of the world has drifted so far.
That's the world that we're living in.
But I'm going to tell you something.
You can't have confidence in a man.
And 14,000 people are just shocked and upset because their confidence was in man.
Number one, you know, their confidence is in their pastor.
And their pastor is a pervert.
And their confidence is in work salvation.
And they don't believe the gospel.
And it's a sad truth when they realize what's really going on.
You know, they would have realized it someday anyway.
But at least now they're realizing it sooner.
I'm glad that this sucker got exposed.
At least now they could realize a little bit of the bogus reality of where they're going to church.
And maybe they'll get into a real church that actually priests the Bible.
And not the New Life Church.
Which is just a big rock concert and a big social club.
But I'm going to tell you, you know, even among people who do believe the Bible.
Even among people who do preach the Bible.
There are people who will let you down.
I mean, I think about my heroes, pastors that I've looked up to.
People that have taught me and preached to me the Word of God throughout my life.
I can't hardly think of any of them who still are standing by what they believe now.
I mean, how many of them have fallen by the wayside?
How many of them have compromised for money?
How many of them have compromised? I don't know why.
How many of them have turned out to be phonies and weirdos?
I'm going to tell you something. Your confidence cannot be in a man.
Not any man.
Don't put your confidence in me. Don't put your confidence in anybody.
Put your confidence in the Lord. He's never going to let you down.
And he's never going to betray you.
And sometimes people will...
I can think about churches that I went to where there was a huge, big church.
Soul-winning church. People getting saved. The Bible's being preached.
Great church. The pastor did something dishonest.
You know, it wasn't anything like this kind of a scenario or anything.
But, you know, he did some dishonest things.
The church fell apart.
And those people just threw up their hands.
And just say, well, nuts to Christianity.
You know, nuts to the Bible. Nuts to the Baptist.
And what do they do? They use that as an excuse to not live for God.
But, see, their problem is that their trust was never in the Lord.
Their confidence was in man, and that's why man let them down.
Your loved ones are going to let you down. Your friends are going to let you down.
Your friends and your darkest hour are going to turn their back on you.
We've all been there.
And you must realize that when my mother and my father forsake me,
then the Lord will take me up.
The Bible says that there's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
The person who's always going to be there for you.
The person who's always going to be loyal to you.
He said, I am the Lord. I change not.
Jesus Christ, the same.
Yesterday and today and forever.
He says, I'm not going to change. I'm always here.
I'm always the same. You can always count on me.
I'm always there for you.
I'm always going to believe the same thing I've always believed.
I'm always going to have the same thing written in my word that's always been written in my word.
I love this verse.
I mean, if I had to say what my life verse is, it would have to be this verse.
This center verse in the Bible. Such a great verse.
But it's interesting, this whole trilogy of Psalm 117 and Psalm 118 and Psalm 119 creates here.
Because you have to understand that if we talk about having our trust in the Lord,
we can't ever separate the Lord from his word.
You know, a lot of people try to separate God and his word, mistakenly.
When in reality, the Bible says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
The Bible says, sanctify them through thy truth.
In John 17, 17, thy word is truth.
He said, this is how you define truth. It's the Bible.
Thy word is... He didn't say thy word is true.
He said, thy word is truth. Thy word is truth.
Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.
And then what did he say? I am the way, the truth, and the life.
He says, I'm the truth. My word's the truth.
The word became flesh. The word of God, the Bible.
And you say, well, no, no, you don't understand. There's two words of God.
There's the word of God that's Jesus, and then there's the word of God that's the Bible, and they're totally separate.
Look, what kind of a goofy name is that?
I think I'm going to call Jesus the Word.
Word, brother.
I mean, why are you going to call him Word if he's not a bunch of letters forming together into syllables
and making consonants and sounds and forming together into sentences?
That's what words are.
Words are letters that you put together and put into a syllable, and they have meaning and signification.
It's called the Word, the same reason why the Bible's called the Word of God,
because they're both one and the same.
Because before the world ever began, the Word of God, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.
And then that Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
See, it's so easy to understand that the Word of God and God are inseparable.
This book is as infinite as God is.
The Bible says we have the mind of Christ.
It's right here in this book. We can read the Bible and know the mind of Christ,
know the mind of God, because this book is God.
I'm not talking about the physical book being God.
I'm not going to bow down and worship a physical book, a physical object, like an idol,
but I will worship the words of God.
Maybe that's why David said seven times a day will I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.
He says, I'll praise the Lord. He's going to praise the Word of God.
But let me show you something in Psalm 117.
The shortest chapter in the Bible must be significant.
Psalm 117, and we're remembering that the Word of God and God, I mean, you can't separate the two.
And so when we talk about trusting the Lord instead of trusting man,
really what we're talking about is trusting the Word of God instead of what a man tells us.
You know, we're trusting the Word of God as our authority.
Look at Psalm 117. Oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations.
Praise him, all ye people, for his merciful kindness is great toward us,
and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
Praise ye the Lord.
You say, what is the shortest chapter in the Bible about?
What is Psalm 117 about? It's about the preservation of God's Word.
That's what it's about. He says, the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
Praise the Lord. Glory to God.
That's what it says, isn't it? Oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations.
Praise him, all ye people, for his merciful kindness is great toward us.
Why? Why is his merciful kindness so great toward us?
And the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
Praise ye the Lord. That's what it's talking about.
God's Word has been preserved, that's what we talked about on Wednesday night.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
It's easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one shot or one tittle to pass from the law,
till all be fulfilled. This is the preservation of God's Word.
And then we get into Psalm 118, and it's better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in man.
And then we get to that great chapter, Psalm 119, great chapter, 176 verses.
Every single one of them talks about the Word of God.
That's what the whole chapter's about.
God's Word mentioned in 176 verses of just solid praising the Word of God.
Do you see the common thread here of this trilogy of Psalm 117 through 119?
Look at Psalm 119, verse 1.
I wish we could just read the entire chapter, but I won't do that for the sake of time.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord.
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies and that seek him with the whole heart.
They also do no iniquity. They walk in his ways.
Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes.
Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy commandments.
I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
I will keep thy statutes, though forsake me not utterly.
Now, this is interesting because the first seven verses of this chapter, 176 verses long,
well, the first seven use a different word for the Word of God each time.
In each of the seven verses, it uses a different word about the Word of God.
And then throughout the next 169 verses, it uses one of those seven words in every verse.
Isn't that interesting?
So it introduces them in the first seven, doesn't repeat them in the first seven,
and then it just uses those over and over and over and over again throughout.
Look at what they are.
The first verse, the law, is what God calls his word.
The second verse, his testimonies.
The third verse, his ways.
Fourth verse, his precepts. That's another word for laws.
Fifth verse, statutes. Again, laws.
Sixth verse, commandments.
And seventh verse is judgments.
Those are the seven words that he uses besides just calling it the Word of God.
But he introduces these seven words and uses them throughout the chapter.
Look at the second section, Beth.
Now, this section talks about memorizing the Bible.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?
How's he going to clean up his life?
How's he going to get the sin and the filth out of his life?
And by the way, a young man who's getting saved right now,
he's got a lot to cleanse about his way in our day in 2006 in the United States.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
With my whole heart have I sought thee, O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Listen to this.
Thy word thy hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.
Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes.
With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches.
I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways.
I will delight myself in thy statutes.
I will not forget thy word.
And so look at the references to memorizing the Bible.
We see in verse number 11, he says,
Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.
He says, Teach me thy statutes in the next verse.
Verse 13, he says,
With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
He's saying every verse in the Bible not only is something that I read,
but it's something that I speak with my mouth.
He's talking about meditating in the word of God, speaking God's word throughout the day.
I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches.
Look at verse 15.
And this word is introduced in Psalm 119, the first time it's used.
I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways.
And then, of course, verse 16, I will delight myself in thy statutes.
I will not forget thy word.
He says, I'm going to learn it, and I'm not going to forget it.
Now, that word meditate, I've taught this before,
but it's used exactly seven times also,
which is God's perfect number of perfection, completion.
He uses those seven words for the word of God.
And then he uses the word meditate or meditation seven times within Psalm 119.
Meditating is where you're mulling something over in your mind over and over.
You're thinking about something. You're dwelling on something.
Now, don't just meditate about God's word.
You can think about all the things in the Bible.
You can think about the Bible. That's not what God wants you to do.
He wants you to meditate on God's word itself.
And in order to meditate on God's word, you must know God's word.
You must know God's word in your mind.
You must not forget his word if you're going to meditate on it.
The third section, gimel, as it's called.
By the way, these are Hebrew letters of the alphabet.
There's 22 letters in their alphabet, much like we have 26 letters, A through Z.
This is their alphabet, and they have 22 letters,
and for each letter, he gives eight verses.
It's kind of like the A through Z of God's word.
Look at the third one, so this would be like the letter C.
Verse 17, deal bountifully. This is talking about loving the Bible.
Deal bountifully with thy servant that I may live and keep thy word.
Open now mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
I am a stranger in the earth. Hide not thy commandments from me.
My soul breaketh for the long that it hath under thy judgments at all times.
Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed which do her from thy commandments.
Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept thy testimonies.
Princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes.
Thy testimonies are my delight and my counselors.
Now then, just for sake of time, I'll just read a few of my favorite verses from the chapter.
Look at verse 71.
Kind of goes in line with this morning's sermon, Psalm 119, 71.
It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn my statutes.
He says, God, I'm glad for any bad thing that you brought into my life.
I'm glad for the pain that I've endured in my life.
I'm glad for the afflictions that you've given me because I know that you gave them to me so I could learn the Bible.
So I could learn what your statutes mean.
So I could learn what the wisdom of God is, what the Bible is.
Because there's something about living life for God and suffering for God and being afflicted for God and by God
that just somehow gives depth to the Bible like nothing else.
And so he says it's good for me that I've been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes.
Another verse that I like. I'm just going through a couple of my favorites.
Of course, verse 105.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
Verse 130.
The entrance of thy words giveth light.
It giveth understanding unto the simple.
What's the simple? It's someone who's not very intelligent is what the Bible is talking about here.
A simpleton. Somebody who's just not that sharp.
They're not exactly working on calculus and stuff like that.
They're simple. They're kind of on like 5 times 3 is 15.
They're not really to the point of functions and stuff like that.
Differential calculus and all that kind of stuff.
So how does a simple person get understanding?
How does a simple person gain intelligence?
Well, it's right here. The Bible.
The entrance of thy words.
Words, not word.
The entrance of thy words.
See how God always emphasizes the words.
Not the thoughts, not the ideas.
The words. Remember how the truth of the Lord endureth forever?
That's why I have a Bible that doesn't change.
That's why I have a Bible that's been exactly the same for the last 400 years.
And before that it was the same in another language.
That's why I don't get the Bible of the month club sent to me.
You know, the NIV, the RSV, the ASV, the NIV, the HIV, whatever you want to call it.
Because my Bible doesn't change.
Because the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
Because, he said, my words shall not pass away.
So don't tell me the two Bibles that say two different things are both right.
I'm not that stupid. I'm not simple.
I'm not a simpleton.
Because I read the Bible and I got understanding
and I know that two things that are different are not the same.
Isn't that deep?
But, it's amazing how...
You say, how do you have that deep understanding, Pastor Anderson?
To know that two verses that say something completely different are not the same.
How did you figure that out?
I mean, you must be a genius.
You must have taken years of calculus in college
and you must have just mastered the English language to understand that.
Well, no. This is all it is.
Because when you study the Bible, you have the wisdom of God.
But the Bible says the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
And that's why we're sitting in this room tonight thinking,
what kind of a fool is this theologian who's been studying his whole life
and reading books, he's got a big library, he's studying, saying, saying.
And he'll tell you, use whatever Bible version you want.
He doesn't even understand the most basic principle of algebra.
You know, that if you have a two on this side of the equation,
you have x plus one over here, hey, x is one because it's got a balance.
Because if you have an equal sign, they both have to be the same thing.
But if you have over here,
blesser are they that wash their robes and blesser are they that do his commandments,
in Revelation 22, 14, those are just two very different things.
And so those could not have come out of the mouth of God.
One of them came out of the mouth of God,
and one of them came out of the only person's mouth who wants to corrupt the word of God
and change the word of God from day one, the devil.
So you want the devil's Bible or do you want God's Bible?
You say, you're oversimplifying.
No, you're oversimple.
And I'm overunderstanding.
And I'm oversimplifying something that's simple,
because two plus two is four, and things that are different aren't the same.
And so that's another one of my favorites.
Verse 131, the next verse.
I opened my mouth and panted.
I love that verse.
I opened my mouth and panted for I longs for thy commandments.
He said I was like panting like a dog,
like somebody's been walking through the desert for days is what I picture.
They're just so thirsty, they haven't had anything to drink.
He says, and another part,
my tongue cleaveth to the roof of my mouth.
He says I'm just so thirsty for God's word.
He said that's how I feel about the Bible,
and I can't wait to get in and just take a big gulp of the Bible,
because my tongue is cleaving and I opened my mouth and panted,
for I longed for thy commandments.
Boy, is that your attitude toward the Bible?
Is that the desire that you have for the Bible?
Do you love the world or do you love the Father?
That's what it is.
If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Do you pay it for,
I can't wait until the next episode of American Idol.
Oh, man, the new Star Wars Part 20 is coming out.
I want to find out if Darth Vader is really Princess Leia's ex-husband
or a stupid thing.
Oh, I'm going to miss my soul.
I've got to get home and watch sports.
Hey, pay it for the word of God.
Don't pay it for the world.
You say, well, I pay it for both.
No, you don't.
You pay it for one or you pay it for the other.
Do you love the world or do you love God?
I like panting from preaching, so I need a glass of water.
Verse 160, I like this one too.
Excuse me, I need to do a little more panting.
I need some water here.
Psalm 119, verse 160.
Thy word is true from the beginning,
and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever.
Again, the preservation of God's word all throughout this chapter is great.
I love this one, verse 164.
Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.
I love that.
He says seven times every day I just stop and just say,
God, the Bible is so great.
I love the Bible so much, I just love reading it.
I mean, he said that seven times a day.
Now, look, when Dave is writing this, do you think he's telling the truth?
I mean, he's penning it at the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
I mean, literally, seven times a day David prays God for how great the Bible is.
And then verse 165, great peace have they which love thy law,
and nothing shall offend them.
That's why I preach the way I do, because I know that you love the Bible.
I know you love the God, so nothing offends you, right?
Right?
And then the last verse, I love the last verse, verse 176.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep.
Seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments.
You know, which brings me to my favorite part of the whole book,
which is verses 97 through 104.
It's my personal favorite out of the alphabet here,
is the section of the letter M.
And the Bible says, oh, how love I thy law.
It is my meditation all the day, all day long.
I mean, you've got to take this literally.
You've got to think about it.
It's all day long.
It's just thinking about the Bible, meditating on the Bible,
quoting the Bible in his mind, in his mouth.
Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than mine enemies,
for they are ever with me.
He's not saying the enemies are ever with me.
He's saying thy commandments are ever with me,
because I'm meditating on them day and night.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for thy testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
I have refrained my feet from every evil way,
that I might keep thy word.
He says, in order for me to keep God's word,
in order for me to, here would be our modern word,
retain God's word, as I tried to memorize it,
he says I had to turn from some evil ways
that hindered me from memorizing the Bible.
You know, if your mind's full of rock music,
you're going to have a tough time memorizing the Bible,
I'll tell you that right now.
I know that from experience,
because there was a time when I listened to a lot of rock music,
and I used to try to memorize the Bible back then.
There's just so much in your mind.
You just have such a busy, messed up mind.
But when you get it all cleared out of all the garbage,
and the movies, and the rock music,
and you can just be still, and know that he is God,
and you can meditate on the word of God,
and it's like sweeter than honey to your mouth,
is what the Bible says.
It says, I have not departed from thy judgments,
for thou hast taught me.
How sweet are thy words unto my taste,
yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
Through thy precepts I get understanding,
therefore I hate every false way.
You know, I try to emphasize this to everybody that I can.
I try to preach this,
because I just think it's so extremely important,
memorizing the Bible.
I mean, I talk to young men that are going to be preachers,
and I talk to maybe young preachers,
or other preachers that have talked to me about this,
and where I always emphasize them,
I say, you know, you want to pastor a church?
You want to start a church?
You're going to be a preacher?
This is how you prepare yourself.
It's not some Bible college somewhere
that's just going to prepare you,
and they're just going to fire you up.
It's not some mail-in course,
some correspondence course that you're going to take.
It's not some theology book that you're going to study.
I say, memorize the Bible.
You want your sermons to have content?
You want to have them have some depth and some meaning?
You want to read the Bible and understand the Bible?
You want to get up and preach with the power of God?
Then preach with the Word of God.
And I try and tell them, memorize the Bible.
Memorize the Bible.
Memorize it.
And all these things,
and by the way, let me point out really quickly
that it's interesting.
The word meditation, of course,
was used seven times in Psalm 119.
It's used twice in only this one section,
mem, which is like memorize.
It's the letter M.
And it uses the word meditation twice,
and the whole thing is about memorizing the Bible.
It's interesting.
But I try to emphasize this because...
Let me get some more water here.
It's like, and this is what I want to explain.
I'm going to close with this,
but I'm trying to think of the best way to explain this,
but it's kind of like there are barriers in people's minds,
you know, psychological barriers.
You know what I'm talking about?
Where, like I remember,
this is just kind of a goofy illustration,
but I remember when I lived just right on the border
between Indiana and Illinois,
and you'd ask somebody where something is,
and they'd send you like 20 minutes away in Indiana.
But it's like right over the border
there's one right there in Illinois, you know,
like whether it's a Sam's Club or a Walmart
or this restaurant.
Oh yeah, it's over out there.
And they'll send you like 25 minutes away.
And I'm like, why didn't you send me the one right there?
But like it's just this psychological boundary.
Even though it's like five blocks away,
that's Illinois, you know?
I don't know if you've ever lived on a state line.
That's kind of the mentality, though.
You know, people can live, and you live in Chicagoland,
so like people would live like way out
in like Rockford or something.
It's like, oh yeah, Rockford, you know,
but it's like, you live in Indiana?
You live in Hammond, Indiana?
And it's like 20 minutes away.
It's like right there.
But you know, there's psychological boundaries.
There was a man, I'm trying to remember what his name was,
but he was the first man to ever run a four-minute mile.
Does anybody know what his name is?
This is back in like the 1950s or something.
It's on the tip of my tongue.
Don't you hate that?
It's Bannister, Roger Bannister.
Okay, he broke the record and ran a four-minute mile.
And when Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile,
nobody's ever done it,
within a month somebody else broke it.
Isn't that amazing?
And then just within the next two years,
like 12 people broke it.
And now high school students
literally run four-minute miles in different areas.
Isn't that amazing?
Why?
Because once somebody had broken that psychological barrier,
there were even doctors back then who said, you know,
the human body is not capable of running a four-minute mile.
They said it just can't be done.
And they are, you know, four minutes and two seconds,
four minutes and one second, you know.
And it was just that barrier.
And once Roger Bannister did that,
they called it the Bannister Effect,
because after that it was just boom, boom, boom.
People started breaking it.
And I remember one time when I was in high school,
somebody told me, they said,
my grandma has Psalm 119 memorized.
And I was like, what?
Psalm 119 memorized?
I was like, is that even possible?
And it's only 176 verses,
but I'm like, I can't even believe that.
And I almost didn't even believe the guy.
I'm like, come on.
Psalm 119, that's pretty long.
If you told me she had Psalm 117 memorized,
I'd be like, oh, bless her heart, you know.
Like, Psalm 119, good night.
But then once he told me, I started thinking about that,
and I looked at it, and I was like,
I'm going to memorize Psalm 119, piece of cake.
And I never did it, you know,
because I was just a teenager and everything.
And I got into the third letter here.
I still remember this, because I was younger,
and I just, you know, you start stuff, you lose interest.
I got to like verse 20, you know, blew it off.
But anyway, and then I remember later on,
I met somebody who said,
I know a guy who has memorized the entire book of Romans.
And I was like, what?
There's no way.
The book of Romans, 16 chapters?
He can quote the whole thing?
Yeah, quote the whole thing.
And at first I didn't believe it.
But then I started thinking about it, and I was like, yeah.
Because, you know, if you break it down
and do a couple verses a day, you can do it.
You know, it will work.
And then I remember when I was in college,
I was thinking to myself, you know what?
I'm going to set a goal for myself.
I'm going to memorize the whole book of Hebrews.
And I broke it down that, you know, in the next,
it should take me three years, you know what I mean?
It was like a big long, like three years.
I'm going to memorize the whole book of Hebrews.
Then my wife was finding something for me
on the internet, and she stumbled upon this website
that said, like, you can memorize the New Testament
in five years, the whole New Testament,
and just have it committed to memory.
And I looked at it, and I said, that's not true.
There's no way.
I said, it's a scam.
There's no way anybody could do that.
But then I started reading about it, and I was like,
totally do it.
And you see what I mean?
Are you kind of getting my point?
You know, as long as we set the bar so low for ourselves,
you know, we're just like trying to memorize
a couple verses or something.
And you know, that's great.
That's a great place to start.
But don't have these psychological barriers
of it can't be done, or I can't do it,
or I don't have a good memory, or all this kind of excuses.
Because to be honest with you,
I don't have that great of a memory.
I couldn't even remember Roger Bannister's name
for a few minutes.
You know, just kidding.
You know, my wife has a talent for memorizing the Bible.
She can memorize a chapter of the Bible in, like,
two hours, literally.
I mean, she can just sit down and work on it
and memorize a chapter in a couple hours.
I mean, she is just unbelievable.
Me, I'll literally, I've spent like an hour
on one verse before, where I'll just get stuck.
You know, and the record will get stuck,
and it's just like, uh, uh, uh.
And I just cannot memorize any further.
But you know, if you work at that thing
and just train your mind and work at it
and work at it and work at it and work at it,
I've overcome that, and I'm to the point now
where I can memorize the Bible very easily.
And now it's like the book of Hebrews?
It's like I said, I'm going to memorize
the book of Hebrews in the next three years.
I had it memorized in like two months, done.
It's like, what's next? What's the next book?
On and on and on. Now my goal?
Hey, I'm trying to memorize the whole New Testament.
I'm a third of the way done right now.
And one day, my goal is to memorize the entire Bible,
which I don't think anybody's ever done
in the history of mankind.
And if you find out, I've researched it
and tried to figure it out.
I can't find anybody who has memorized the entire Bible.
I hope they haven't, because I want to be the first one.
They're like, this is, and you say that,
you're nuts, you're crazy.
Yeah, but if you break it down and look at it,
it'll take like 20 years or something to do it.
But it can be done.
And so I try to tell these guys, I'm just like,
memorize the Bible. Learn the Bible.
Get God's Word in your heart.
Get the power of God on your life
where you can preach the Word of God,
where you're talking to somebody and giving them the gospel
and you can just tell them.
Because see, this is what the Holy Spirit said.
He said, all things that Jesus said
that the Holy Spirit would bring to remembrance
the things that Jesus had told them.
And so here's the thing.
If you have God's Word in your mind,
it's like an arsenal.
It's like a library where if you're talking to somebody
and you need a certain verse to show them something,
to win them the Lord,
it's like you reach into your quiver of arrows.
And if you've got like two verses,
it's like, well, that's all I got.
You know, is it, should I use John 3.16 or Romans 6.23?
You know, that's all you got.
And if that's all you got, hey, you can win people the Lord.
You can do a great work for God.
But, boy, if you could just get just exactly the right verse,
boom.
You know, or especially when I'm talking to these men,
these younger men and stuff, you know,
and they're my age and stuff like that
and they're thinking about going to the ministry.
It's like, I'm just telling them,
think about while you're preaching,
you can just pull off the verse that just fits your sermon.
You can just preach it.
And not be one of these guys that misquotes the Bible
all the time and changes it and everything.
You preach it right.
And I try to tell them that if you have God's Word in your mind
and in your heart, it will change your life.
It will revolutionize the way that you study the Bible.
I've studied the Bible in the last couple of years
because I've been working on this plan
where I'm memorizing whole chapters of the Bible
on a weekly basis.
I've been working on it since April 15, 2005.
So just basically a year and a half,
just like a little over a year and a half now.
I'm going to tell you something.
My understanding of the Bible has been revolutionized.
I mean, I see parallels in things that I never saw before.
I mean, I'll be reading one page
that pops in my mind because I haven't memorized.
And so don't underestimate your ability to memorize the Bible.
Jumpstart your Christianity.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way
by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
Hey, get the Word of God in your heart
so that you can not sin against God.
That's what he said.
And that goes back to the first verse of the chapter.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way
who walk in the law of the Lord.
He says the way to be undefiled in life,
the way to live a clean life,
the way to be pure from sin.
And I'm not talking about being 100 percent pure from sin.
That's nobody.
But the way to clean up your life
is to walk just always in the law of the Lord.
I mean, the law of the Lord is just with you all day.
That's what this whole chapter is about.
That's what this whole Psalm 119 is about,
having the Word of God ever with you,
loving it, desiring it, meditating on it,
knowing it, learning it, praising it to God.
And I'm going to tell you something.
Memorizing the Bible will revolutionize your life.
You know, and just start small.
Start memorizing a few verses.
Memorize a small chapter.
You know, what we were working on in the bulletin.
You know, Psalm 1.
Memorize Psalm 1.
Memorize Psalm 23.
Just one of these short passages,
and then work up to something bigger.
You know, and don't say,
well, you know, that's for kids.
It's not for kids.
It's for adults.
It's for everybody.
And this is what I do.
I'll show you what I do.
I got it in my pocket right here.
I print this out off the Internet.
Actually, not off the Internet.
It's a program called Esau.
And I just print these off right here.
And it's a chapter from the Bible.
And just every time I have a free moment,
every time I start panting,
every time I get a little thirsty,
I just pull this out and just look at it
and just meditate on that for a while.
And if you do it, I mean,
if you look at it every 5 minutes
or every 10 minutes or every 15 minutes,
you're memorizing a lot of the Bible if you do that.
You just have it mulling over in your head all day.
Or I used to do flashcards in my shirt pocket right here.
And I just pull out that card.
Ladies, while you're doing the dishes,
while you're cleaning up the house,
let's face it,
all of us do a lot of brainless, mindless labor.
A lot of my job is just turning a screwdriver,
pulling wires,
just doing repetitive actions.
What am I going to think about?
Just being La La Land?
An idle mind is the devil's workshop,
is what they say.
So I don't drift around in La La Land.
I get the Word of God and just mull it over in my mind
and just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it
and quote it and quote it and quote it and quote it.
You say, that's boring.
How are you going to quote the Bible all day long?
You're going to get sick of it.
Well, that's why he interposes so much.
Meditate on the Bible?
Man, I love the Bible.
I mean, when you read through the chapter,
someone might think,
man, I just love the Bible.
I meditate on it all day long.
You see how those two go hand in hand?
And you say, well, I just don't love the Bible like that.
Well, the more you read it,
taste and see that the Lord is good, the Bible says.
The more you read it, the more you meditate on it,
the more that you'll love it.
Get the Word of God in your mind.
Get it in your heart.
Get it to where it just consumes you every part of your life
and your life will be changed for the better
and you'll be a better soul winner.
You'll be a better servant for God.
And this is why I'm going to close with this.
Why are these three chapters together like this,
117, 118, 119?
I'll tell you why.
Because if you don't know the Bible,
then your confidence will be in man.
See, Psalm 117 is saying the Bible is available.
It's preserved.
Psalm 118 is saying you must have your faith in the Bible
and not in what people say.
And then Psalm 119 is saying this is how you learn the Bible.
Let me teach you for 176 verses
how you clean up your life and how you learn the Bible.
And he says if you learn it,
then your confidence will be in the Lord and not in man.
Because listen, if you don't know the Bible,
if you don't memorize the Bible,
if you don't read the Bible incessantly,
you're at my mercy up here just to believe whatever I tell you
and just say, well, Pastor Anderson said, I guess it's true.
He knows the Bible better than I do.
Well, shame on you.
Learn the Bible and then you'll be able to know
whether what I'm saying is true
and then you won't have your confidence in a man
you'll have to trust in the Lord
because you read it yourself in the Bible
and you know the Bible.
You meditate on the Bible.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
God, thank you so much for this great trio of chapters.
Psalm 117, oh, praise the Lord,
because the Bible is preserved.
Psalm 118, my trust is in the Lord,
my confidence is not in man.
And then in Psalm 119,
I learn how to get the Word of God in me.
I learn how to get the Word of God controlling me
to where I won't have to have my confidence in man,
where I can know the truth and the truth will make me free
where I'm not relying on other people to spoon-feed me
whatever they want me to believe.
I'm not relying on the Ted Haggards of this world
to feed me a bunch of garbage
and lie to me and take me to hell.
No, my trust is in the Lord for salvation
and my trust is in the Lord to teach me the Bible,
not in a man who's going to let me down.
Father, we love you and thank you
that you're always faithful to us
and that you never will let us down.
And God, I just pray that you would help us all
to be better servants of yours, dear God,
that you could use in a great way.
Help us all to memorize the Bible
and learn the Bible like we should, dear God.
Well, sometimes my mind just gets weak.
Sometimes all of our minds get weak or cluttered
with just all the cares of this world.
We're all busy people.
But God, please just sharpen our minds
and give us the clarity to learn the Bible
so that we can know what the truth is,
so that we can use the Bible,
not just to be some smart, egg-headed professor somewhere,
but God, help us to know the Bible and learn the Bible
so that we can win people to Christ,
so we can teach the Bible,
so that we can change people's lives,
so that we can live our own lives for the glory of God,
and one day we'll get to heaven
and we'll all rejoice and praise God
because we were faithful to God
and we stuck in there and hung in there
and finished our course,
and we can rejoice with the great throng
and multitude of those that we won to Christ
and those that they won to Christ.
And we can all rejoice and be excited together,
a great day of gladness,
because we stayed with it,
because we meditated on the Word of God,
because we loved people
and we loved sinners enough
to where we would want to learn the Bible
and pay the price so that we could win them to Christ
and see great things happen for God.
Strengthen us, dear God.
Help us to be sharp arrows, dear God,
in your quiver, dear God.
Help us to be a powerful army
that can accomplish great things for you.
And we ask these things in Jesus' name.