Although I was raised in a Jewish home, I never owned a Bible until I was in college. And the only reason I bought one then is because a young man had been witnessing to me about Christ. And I decided, as I told you the other week, that the best way for me to defend and justify my unbelief was to show him the many errors and mistakes that I thought were in the Bible. But as I told you the other Sunday, not only didn't I find any errors or mistakes in the Bible, but in reading it, I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior. And so as an 18-year-old freshman, I found myself as a young Jewish man in a very difficult situation, because in believing the Bible, especially in believing the New Testament now, and in Jesus as Messiah, I now stood in complete opposition to my culture, the beliefs of my Jewish family, Jewish friends, and because of this I was continuously challenged and confronted by them to abandon my faith, because they said, the Bible is just wrong. And so very early in my Christian life, I was really assaulted with all kinds of attacks against the truthfulness of scripture. These attacks caused me to struggle with doubts as to the inspiration of the Bible. But I'll tell you what these attacks on the Bible did for me. is that they drove me to do some thinking and to do some research and to dig into the scriptures to determine if the Bible really was the Word of God. And what I concluded after looking at these charges against Scripture, was that the Bible not only claimed to be the Word of God, but it clearly evidenced itself to be the Word of God. And I came through this crisis of faith convinced of the inspiration and the trustworthiness of Scripture. But I'll tell you, more than just being convinced of these truths as doctrines to believe, I came to realize that because the Bible was indeed the Word of God, that I had to build my life upon it. that there really was no option to this. I had to build my life on it, and that it had to be the foundation of my life, the very cornerstone of my life, the very authority of my life. Now, this didn't mean that I had an answer to every objection raised against the Bible. I still don't. But it did mean that God convinced me that the Bible really was His inspired, inerrant Word, and that I could trust His Word, even though I could not answer all the difficulties brought up by my opponents. So, ultimately, I came to take the same approach on the difficulties in the Bible that the great Anglican bishop, J.C. Ryle, over a century ago took. He said this, ìGive me the plenary verbal theory of biblical inspiration with all of its difficulties rather than the doubt I accept the difficulties and I humbly wait for their solution but while I wait I'm standing on the rock well this morning I want to help you to stand firmly on the rock of the Word of God because it has been my observation over the years that there are many people who although they may know Jesus Christ as their Savior they don't base their lives as they should completely on the Word of God. In some respects, they're like the foolish man in the parable that Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount. Although he heard the words of Jesus, he sat there that day, he heard the Sermon on the Mount, he decided to build his house, which is really a metaphor for life. He decided to build it upon unstable, shifting sand rather than upon the solid rock of God's Word. Jesus said, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine, And acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and slammed against that house. And yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and slammed against that house, and it fell. And Jesus said, and great was its fall. Now, in context, our Lord is referring to believers and unbelievers. Believers are those who hear his words and then wisely decide to build their lives upon his words, and therefore they escape the flood of God's judgment when it comes. That's what he's talking about here. And unbelievers, by contrast, are the foolish ones who, although they hear and know Christ's words, they've chosen to build their lives upon the ever-changing thinking and philosophies of the world. And so when the floods of God's judgment come, they're going to sink and they're going to fall because the shifting, unstable sand that they've built their entire lives upon will not be able to support them. Philosophy will not help. in that day. Now as I said, In our Lord's parable, this contrast is between believers and unbelievers. However, it's also true that there are plenty of believers who know the Bible, but base too much of their lives on the flimsy ideologies of this world. It's as if they have one foot in the Bible when it comes to believing that Christ is their Savior, and the other foot in the world when it comes to making important decisions that affect And what they need to do, if they're going to be wise and obedient to God, is to get both feet on the solid rock of God's Word. Because only Scripture stands firm. Only Scripture will last forever. Everything else is really sinking sand. and to teach us why and how we should build our lives on the Word of God, we turn this morning to the God-breathed words of the psalmist found in Psalm 119, verses 89 through 96. This is the twelfth stanza of this psalm, and just a cursory glance, as you could recall what I read to you a few minutes ago, it just tells us that it stands in complete contrast to the tone and mood of the last stanza, the 11th stanza that we had been studying for the past few weeks. As you'll recall, with the 11th stanza, we reached the midway point of Psalm 119, but it also, we reached the lowest point in the psalmist's life. In the verses that comprise that stanza, this man tells us how forsaken he felt by God. Now, he wasn't forsaken, but he felt that way, abandoned. He told us that his soul was weary. He was just exhausted and drained from waiting for God to rescue him. His eyes had become strained, just looking for some glimmer of hope on the horizon that God might be moving to deliver him from his persecutors. He told us that like a neglected wineskin bottle, he too felt neglected, overlooked by God. In addition, he told us that out of desperation and a sense of urgency, he pleaded with God to preserve his life, to save his physical life. because evil men had dug a pit for him, and they were threatening to kill him and then throw him in that pit. But as we come to this twelfth stanza, as it begins, we see that God indeed has preserved this man's life. And in doing so, we find the psalmist a changed man. Because I tell you, as you look at these verses, these verses live and reside and breathe in a completely new atmosphere. Instead of telling us how low and abandoned he feels, the words of the psalmist now take on a ring of triumph and victory as he boldly tells us about his confidence in the Word of God and why he's chosen to build his life upon this Word. Concerning what we read in these verses and how it compares to the last stanza of fainting and weariness, James Montgomery Boyce says these wonderful words, said, it's as if he had been struggling on a pounding ocean surf trying desperately to reach land and had at last drawn himself up on a big rock standing by the shore or as if he had been sinking in quicksand and had suddenly found solid ground beneath his feet. That rock, that solid foundation is the Word of God. Now folks, what this man experienced in finding solid ground beneath his feet is exactly what you can experience even during a severe crisis if you place your confidence in the Word of God and build your life upon it To help us do this, the psalmist tells us why he chose to build his life on scripture. He gives us several key reasons, we'll see some today and Lord willing some next week, but several key reasons as to why the Bible became the foundation of his life, his faith, with the intent, and this is why he's writing this, the intention from his point of view is that it'll become the foundation for our faith, our life, those who are reading this. That's why he wrote it down, for our sakes. And so, if your faith is being assaulted, if you find yourself having doubts about the trustworthiness of Scripture, or if you just find that you have a very tepid, moderate, half-hearted relationship with the Bible, then listen to what the psalmist has to say about the various reasons his confidence was in God's Word. The first reason being this, He was confident in the Word of God because the Word of God never changes. Notice verse 89. Forever, O Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. I love this. It begins with very powerful words. Forever, O Lord, your Word is settled in heaven. But what does he mean by this? What does it mean to be settled in heaven? Well, it means that God's Word will never change. It is eternally fixed. It is eternally fixed in the sense that it is immovable. It is unchanging. It will endure forever. It is permanent. It is firm. It is unalterably secure so that it will never be modified, never be revised, never be rescinded. In fact, it is so fixed, it is so immovable that the psalmist says it is settled in heaven. And what he means by this is that God's word is standing firm in heaven and therefore it is out of the reach of man so that it cannot be altered by man. See, what the psalmist wants to impress upon our minds in this opening verse is that God's Word proceeds from Him, and since He resides in Heaven, His Word resides there too, and therefore it will forever remain unchanged because nothing can ever reach into Heaven to change it. And to illustrate the unchanging nature of God's Word, the psalmist mentions God's creation of the earth in verses 90 and 91. He says this, your faithfulness continues throughout all generations. You established the earth and it stands. They stand this day according to your ordinances. For all things are your servants now the first thing the psalmist tells us in these verses is how faithful God is to keep his word and to never change it he says that he is faithful to all generations meaning that what he promises people in ancient times you know what it still stands today it still stands for you it still stands for me he isn't only faithful to just one generation but to all generations so that God has told you you can count on him to tell your children, you can count on him to tell your children's children. He keeps what he has said and never changes. And the proof that he is faithful to keep his word to all generations, never changing the rules in the middle of the game, is illustrated by the fact that his word in relation to creation, it still stands. Just as it always has, it still stands. Notice what he says in the second part of verse 90. You establish the earth and it stands. Now in saying this, the psalmist is taking us back to the opening verses of Genesis where we read in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Nine times in the first chapter of Genesis we read, then God said. And whatever he said immediately happened. And the psalmist's purpose, the reason he's telling us about God's creation is to say that all the laws that God established back then when he spoke the world into existence, all those laws, they're still effective today. They're still in effect today. See, what the psalmist is saying is that you can trust God's word because when he speaks, his words are permanent and they're lasting. And the proof of this is the various laws God established when he created the earth. Because those laws still stand, they're still in operation. This is precisely what the psalmist means when he says in verse 91, they stand this day according to your ordinances, for all things are your servants. The things that stand, the they in this verse that the psalmist is referring to, are the very ordinances or laws that God established at creation. When he created the world, God also created certain laws to govern the world, such as the law of gravity, the law that keeps the water separated from the land, the law that keeps the planets in place, the law that governs the sun serving as light and warmth for the earth by day, and the moon and stars as lights for the earth at nighttime. When he created the earth, he created food to grow, and he created the animals and humans to exist, and he set in motion all the laws that would govern our existence and everything else on the earth. And what the psalmist is telling us is that in establishing these governing ordinances by his word, They still stand. They still stand. They stood when the psalmist wrote this. They still stand today. They continue to exist. They don't change. And the reason they don't change is because, notice this, he says, all things are your servants. What an incredible statement. In other words, the psalmist is humanizing all of the laws that God has created in governing the universe, calling them his servants. And he does this in order to convey the truth that these laws must obey what God says. They're His servants. So when He speaks, they listen and they must comply. Concerning these laws of nature established at creation and serving God as His servants, Bible teacher John Phillips said this, Thus it has been from that day to this, sunshine and shadow, sea time and harvest, summer and winter, and everywhere to earth's remotest bounds to the outer edges of the universe, God has established His Word. Everywhere there is evidence of law. All modern science is predicated on the fact that the laws of nature do not change the laws of light. and electricity, of heat and sound, of magnetism and gravity, of chemistry and physics, of biology and mathematics, all are established by the word of God. And such, he says, is the power of that word that the entire established order of nature sprang into being in response to the words, and God said. The psalmist observed that the laws established by God in creation, they still stood unchanged. The same is true today. When we put a kettle on the stove to heat water, we don't expect a few minutes later to get a block of ice. If we drop a lead weight, we don't expect it to fly off into the sky. Kettles and weights are His servants." Now folks, the truth, that God's Word is permanent, and it is changeless whether written down as in scripture or verbally given as in creation, it is a truth that should deeply impact all of us in the way that we think and the way that we live for several reasons. For one thing, it tells us that we should never be concerned about man's attacks on the Bible because no matter how viciously or aggressively the Bible is assaulted, the Bible will remain. It is not only changeless, it is permanent. God will preserve this changeless Word of His. History bears this out. In the early days of the Church, certain well-known philosophers tried to destroy the Bible by their arguments, but they couldn't. Scripture still stands. The Roman government, especially under the Emperor Diocletian, tried to extinguish the Bible, but it couldn't. The Bible still stands. The atheist Voltaire once held up a copy of the Bible and he boasted, he said, in 50 years I'll have this book in the morgue. Well, you know what? In 50 years he was in the morgue. And the Geneva Bible Society bought and owned his house, and you know what they used it for? To store Bibles. Isn't that ironic? And more recently, communist countries and oppressive governments have tried, but they have never been able, nor will they ever be able, to stamp out the Bible. Listen, don't worry, and don't be distracted by attacks on scripture. The Bible can hold its own. It will remain long after its foes have lived and died. Why? Because it is the eternal, changeless Word of God. Secondly, the fact that God's Word never changes means that everything down to the smallest, most minute detail that God has said in His Word, it will come to pass. You can count on it. Jesus said the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth shall pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the law until all is accomplished. Jesus said that not even the smallest letter, yod, of the Hebrew alphabet, or even the tiniest stroke of the pen on the pages of scripture, will fail to be fulfilled. Everything that God has said, everything in his word will take place. All the promises that you and I are counting on, all the prophecies that we believe will be fulfilled, will be fulfilled. All the truths about heaven and eternity that we are looking forward to, they all will be accomplished. You can trust scripture with your life right now and for all of eternity. I love what Jesus said in John 14, if it were not so, I would have told you. There's another important and practical truth that's related to what the psalmist said concerning God's word establishing the earth and it's this, the various elements of creation continue to be in effect because they are his servants bound to obey him. Now just think about that, what this means. is that all the forces of nature, what we would call the forces of nature, whether inanimate or animate, they're all at the Lord's beck and call to do His bidding of carrying out His commands. You see this so clearly in the Bible, for example, when Jonah ran from the Lord, the Lord ordered a storm and a mammoth fish to capture the rebellious prophet. And you know what? They obeyed him. I mean, where did they come from? They obeyed him. And when Jesus and his disciples were in a very fierce storm on the Sea of Galilee, the Lord rebuked the wind and said to the sea, hush, be still. And we read, and the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. In response, the disciples were not only afraid, they were absolutely stunned and surprised by this. But they shouldn't have been afraid, and they shouldn't have been stunned, they shouldn't have been surprised. Why? Because the winds, and the seas, and everything else have been obeying Jesus Christ since he created them. Now think about what this means for us. If all of the forces of nature are under his control, then you and I should never complain about how hot and humid it gets in Florida. I know you're thinking, ouch. Yeah, yeah. Because the laws that determine humidity and temperature are just doing what the Lord tells them to do. Nor should we ever fear harsh climate, because that too is God's servant, carrying out His orders. Nor should we ever fear anything in life, inanimate or animate, because our God is sovereign and nothing is out of His control. One of the great hymns of the faith that I love, and I listen to it often, is, Be Still My Soul. Because that song reminds me that Jesus is still in charge of everything, even the emotional storms that we go through. And just as He calmed the physical storm on the Sea of Galilee that day when He walked on earth among us, so He can calm the emotional storms that we go through now. I especially love the words from this hymn, Be Still My Soul. The waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below. I love that. Because it connects us. It connects us to the truth of the historical Jesus today. Today, he still does that. They do know his voice. He still rules over them to do his bidding because as the psalmist said, all things are your servants. And so this man has told us that his confidence is in the word of God because it never changes forever O Lord your word is settled in heaven but as he continues in this 12th stanza he gives us a second reason why he is just so confident in scripture that he has built his life upon it he tells us not only is the word changeless but secondly the word of God sustained him in his affliction notice verse 92 if your law had not been my delight then I would have perished in my affliction." Having just told us that God's Word is what preserves and sustains everything in the universe, now he tells us that it personally preserved and sustained him during his time of grief. He calls it his affliction. He says that if God's Word had not been his delight, he would have perished. He would have died under the weight of his affliction. Now, what he's telling us is that it was his love for the Word of God and his belief in it that kept him from being so crushed under the weight of grief because he had been forced to endure such grief at the hands of his cruel persecutors. If it hadn't been for the Word of God, he would have been broken, would have died from a broken heart. What he means is that if it wasn't for the Word of God giving him hope and encouragement, he would have just given up mentally and emotionally and then apparently just died from a broken heart. But it was God's Word, he says, that enabled him to keep his sanity in the midst of such horrible persecution because, he says, it gave him hope. something to hang on to when everything around him was just falling apart. Folks, the word will do that for you too. We live in a world where everything does seem, in our culture, to becoming unhinged and falling apart. But scripture is the only thing that helps us in the midst of that to keep our heads on straight. When life just gets crazy and nothing seems to make any sense anymore, it is scripture that you go to that keeps you sane. Otherwise, without the word, when a crisis hits, we're prone to fall into deep depression and deep despair. I can't tell you how many times I have heard Over the years, believers in Christ, when they have lost a loved one to death, a loved one who knows the Lord to death, say something like this, I could not have gone through this without the Lord, and I don't know how non-Christians handle this. I can't tell you how many times I've heard words to that effect. Well, I'll tell you how non-Christians handle it. They don't. They're incredibly sad. They're broken. They're miserable to the point where they are so miserable that they fall into a melancholy type of anguish in their soul, they have no answer. It's a feeling of complete hopelessness. The life is just sucked out of them. The wind is gone from their sails. But how different it is for a Christian who delights in the Word of God, because in writing to the Thessalonians about the death of a loved one, the Apostle Paul says that although we grieve, it is a hope it is a grief that has hope it has comfort look at first Thessalonians chapter 4 starting in verse 13 but we don't want you Paul said to be uninformed brethren about those who are asleep are asleep meaning not that they're taking a nap they've died your loved ones so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope unbelievers have no hope now Paul didn't say we would never grieve you ought to grieve when a loved one dies But it's a grief with hope. It's a grief mixed in with some joy, too, and comfort. Because we know that loved one is with Christ. And Paul goes on to say, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus, those who have died in Christ. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not perceive those who have fallen asleep. for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we, who are alive and remain, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, he said, comfort one another with these words." Now, we don't have time to go into all of this. There are CD messages from 1 Thessalonians, but this hope And very briefly, I'll say this hope and this comfort that Paul is explaining, it's known as the rapture of the church. Even though the word rapture is not in the New Testament, the truth of it is. One place is right here. It's a very prominent place. Also, First Corinthians 15, at the end of it, speaks of the rapture. But this is the rapture of the church. It'll take place just prior to the seven-year tribulation period before Christ returns. And it will involve, as Paul taught here, the resurrection of those who have died in Christ, Christians. God's going to resurrect their bodies on that day. And then, in addition to that, it'll involve the physical removal of Christians who were alive on the earth at that time. And that's why Paul said, and we will both meet the Lord in the air. He'll come down, not all the way to the earth. He comes down a little bit. We go up, we meet him in the air and we're taken by him back to heaven, to his father's house, which he's been preparing for us all these years. Paul said, this is our hope. This is our comfort concerning our loved ones who have died in Christ. Even as we grieve their deaths, it's not the end. We have hope. But non-christians, Paul said, they grieve without hope. There's nothing solid for a non-christian to hang on to. No solid rock for them to grab hold of when their lives are falling apart or when they see a loved one die. Because the death of a loved one only leads them to despair and utter gloominess. How different was it with John Bunyan? John Bunyan was that English preacher and now famous author of that great book, Pilgrim's Progress. In 1661, Bunyan was thrown in a jail known as Bedford Jail for preaching the gospel. He remained there for the next 12 years, unable to financially support his wife and four children, one of them a blind daughter. Instead of falling into despair, Bunyan turned to the Bible. And he began to write an allegory about the Christian life. And that allegory is called Pilgrim's Progress. It would literally help millions of believers in Christ. Describing how Bunyan coped with such a bleak existence in jail. How he dealt with boredom and all that was going on. That feeling of, I can't help my family. Someone has written this, he allowed God's word to leap to life in his soul to become his first line of defense against Satan's attempts to drive him into the slough of despond. See like the psalmist of Psalm 119, John Bunyan delighted in the Bible and it kept him from perishing in his affliction. Not to mention going crazy just from boredom. So what about you? What is it that sustains you in your deepest afflictions, those grievous times? What is it that keeps you sane and free from despair when your life seems to be falling apart? Everything but Scripture is sinking sand. It will not hold up. It can't sustain you. I mean, Rich talked about some temporary things that secular psychiatry and wisdom can give you, but nothing lasting. Nothing but scripture can sustain you. Everything else never holds you up. It can't support you. I love the way Charles Spurgeon, a man who at times struggled with depression, he was very honest about it. Here's how Spurgeon put it. He said, in our darkest seasons nothing has kept us from desperation but the promises of the Lord. Yea, at times nothing has stood between us and self-destruction save faith in the eternal word of God. When worn with pain until the brain has become dazed, and the reason well nigh extinguished a sweet text has whispered to us its heart cheering assurance and our poor struggling mind has reposed that's rested upon the bosom of God what great words from a man who experienced it now once again I want you to look at verse 92 and I want you to notice exactly what the psalmist says was his attitude about the scriptures that sustained and preserved him Notice he said, if your law had not been my delight, he doesn't say just my belief, but my delight. See, this man wasn't simply one who had faith in the Bible, he delighted in the Bible. He loved it. He loved it enough to study it, to meditate on it, to apply it to his life. And here's something interesting and significant. As we have been studying some 119, we've seen that the psalmist has been describing God's Word by using a variety of synonyms for the Word. For example, sometimes he refers to the Bible as decrees. I've not been emphasizing this, but he calls it at times decrees, and that speaks of God's laws, His commandments. Other times he refers to the Bible as statutes, sometimes translated testimonies. That speaks of God bearing witness to His warnings about judgment for disobedience and blessings for obedience. And sometimes the psalmist calls the Bible precepts. And that speaks of God's directions that govern His people, His precepts. And there are a few other synonyms that he's used. But the point I want you to see is that by using a variety of words to describe and speak of the various parts of the Scriptures, The psalmist is telling us that it was the whole Bible, the whole Bible in its entirety, that he loved and held on to dearly. And what that says to us is we can't limit ourselves to just knowing certain parts of the Bible, a few favorite verses here and there. But we have to be familiar with all of Scripture if we expect it to sustain us in those dark moments of life, because you never know what verse God's going to use. to help you through that crisis. I remind you that the Apostle Paul said in 2 Timothy 3.16, all Scripture, all of it is God-breathed. It means inspired. It comes from him. He's the primary source and he said it's profitable. All Scripture is God-breathed and all Scripture is profitable. As I said, you never know What part of Scripture the Lord will use to keep you stable in your time of need? It might be from a more obscure book like Nahum, Obadiah. You never know. So how do you become familiar with all Scripture? Well, you have to read all of it. You have to become familiar with it. It's not going to happen because you want it to happen. You have to do something. So I would encourage you to have a plan to read through the Bible at least once a year. And you know what? You don't have to wait till January 1st to start this plan. Start it now if you're not doing it. If you just commit yourself to read four chapters a day, two from the Old Testament, two from the New Testament, you can read through the entire Bible once, the entire Old Testament once, and the New Testament twice. And when you find yourself in just some harrowing affliction, the Lord can bring to your mind just the right and appropriate scripture to stabilize you. That's what the psalmist tells us. Jesus said that man shall not live by anything but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Man shall live by every single word that comes from God's mouth. That's exactly what the psalmist is urging us to do by telling us that we can build our lives on the Word of God because it never changes and it will sustain us in our afflictions. So what are you going to do with these truths? What are you going to do as you leave from here? Are you going to begin to base every decision on Scripture? Are you going to ask the Lord to help you to base your decisions on the Word? How you conduct your business, your ethics, how you raise your children, how you treat your spouse, how you build relationships with other people, every single thing, every issue in life. Also, are you going to look differently from now on on the laws of nature and not complain about the weather? And to keep those things in mind, are you going to look upon them in a new way, seeing them as God's servants, and therefore you're not going to complain, you're not going to worry. about it. You trust in God's wisdom and sovereignty. This doesn't mean that if a hurricane is coming, you're apathetic. It just means you don't have to worry. God is in control of the hurricanes too. And if He wants to kill you by a hurricane, then don't worry about it. It'll happen. You can't live a moment longer. You just die without an ulcer from worrying. So don't worry about it. And are you going to delight in the Word, all of it, so that you'll Turn to it in your darkest moments and let it sustain you. That's what your thinking needs to be. That's where it needs to go. Listen, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, then I'm afraid that you have built your life upon sinking sand. It'll never hold up during a severe affliction, nor will it hold up when the floodgates of judgment come upon us. But it's not too late to get off of the sand. It's not too late. It's not too late. You get off the sand by turning to Jesus Christ, trusting Him, His death on the cross, trusting in that death for your salvation. What you're doing in trusting Him, you are anchoring your soul to the solid rock. It'll never fail you. Never fail you. Build your life on the words of Jesus Christ. But the first words you build your life on, words of the effect of for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast you anchor your soul to the truth that Christ died for sinners he said whoever comes to me and meaning for salvation I'll never cast you out so come come to Christ let's pray father how grateful we are that the psalmist went through this he experienced a such persecution, such heartache that he had to learn these things that he could trust you and so he could teach us. Lord, help us to learn. Help us, Father, to, as a result of studying today, to begin to base every decision we make on Scripture. And where Scripture may be silent on a specific issue, Lord, help us to, in principle, know some sanctified common sense and have that. but I pray that you'll help everyone who takes the name of Christ to make sure that they live by every word that proceeds from your mouth I also pray Lord help us to look differently the laws of nature to never see them the same to never divorce nature from you because they're your servants help us not fear the forces of nature help us not be foolish about them either but not to fear them not to complain about them but even to give you thanks for them, for they are your servants. Lord, I pray also help all of us to delight in your word, all the word, to become familiar with it. I pray that many will take up the challenge of reading through the Bible and that they will persevere when they come across some passages that are not the easiest to read, but I pray they'll endure and they'll learn to love the word. so that they can turn to it in the dark moments of life and be sustained and cheered. And Lord, I pray for any here who are without Christ. I pray that you'll open their hearts to the gospel. They'll realize their sinfulness before your holiness, and they will turn and trust you, the Savior, to be their Savior. This we pray, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.