One of the more interesting issues to emerge in our times and something that I think really shows the decline and the depravity of our culture is what has become known as fake news websites. also known as hoax news. According to one article I read, fake news websites, and I quote, deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda and disinformation purporting to be real news, often using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect. Unlike news satire, fake news websites seek to mislead rather than entertain readers for financial, political or other gain. One newspaper defined fake news on the internet as fictitious articles deliberately fabricated to deceive readers, generally with the goal of profiting through clickbait. Clickbait is generating online advertising revenue. In other words, fake news is fabricated news. It's made up lies that are purposely intended to fool readers. Now folks, that's the world we live in, where lying abounds. And not only in news stories, lying is so ingrained in every area of our society that we tend to accept it as just norm, and we even expect it. Politicians are infamous for their many lies. Business leaders often lie to increase their profits. Employees frequently lie to protect themselves. And how many husbands and wives are lying daily to each other by cheating on one another? And I could go on and on, as you know, about the various members of our society who lie on a regular basis much of the time. In fact, a number of years ago, two men, James Patterson and Peter Kim, wrote a book entitled The Day America Told the Truth, claiming that Americans lie most of the time and for no apparent reason. In fact, I knew someone who did just that, who lied for no apparent reason. He just lied for the sake of lying. It was really a game to him. He did it just so he could say he did it. And lying became such a way of life to this individual that his conscience became callous to the point where he no longer could distinguish between what was a lie and what was truth. Now granted, not many people lie to that extreme, but lying certainly characterizes the world that we live in, a world that's run by deceit and falsehoods and dishonesty and intended untruthfulness. But thank God, because He, our God, is not like that at all. Nor is His Word like that. And we know that God never lies, because not only does the whole sweep of Scripture tell us that God's Word is truth, but we also have individual statements in the Scripture specifically telling us that God does not lie, but we have come this morning also in our study our ongoing study of Psalm 119 to a stanza that is devoted dedicated to emphasizing that God's Word is Righteous in that what he says is always right always true, and he is always faithful to keep our His word. Stanza I'm referring to is actually the 18th one, and it begins with verse 137. I want to read it to you again. Righteous are you, O Lord, and upright are your judgments. You have commanded your testimonies in righteousness and exceeding faithfulness. My zeal has consumed me because my adversaries have forgotten your words. Your word is very pure, therefore your servant loves it. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth. Trouble and anguish have come upon me, yet your commandments are my delight. Your testimonies are righteous forever. Give me understanding that I may live. Now, as you can see, it's not very difficult. You can see the obvious theme of this stance is that God's word is righteous. And I say it's obvious because the word righteous or righteousness appears so often In these verses, actually five times in just eight verses, we read about God's Word being righteous. And so the primary truth that the psalmist then wants us to learn from this paragraph, from this stanza, is that the Word of God is righteous in every respect. And the way he teaches us this is he takes the first two verses of the stanza to state why God's Word is righteous, and then he uses the remainder of these verses to tell us his response to God's Word being righteous, and certainly by application then, what our response should be to this glorious truth that God's Word is pure and right. And that's why this is such an important series of verses. It's a series of verses that demands a response. We hear His response, it demands our response. It calls us to be doers of the Word and not passive hearers who do nothing but listen and hear. In other words, in light of God's Word being always right and being always true, And God always being faithful to keep his word, what kind of action, what kind of attitude does this demand from you and me? That's the point of these verses. And that's what we're going to find out this morning. But the first thing that we need to see before anything else is what the psalmist says about the word being righteous and why he knows that it's righteous. Notice, he begins in verse 137 by telling us, Righteous are you, O Lord, and upright are your judgments. Now, the psalmist starts this paragraph off by affirming to the Lord, he's speaking to the Lord, this is his prayer, that his word is righteous. And the reason that he gives as to why he knows that God's word is so righteous is because he says God himself. Notice it again, righteous are you, O Lord, and upright are your judgments. So, before we go any further, we do need to pause for a moment and ask a very basic question. What does it mean that God, in his word, are righteous? After all, the major lesson of these verses is that Righteousness characterizes the Word of God, then it's critical that we understand what the psalmist means by the term righteous. Well, essentially the word righteous, when used of an individual, means that someone is just in the sense that they're fair, they're impartial, they treat all alike. It's almost synonymous with justice. But in calling the Lord righteous, the psalmist is actually speaking in a broader sense than simply meaning that God is just and equitable, although it does mean that, but it's beyond that. It also means that whatever God does is right, that his character is impeccable, and therefore he makes no mistakes and he does nothing that's wrong. He is the standard. He sets it. He's always right. Not only does scripture state here in Psalm 119 that God's word is righteous, but throughout the Bible, God declares over and over again that his character is completely virtuous without any blemish. For example, we read in Psalm 11, verse 7, for the Lord is righteous, he loves righteousness. You can't say it any clearer than that. The Lord is righteous, he loves righteousness. Psalm 71 verse 19 says, For your righteousness, O Lord, reaches to the heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? Psalm 97 verse 2 says, Clouds and thick darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. And I'm reminded that in John chapter 17, in our Lord's high priestly prayer to the Father, Jesus addressed the Father as, O righteous Father. That's what he said in verse 25. John 17 verse 25, O righteous Father. So our Lord himself recognized that the Father, God the Father, is righteous. The angels recognize this. In Revelation 16 verse 5, We read this, and I heard the angel of the waters saying, righteous are you who are and who were, O holy one, because you judge these things. Angels know how righteous God is. And because God is righteous, that's why the writer of Psalm 119 says that his word is upright. He means that it's perfect. It's absolutely right. The word righteous is almost synonymous with right, because God who spoke these words He himself is perfect and absolutely right. So his word is that way. In other words, everything God says is right. There is nothing in his word we should ever disagree with, because if we do, we're wrong. He's right. Now listen very closely, because what the psalmist is telling us about God's character and his word, it is essential for us to understand as believers in Christ. Otherwise, if you don't get hold of this truth, and it doesn't get hold of you, it will negatively affect your entire life. You see, in telling us that God is righteous, the psalmist, as I said, is actually telling us God is never wrong. His word is never wrong, that He never commands us to do anything that would be inappropriate, or anything that would be incorrect. That is to say, since He's right in His character, He's right in all of His ways, in all of His commands, as well as in every incident that He sovereignly brings into your life, into my life. It's one of the most important lessons for a Christian to learn. Because without knowing this about God and His Word, you can easily fall into the sin of complaining and griping, as if the Lord has done something wrong in your life. Or the sin of being ungrateful, thankless. Or the sin of being fearful, anxious. Because you think that God has done something that's not right for you in your relationship to your life. This is how He treats you, and He's not right about it. See, if you really don't believe that God never makes a mistake, you will find yourself second-guessing Him anytime something seems to go wrong in your life. This is so important. And even more than that, those who don't have a firm conviction that the Word of God is righteous, and therefore write in everything it says, they will inevitably end up believing that there are errors in the Bible. So that anytime they read that something or someone disagrees with scripture, be it in the area of some recent discovery made in the field of science or archaeology or something that a so-called expert comes up with about a subject like marriage or morality and anything like that, they'll always take the side of those who disagree with Scripture, concluding that the Scripture, not man, must be wrong. I never forget reading in a biography, I've read several biographies about Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, but one of the biographies that I read about him gives the incident of a time that Now, Dr. Lloyd-Jones was asked to meet with a council of very liberal theologians, he not being a liberal theologian at all, but quite conservative. But in their discussion that day, these men dismissed the authority of scripture in favor of some recent claims coming from the field of science. Now, mind you, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones had at one time been a very prominent London physician, so he actually was a man of science. In fact, he was the only man of science in that room. He had been trained in the field of science, and when he was asked what he thought about the claims of these other men of science in relation to the Bible, he simply said, well, men of science are very fallible. Very fallible. That coming from a man of science. He was absolutely right. All human thinking is prone to mistakes. But the word of God is not. Because every word of scripture is breathed out by God who is infallible and righteous, therefore His word is infallible and righteous and completely authoritative for the believer, meaning that we are to come under the authority of Scripture by complying with every command and every principle in the Bible. See, this issue is of supreme importance in your life because it determines if you will place yourself under the complete authority of Scripture on all matters, even if some scriptural truth goes against the most recent theory of science or the latest popular opinion of some very learned individuals or the trendiest moral standards of society which change all the time. One Bible teacher, in illustrating what it means to accept that God's word is righteous, no matter what anyone else says, wrote this. He said, if God speaks to instruct us, as he does, for instance, in the matter of the origin of the universe, the species, and the human race, then what God says is right. In the end, all other teaching will be proven wrong. It may take a long time. It may seem that error has a firm grip on humanity and is all triumphant. It may rule supreme for now in the halls of science, but in the end, what God says will be seen to have been right. all along. If God, he says, speaks to inhibit us, as he does in hundreds of commandments that cut across our sinful wants and wishes, then what he says is right. Today, for instance, he says, society permits sexual perversion as an alternative lifestyle. God says that it's wrong and that those who indulge in homosexual practice will come under his severest displeasure. Society may say what it will, but society is wrong and God is right. Listen, beware of the latest trends in so-called science, so-called progressive thinking, modern-day morality, because the origin of these trends is man, and man is sinful, and therefore his thinking and outlook and viewpoint on life is distorted and flawed. He is a depraved creature, and from depraved creatures come depraved and defective views and ideologies. When man fell in the garden, his mind fell too. He can't think totally clear on all these issues. And if you follow man's defective beliefs, you will end up being led astray into defective thinking, which will lead you into defective living. That's never the case with God's Word. Even though you may be criticized and even ridiculed and mocked for believing and following the narrow standards of Scripture, God's Word will never mislead you because it's totally righteous and therefore totally accurate, which is what the psalmist tells us in the next verse, verse 138. You have commanded your testimonies in righteousness and exceeding faithfulness. Now, the thought behind these words is that everything that God has commanded us in His Word, everything, it's right and it's true. Therefore, every command is to be obeyed and to be trusted by us because God is faithful to keep His Word. Listen, every one of us knows the pain of being disappointed by someone who told you they would do something for you, but they didn't. If you've never had that experience, you will. It's painful. But that isn't the way that God is. He never disappoints us. What He promises He will do, He does. Because as the psalmist says, His word is exceeding faithfulness. Exceeding faithfulness. That's a great, great truth. And concerning God's faithfulness to keep His word, Spurgeon said these words of encouragement. He said, dwell upon That sweet word, very faithful. What a mercy that we have a God to deal with who is scrupulously faithful, true to all the items and details of His promises, punctual to time, steadfast during all time. Well may we risk all upon a word that is ever faithful, ever sure. I love that. Well may we risk it all on that. Now I remind you that when the psalmist wrote these words about God's Word always being right and that He's faithful to always keep His Word. I remind you that this man was going through the trial of his life. He was going through a time of intense suffering, terrible pain. Throughout this psalm, he tells us about the pain he was enduring by being persecuted by men who hated him. He tells us they spread lies about him, they slandered him, they had contempt for him, they actually attempted to lure him away from his faith, they even threatened to murder him. And his pain and his suffering were so strong that he tells us it reduced him to tears and emotionally crushed him. You can look back and see that in verse 25 and verse 28. It brought him to tears. It brought him down to the point where he was emotionally crushed by this. And yet here he is, in the midst of such bad circumstances, telling us that God's Word is always right because God is always right. And that whatever His Word says can be trusted because God is faithful to keep His Word. How wonderful! Listen, this man isn't bitter. He's not disappointed with God because his life has been so difficult. Instead, we find him in complete submission. to God and His Word, because he knows that God never makes a mistake, and that His Word is true, and that in the end, as His Word says, God will intervene, and God will deliver him in one way or another. It'll happen, because that's what His righteous Word promises. So I wonder if this is the way that you might be handling the latest trial that God has sent into your life. Do you trust that God is right in bringing you this particular form of suffering? Or do you question Him, even accusing Him perhaps of wrongdoing, of not knowing what He's doing with you? If you do, if that's your heart, then you need to dwell upon the truth that God is righteous and that He never makes a mistake, either in the circumstances He sovereignly brings upon you, or in his word, which mirrors his perfect righteous character. And therefore, you can trust him to always do and always say what is right and to be faithful to keep his word. Folks, that's where the rubber meets the road. That's the issue of life for a believer. Listen closely. With these two verses that we've just looked at of the stanza, the psalmist has laid down the foundation of his message to us by telling us that God's word is righteous because God is righteous. But the fact of the matter is that he lived in a very unrighteous world, as do we. A world where people lie, a world where people hurt each other, a world where believers are despised and hated because of their faith. It's a world of trouble, it's a world of pain. But it's in this kind of environment that we are called by God to live out our faith, just as he was. And he tells us that because of that, it required him to respond properly to God and to his word. And so what the psalmist does in the verses that follow is this, having laid down the foundation of his message, which is that God's word is righteous, he now begins to build upon that foundation by telling us how the truth of God always being right impacted his life. And he does this by telling us that the righteousness of God produced in him a five-fold response to that word. This morning we're going to look at two of these responses, but we need to understand that his purpose in telling us how he responded to God's righteousness is to teach us how we ought to be responding to God's righteousness. He's not writing this just to inform us. He's writing this to exhort us to follow his example. In other words, his message to us is that when you know that scripture is always right, here's how you should respond to it. When you know this, here's the right response. And the first response that the psalmist tells us that he had to the fact that God's Word is righteous is that he was, number one, he was zealous for the Word. Zealous for the Word. Verse 139 states this, My zeal has consumed me, because my adversaries have forgotten your words." Now, with these words, the psalmist, he tells us something of his terrible situation, not all the details, but it appears that not only was he persecuted by pagan Gentiles, probably in that part of the world known as Babylonia, where he lived as an exile during Judah's captivity, but also He had some fellow Jews who, he tells us now, they were his enemies. You'll see that as it becomes clearer. Who, unlike himself, his fellow Jews had forgotten God's Word during their time of captivity. See, this man would have very likely been living, as I said, he was in exile. It would appear that way. But he very likely would have been living in a Jewish community somewhere in the area of Babylon. But many of these Jewish people who was living around, probably feeling forsaken by God in their captivity, had forsaken the Lord by forgetting and abandoning His Word. In other words, they had decided to turn their backs on the very Scriptures that they grew up hearing, probably due to their disappointment with God for sending them into exile, or perhaps because, you know what, they just wanted to fit in, fit in in their new country, which was totally pagan. But for whatever reason motivated them to forget God's Word, didn't sit well with the psalmist. Not well at all, because he tells us that it caused him to be consumed with zeal. So what does he mean by this? Consumed with zeal? Well, the Hebrew word that's translated zeal can be translated any number of ways. It can be translated anger, it can be translated jealous, or jealousy, devotion, passion, Therefore, it's possible that the psalmist is saying that the forsaking of God's Word by some caused him to have greater devotion, greater passion, towards the Lord and His Word in the sense that he just took up the slack of those who had forgotten the Word of God. It's possible that's what he meant, but I would suggest to you that it seems better and more in line with the overall context of Scripture, where there are similar statements just like this, that this man is saying that his heart was stirred to anger by so many forsaking God's Word. and that he was so angry with these apostates, it means those who had defected from the truth, those who had left the truth, that it consumed him, meaning that it wore him out to the point of exhaustion. In other words, he's burning with indignation towards those who have forsaken God's Word because they have trampled down the sacred truths of righteous Scripture and have dishonored the Lord who is righteous. So what the psalmist is telling us is that his response to seeing others forsake and ignore God's word is that it angered him with a holy righteous anger. See, this is the same kind of holy anger that we read about in John chapter 2 when our Lord, the Lord Jesus, cleansed the temple of corrupt money changers, men who had turned the temple into a marketplace and were making a profit, a financial profit, at the expense of those who had just come to worship. This happened two times in our Lord's ministry, at the very beginning of His ministry as well as the end. The beginning experience of this holy anger we read about in John chapter 2 starting in verse 13. The Passover of the Jews was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and money changers seated at their tables. And he made a scourge of cords and drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And to those who were selling the doves, he said, Take these things away. Stop making my father's house a place of business. His disciples remembered that it was written, and now they're quoting from the Psalms, Zeal for your house will consume me. Our Lord was upset in a holy, righteous way with those who were making a profit in the temple. They weren't just exchanging money. They were making money by this. This was a corrupt business. And like the psalmist, Jesus felt his soul catch fire when he saw what utter disregard for the Lord and for his word by those who sought to make a financial profit at the expense of those who just came to worship. in the temple. He hated it. The same holy anger is exactly what our response should be when we see the Word of God being forsaken. If we are convinced that Scripture is holy, and it's righteous, and it's always right, it should bother us greatly when we see it being disregarded and abandoned. But I want you to notice something important. I alluded to this, but I want to press home this truth. I want you to notice that the psalmist doesn't say that his adversaries simply didn't keep God's Word, but rather he says, my adversaries have forgotten your words. Now listen closely, because what the psalmist then is telling us Isn't that he's upset with with pagans who've never had an interest in God's word to begin with so they can't forget something They never had at first No, he's upset with his fellow Jewish kinsmen who have known the word of God and have forsaken the word of God. Meaning that his anger is directed, as I said, at his fellow Jews who have been familiar with God's righteous word because they grew up hearing it. It was taught in every Jewish home. It would have been taught if they lived in Jerusalem, they would have heard it in Jerusalem before being taken into exile. Or in another city, they would have heard it in their synagogues. And it upsets this man that those who have had such exposure and a privilege of being exposed to the sacred things of God, those who know better, that they should just set his holy word aside and just forsake it. Now, does this apply to us? Absolutely. Absolutely. You don't have to be a Jewish exile living in Babylon to experience this kind of anger that the psalmist experienced when he says his fellow Jews abandoned the word of God. And that's because we all know people who are just like what the psalmist is describing here. People who have had the privilege of growing up hearing the scriptures taught, perhaps growing up in a godly home where they heard the word or being in a Bible-teaching church, where the Word was proclaimed, or even attending a Christian school, but who now want nothing to do with God's Word. They've heard it. They know it. They walk away from it. There are many people like that. And while back in verse 136, the psalmist said that his eyes shed streams of water because people like this didn't keep the Word of God, and he felt pity for them. pity because of all the unnecessary heartache and suffering they experience due to their foolishness. Nonetheless, here he says that he is still angry, angry with them for the way that they're treating the Lord. And we ought to have the same kind of anger towards people like this today. Now, it may sound very strange to hear me say this, that we should be angry with anyone, but you have to understand that this type of anger is not the usual sinful anger that we are very, very experienced with. Angry when someone gets on our nerves, angry when our selfish pride is distracted, motivated by our own selfish pride, when we're upset, when someone does something to us that we don't like, we display this selfishness, this anger. That's not what he's talking about. This is a righteous anger. This is an anger that is not sinful because this is an anger that is concerned with God's honor. It has nothing to do with us. It's not about how people have treated us. It's about how people have treated the Lord. This is the kind of anger the psalmist has for those who forsake the Word of God. It's not sinful. It has nothing to do with him. It has nothing to do with how he's been treated. He's angry because of what these individuals were doing to the Lord, forsaking His righteous Word. Now, I suspect that most of us don't demonstrate this kind of holy anger as we should, if at all. even though we are surrounded by people who have been exposed to the Word of God and they have chosen to disregard it. So how do we cultivate this kind of zeal, this kind of anger, holy anger, righteous indignation that the Psalms had? Surely we should. Jesus had it and he's our perfect example. How do you do this? We develop it by dwelling in our minds, meditating on the truth that God is righteous. Letting that truth that God is righteous and His word is righteous, letting it grip our hearts. not just thinking about it and then walking away from it, but letting it really get into our very fibers, our souls. You see, when the truth that God is righteous grips you and becomes a conviction in your heart, you can't help but be upset and angered when He and His Word are treated with such apathy and indifference. So, ask the Lord then to cultivate in you This deep conviction that the Lord and His Word are righteous and meditate on that truth and it will bother you and should bother you when you see His Word treated in a manner of disrespect. I want to caution you though about something important when it comes to holy anger, this righteous indignation. You have to be careful that you don't dwell on this type of anger too long so that it doesn't become a settled part of your outlook and thinking. Because if it does, your righteous anger will turn into sinful anger. Now, why do I say that? Because this is what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians chapter 4. Let me show you what I'm talking about. In Ephesians chapter 4, Verse 26, we read, Paul says, be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Now in this statement, the apostle tells us to be angry, he says, but without sinning. Well, the only anger that isn't sinful is righteous anger. It's holy anger, that holy indignation that the psalmist experienced. So, we are actually commanded, notice this, we are commanded to have this kind of zealous anger when God's honor has been maligned. But notice what else Paul says about this anger that he says isn't sinful. He says, do not let the sun go down. In other words, don't let this kind of holy anger continue being a part of your thinking. Put it away at the end of the day, or else you may easily find yourself falling into sinful anger. You will cross the line. That's precisely why Paul says what he says in the very next verse, verse 27, and do not give the devil an opportunity. In other words, if you prolong righteous anger, you give Satan the opportunity to work in your heart so that your anger can easily turn into selfish bitterness, personal malice, open hostility. So that at the end of the day, as the sun is going down, just stop thinking about what others have done in disobeying God. Just don't think about that anymore. Get your mind on something else that's not healthy. for you to dwell on the sinfulness of others. That's only for short bursts of righteous anger, not ongoing thinking. So what has the psalmist told us in these verses? Well, he's told us that in light of the Word of God being righteous, his first response to it, which should be ours, is that he's zealous for the Word. He's angry. when people who know better forsake the Word of God. But as he continues writing about how the righteousness of God's Word has impacted him, he gives us a second response to the Word being righteous. He tells us that he's not only zealous for the Word, but also that he loves the Word. Notice what he says in verse 140. He says, your Word is very pure, therefore your servant loves it. In contrast to those who have forgotten God's Word, the psalmist tells us that he loves the Word. And the reason he loves it, he says, is because the Word of God is very pure. So, what does he mean by this? What does he mean by it's pure? Well, the concept of something being pure has the imagery of metal being refined by fire so that all of the impurities are removed. But, Think with me, because when it comes to Scripture, God's Word never had to go through any refining process, because it never had any impurities that needed to be removed. It never wasn't pure. God's Word is pure. It's always been pure, because its author, God, is pure. See, in stating that the Word of God is pure, what the psalmist is doing, this is simply another way of him telling us that Scripture is righteous, without any blemish, mistake, or flaw. There's nothing in the Bible but pure truth, and for that reason, the psalmist says, he loves it. He's just saying essentially the same thing that he's already said. The Word of God is righteous, it's pure. There never had to be a refining process. There was never anything to refine it for. And he loves it. And you should love it too, because the Bible is unlike any other book. since it is totally pure and totally, completely truthful. What other book can you read without concern that it will give you some false and erroneous information? What other book can you read without concern that it might mislead you or contaminate your thinking and pollute your mind? I mean, even Christian books, you have to be discerning. Not everything a Christian author writes is always true. You have to be discerning. But that's not the way with God's Word. It's all right. We just have to interpret it correctly. Every book, for example, from the world's false religions, all the books associated with the world's false religions, all of them are polluted by error. At the very source, they're erroneous. And even books that are not directly dealing with a world religion, they can have a negative effect on you. And the reason for this is because with every other book besides the Bible, you do run the risk of being taught error by the author. Error on subjects, for example, like marriage. How many Christians have read books on marriage that are just goofy? That's goofy. About raising children, finances, attitudes towards yourself, attitudes towards others. dealing with difficult people. Books have been written about these subjects and so much more, but with the Bible, there's never any risk of being taught error about anything, because Scripture is pure truth. Therefore, like the psalmist, you should love it. And when you love the Word, like you should, you'll show your love for it by spending time in it. It'll be a priority. By delighting in it, by obeying it, and by listening to it preached from a sound pulpit in a sound church, It is a sad thing when so many who have known and been taught the Word of God forsake its teachings. But they do this, they do this because they don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. You see, those who leave the teachings, and I'm not talking about those who just neglect it, but those who leave it, the teachings of Scripture prove that they never really knew the Savior to begin with. Otherwise, they would continue in the word, because those who know Christ, Jesus himself said they remain in his word. One of the evidences that you're a real Christian is that you remain in the word of God. You don't abandon it. You obey it. You love it. In John chapter 8, Jesus said, if you continue in my word, then you prove to be my disciples. Psalmist was a genuine disciple, a true believer, and he proved so by his love for the Word of God. He loved it because it reflected God's righteous and pure character. He loved the Word because it was pure truth. So, is that your attitude towards Scripture? Do you love God's Word because it is God's Word? It's righteous like He's righteous. It will never mislead you because it is totally trustworthy, totally reliable. So don't just simply give mouth service to that. Put some legs to that thought. Be in the Word. Be obeying the Word. Be spending time with the Word. If not, if the Word doesn't mean anything to you, then examine your heart to see if you're a true Christian. And if not, then turn to Christ. It's never too late. Turn to Him. Repent. Put your trust in Him and His death on the cross for your salvation. You may have assumed that you're a Christian. For many years, but if you have no love for the word of God and no obedience to the word of God, then examine yourself to see if you really are in the faith. But if you are a true believer who's grown perhaps a little stagnant in your love for God's word, it happens. Then here's what you do. Just dwell and meditate. on how righteous and how pure His Word is and what a privilege it is for us to to have the Word of God, then ask the Lord to give you a renewed love for the Bible. Let's bow for prayer. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is pure. And Lord, we want to love it like this man loved it, regardless of our circumstances, regardless of how hard life is. In fact, the harder life is, the more it seems that we need your word. We need it for comfort. We need it for direction. We need it for encouragement. Lord, help us to not be a church that simply proclaims the Word of God, but a church that lives the Word of God, that loves the Word of God, that delights in the Word of God. And we thank you, Lord, it is pure, it is righteous. We thank you that it will never mislead us, and everything you tell us in your word is pure truth. We pray to that end. We pray, Lord, for those who have gotten sloppy in their devotions, those who have gotten sloppy in their time in the word, becoming too busy or lazy, not disciplined enough. We pray that this will begin a new era in their life, starting today, that they'll pick up their Bibles and spend time reading it. And even if they don't understand everything they're reading, Lord. We pray that they'll understand some things that will just increase their appetite for Scripture. Help us, Lord, to be doers of your Word, not hearers only. For those who don't know you, Lord, all we can ask is that in mercy you would work in their hearts, open their hearts to the Gospel, draw them to yourself, and show them their sinfulness and Jesus and their need for Him. This we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.