Gary Wilkerson emphasizes the significance of God's Word in revealing His glory and truth, urging the congregation to appreciate both the beauty of creation and the depth of Scripture. He highlights how David, throughout his life, maintained a hunger for God's Word, which he viewed as essential for spiritual revival and wisdom. Wilkerson calls for a renewed passion for the Bible, encouraging believers to let it guide their lives and transform their hearts. He stresses that true understanding of God comes not just from nature but from the Scriptures, which provide clarity and direction. Ultimately, he prays for a fresh hunger for God's Word among the congregation, reminding them of its power to change lives.

Remain standing if you would, we're gonna read the whole chapter of the 19th Psalm. I wanna encourage you and warn you, sometimes when we read scriptures, particularly a long passage of scripture, we kind of want the preacher to get onto the commentary about it. But I wanna tell you tonight, the commentary about it is not important as the word of God itself. The most important thing I will do in your presence tonight is these next few minutes as I read these verses. So don't drift off, just look at this and say, this is the word of the Lord. Psalm 19, to the choir master, the Psalm of David, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes through all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and a strong man runs its courts with joy. Its rising is from the ends of the heavens and its circuit is to the ends of them. And there is nothing hidden from his heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the heart. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much more than fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb, more over them by as your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Charles Spurgeon says about this chapter that we've just read, in his earliest days, the psalmist, while keeping his father's flock, had devoted himself to the study of God's two great books. God's two great books. One being nature and the other being scripture. This chapter we've just read describes those two books of God. One, the creation. God speaks through his works. The second, his word. God speaks through his word. The first one is what's called the general revelation. It's found in the handiworks of God. Great is thy faithfulness. Seeing his faithfulness in the stars and the moon and the sun and the shine and the mountains and the rivers. Those are things we have in Colorado that maybe you haven't seen yet. The beauty of God's nature speaks about his handiwork. It reveals the things of God. And David, as a young man, he understood these two books. And I wanna encourage you to live in these two books to appreciate what God has created around you. Oftentimes I look at my hand and I just go, that's a miracle. It moves. My brain says something and it does it. And I just look at that and go like, that's a miracle. It's wonderful what God has done. And I don't even have the best looking hand in the world. But just to see what God has done in creation. A baby, I have four children, nine grandchildren to hold the baby in your hands. Beauty of God's creation. He speaks through these things, but he also speaks more importantly through his word, through scripture, through the word of God. David looks at these books and he remembers these things that were really in his heart from his birth. He says in Psalm 139 verse 13, you formed me in my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. There's the first thing he did. He shows his beauty and the works that he's done around him. My soul knows you very well. He knew God from the time he was born. Just as a baby, he knew the things of God, probably from his family and from others around him. But it wasn't just as a baby. When he was a young man, he grew up in the things of the Lord. First Samuel chapter 13 verse 14 says, the Lord sought out a man after his own heart. And this is when Samuel was looking for a new king after King Saul had failed the test of the Lord, so to speak, and he's looking for a new king. And little David, the youngest of all his brothers, wasn't even part of the selection committee, the one who could possibly be selected. And Samuel says, there has to be another brother. And God says to him, there's one who's been seeking after my heart. A little boy out in the wilderness, out in the forest, out in the fields, tending sheep, he's been seeking after my heart. He's been looking at these two books and I have chosen him. He had a great hunger for the things of the Lord. When he became king, he had access. Historians tell us he had access to these books, the first five books of Moses called the Torah. He had the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, and he also had the books of Samuel. And so he could study these books. As a matter of fact, Deuteronomy 17 verse 18 through 20 says there's a commandment given to kings that when they become kings, they are to take the scriptures and write them in their own book. And then they are to take that book and meditate it on day and night. They are not to leave that book behind. Everywhere they go, they are to bring that book with them. So there's something about King David, this heart after God continues. It wasn't just a heart of singing. It wasn't just a heart of praise. All those are good, but he had a heart for the book. He was a man of the book. He carried that book with him. Psalm 16, eight says this, I have set before me the Lord because he is always at my right hand. Now, how do we make sense of that? Well, the rabbinical teachings of the Old Testament tell us that what the kings would do when they wrote in that little book, some of the different testimonies of the Lord, some of the writings of Moses, they would put it in a book and then they would tie that into their right hand. And they would have that book and they would carry that book, not just carrying a book around with them, but even when they were dancing or singing or ruling or reigning, whatever they were doing, they had that book tied to their right hand. It was dear to them. They loved this book. The kings of the Old Testament, most of them loved this book and David loved it with all of his heart. And then when he was an old man, First Kings chapter two, verse one through four says this about him on his deathbed. He called his young son Solomon. He said this to him, I'm about to go the way of all the earth. Keep the charge of the Lord, your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statues, keeping his commandments, keeping his rules and keeping his testimony. And it will go well with you and all of your children after you. David was born with a hunger for the word of God, grew up in a place where he desired the word of God, became a king and carried the word of God with him everywhere he went. And when he was an old man about to die, what was on his heart? My son, dig into this word, grow in this word, get to know this word, be hungry for this word, be consumed for this word. Let this passion for the word of God become the highest pursuit of your life. More than ruling over a kingdom, more than singing songs, more than reigning and more than anything else in your life, have a hunger for the word of God. This generation and the church that we're living in today needs a revival of the word of God. We need to see the word of God proclaimed, preached, taught, sung, the word of God becoming tied to our right hand that we would say, God, I want the hunger to be fresh again in the love for your word. Give me a love for your word. David speaks about these two different things. And in Psalm 19, verse one through six, we see him talking about this first book, the book of nature, the book of creation, the book of general revelation. Then from seven through nine, we see speaking about specific revelation. God has spoken in these last days through the word, through his son, who is the word. And he has speaking to us now, not just through creation, but he's speaking to us through his word. In the first six verses, David speaks about God and he uses the word, when he uses the word God there, he uses the word L, E-L. And what he means by that is sovereign one, omnipotent one. He sees him as a king, a most high, ruling and reigning with power and majesty and might and splendor. But then when he begins to speak about his word in verse seven, the law of the Lord, he changes language. And this word Lord in English would be translated, or in the Hebrew would be Yahweh. And so he moves from L, of God of power and might and majesty to Elohim or to Yahweh, to the more personal. In other words, I can know something about your power in creation around me. But when I really wanna know you, as a friend speaks to a friend, as a son to a father, then you're my Yahweh. That's where you speak life into my heart. And I wanna take just a few moments with you in the time I have with you to break these two books down and see where you're at with this hunger for the word of the Lord. Verse one, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky proclaims his handiwork. The word heaven there speaks of the realms or the sky or in its original root, it means to be lofty or the lofty realms. And it says here that the heavens declare the glory of God. The lofty realms, the things we see when you look out at nature, when you look between the buildings and the skyscrapers in New York, you see a little bit of cloud, you see a little bit of sunshine, you see sometimes some stars possibly even at night, that's the handiwork of God. And it's in the realm. And it says here, the word declare, the heavens declare, a strange word. The heavens actually speak something to you. The clouds in the sky, the stars at night, the lightning bolts, the thunderstorms, they speak something to you. And this word declared is often translated as a scribe, somebody who would write something, would write something into our mind, into our heart, into our understanding. It means to announce or to inscribe or it can literally mean to preach. The sky preaches to us, the clouds preach to us, the moon preaches to us, the sun in its orbit preaches to us. And it tells us something amazing. The heavens don't declare the heavens. The heavens don't say, aren't we a pretty heaven? Aren't the stars shining so bright at night, deep in the heart of Texas? No, there's something more that the word is trying to say to us. And look what it says here. The heavens declare, what's the next few words? The glory of God, hallelujah. The heavens aren't declaring their own beauty, majesty or splendor. And that's where a lot of people fall short of understanding the glory of God and the word of God because they're looking just to creation. I worship nature. I go out into the woods and into the trees or into Central Park. And I just commune with the frogs and the birds and the birds sing me songs and it's glorious. No, every bird that sings is singing the glory of God. Every tree that branches its flowers is proclaiming the word of God. God is to be glorified. God is the one they're preaching about. God is the one they're singing about. God is the one the ducks are quacking about. That it is God in all of nature. He's wanting to speak to us. And the heavens are declaring it. It's a powerful word. It's not a light word. Like I'm kind of speaking a little bit to you. No, it's a word like a preacher which preaches with fire, a fire shut up in our bones. But oftentimes people don't listen to this voice. They don't listen to this majesty. And so that's why Romans 1 20 talks about even though the divine nature and the things that are seen of God's character are seen in nature, people suppress that truth. So everybody in their right mind, in a clear understanding without rebellion and the sin nature in the heart, would look at the things that God created and would bow down in honor and majesty and worship him. But because of the sin nature, the fallen nature of man, we've rebelled against God and we don't want a ruler in our life. We wanna live an independent life. And therefore we don't receive the glory of God being preached from creation around us. But God doesn't give up. Verse two says day to day pours out. First verse he's declaring his glory. Now he's starting to pour it out. Are you gonna see my glory? Are you going to see wind storms? Are you going to see volcanoes? Are you going to see the Psalms calls it the terrors of the Lord. They that go down into the sea and do business in great ships. These see the works of the Lord, the powerful majestic works of the Lord. And this is what he's doing now. He's pouring forth speech and night and day reveals what? The knowledge of God. God is wanting to, God loves to speak to you. Did you know that? God loves to speak to people in New York City. Even those who are hardened in heart and deaf in ears, he wants to speak his word. He wants to show his glory and his majesty. And he's saying this in verses one and two put together. He uses the word declaring, which is preaching. He uses the word proclaiming, which is letting others know. He uses the word for pouring out speech, which is a fountain that's flowing. And he uses a revealing of his knowledge. He's revealing things, even just in nature, let alone what we're about to study in the word part of this. The preacher reveals and proclaims day and night. It's 24 hours. I won't preach that long here tonight, but can you imagine day and night speech pours forth. Knowledge of God pours forth day and night. It is unceasing 24 seven, 365 days a year. Every year, calendar year, since the beginning creation of time, God has done this one thing. I wanna be known. I want to speak. I want you to know me. I want you to know me well. I want you to study me. I want you to be close to me. I want you to be near to me. I want to be dear to you. I wanna let you know who I am, what I'm like. That's what God loves to do. 24 seven, he does these things. The verse three, there is no speech. There are no words whose voice is not heard. In other words, there's no place where God's word is not heard. There are only missionaries in certain countries. There are some countries, one country when my mission is director at world challenge told me recently that just to own a Bible there is a death sentence. If they find you have a Bible, even on your phone, your phone device, if you're trying to hide it in there and they find an app, Bible app, they will literally behead you. And there are some countries where the word of God is not preached in spoken form. But you know what? Every country in the world has this speech being revealed to it. The knowledge of God is being known. It's not only 24 seven, but it's everywhere. There's no speech. There are no words whose voice is not heard. In other words, there's nowhere where this is not being heard. Nobody is, Romans says, we're all without excuse because even creation has spoken to us about the good things of God. The literal Hebrew translation of this is a little bit different. It's basically like this, no speech, period. No words, period. Their voice is not heard, period. Speaking of a different way, saying right now in creation, you're seeing things, you're catching drift of things, you're understanding some things, but it's not quite the voice yet. It's not quite the speech yet. It's not quite being the word being heard. It's a hint. Even David writing several thousand years before Christ was born, there is a hint here of something to come, a word to come, a voice to come. Not John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness, but the voice of Jesus Christ. In these last days, Hebrew says, he speaks through this son. And David was aware of this. He's speaking in the beauty. When I'm in the shepherd of the fields, he speaks through his beauty. He's speaking 24 seven. He's speaking to the whole world, but there's another voice coming. There's another one coming, and that's going to be the most profound voice of all. Right now, there's really no speech. You're not hearing words. You know, it's not God saying, look at the stars. That means I'm alive. He's not speaking literally like that in those times. There's no speech, no words where their voice is heard, but God is speaking then through a different way. The voice goes out. Verse four, their voice goes out through all of the earth. Their words to the end of the earth. The voice can speak about a different word too. In the Hebrew, it means the line. A line of God goes forth. It's from the beginning, line upon line, precept upon precept. God is teaching us his word, even through creation around us. Now, all of a sudden there's a shift here, and now it's going to get really good. Thanks for bearing with me so far, all right? But now I'm going to get into the word. Now I'm getting into the stuff that I really love. Now I'm getting into the stuff that like to some degree, like King David, from the time I was 15 years old, I got a milk crate, filled it with two different Bibles, three different manuals about studying the word of God, and I would go out to the woods behind my house, and I quit watching TV, I quit playing sports with my friends, and I went out into those woods, and I just studied the word of God, two, three, four, sometimes five hours, till it was dark at night. And I had, from the time I was 13, 14, 15 years old, I just, I'd have to call it a desperate hunger for the word of God. It's like, I would read this and I'd go like, that was good, but I want more. You know, give me more, Jesus. Give me more of you, a hunger for the word of God. And so I'm thankful for what he's teaching us in creation, aren't you? But I wanna talk about the second part here. He talks about the sun as a part of creation, and he says here, verse five, which the sun comes out like a bridegroom, leaving his chamber, and like a strong man, it runs its course. Verse six, its rising is from the ends of the heaven, and it circuits to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. In other words, God's bringing the heat. And we're about to see something here in transition in the Psalms here, when David just begins to stop speaking about creation. But the last thing he says about creation, he begins to speak not about the universe in whole, but just our sun, independently our sun. And he uses the word here, it goes in its circuit. And many scholars for a long, long time looked at that verse and said, you know, this is evidence that the Bible is inaccurate or true. Scientists generations ago would say, you know, because how foolish they think the earth circuits, excuse me, the sun circuits around the earth. And we all know that the sun doesn't move. The earth is in status and the sun is not rotating around it. So they despise the scripture because they thought this was an inaccurate thing until scientists started discovering later on that the sun actually is moving. Did you know that? The sun is actually moving. The sun moves around an orbit around our Milky Way. The earth orbits around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour. That's pretty fast. But the sun with the earth and all the other planets and moons in its gravity travels around the Milky Way at 137 miles per second, which is 500,000 miles per hour, half a million miles an hour. If you were to take a taxi in New York City or get on a subway and it was going 20 or 30 miles an hour and all of a sudden he accelerated and was going 40 or 50 or 60 or that train started going 80 or 100 and it got up to 120, you'd be screaming your head off, wouldn't you? And many of you have already experienced that multiple of times. But at 120 miles per hour, multiply that by 4,166 times and you have how fast the sun is traveling around the Milky Way galaxy. Are you getting dizzy yet? Next, our whole Milky Way and the earth with it is traveling at 67,000 miles around the sun. While we're traveling around the sun, the sun's traveling around the Milky Way. Together, the sun and the planets are traveling at 25 miles per second around a cluster of galaxies called the local group. It's a fun scientific name, isn't it? New ones have these names you can't pronounce. I kind of like this one, the local group is the closest cluster of galaxies. And the local group, our sun and galaxy, the Milky Way is traveling around the local group at 375 miles per second towards the Virgo cluster, which is 45 million light years away. You are not standing still right now. You are traveling fast. And God was accurate in his scriptures even before the scientists knew this, that the sun is moving around in a circuit. That is God speaking about who he is. That is God speaking about his goodness. That is God understanding things we could never understand in its fullness. And now here's this marvelous shift. David is marveling at the wonders of the sun and the stars and the mountains and the rivers. But he says, all of these things pale, they're minuscule in comparison to the greater light of the glory of God that's found in the word of God. The sun and its most brilliant shine does not shine like this book does. The speed of travel that which we see in the universe has nothing to do with the speed of power of God working in your life through his word. And I pray that my sermon today, my message tonight would be one, if you don't remember anything I say, there'll be some strange inkling in your heart to say, God, give me a hunger for your word. Put a fresh fire in my heart that I would meditate on this book day and night, that I would maybe take some time to turn the TV off or just stay up a little bit later or wake up a little bit sooner. Give me a craving hunger. If you're hungry for it, you'll make time. If you're hungry for it, you'll find time. If you thirst for it, you find the refrigerator and we can find the word of God being alive to us. Verse seven through 11 begins to, and I'll move along quickly. Verse seven through nine, excuse me, begins to speak about the word of God. And everything I've said up to this point is introduction. So you're ready to get into it now? The word of God, it's just three simple verses, seven, eight, and nine. But six times in these three verses, it says this, of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord. The word of the Lord, of the Lord, of the Lord. You know what David is trying to say? These things are of God. The word of God, the perfections of God, the statutes of God, the laws of God, the rules of God. These are things of God. These are God's things. The word there is Yahweh. These are of Yahweh. Yahweh loves his word. Yahweh says his word is perfect. Yahweh says his word is true. Yahweh said his word is sure. Yahweh says his word is right. Yahweh said his word is clean. Yahweh said his word is perfect. And Yahweh goes on to say, not only is it perfect and sure and right and pure and clean, but it revives the soul. It makes wise people who are simple. It causes a rejoicing of our heart. It lightens our eyes when we're in darkness. It causes endurance in our life when we're struggling. We feel down and out. It makes us righteous. It makes us live with a hunger and righteousness. So six descriptive words, law, testament, precepts, commandments, fear of the Lord and rule. And there are six things that these things have within them, being perfect, being sure, being right, being pure, being clean, being true. And these are the six things that God does as a result of these laws that are perfect and these testimonies that are sure. He's reviving us. He's making us wise. He's causing our hearts to rejoice. He's causing our eyes to light up with joy and life. And he's causing endurance and making us righteous in the things of God. The law of the Lord is perfect. It's perfect. And what does this perfection do? It revives, it restores you. If you're looking to be revived and restored, I suggest to you the best way is not the local cinema. And I certainly would not suggest to you the local bar. I would not suggest to you even a vacation. I would not suggest to you anything other than what God says himself. The reviving of the soul or the awakening of the soul or the turning back to the fire of impassioned from God, the perfect way to find that, the complete way to find that is in the Torah, the law of the Lord, the first five books of the word. And so if you'll study the word of God, your soul will be revived. And many of us in the world today are looking for worldly answers to a spiritual problem. We're trying to find some way to get revived in our heart and our mind. And when we can't find it, we just look for something new, the next thing down the road. But God is saying, I have something perfect for you. There's not many offers in the world today that show you something's perfect. I know the guy says there's perfect slippers and there's the perfect blanket, but there's not. The perfect thing is in the law of the Lord that he has for you day and night. The second thing he says is his testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. If you find wisdom to be a problem, you don't know how to discern who should I marry? What kind of job should I have? How should I raise my kids? You get concerned. There's something simple about all of us. We just don't know what the best decision is in our life. God has a solution for you. And the solution is not just a nice solution compared to other solutions. The Bible says this solution is sure. In other words, you could say in our modern vernacular, it's a sure thing. Not offered very often a sure thing. God's saying this is a sure thing. What is it? It's my testimony, my testimony. The testimony is different than the law. The law is like the five books of the Torah of Moses and other scriptures. But this is God speaking who he is. He said to Moses, I am that I am. This is my testimony. And he has a testimony about himself. And that testimony is inscribed in the scripture. Yes, it's in creation, but it's more clear in his word. He tells you who he is. He's the most important person in your life. The most important being is him. And he has described himself in this book. And that's why David says I meditated on day and night. I hunger and thirst for these words. These words were life to me. One of the prophets says these words were found and I ate them and I ate them. They just got into my soul and they became a joy to me. You don't have to say it, but I'll say hallelujah right there for myself to say. The precepts, the third thing, the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the soul. How many of you wanna have a rejoicing soul? You just wanna rejoice. I just wish I could get happy. Maybe I need to see a counselor. Maybe I need to take a pill. I'm depressed all the time. I don't know how to get joy back in my soul. I've lost the joy. I've lost the spark. I've lost the fire. God has a solution for you. And he says it's in his word. It's the right way to go. He says the precepts of the Lord are right. You can't go wrong with the word of the Lord. Study it day and night, dig into it, memorize it, get to know it, and you will live a right life. You'll see things turn out right in your life. These are the precepts. And the precept is a guiding principle. Some organizations have guiding principles. We're gonna be doing teamwork or we're gonna have good order or we're going to be compassionate as people. These are called guiding principles of a company. Interesting, God has his own guiding principles and they are called precepts. That's what the Hebrew word for precept means, how he guides us. These are principles to live your life by. And that is what causes you, when you live by these precepts, they're right for you and it will cause a rejoicing in your heart. Anybody rejoicing tonight? If you're not rejoicing tonight, I have the prescription for you. I have the remedy for you. It's right in this book. Dig into it and you'll find rejoicing of the soul. Fourth, as we move along quickly, the commandments, another way of saying things, the commandments of the Lord are pure. They enlighten the eyes. If everything around you seems dark and dreary, if you feel down and out, if you feel the world is a traumatic place, if you feel depressed by everything you're seeing around you and your eyes have kind of grown dim in a sense of maybe from my childhood trauma or maybe when I turn on the news, I just wanna close my eyes. Everything around me seems dark and depressing and weary. I'm fed up with it. I don't wanna hear another portion of bad news. And God says, I have a remedy for that because he says here, I can lighten your eyes again. In other words, put the spark back in you, put the fire of God back in you. The prophet Jeremiah was weary of all the things were going on in the world. He saw the trauma and the heartache and the brokenness and the rebellion towards God and the sexual immorality of his day. And he says, I'm giving up. I don't wanna preach ever again. But he says, oh, but there was a fire shut up in my bones and I could not contain it. I have to preach the word of God. And you can have that fire that lights up your eyes once again. You can become, in other words, brilliant, brilliant, a flame in your eyes with a passion for Jesus where people notice there's something different about you. What is it about you? It's this, you're on fire for God. And when you get on fire for God, John Wesley said it so well, people will come to watch you burn. People will see that fire in your life. And God says it's pure. His commands are pure. They're not mixed. They're not adulterated. They're not diluted. They are pure words from God's throne. Moving quickly, five. We've got five and six to go. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. If you want endurance, you got a spark in your eye. You got joy back in your heart. You're feeling good. How many of you have been there before, but you've also got off the mountain back into the valley and you've been up and then you've been down. You've been up and down. Look at this promise now, enduring forever. A constant endurance in the things he's already just promised that his word would deliver. Joy in the Lord, fire in your life, eyes brilliant with the Lord, purity, cleanliness, godliness. These are promises of God. And he says, these promises will endure forever. Why? Because they are clean. They are clean. These are promises of God. And where do they come from? Where does this clean promise of enduring in righteousness and holiness forever? It comes in the fear of the Lord. That's what David says in this verse here. Verse nine, the fear of the Lord. It doesn't seem to mix, does it? The fear of the Lord with being clean. It seems like fear of the Lord trembling, fear of the Lord repentance, fear of the Lord sorrow, but it's fear of the Lord and a clean heart. It's the fear of the Lord that brings a clean heart. If you remember in Abraham, when he went into Egypt and he was afraid they were gonna kill him because they were lusting after his wife. And what he says in Genesis 20, verse 11 says, because there is no fear of God in this place, they will kill me. Lawlessness that we're seeing in our culture today, the rebellion against the things of God and even the simple laws of our land, they come because there's no fear of the Lord. And when there's no fear of the Lord, there's no clean living any longer. And we can legislate it all we want and we can preach against it all we want, but until there's the fear of the Lord, no one around us will live a clean life and our cities won't be clean, our schools won't be clean and our government won't be clean and the White House won't be clean and the Supreme Court won't be clean. Nothing will be clean unless we get back to the fear of the Lord, unless we have a revival once again and say, God, we have turned from your statues, we have turned from your ways and we're coming back to you now. And as I get ready to close here, one last verse, we wanna look at the rules of the Lord are true and righteous all together. The promise here is to be righteous altogether, not partly righteous, not I'm doing pretty good and I pray a little bit and I read a little bit, but I'm also kind of stuck in pornography or I stopped drinking now and I'm really doing good on that, but I'm still screaming and yelling at my kids. This promise is powerful that the word of God gives the ability to be altogether righteous. The Bible says, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his ways from unrighteousness? How can a young man cleanse his ways? By taking heed to the word of God. This book has precious promises for you if you'll find it out, we can be righteous together and living in the truth. The righteous, being righteous altogether comes because God has rules. The Hebrew word here speaks of household rules. How many of you fathers or mothers have rules in your household? Don't take your shoes off and stand on the table while you're eating spaghetti. That's a rule in my house. I'm not gonna tell you why we had to set that rule up, but it was one of the rules as my kids were growing up. So these are the household rules of God. These are the manners or customs of a community and God is saying that if you wanna be righteous altogether, there are certain rules. And my rules, and here's the final thing I'll say to you, but the word of God is truth. We live in a culture where truth is all considered relative. Oprah Winfrey asks almost every one of her guests, tell me your truth. I wanna throw a book at the TV. I wanna throw my Bible. I don't throw my Bible around, but I wanna throw it. There's no such thing as your truth. Your truth could tell you you're a woman trapped in a man's body. Your truth could tell you all kinds of stuff. Marry this person, go to this place, divorce your wife, she's no good to you. Your truth can tell you all kinds of things. It's emotional. I feel, I feel, and there's no absolute truth anymore unless we return as a nation to the word of God. And not just as a nation turning back to the word of God, but preachers turning back to the word of God. I'm so glad the word of God is preached faithfully here. I've heard some of the sermons here. The word of God is preached faithfully. And some of you have been here so long, you don't know what it's like around the world today. Such foolishness from this pulpit. At best, the word of God is maybe they read one verse, close the book and start telling dreams and visions they've had about the money they're gonna make or stories and clever, humorous forms of entertainment. And the word of God is not being preached. And that's why I've determined, you probably noticed it tonight. I determined the past few years that the American church and where we do these pastors conferences need to return to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I tell you what, I used to want to preach good and I used to want to get applause and I used to want to walk off stage and say, I think that was a really hot sermon. But now what the Lord is teaching me. So Gary, when you get up there, you stand up there and you put your finger in the book and you go verse by verse and line by line and truth by truth. You preach, you tell your people, look, look at this. Look at this thing. Don't look at me. Don't look at this. Look at this book. Look into it. And I heard an old preacher say one time, you put your finger in that book and you go down line by line. And when that hand gets tired, it's okay, go ahead and put it in your pocket and then get out your other finger and go, look at the book, look at the book, look at the book. I want to encourage you to look at the book. Stand with me if you would. I want to pray for you. Pastor Tim, you're coming back. I want to pray for you. Father, right now, your Holy Spirit quickens the word of God. It's not just bootstrapping it and saying, I'll try harder to read the Bible. Lord, it's your Holy Spirit that makes the word alive to us. It illuminates it. And so I asked the Holy Spirit to come now. We haven't really talked about the Holy Spirit in this message. We talked about the word of God. It's because the Holy Spirit makes the word of God known. He doesn't just make visions and dreams known. He makes the word of God known, the words of Jesus, the words of life. And so Father, I'm asking for the Holy Spirit right now to fill many, many hearts in this place with a fresh hunger for the word of God. I pray that this is so vibrant and alive to them. They can't wait to leave this building, to get home and open up the book and ask you to say, Lord, put your finger in this for me and tell me to look, look at this. Let it come alive. Let it be life to me. Let it be joy. Let it alive in my eyes. Let it rejoice my heart. Let it make me clean. Let it make me pure. Let it make me true, that I would know the truth and be able to walk there in it. And I won't be deceived by false teachings that prop up in the church time and time again, but I'll be walking in truth. I thank you for your truth. I thank you for your purity. I thank you for your cleansing. And I thank you for that we can be righteous all together when we just say, this is our word. We love it. We love you. We love the word of God. We love the God of the word. We give thanks for this in Jesus name. Everybody said, amen. Amen. God bless you all. Thank you for letting me be with you and sharing the word of God. Pastor Tim Curnow. Thanks Tim. Appreciate it. Hallelujah. Come on, can we thank Pastor Gary one more time just for that Lord's time. When I grew up in the church, you knew everybody would have a Bible in their hand, but right now you don't know. I mean, people have devices and they'll have an iPad and I get it and that's fine. It's not a problem. But I want us to ask the Lord tonight, make his word come alive to us. I want you, so whatever you read, if you have your physical Bible with you or you have a device that maybe, would you just put your hand on your heart and just take that, I just go, God speak to me. Let your word come alive to me. Would you just ask him, just say, Lord, let your word come alive to me. Lord, when I read this word, when I see your word, oh God, in the morning, I pray that that hunger would begin to rise up. Whether it's a chapter a day, a verse, it doesn't matter, just Lord, I know that God, as we read, those words are gonna come out. The law of the Lord, the testimony of the Lord, the precepts of the Lord. Oh God, come, come do that. Lord, I love your word. And I'm so thankful for this tonight, that Lord, you have not been silent, that you are speaking. Now give us the ears of a disciple, Lord Jesus, that we would hear your word. We would hear your word. We would hear your word. Speak to our souls, oh God. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I want you just to bow your head and close your eyes for just one moment. I never want us to leave this place without this opportunity, because even as Pastor Gary was saying, I was so struck when he just kept saying, how committed God is to speaking to this planet. He's committed. The Bible, as Pastor Gary was reading in Psalm 19, he was pouring out speech, that whether you're sitting here tonight or standing with us tonight, and whether you've never opened up your Bible, it doesn't mean that you've never heard, you've not heard the voice of God. He's pouring it out every single day, every single day. He's pouring it out. And what is God saying? I'll tell you what he's saying. He is saying he loves you. He is saying he came for you. He is saying he wants to forgive you. And he is saying he wants to change you. And those that are standing here tonight, there are some of you that have maybe never opened up a Bible, but you have felt something. You have felt God has been speaking. Pastor Gary defined that voice you've been hearing is God pouring out his speech day and night to you. I love you. I love you. I wanna change you. I'm real. You are not too far. And there are some that are listening to me right now that feel like, how can God love me? How can God change me? How can I? And I'm telling you tonight, you can be changed by the power of Jesus tonight. Pastor Tim, how does that happen? Do you know what I've done? Do you know what I've done over these last years, over these last months? Can I tell you, I love this phrase. Jesus said, you can be born again, which means you get a new start with God. That's what that word means, a brand new start. Some of you are going, I wish I could do it all over. I wish I could do it. You can, you can be born again tonight. What does that mean, Pastor Tim? Those are Jesus's words. Just as you were born the first time physically, Jesus says, you can be born again spiritually. It's when God changes you from the inside out. Well, Pastor Tim, how does that happen? I'll always remind you. It's as simple as A-B-C. A, it's admitting I'm a sinner, that I can't clean myself up. And that's what God is trying to say. That's the speech that's being poured out. We're sinners. We're not mistakers in need of correction. We're sinners in need of a savior. We don't need a second chance. We need a second birth. That all of us have a condition called sin. We're sinful. I can't fix it with a priest, a pastor, a promise. Is that a program, synagogue, a mosque that can fix me? How do I get changed? That's the B word, believe. Believe that God sent his son to come and die for me. That he was the one that came and became my sin bearer. Died the death I was supposed to die. Lived a life I couldn't even live and gave me a reward, heaven and forgiveness that I don't even deserve. And then C, this is what turns religion into a relationship, confessing him as Lord. When you say you are Lord, it means you don't just get an hour or two hours on Sunday and an hour on Tuesday. It means you get every day. Sundays doesn't belong to God. Every day belongs to God. When we say you're Lord, we are saying that, God, we want a relationship with you. With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you're here tonight and you've heard that speech, you've heard something that God is speaking to you like Pastor Gary is saying. Tonight, you can be changed. Tonight, you can be born again. I don't care where you're from. I don't care how you've gotten here. But tonight, if you're here in this place and say, Pastor Tim, I want that change. I want to be born again. I wanna start a journey with God. And maybe some of you are saying this, but once I stop this, once I fix this, folks, you can't get good enough to come to God. Tonight, he wants to change you right in the condition that you're in. I don't care if you're a homeless on the street or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, we are all sinners in need of a Savior. And tonight, he wants to change you. So with every head bowed and every eye closed, if you're here tonight and say, Pastor Tim, when you pray that born again prayer, would you include me? I wanna be part. I wanna start a journey with God tonight. If that's you, you say, when you pray that prayer, put me in that prayer. I wanna start that journey with God tonight. Without any hesitation, every head bowed, every eye closed, I'll be the one that's looking around. And you go, put me in that prayer. Would you just raise your hand right now? Hold it up high. Hold it up as high as you can. I wanna make sure I see every hand that's up. Keep them up, keep them up, because I wanna make sure I see it. There's one, two, three, keep them up, four, five, six, seven, eight. You can put your hands down. Thank God for every one of you that put your hands up tonight. Thank God for everyone. Come on, can we all pray this together? Come on, let's say this out loud. Dear Lord Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God. I believe that on the cross, you took my sin, my shame, and my guilt, and you died for it. You faced hell for me, so I wouldn't have to go. You rose from the dead to give me a place in heaven, a purpose on earth, and a relationship with your Father. Today, Lord Jesus, I turn from my sin to be born again. All right, come on, say this loud now. God is my Father. Jesus is my Savior. The Holy Spirit is my Helper. And heaven is my home, in Jesus' name. And everybody said amen, and amen, and amen, hallelujah.