[0:00] Psalm 119. Stephen told me that those that were going to sing special tonight were under the weather and couldn't. I offered. He suggested I just preach a little longer. I really appreciate that vote of confidence by him that he wanted to hear me preach longer. I told Stephanie, I said, what am I going to do if I have to preach 40 minutes? She hugged me and said, I think you're going to be fine, dear. I don't should have any trouble preaching for 40 minutes, four hours, whatever. Psalm 119. But as you turn to Psalm 119 and we'll look, start at verse 65 tonight, as Zechariah was preaching about those men in that furnace, my mind went to, I was listening to you, but I also went someplace else, Zechariah. Isaiah chapter number 48, verse 10, behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver. I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, that those men in that furnace of their, it wasn't of their own making, had an opportunity to draw close to the Lord. And the portion of scripture we'll have tonight, just like in limitations, there's times in our lives where we build the fire in which we will walk through and God is still with us there. Which ought to bring us great comfort is to know that when we are going through affliction of our own making and our sin, that he still is with us. And then when you're in affliction that isn't of your own making, to know that you have an opportunity to draw closer to the Lord. And we're going to look at the wonderful benefit of affliction in our lives tonight. So Psalm chapter number 119, we'll start at verse number 65 and we'll go down to verse number 72.
[1:35] Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed thy commandments. Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I have kept thy word. Thou art good and thou doest good. Teach me thy statutes. The proud have forged the lie against me, but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart. The heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in thy law. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.
[2:12] The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. The title, I always have one. It starts at verse number 71, which is a difficult one for us. It is, it is good for me that I have been afflicted. And this Psalm and God's word defends that truth. Let's pray.
[2:34] Heavenly Father, I ask that you be with us tonight, Lord, as I know through the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believers here, that you have a desired intent for the word of God, that the meaning of this passage does not change from one person to another. But Lord, it comes to us at different times in lives. So I'm aware that there's people here tonight, Lord, where they may be dealing with affliction. And Lord, or maybe that you would bring us to knowledge of your word, for your law, your precepts, your statutes, that we can share them with those that we love and care for. Lord, I pray that you would help us tonight as we know that it's true from your word. But I pray that through our experience of knowing your word and trusting you, we'll be able to leave here tonight all in agreement, saying amen to the fact that it is good for us that we have been afflicted.
[3:24] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So the 22 different sections of Psalm 119 we're looking at, I've told you that either precepts, statutes, commandments, law, all those are going to be mentioned in every verse except for one.
[3:40] There's a very common theme through Psalm 119 concerning God's word and the different benefits in which we will find in our lives from it. Tonight's topic or theme is very similar to what we've been looking at on Sunday night concerning Lamentations. If you went here on Sunday night, I'll remind you we were doing some reading of what leads us historically in the Lamentations.
[4:00] And it said in 2 Chronicles 3, 36, 16, But they mocked the messengers of God, they despised His words, and they misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, till there was no remedy.
[4:14] But then in Lamentations 1, 5 it says, But her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper, for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions, her children are God into the captivity before the enemy.
[4:27] So a place here where the children there in Jerusalem had got to a place where they were not listening to the prophets and to the messengers, and they got to a place where there was no remedy.
[4:38] God in His love had brought affliction into them to correct course, to draw them close to Him. And so they found themselves in the furnace of affliction. But there's many ways in which we could find that we would get there.
[4:51] But all of these truths or precepts about affliction are going to be true, regardless of how you find yourself there. I'm going to give you four things to help you tonight. One, because it's helpful to remember.
[5:02] And two, because my wife tells me that it's helpful for us to remember, right? So here we go, dear. All right, four things about affliction. First of all, God is faithful and good. That's what the verse is going to say.
[5:13] In the midst of affliction, that is still true. God is faithful and good. Second, the Lord's use of affliction for our good. We're going to see that God does not waste this affliction or suffering in our lives.
[5:27] The next, we will see that we can learn discernment through affliction, that there is a knowledge, a true knowledge in which we will learn experientially about God that we may not learn at other times.
[5:38] And then lastly, affliction provides an opportunity to draw closer to God. What a great story we had seen with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Nobody wants to go into the fire.
[5:48] But if you're like Peter and you say, I'll walk on the water if I can be near you, Jesus, nobody wants to be in the furnace. But if you know that the fourth man, that Jesus is going to be in the furnace, those that love him would say, I would want to be there, especially knowing that he would be in it.
[6:05] So first off, we see that God is faithful and good. God is good to his servants. Would you read verse number 65 with me? Psalm 119, 65. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.
[6:20] Don't really feel like you're reading with me, okay, people? Remember, we're one of the wanted classes. We're the happy sheep. We got to play by the same rules that the other ones do, all right? So let's read this together. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.
[6:35] He has dealt well with you the night as his servant. He sent his son to die for you, his son for you, a servant. He offered you a new identity in him.
[6:46] On Sunday, we're looking at justification. We're looking at faith alone. Justified often defined as just if I had never sinned. But it goes beyond that. So much better, right? It's just as if I had lived the life that Christ had lived for me.
[6:59] Just that if I had fulfilled the law, he did that for you. Then he sealed you with the Holy Spirit. Those dark hours, we're not holding the reading just the back of some book, the Bible, where we wrote that we received salvation.
[7:12] We're not holding some story somebody told us that we know that the Holy Spirit is living inside of us and that it will never be taken from us until we will spend our lives already experiencing that eternal life which is promised to us.
[7:25] And then there's a place prepared for us, that the one who came and died for a place left and he went to prepare a place for us. And so we can say that he has dwelt well with thy servant. Nothing that we'll ever say in this world is ever going to take away from the fact that he has dwelt well with his servant.
[7:42] Previously, we had read the words of the servant in verse number 49 of Psalm 119, where he provides hope to his servants through his word. So remember the word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope.
[7:55] It's that in his word that we find his promises and that brings us hope. That we don't have to look in the circumstances of life to find hope. That we can find it in the promises that he has given us, the truth that is here.
[8:09] And so we can say the night, he has dwelt well with us as his servants according to his word. God is faithful to his word and as his servants, we are so grateful. Verse 68, thou art good and thou doest good.
[8:21] Teach me thy statutes. You do good. God appoints affliction for his people and we can and we should call this good. First Thessalonians 3, 3.
[8:34] That no man should be moved by these afflictions. For yourselves know that we are appointed there unto. That we have been appointed unto this.
[8:44] As Job was allowed to have this to come into his life, it is something that God is appointing, is allowing into his life. It's wonderful to say that God is faithful to us as his servants.
[8:57] But it's much better to say that God is faithful to his word. Because I change from day to day and year to year, but his word doesn't change. And it says that he is faithful unto us according to his word.
[9:11] I think you'll be able to finish this. I'll say the first part of the verse of the song and you see if you can finish it. For I know what air befalls me. Good job, Grant.
[9:23] All right, apparently we don't teach that in America anymore, Grant. You have to be taught in a school in London. We're going to try one more time. For I know what air befalls me. Right.
[9:34] Jesus doeth all things well. You've sung it. You know it. It's said of Christians that we are the most untruthful on Sunday mornings when we sing in our congregational music. That we express something that we don't always believe.
[9:46] Do you believe that? Jesus doeth all things well. He said here, thou art good and thou doest good. Teach me about our statutes. That's always going to be true in your life. You will always be able to say that Jesus doeth all things well.
[9:58] So we see here that God is faithful and he is good. The psalmist going through a time of affliction said he has dealt well with me as a servant according to his word. He does good.
[10:09] He teaches me. And I want to know his word more as a result of what is going on in my lives. Secondly here, the Lord uses affliction for our good.
[10:19] Verse 67. Before I was afflicted, I went astray. But now I have kept thy word. But now I have kept thy word. Affliction can be course correcting in our lives.
[10:34] Prosperity won't do this. Affliction will do in our lives what prosperity won't do. Jeremiah 22, 21. I speak unto thee in thy prosperity, but thou said I will not hear.
[10:45] This has been thy manner from thy youth that thou obeyest not my voice. That's why in verse number 71 we can say, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.
[10:57] That we can be grateful for its work. But Charles Spurgeon said, I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me against the rock of ages. God, whatever has been brought in my life that has brought me closer to you, that my closeness to you is greater importance than my comfort.
[11:13] So whatever is brought into my life that brings me closer to you, I can call it good. Because I went astray, but now I have kept thy word. That in areas of my life, Lord, you have brought this refining fire into my life.
[11:28] And so I will call it good. So deliverance is brought to us through affliction. Job 36, 15 says, He delivereth the poor in his affliction, not out of his affliction, but in, through his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression.
[11:44] In order to be delivered from affliction, what we're being delivered from must be of worse than our affliction itself. Affliction must be producing something in us that is far more precious than immediate relief.
[11:58] If we were to look to God and know all that God knew about us, we would say, God, I want relief from this affliction. And he would say, I have something greater for you. Because if there wasn't something greater for us, then it wouldn't serve his purpose in our lives.
[12:11] If there wouldn't have been something that would bring us closer to him, then he would, that's what he would provide for us. So affliction can bring deliverance in our lives, just like they'd went astray and it brought them back.
[12:24] It also brings us from indifference. Isaiah 30, verses 20 and 21 say, And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner anymore?
[12:40] But thine eyes shall see thy teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.
[12:53] That the bread of adversity and the water of affliction is made up here, and that causes us so that we can hear and we can see the teaching of the teacher.
[13:05] Affliction will spur us on to search for meaning and hope beyond our present circumstances, which can open our eyes to the power and the beauty of his word. I would expect that all of you in here, because you're the happy sheep, which means you are the old people in the building tonight.
[13:20] If you don't feel, in all the different rooms, we're the oldest group in here, okay? Most life experience going on. Every one of you know the sweetness of God's word during times of trials and affliction.
[13:32] The same passage. The word didn't change. Your ability to hear was changing. God drew you close to him during that time. The most, one of the strongest times of growth in my Christian life came at a children's hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, and I've shared with you before.
[13:52] It's as if God wrote the words on the next page as I would turn them. The word of God, which did not have a very central role in the life of a teenager, came alive.
[14:03] It didn't come alive. I recognized that it was living. Affliction can open our ears. Job 36, 15. He delivereth the poor in his affliction and openeth their ears in oppression.
[14:17] It allows us to see things more clearly. It allows us to hear things more clearly. And then also, it delivereth from sin. Affliction. When despair sets in and we feel burdened beyond ourselves, reliance on God takes on a new meaning.
[14:32] 2 Corinthians 1, 8 and 9. For we would not... I'll give you a second to catch up here. We would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.
[14:49] But we have the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead. And those moments of life, those moments of despair, when that sentence of death is coming, we come to a place where we recognize that we cannot trust in ourselves, but we must turn to Him.
[15:08] The sadness is so much in Alpharetta. You know, there's a very small homeless community in Forsyth County. There's very few things that we deal with in Metro Alpharetta that we deal with in Elena.
[15:20] But what is saddest is so many people that are chasing after something, and they've yet to come to a place where they've come to this moment of despair where they realize, I must turn to Him.
[15:30] And if the moment comes in their lives that brings affliction, that brings a trial in their lives where they realize all that they've built is not going to bring them happiness, they will look back on that and they'll say, that was the best season of my life.
[15:42] That was the greatest season of my life. You think about any of the things that you have come through, and you would have to lose the trial, but in losing the trial you lost what God brought you through, you would not want to.
[15:55] This is how Charles Spurgeon says it. Kind of the difference between me and Zachariah and looks, go one more step farther. That's what Charles Spurgeon looked like, all right? If we were standing together.
[16:06] It's the heavier version of me and Zachariah, all right? Bearded, much more intelligent, but it's bearded nonetheless, all right? He said this, and I'm sure you've heard this before. I, for my part, owe more I thank to the anvil and to the hammer, to the fire and to the file than anything else.
[16:25] I bless the Lord for the corrective of His providence, by which if He has blessed me on this one hand with sweets, He has blessed me on the other hand with bitters.
[16:36] That more than the anvil and the hammer, the file and the fire has done more in His life to bless Him than anything else in His life. And then lastly, affliction helps us from loving the world, which is how it's described in the Bible.
[16:51] For Demas, 2 Timothy 4.10, For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. There's so many things in this world that often draw our attention to it, but affliction draws us to the thing of God because we realize the things of this world are broken.
[17:08] So affliction saves us from this world because we just realize this is not what we are meant to be. This is not paradise. We are not in heaven yet. Lord, I want to be with You.
[17:18] I want to be in Your presence. So thankfully, God has life-giving purposes in our affliction as we turn to Him. And then third, tonight, we've learned discernment through affliction.
[17:31] So as we've seen here in this passage and so far, as we're looking at God is faithful and good, the Lord uses our affliction for our good, and we can learn discernment through our affliction.
[17:43] Psalm 119.66 says, Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed Thy commandments. This good judgment. Judgment here means literally the taste, not in a sense of something of artistic value.
[17:59] Greg and I were looking at a mailer today, and he's like, I like this one. I'm like, well, I like this one. And there's just a matter of preference, what we would prefer, but a matter of taste and when it comes to spiritual discernment.
[18:11] Job 34.3, For the ear trieth words as a matter of tasteth meat, that the ear is tasting the words and you're growing in your discernment.
[18:23] Some of you would have a more refined palate. How many of you remember lemon heads, war heads? All right? The new generation, it's takis. It's this little chip. It's all the flavor of any chip you've ever eaten in the world in the one chip.
[18:36] All right? More flavor than you had before. Every generation finds another way to destroy their taste buds. And so it's kind of like, this is going to be the grand finale. All right?
[18:46] You're going to taste everything, but after that, you'll never taste anything again. I know Jeff was probably burning a hole in his tongue with those warheads, with the other kids, to see who could put the most in there.
[18:58] But we lose our discernment. Our discernment. We learn our ability to define what is true and good judgment and not. And affliction brings our senses back to that.
[19:11] Affliction makes us search the scripture with a greater desperation for help rather than treating it as optional in life. I have to have something from the Lord today. I cannot move today.
[19:23] Devotions are not going to be something I check. It's not at its normally scheduled time, but I have to get into the Word because I have to hear something. It helps us with that to teach us discernment.
[19:36] Affliction allows us to do more than know about God, but it allows us to experience the truth of His Word. Job, as we keep looking at the night, because it's such a long story that helps us see about affliction and the response to it, he says in Job 42.5, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.
[20:00] The teaching of God's Word combined with affliction will often bring that into your life. The truth that you had heard, that you were learning to want them or some kind of program like that, or you sung it as a kid, but now you say, I understand when people get emotional when they say, when we sing the song, it as well with my soul, or when we sing Rock of Ages, or when somebody says, I lean not into my own understanding, a Bible verse.
[20:30] You had heard it with your ear, but now you see it with your eye. Affliction will do that. And we learn in affliction that we can have never learned on our own. We learn in affliction what we have never learned on our own.
[20:42] That's why in verse 72, the law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver. God's word's better for us than gold and silver, and we're grateful for affliction when it allows us to hear those words.
[20:55] It's of greater value to us than any of the treasures in this world. Today, you could add Bitcoin, gold, silver, Bitcoin, all right, or any of those forms of currency. No school, but the school of Christ, no teaching, but the teachings of the Spirit can ever give this good judgment and knowledge that the Holy Spirit working in and through us will teach us what we would not have learned on our own.
[21:21] I've already read for you Isaiah 48, verse 10, but take note of this, that the furnace contains treasures that you can't find elsewhere. Behold, I've refined thee, but not with silver.
[21:31] I've chosen thee in the furnace of affliction, that refining work that God does. Even trouble can be good if it teaches us the word of good, the word of God.
[21:43] It is more valuable than comfort. Then it is also possible to say it is more valuable than riches. So too often, we easily forget about our great need to learn good judgment and knowledge, and we just trust what our own heart and conscience already knows.
[22:02] But we need more discernment. We need to grow closer to Him, and affliction is something that will come into our lives that will allow us to hear and to see that. And affliction provides an opportunity to draw closer to God, which is the high prize.
[22:18] It is the calling of which we've been given in life. I'm going to share a story with you from 2 Samuel chapter number 16 about David. In 2 Samuel 16, verse number 5, it says, And when King David came to Bararim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shemiah, the son of Gerah.
[22:38] He came forth, and he cursed till as he came. And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left.
[22:51] Which is to say, he had everything he needed to stop a man from casting stones at him. He had both sides of him. He had his mighty men. And thus said Shemiah when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial, you son of Satan, you are not of God.
[23:12] Verse 8, The Lord has returned unto thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned. And the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son.
[23:23] And behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. Then said Abishai, the son of Zariah, unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord, the king?
[23:34] Let me go over, and I pray thee, and take off his head. Wow. All right, that escalated, didn't it? It's like, I can settle this. Real simple for you. If we would take his head off, he would probably not be saying as much.
[23:46] All right? And so that's what he recommended. And the king said, What have I to do with thee, you sons of Zariah? So let him curse, because the Lord has said unto him, Curse David.
[23:59] Who shall thou say, wherefore hast thou done so? Because I didn't read it. Let me read it again to you so you realize it's a question. Curse David. Who shall then say, wherefore thou hast done so?
[24:11] Which is to say, I don't know if what this man's coming to me is not just coming from the hand of the Lord, and that isn't for me to decide. And David said unto Abishai and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth to my bowels, seeketh my life.
[24:26] How much more now may this Benjamite do it? Let him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has bidden him. My sons have come after me. Who is it for me to allow this stranger to do the same?
[24:40] And this is what he says in verse number 12, which is so challenging. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction, that the Lord will requite me of good for his cursing this day.
[24:53] That affliction wasn't something that he was to go around. It wasn't the head of a person he was to take off. He was to say, I'm going to go from this, believing that it may be coming from the Lord and that it is going to be good for me.
[25:05] And as David and his men went by the way, Shimea went along on the hill's side over against him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and cast dust.
[25:18] If the Lord does us good, then we should expect that Satan will do us evil. He readily puts in the hearts of children the forged lies against the children of God, as it says in the Psalm, or here in this example, to criticize the King David.
[25:33] And we should expect that, that that would happen. But here's the question, what will be the response? The response of it is a matter of the heart. Here in this, if David would have responded in a way as a king, that wouldn't have been replicable for us, right?
[25:47] But we can respond in the same way by watching the heart of King David, which is to say, afflictions and trials isn't just something that I'm supposed to race past, but it's something that I'm supposed to learn from.
[25:58] It's something that I'm supposed to see that the Lord has allowed into my life and there's a proper response and then there's one that would not be pleasing to the Lord. A proper response is a matter of heart. Verse 69, here's an expression some of you may have never heard before and you may use it from this day forward.
[26:13] Verse 69, the proud have forged the lie against me, but I will keep the precepts with my whole heart. Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in thy law. I saw some of you kind of smile when I read it earlier.
[26:26] That's really weird, isn't it? My heart is fast and fat as grease, all right? Which is saying here there's a dullness and insensitivity, a drowning and luxury and excess, that there's a people here in life, the proud people, that they don't hear the precepts of God.
[26:43] It would just kind of bounce off of them. They don't have a sensitive heart to the things of God. They're not given over to the Word, but the feelings. Not over to the Word, but their feelings.
[26:55] Ephesians 4, 19, who being past feelings has given themselves over to lasciviousness to work on the uncleanness with greediness. Not being given over to the Word, but giving over to these feelings.
[27:09] So David said, I'm just going to, as his servant does good to me, I'm going to hold to his statutes and to his teachings. I'm not going to respond with feeling here. I will not be like the proud people, those that have a greasy heart towards me, those that aren't sensitive to the Lord, but I'm going to.
[27:26] We see that with David, a sensitivity and things in life that the Bible wouldn't specifically outline for us. Where many things in life we have to respond to, where we may not have a chapter and verse to tell us how to respond.
[27:38] David goes and he cuts off the bottom part of Saul's skirt, right, as he is in the cave and then David walks out and it says that God smote his heart because he didn't have a heart that was dull to the things of God.
[27:50] He had a sensitive heart towards the things of God. Often our trials act as a thorn hedge that keep us in the good pasture, but our prosperity is a gap through which we go astray.
[28:04] that through afflictions God leads and guides our hearts and oftentimes the prosperity it provides a gap in which we can find ourselves in a world of trouble. So we thank God for the afflictions that bring us closer to him.
[28:19] Question you ask, but did you learn anything? I told Selah recently what you need to do is you need to go to school and you need to tell the teacher, I need you to tell me everything you know because I don't plan to come back tomorrow. All right?
[28:30] She hasn't yet to do it. All right? And so every day she has to go back and get her daily dose of education and do it again. And so we'll ask, did you learn anything today? Which you might, parents, stop wasting your time.
[28:41] All right? They're not going to ever answer that question, all right? Kids don't want to answer that question or some kids tell you everything they learned and others don't at all. That's the question we ask. Did you learn anything today? Question I would ask you.
[28:54] You tell me about a trial you're going through. You talk about affliction. But the question is, but did you learn anything? But more specifically, did you learn anything about God that you could share with me?
[29:05] In your affliction, when your heart was sensitive, when your ears were open, when you could see things clearly, did you bring anything back to share with us through that trial?
[29:16] And we've seen it so much before in here. I referenced it last Thursday night. But Brother Gary Ledford, Stephen's father-in-law, as he was dying of cancer, he spoke as a man who was seeing things that the rest of us weren't seeing, right?
[29:30] And in our lives. And so when you go through a trial, we should be mindful of it and allow God to show us. Affliction doesn't automatically make one better or godlier. Some people will go through affliction, and the worst affliction is the one that is wasted affliction.
[29:44] Wasted because we did not turn to God and gain anything from it. But there's a time of affliction where we can be sensitive to the things of God. I'll end with this quote, and then we'll sing a couple, we'll sing a song together before we leave the night.
[30:01] Very little is to be learned without affliction. If we would be scholars, we must be sufferers. God commands are best read by eyes with wet tears.
[30:12] God's commands are best read by eyes with tears. I sent Kyle a text message not long ago. Neither of us should be here right now in many ways, right?
[30:23] When I said Kyle, he was talking about going to church and preaching God, working, something like that. And I'll say, isn't it amazing that despite God's trials in our lives that we get to do this? And he wrote something back to the fact, isn't it amazing that through and because of those trials we are here today to do those things?
[30:41] And it's most certainly true. Very little is to be learned without affliction. If we would be scholars, none of us would ever be real scholars of God's Word. It's just too deep and too rich.
[30:52] But if we're ever going to really absorb much of it, we must be sufferers. God's commands are best read by eyes wet with tears. Let's read Psalm 119.
[31:04] I'm going to pray through this passage tonight as we close. If you would like to follow along. Heavenly Father, I come to you tonight and Lord, I want to thank you for affliction.
[31:16] Lord, I know that you have dealt well with me, your servant. You have dealt well with your servants in this room tonight and you live and do according to your Word, Lord, and we can trust you.
[31:28] You are consistent, you are faithful, and we are so thankful for that. We live in a world of shifting sand. We live in a world, Lord, of dishonesty, but Lord, we live in a world in which we know that you do good towards us.
[31:41] So Lord, we pray tonight that you would teach us good judgment and knowledge, that through the trials in our lives and through affliction that we would learn this sermon. For we, Lord, we believe your commandments.
[31:52] Despite circumstances and no matter how loud our circumstances may be screaming at us, we know that your Word is louder. And because of your affliction in our lives, Lord, in areas of our lives, Lord, that we might be going astray, you have brought us back.
[32:07] And now, Lord, we want to keep your Word. We want to be people that live according to your Word. Lord, you are good, you do good, you teach us your statutes, we know that there's other people in this world, Lord, that may be proud, that may speak lies against us.
[32:22] And most of all, Lord, it's that accuser of the brethren, Lord, who speaks so loud to us. He is the arrogant one, Lord, he is the prideful one. He forges lies. He forges lies, Lord, against those even in this room who say that you don't care about them, that you have forgotten them.
[32:40] And Lord, I pray that they will keep your precepts with their whole heart, that they won't allow any room in their lives to believe the lies that are spoken by others in this world or those that are spoken, Lord, by the accuser of the brethren.
[32:52] Lord, those people, their hearts are fat. Lord, they are not sensitive towards you, but Lord, in you we delight. Lord, we want to be sensitive to your Word. Lord, it is good for us that we would be afflicted and that through it, Lord, you teach us your statutes, you teach us your words.
[33:10] And the law, Lord, that comes from your mouth that we learn during this time of affliction, it is of greater value than anything that we could ever find in this world. And so, Lord, we say thank you.
[33:21] Lord, we know that we are grateful that you would work and draw us close to you during these times of affliction. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.