Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 37. Psalm 37, which
is on page 563 in the free Bibles. Five, six, three. So Psalm 37,
and we read for our text, verse four. Verse four. Deline thyself also in the Lord,
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Psalm 37 verse
4. In our text we have the word
also. The psalm begins with the direction
as to not fret because of evildoers. David, this is a psalm of David,
he views those that committed evil and yet they were prosperous,
they seem to get on well in the world and many times in the psalms,
Psalm 73 we have the same and it is so in our lives, we may
view many that hate the Lord and do not desire His ways at
all, they seem to get on well, and also they fight against God's
people. And the question is, does God
really see? Does He understand this? And
is it really any profit to serve the Lord? And Satan will try
to tempt us to believe that there is no profit or goodness in seeking
after the Lord. It's almost implied that if the
religion is true and real, and if we follow after it, then we
shall get on well in this life, we shall get on well with everybody
and have everything go smooth and everyone will speak well
of us. But the contrary is very true. Our Lord said in John chapter
17, I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them. And true religion will not be
courted and be counted a thing praised worthy by the world. A false religion will, and those
that profess even to see God, but in the way that the world
likes, will be well approved. But those that want to fashion
themselves according to the true and living God and the Word of
God, then this world will not like. And so the exhortations
in this psalm are to remind us that those of the ungodly or
those that work iniquity and wickedness, they will soon be
cut down. they will soon perish. But we
are exhorted, in verse three, to trust in the Lord and do good. And so shalt thou dwell in the
land, verily thou shalt be fed, not just naturally, but also
in a spiritual way. Man shall not live by bread only,
but by every word out of the mouth of God. And then the words
of our text. delight thyself also. So as well
as trusting, as well as in verse five, committing our way unto
the Lord, as well as in verse seven, resting in the Lord and
wait patiently for Him, we are to delight ourselves in the Lord,
and there's a promise with this. And we can be sure that delight
in something will affect our desires. We know this in every
natural way. If we delight in our hobbies,
if we, as I was as a youth, used to delight in my cars and working
on them, then my desires were that way as well. If we delight
in a person, as we get into courtship or married and we delight in
our partners, then our desires will be towards them. And so it is in the opposite
way or wrong way if we delight in wickedness and that we like
to do evil things and even to the extent of violence or robbery,
then our thoughts will go and our desires will go that way
as well. And so in our texts there's a
joining together which is a very real truth that applies to many
things in our lives. What we delight in will be reflected
in our desires. And so we have here, delight
thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart. And the teaching again is, if
we are not delighting in the Lord, and our desires are not
right, then the Lord will not give us those desires. Our desires, if they are right,
can be turned into prayer, and our text tells us that those
prayers, those desires, will be given, they will be answered.
And so if you and I are to have right desires and right prayers,
then this exhortation is needful for us, to light thyself also
in the Lord. Well, I want to look at the Lord's
help then this morning. Three points. Firstly, a delight
that is not pleasing to the Lord. And in this first point, it's
not considering those things that are very openly worldly
and anti-God, but they come very, very close to the things of God. Secondly, what it is to delight
in the Lord. If we have a verse like this,
an exhortation like this, delight thyself also in the Lord, then
it's right for us to ask, what is a true delight in the Lord? And then thirdly, desires arising
from a delight in the Lord, those desires that are desires of the
heart. He shall give thee the desires
of thine heart and the promise that he shall give us those. But firstly, we must look at
that which is an imitation. And really, everything that is
good and blessed, Satan will imitate. everything, every blessing
that God has given to men, Satan will try and defile it or misuse
it or imitate it. If it be the blessings of the
word, then Satan will misuse that word or misapply that word. If it is the blessings of music,
then Satan will bring his own satanic music, worldly music. If it is the blessings of taste,
then Satan will give us a taste for that which is evil and what
is forbidden. And all the time he will do a
perversion of that. If God has given us clothing
to cover us, then Satan will pervert that and he'll use clothing
to make sin and to make attractive that which should not be. And
so we need to be careful when we have things like before us
here, delight in the Lord, that it actually be a true delight
in the Lord and not an imitation. Now this is one reason why we
read the portion that we did in Isaiah, Isaiah 58. We said in the introduction to
the reading that The Prophet was told to show the people their
transgression or sin. It's a reminder, isn't it? Sometimes we don't know our sin
or even think that we're doing things that are right. Remember
that Our Lord speaks of those that at the last day shall come
before him and say, Lord, Lord, open to us. And he shall say,
depart from me, I never knew you. But then they shall return
and they shall say, but thou hast taught in our streets, we
have been called by thy name. They profess that they followed religion, even having
the name of the Lord, and that his truths were taught them.
But the Lord said, depart from me, all ye that work iniquity. So he was pointing them to a
people that had a form of religion, but it didn't turn them away
from sin. They still walked in wicked ways. And this is what we have in Isaiah
58. We have a people in verse two
that sought the Lord daily. Now we might think if someone
was seeking the Lord every day, not just on a Sunday, not just
in the times of worship, that that would be very praiseworthy,
that would be a godly person. And then we read, and delight
to know my ways, and you say that is even more a godly person
that is wanting to know the ways of the Lord. And we read, as a nation that
did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of their God,
they were acting as if they are walking in uprightness, godly
ways, and are not turned away from the Lord at all. He says,
they ask of me the ordinances of justice. That's what they're
asking for. And then they take delight in
approaching to God. In this second verse, there's
twice it's mentioned delight. They delight to know my ways,
They delight in approaching to God. You might say, what has
God to say against a people like that? If we are like that, are we found out in what God
says against this people? The first thing is what they
were doing They are asking the Lord, wherefore have we fasted? Say, they and thou seest not.
It's like a person saying to God, look, I seek thee morning
and night. We have our family reading and
prayers and we have our private reading and I attend the church
of God and don't you take any notice of this? Don't you notice
this? Don't you think that I'm a good
Christian and I worship you, Orion? And we're actually looking
at what we're doing and thinking, this is pleasing to God. This we are doing to carry favour
with God. He should be thankful for us.
He should bless us. He should give us good health
and prosper our ways and give us heaven. He should be pleased
with what we're doing. Why is he sending this prophet? Why is he sending the preacher?
to even suggest that what we are doing is not acceptable and
not right. Well, the Lord gives the answer
here. He says, Behold, in the day of
your fast ye find pleasure and exact all your labours. Yet what
our hymn writer says, a rounds of dead service forms a waste. They worship for worship's sake
and the actual pleasure they got out of was actually in the
worship service itself. There are many that will follow
worship and what they like, they like about some churches that
will have the nice flowing robes and the headpieces and the choral
singing and the music and the form and the ceremony. That is what they like about
religion. It attracts them to it. And this is what God was saying
of his ancient people. But he's asked them, he says,
is this really what I've chosen? This way you're worshipping me
and fasting for debate and bowing down your head as a bulrush making
out that you're being very religious and denying yourself things even. And you know, the apostle speaks
of these things even in when he writes to the Colossians and
says of those that in gospel days were walking in these ways,
he says, In Colossians chapter two, at the end of that chapter,
he says, wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments
of the world, why as though living in the world are ye subject to
ordinances? And he speaks of the commandments
and doctrines of men. And then he says this at the
end of that chapter, which things have indeed A show of wisdom
in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body or
it says in the margin or punishing or not sparing the body, not
in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. What a solemn thing,
a show of wisdom in will-worship. You can have all these things,
you can observe Lent, you can observe things where you deny
yourself things, but you go to those that are serving idols
and the things that they do to their bodies, mutilating their
bodies, cutting their bodies, all of these things can be imitated
even by the people of God and it be measured as the right way
is the afflicted way. Sometimes we can even extend
that when we're seeking God's will in providence, what to do.
There are some that say, well, if you've got two ways that are
open towards you, you take the way that you don't like, the
way that's crucifying to the flesh, the job that would be
the hardest, the worst, that would be the right way to take.
No, not at all. You take that which the Lord
has opened up, what he's trained you for, and what your heart
is inclined after, and what is accordance to the word of God. Just because something is difficult
and hard to the flesh, doesn't make it to be a way that is right
before God. And so God saw his people making
many things and worship in a way that they thought was acceptable
to God. But the Lord looked upon it and
he said, no, you're just finding your pleasure in these things.
This is not what I've chosen. And then he says before them
what things he had chosen, which we briefly mentioned in the introduction
to the reading there. No, they weren't loosing wickedness
at all. what things that they were doing
weren't breaking the bands of sin. They weren't helping the
poor and the needy. They weren't ministering to those
that were in soul trouble, that felt sinners, that wanted a saviour,
their sins pardoned and forgiven. They weren't doing those things. But they had religion. Don't
be blinded by religion for religion's sake. Our text really is setting
forth what true religion is, a real relationship with the
Lord Himself, delighting in Him, in Him, not in all of these things
that one day they shall be all gone, they shall all perish,
and we shall be forever with the Lord, we shall be with the
Lord's people, with Him forever, we are to delight in Him now,
here. But then we see another case. We have the case in Ezekiel's
day. So Isaiah, he is 130 or so years
before they were taken into Babylonian captivity, 700 years before Christ. Ezekiel was in the day when they
were brought into captivity. And Ezekiel in chapter 33, we have God saying to him of
what the people were doing. He says in verse 30, Also thou
son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against
thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak
one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I
pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the
Lord. And they come unto thee as the
people cometh, they sit before thee as my people, and they hear
thy words, but they will not do them. For with their mouth
they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And our Lord speaks exactly the
same, doesn't he? Be you doers of the word, not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves. The well-known parable
our Lord spoke of, which was the parable of the man that built
his house upon the sand and the one that built his house upon
the rock. What was the difference? What was the teaching? One that
heard the word and did it was like those that built on the
rock. One that heard and did not was like the built upon the
sand. And then in verse 32 in Ezekiel
33, we have and lo thou art unto them as a very lovely song of
one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument
for they hear thy words but they do them not. You know, we can
sit under a sermon We can hear a minister say, that was a good
sermon, or he did get on well, or he did preach well. We take
not a blind bit of notice of what he said. Don't turn into
practice anything that we've heard. And this is the reproof that
is set before us here. And so it does, it comes. comes
very, very close when we have a word like this, delight thyself
also in the Lord, and we read of those that are delighting
in his ways, delighting in ordinances and ceremonies, delighting even
to hear his prophets, but their delight is not that which is
pleasing to the Lord. It is not that which is turning
away any from wickedness or sin. They are not really knowing the
Lord Himself. They do not see and know the
Lord Himself. And so I want to then look at
it from the other side and to see what it is to delight in
the Lord. Delight thyself also in the Lord. Really it is centred in God himself,
Jehovah, the self-existent God, the greatness of God, the Trinity,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost. looking unto him as the true
and the living God, not losing sight of the reality of God. In Hebrews 11, we have the great
definition of faith and the vital necessity of faith. He that cometh
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek him." Seek him. You know, Job, in his
darkness and trial and trouble that he had, he had this cry,
oh, that I knew where I might find him. that I might come even
unto his seat. And his desire was after him. The Greeks in Christ's day says
we would see Jesus. Where is he, says the wise man,
that is born King of the Jews? There is that desire After him,
we have it in the end of the Old Testament, the beautiful
promise of the Lord's coming and when he shall appear. In chapter 3 in Malachi, Behold,
I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts." And the truly godly in the Old Testament, they
were waiting for the promised seed, the woman. They were waiting
for Christ. They were waiting for him that
should come. When Solomon built the temple,
and he dedicated the temple. Then he prayed unto the Lord,
and his whole prayer points unto the eternal God. He says, behold,
the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this
house that I have built, that will God in very deed dwell upon
the earth. And the desire, the seeking,
is a seeking unto God Himself. When shall I come and appear
before God? You and I must appear before
God. We shall see Him. We shall know Him even as we
are known now. Every eye shall see Him. When He comes a second time,
He shall come with great power and great glory. Every eye shall
see him. And so it is to delight ourselves
in the Lord, in God himself. And if we delight in him, then
all that is revealed about him in the holy word of God will
be what we delight in. We'll want to know about him,
read about him, we want to find those things that explain about
him, that reveal him to us, that as by nature we do not know
God, a man cannot know God by his own wisdom, yet God has so
determined through his word and the preached word that he should
reveal himself to his people, that that should be our delight,
that God reveal himself to us. He would show himself to us and
reveal himself to us. Psalm 139. is a beautiful psalm, the psalm
you had actually last Lord's Day brought before you by a Lord's
servant who's preaching here. And in that psalm, the psalm
of David, he speaks of God. He speaks of what he sees in
God. O Lord, thou hast searched me. And the first six verses is the
knowledge of God, and the knowledge of what God knows about him. God knows his down-sitting, his
up-rising, understandeth even his thought afar off. That there's
nothing about his life, his words in his tongue, that God doesn't
know. And in verse six he says, such
knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high I cannot attain
unto it." If we delight in God, it is tracing the greatness of
God. God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints to be had in reverence of all them
that are about him. And then he says from verse 7
to verse 12, of the presence of God. That wherever he goes, he cannot
get away from his presence. If he goes up into heaven, God
is there. If he goes down to hell, God
is there. If he goes to the uttermost parts
of the sea, God is there. Even in darkness, that won't
cover him. That doesn't hide from him. The
night shineth as the day. And these things are what he
delights in. He knows of God. And this is
what doesn't belong to man. It doesn't belong to anyone else
but God. And he won't find these things,
what he's speaking of, in any other but God. He delights in him as his creator. In verse 13 to verse 16 of that
psalm, he speaks of himself in the womb, and when he was fearfully
made, and from a seed grown up to a substance and then born,
God was seeing and looking upon him. Thine eyes did see my substance,
yet being unperfect, and in thy book all my members were written,
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
them. You ever thought about the babe formed in the worm and
the Lord doing that? You know, creation itself, it
shows forth God, day into day utterance speech, and is one
of the ways that we see the greatness of God. But especially it is
in ourselves, This is what the Apostle Paul, with them on Mars
Hill, who worshipped the unknown God, had an altar to an unknown
God amongst all their other idols that they're worshipping. He
said, Him, Him that ye ignorantly worship, I declare unto you. In Him we live and move and have
our being. He's not far from any one of
us. And it is to delight in God,
what he is, who he is, that differs from every idol, that differs
from man. And then he's psalmist in Psalm
139. He thinks of his thoughts towards
him in verse 17. How precious also are thy thoughts
unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them. And so the delight in the Lord
is a delight in one whom we really considered in the light of scripture
and we realize who he is, his greatness, his power, his mind. If we delight in a person on
earth, don't we ever think about who they are, what their beauty
is, what their qualities are, how unique they are, how different
they are, what attracts us to them, what qualities they have. If we have the delight in the
Lord, then we will delight in Him as set before us, as revealed
in the holy word of God. We will delight in Him as delighting
in the Gospel, the provision in the Lord Jesus Christ. If
the Old Testament saints look for His coming, then as Christ
is revealed in the Word, God manifests in the flesh. We will
desire to truly know the Lord Jesus Christ, to wonder at His
incarnation, to wonder at his life, to wonder at his death,
and to what he has done and what he has accomplished, to delight
in the Lord and in his whole mission, his whole work. Our Lord says, I delight to do
thy will, O God, thy law is within my heart, spoken of in Psalm
40, the Lord's coming. If we delight in the Lord, then
we are delighted to look into what our Lord and Saviour did,
His person, God and man in one person, His work of redemption,
His work of salvation. And then we will also delight
in what He is as a high priest above, a sympathising High Priest,
a long-suffering God, a gracious God, a kind God, a God who has
not dealt with us as our sins have deserved. And we'll be looking
actually at Him. We know many have received, and
many when Christ was upon earth, they received of His hands bread
to eat, healing in their bodies. They took the gifts and went
away and never considered Him. We can be like that. We can have
gifts from men, but we don't want to know about them. We're
only pleased to have their money, but we don't want to know about
them. We don't want to know what pleases them, what delights them. But when we know about the Lord,
we know about Him and delight in Him, that is holy and pure,
separate from sinners, the true, the living God, the pure, the
spotless One, and we shall delight actually in Him. In the Song
of Solomon we have, which is a beautiful picture of Christ
and the Church of God, and the spouse or the church was asked
about her well-beloved in chapter 5. And she charged the daughters
of Jerusalem, the people in the, young believers in the Church
of God, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my
beloved, that you tell him that I am sick of love. And they in
turn ask, what is thy beloved more than another beloved? O
thou fairest among women, what is thy beloved more than another
that thou dost charge us thus? In other words, they say, why
are you delighting in your bridegroom, in your beloved? We may have
young believers in the Church of God or those that are here
of our worship or our love to the Lord and say, why do you
love him? Why do you find a delight in him? And in the verses that
follow there in a pictorial way, she tells how she really looking
upon her beloved and saying what beauty she saw in him. Well, what we see in our God,
who is the true and living God, the eternal God, we see in Him
what we will not find in any fallen man, will not find in
any idol, will not find in any other. He is the only one true
and living God that has made the heavens and the earth and
all that is in them, has made us and before whom we must stand
at last. and who also is the God of salvation. Our God is the God of salvation,
and we are to delight ourselves in Him, in the Lord, not take
our eyes off His person as the living and the true God that
knows us, made us, seen us, and is in us. If we are then to delight in
Him, what will be our desires? How will our desires flow out
from that? And of course, we're told here
that those desires, that they shall be granted. And we have it, we have a beautiful
prayer that is set before us in the Chronicles, 1 Chronicles,
chapter 4, and verse 10. It is the prayer of Jabez, Jabez's
prayer. And we read this, Jabez was more
honorable than his brethren. And his mother called his name
Jabez, saying, because I bear him with sorrow. And Jabez called
on the God of Israel, saying, O that thou wouldst bless me
indeed. Now notice these are prayers,
but these are desires. O that thou wouldst bless me
indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be
with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may
not grieve me. Now notice that. His desire is
not that the evil might grieve God, but it might not grieve
him. His desires are the same as God's. His delight is in what
God delights in. And because of that, we read,
and God granted him that which he requested. God granted him
that which he requested. Remember our text says, and he
shall give thee the desires of thine heart. He shall grant you
those desires. You think of the desires of David. This is after he had fallen in
the matter of Bathsheba in adultery and murder. Sadly, carnal desires
led to sin, led to the chastisement of the Lord, led to a distance
from the Lord. But in Psalm 51, we have desire
after desire. that delight in the Lord, the
confession of his sins. But you look at his desires.
Have mercy upon me, O God. Wash me through thee from mine
iniquity. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Hide thy face from my sins. Blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God. renew a right spirit within me,
cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from
me, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, uphold me with
thy free spirit. These are all desires that are
turned into prayers. Lord, all my desire is before
thee, and my groaning is not heard from thee. These things
are expressed especially in the psalms. It's good if you read
through, if we read through the psalms with this thought as to
what is the psalmist desiring? What coming up from his heart,
not just in the mind, but really from his heart, he desires these
things, he's longing after these things. They rise up within. And Psalm 119, again, it is a
psalm where there's a interspersed delight in the Lord and a desire
after the Lord. And thy word have I hid in mine
heart that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord,
teach me thy statutes. So there's a delighting in the
Lord. Blessed art thou, O Lord. And then the prayer, teach me
thy statutes. I've rejoiced in the way of thy
testimonies as much as in all riches. I'll meditate in thy
precepts, I have respect unto thy ways, and I will delight
myself in thy statutes, I will not forget thy word." And then
right through that psalm, there's these real desires that are springful,
our desires after holiness, desires after a knowledge of the Lord,
desires that the Lord would subdue our iniquities and sins, that
he'd help us when we find Satan so strong, our lusts, our corruptions
so strong, the world so strong, our desires that we might not
sin, that we might live holy, godly lives, our desires that
we might live to his honour and glory, our desire that we might
attain heaven at last, and to be with the Lord where he is
at last. You know, in the portion that
we read in Isaiah 58, the end of that
portion, it speaks of the Lord's day. If thou turn away thy foot
from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day. Call the Sabbath a delight, the
holy of the Lord honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing
thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine
own words. Then shalt thou delight thyself
in the Lord. Then. And you know, when I was
called by grace, there's one thing that Immediately the Lord
made different with me. You know, before that I hated
the Lord's day. I used to use, I say it to my
shame, the time in the Lord's house just to make my plans for
the next week and shut out what I was hearing. I just came on
sufferance. But when the Lord gave me spiritual
life, when he convinced me of my ignorance of him, He gave
me such a desire to be taught, a desire for the Word of God,
and a desire for the house of God. And every time that there
was an opportunity, I was found in the house of God. In the week,
in the Lord's day, on the Sunday, and the Lord has instituted right
at the very beginning of creation, one day in seven, He's given
us six days for our pleasure and He's given us one day that
we might have pleasure in the Lord. And I can truly say that
the Lord's day turned to me from an uxom day to a day that I really
had pleasure in the Lord and in His word and in the lighting
in Him. And there's a time that when
the Lord had Bless my soul, and this is when in my early 20s,
in my workplace that I was working at as a design engineer. And they changed the working
week from 40 hours a week to 37 and a half hours a week. And they said, instead of reducing
our weekly hours, they'd give us one day off a month extra. And they said that day should
be a Monday. Well, I had night school on a
Monday night, and it would have meant that I would then have
to leave my home, drive past work, and drive right up to Melbourne
to night school. And I desperately wanted Friday,
and I tried to get them to change it. And they said, no, you have
Monday. You know, I approved the Lord's
ordering of that. There was many times the Lord
so blessed me on a Lord's Day and the next day was the day
I had off from work. And there was times I had a second
Lord's Day and it was my delight not to do secular things but
to use that time in the Word and to do lighting in the Lord
and in His ways. It was a second Sabbath. And
oh, that my soul was back to those days. Those were days of
spiritual joy and gladness and loving the Lord. And often it
is a real test of our souls. How much does the world hold
onto us? How much do we hold onto the
world? How much can we let go of it
and come apart and rest aside a while? What is the Lord's day
to us? If it is irksome to us, if we
do not spend the Lord's day in truly seeking the Lord and worshipping
Him and delighting in Him, we have to solemnly really face
up to the fact that we are not delighting in the Lord and to
really question our whole religion. If we cannot spend time with
the Lord and do not delight in Him, And I'm not saying that
we don't, when we know the Lord, we find it often a struggle,
a wrestling, the world pulls and we have a deceitful heart.
And there are times that we do really groan that we do not delight
in the Lord. But to know in our right mind
that we would delight in him and seek to mortify the flesh,
to see the thing, one day, God willing, I will be with the Lord
forever and ever. Cannot I spend one day with him
on earth? And is it not my delight in the
week to come aside and to worship and to gather with his people?
Those are sacred times when we can join with the brethren in
prayer and come on a Thursday evening and gather in the house
of God, or as I've got in this next week, Swayze on the Tuesday
night, Okington on the Wednesday night, and our own on Thursday
night, and the Pilgrim home on Monday morning. Those are sacred
times to gather with the people of God, and to meet, and to have
the promise of the Lord with us. But those are extra times
in the week as we are able to, but on the Lord's Day, is a day
when Satan can tempt us to many things and we can rightly say
to him, Satan, this is the Lord's say, it is not mine. Yes, you
can point out all things I haven't done and all things that should
be attended to, but this is the Lord's and I will give it to
the Lord. May we then truly delight in
the Lord and not deceive ourselves and be looking at things and
say, well, What I'm doing is pleasing to the Lord, He'll accept
it. But what are our desires? Do we have desires? And if we
are delighting in the Lord, our desires will be right, and the
Lord will grant those desires. What an encouragement. He shall
give thee the desires of thine heart. Those of you that groan
under sin, those that long for holiness, long to be delivered
from sinful habits and thoughts and ways, and to break free of
those things that bring darkness to the soul, where those desires,
they are in accordance to the Word of God, is accordance with
what the Lord has done, that His name is Jesus, to save His
people from their sins. And if your desires are mine,
are to be delivered from sin, saved from its power, save from
its influence, and to be brought to walk with the Lord, and have
that sweet fellowship with the Lord, and with his dear people,
and have desires after his people, numbered with them may I be now
and to eternity. What a word before us this morning,
delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart. May it be a word to give us that
direction is the way that we should go and that we don't fall
upon the traps, the rocks that are so thrown up in the religious
world that will have men religious but not godly. Have men appear
to be the people of God but not the people of God. Delight thyself
also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine
heart. May the Lord bless this word
to us. Amen.