God’s Great Spoil for Souls

There was exhortation given this past week from Sister Judy Brown in the book room about reading more. For many years, Christians didn’t complicate it too much. I mean, of the writing of books, there is no end. The publications that are going out constantly these days—it’s just unlike anything before.

But if there are two people that I think Christians should read—I could add more, but if I’m just talking generally, baseline, things that are worth your time to read and will furnish you with more than most Christians enjoy—there are just two names. Read Matthew Henry’s commentary. And read Spurgeon’s sermons. If that’s all you read, and there’s enough in both those men to keep you going.

If you’re wondering, say, “Well, I’m not really sure what book to read,” or, “I’m not sure if I can read a whole book,” or whatever, “but I’d like to read something,” search up—and not the abridged Matthew Henry commentary. You have to read the whole thing. You have to get the full version. Read Matthew Henry’s commentary. Read it.

It’s not going to address every question you have about some of the complex passages of Scripture. It’s not a technical commentary. But you will grow more from reading Matthew Henry than you will from a technical commentary that might give you more clarity on the technical side of some of the challenges of Scripture at times. Because he does—he’s a preacher, and he’s looking for application, and you’ll see him giving some explanation, and then he’ll go, “Observe, note,” and he’ll drive the point home. It’s great. It’s great stuff.

So if you want to read a little more, and you’re not sure about a book, read Matthew Henry and Spurgeon’s sermons. And you don’t have to buy them anymore. It’s all online. It’s free, so no excuse, none whatsoever. Oh, what days we live in, when we have such riches free, and we don’t make use of it.

So, I encourage you in that.

Psalm 119, a psalm that focuses on God’s word. We’re reading it in the Lord’s Day morning, as you know. And I was struck by a particular text here, verse 162, the spirit of which I think is missing largely today. And I want to encourage you to give consideration to the Word, especially to young men. Young men need to be reading more of God’s Word.

Most of you—some of you may be able to say, “I’m diligent. I’m diligent. I read the Word.” But I fear some of you do not. And even if you do, you’re not reading to benefit. You’re not profiting in your reading.

So before the summer unfolds and everything changes as far as those of you at college and school, you think about all your learning—are you learning from the Word? Are you? So I hope you will pay attention, and all of us will pay attention tonight as we read God’s Word. Let’s read from verse 161.

“Princes have persecuted me without a cause. My heart standeth in awe of thy word. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy commandments. My soul hath kept Thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I have kept Thy precepts and Thy testimonies, for all my ways are before Thee.”

Amen.

We’ll end the reading there, just the one section of Psalm 119. And what you have heard is the Word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, amen. Let’s pray.

Lord, we ask, please bless our young people. There’s no reason for them. This world is so fashioned in our present time as to have eliminated boredom. We fear that so much of the time is given to things of little profit and sometimes to the detriment of their minds and their souls.

So Lord, Thou knowest what we need to hear tonight. And I pray for myself included, that there would be a heightening of appreciation for the Word of God. Bless our time as we think upon this text. Give attentiveness. Drive away slothful hearing. Give, oh God, an alertness. Build up thy people and save those without Christ. Extend thy kingdom now. Give the Holy Spirit and power. For we pray in our Savior’s name, amen.

I was scanning a sermon by Charles Spurgeon this afternoon. I’d prepared the sermon through the week, but I did have a little time this afternoon while almost everyone except the youngest ones were all taking their afternoon nap. And I was asking myself, did Spurgeon preach the text that I’m going to preach on tonight?

And of course, I discovered that he did. And in his opening remarks of his sermon, he notes—not so much a contrast, but the relationship between the opening verse, verse 161, and verse 162, where he notes, “my heart standeth in awe of thy word.” And then he notes, “I rejoice at thy word.” And this sense of awe and joy, the sense of fear and joy, he noted it, and he said the following.

He said, “Fear seems to stand apart from joy, and yet in the experience of the child of God, they are next of kin.” Fear seems to stand far apart from joy, and yet in the experience of the child of God, they are next of kin.

And it made me think of someone who was remarking on rejoicing in the Lord and come before him with fear and trembling and so on, that text. And someone was asking, you know, how can these things stand together, joy and fear?

And this question was posed to a particular preacher who said, “The person who asked that question has obviously never been married.” And I thought to myself, yes, you stand there and you’re getting married. There’s a strange sort of mingling between fear and joy.

And most of you, many of you at least, will know what that is like. But there’s a sense in which we can’t really join—and Spurgeon goes on then to press this matter—there isn’t an ability in us really to rejoice in the Word, the way the psalmist is describing, unless there is holy awe and reverence and fear before God.

Standing in awe of God’s Word is going to be part and parcel of the experience of the one who also rejoices in the Word. And what there needs to be more of in the church—this is always the case, it’s not new to our generation—but what there needs to be more of is sitting on the edge of your seat, reading and hearing of the Word.

I can tell somewhat, as I look down, and occasionally there are some, their very posture is of encouragement to the preacher, because they have that posture. I can see them sort of leaning forward into the sermon, and it encourages me, because the posture is telling me something. You might not think posture communicates anything, but it does. It does very much.

And when you see that—I remember preaching, and there had been a young man who had just been converted. I may have mentioned this before. He’d just been converted. The Lord gloriously saved him. And when I looked down and began to see him under the Word, he was sitting on the edge of the pew, leaning in. His whole posture was like hanging on every word. It was so refreshing to me to preach to that, because you can see the anticipation and the longing just to hear from God.

And when you have that kind of a frame, you will not be disappointed. When there’s a sense of awe at the Word, there will be then the rejoicing that will go along with it.

Now there are two things in verse 162 that are pointed out by the psalmist. There is a declaration of his delight: “I rejoice at thy word.” And then there is an illustration or a description of it: “As one that findeth great spoil.” As one that findeth great spoil.

And most of the commentators liken this experience that is observed by the psalmist, or the description that he gives here, as the spoils of battle.

John Calvin says, “No gain, it is well known, brings greater joy than that which conquerors acquire from the spoil of their enemies,” end quote. No gain, it is well known, brings greater joy than that which conquerors acquire from the spoil of their enemies.

And I thought about that. I thought, you know, we are so far removed from that kind of whites-of-your-eyes battlefield experience. I mean, even war today, that’s not generally how it happens, where you see the whites of the eyes of those you’re coming up against.

But can you imagine, like, try to put yourself there—battleground, facing these men, charging at one another, archers and spears and swords and so on and so forth, and you’re right up close, and all the trembling and the fear and the uncertainty and all the rest of it, and then, all said and done, you come forth, not only victor, but still alive, and the spoils of war are yours.

I don’t think many of us have ever experienced the kind of relief and elation that must follow that kind of experience. And in one sense, I don’t really want to feel or experience that and go through such a thing to know what it’s like. But I can put myself there and imagine it. I don’t think there’s anything ever in my life that could really get into that kind of adrenaline rush and the sense of near-miss of your very life, coming through the other side surviving, and the joy then of knowing you’re returning home to your wife and children, and bringing the spoils of war with you.

Well, this is what the psalmist has. And of course, in these days, that kind of scene was much more familiar to them. “I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil.” This is the comparison. He rejoices in the Word like a warrior rejoices over the spoil, the victory of the battle, and bringing home all the benefits of the victory.

There’s a sense, you know, in which this kind of joy at the Word and liking it to this finding of great spoil—our Lord Jesus Christ is the warrior. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one who’s done battle. It struck me this afternoon, thinking upon this: if Christ does not succeed in his work, the promises of God are void. And there can be no rejoicing at the Word, at least certain aspects of it. They become nothing.

The promise of pardon doesn’t exist. The promise of being brought into the family of God doesn’t exist. The promise of eternal reward doesn’t exist. The promise of an eternal Sabbath of rest doesn’t exist. None of the benefits, nothing that we have through Christ can be promised to us.

And our Lord Jesus then is the one who has gone into that battle, purchased for us the ratification of the promises of God. He shed His blood, and the promises of God are now yea and amen in Him. And so when you read this Word, there’s a sense in which His very promises to you were purchased at the very cost of the blood of Christ. And you can think upon the very battle that the Lord Jesus waged in order to bring that to pass. So you can read this and find the comfort which it contains.

Tonight we’re considering God’s great spoil for needy souls. God’s great spoil for needy souls. You’re needy, I’m needy, and there is spoil for us in the Word of God. “I rejoice at thy Word as one that findeth great spoil.” And I hope, oh, that it might stimulate in you and me, stimulate a sense of increased and heightened love for the Word.

I don’t believe it exists to the degree that it should. And I’m not talking about it in that sense in which we can say that, of course, it can never reach perfection. I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about recognizing that we can never attain perfectly to what we should be. I’m not referring to that.

I’m talking about the utter neglect of the Word. A lack of appreciation for the Word. A sense of its richness and blessing and feeling our lives to be deficient without it and longing in our souls to hear from God. I don’t think that is as prevalent as it should be.

So why we rejoice in the Word as spoil? Let’s consider first why we rejoice in the Word as spoil. Why would the believer say such a thing? “I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil.” Why?

Well, we might consider, first of all, because of the person it reveals. The person it reveals. This Word reveals not just data, not just information, not just history. It reveals a person.

Oh, what a glorious thing it is. The Lord God walked with Adam in the garden in the cool of the day. And that person that walked there, that was with Adam, that communicated with Adam, that Adam heard from, that one is revealed in the pages of Holy Writ. He is here. And everywhere you go, you will see him. He is the subject. He is the theme. He is the focus. It is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And constantly when we study the Scriptures, this is what we are seeing. We’re meant to be seeing this person time and time again revealed in the Word of God. And at times we have to hunt for him, we have to look for him, we have to endeavor to try and find him. And there’s a sense in which we might say in our prayers, as we come to the Word of God, “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? O Spirit of the living God, have ye not seen him here in this chapter? Show him to me. Point the way. Let me see that one whom my soul loveth.”

“Rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil,” because it reveals a person.

Our Lord Jesus said in John 5:39, “search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.” They testify of me.

You think of that, the Son of God ministering among these unbelieving Jews largely, and he says, “Your precious Scriptures are all talking about, testifying of, the person who stands before you, you so much malign and despise.” He says that in John 5, just after the fact that he had raised that man by the pool, and as a result, because he made himself equal with God, that’s the first occasion where you find out that they want to put him to death. John 5.

But he tells them, “The very Scriptures that you profess to prize are about me.” And this would be your testimony largely here tonight. You would say, “I’m thankful for the Scriptures. I’m thankful for the Word of God.” And Jesus says, “They talk about me.”

It’s not just information. This is how the children learn the Bible early on. There’s a lot of focus on the people who are there and the characters in terms of who is revealed to us, and the events that transpire, and so on and so forth. And that’s all necessary.

But I’m so thankful that even in our Sunday school—and there ought to be more across the board—showing our children from their earliest years that this book, from Genesis all the way through, is about a person.

It’s about the Lord Jesus Christ. It reveals Him. The Bible is precious to us, not just because of the wonder of its literary construction—and certainly that is true—it is precious because it reveals the Lord Jesus. And if you take Christ out of the Scriptures, it is as you might take the sun from the heavens and try to live on this earth. It’s lost its entire point. It’s impossible to continue.

The Word shows us Christ in His person. You consider that a little this morning. It shows us Him in His offices.

It reveals to us that He is a prophet, that He is a prophet communicating the mind of God, speaking the mind of God, revealing the mind of God, curbing our sins, warning us here and there, and pointing the way, so that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. A prophet speaking, communicating, giving us the mind of God.

It also reveals him as a priest. He is the means by which we approach unto God. And it shows us that time and time again, that here is the one who is after the order of Melchizedek, this Prince of Salem, Prince of Peace and Righteousness.

It shows us that He is also King, reveals to us this One who conquers both His and our enemies, who leads His people in victory and shows us His power. And all authority has been given unto Him both in heaven and on earth and so on.

It shows us these things. It shows us Him as He functions and He lives out His life, and how He obeys, and how He endured temptation, how He shows compassion, how He offers Himself without spot unto God, how He rises from the dead, and how He continues to pray, pray continually for us, and will come again for us.

The person it reveals.

And this is great spoil. What spoil this is. “I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil.” Oh, what treasure this is, that I find in these pages the very person who can redeem me and deliver me and call me his own. The one whose majesty far outstrips anything and everyone else. Here he is. Here’s where you find him. Here’s where you find them.

“Search the scriptures,” Jesus said. Search them. Search them. They contain great spoil because they testify of me. Oh, wonderful thing it is. Wonderful words of life, as we sing.

Why is it that we are so dull then? Why is it that other things seem to have such a power over us? Why is this? What is wrong with us?

You’ve done it. You look out into the world. Some of us can say we were in that place. We were in a place at a time in our life in which the current us looking at the past us would say, “What on earth were you doing? The decisions you’re making, the life that you’re living.” And so present me looks at past me and goes, “What on earth were you doing and thinking?”

I think we have to do that even as we look at our lives now. Look, assess. Assess your relationship with God’s Word. You look out in that world and you see people out there, and you can’t understand why they make the decisions they make.

I mean, why do they get paid on a Friday, and they’ve spent everything they’ve earned before Monday? There are people who live like that. There are women, and that’s what their husbands do. And they fear that Friday of payday, and will he come home? Will he come home?

I worked with people like this, in which the fear was, if he would just come home and give a portion of the pay into his wife’s hand before he hits the bar—or as we would say, the pub in Northern Ireland.

Leave the people, leave their families with nothing. And you look at it and you go, “What are they thinking?” But the same could be said of the Christian who lives his life and neglects the Word, who lives day to day and never opens it. And when they read it, they read it—if they read it at all—there’s this distance. They’re not engaged. It’s not edge-of-your-seat reading. That’s the visual I want you to have about God’s Word: edge-of-your-seat reading of His Word.

What an amazing thing this is. Not only because of the person it reveals, but the pardon it promises. We are sinners. We can never get away from this. This is what we are. The Word of God does not flatter us. It makes it plain. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There’s none righteous, no not one. We’re all guilty.

And so Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

That, that is great spoil. Christ Jesus came into the world not just to reveal the glory of God, though He did; not just to show His power, though He did; not just to show His authority, that He can still the storm and give sight to the blind and cleanse the leper and so on—that all He did. But he came into the world to save sinners. And that, that news is great spoil.

You look at your heart. One sin’s enough to condemn you. Do you have perfect faith? No. Do you have perfect love toward God? No. Not to mention all the breaches of his commandments and the ugliness of our hearts at times. You know, you know, if you have any sense of realism, as you assess your own life, you know the depravity of your nature. And the spoil of this is that it communicates to you the answer.

God has made provision. Like we said this morning, God has taken our nature. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. To save sinners.

If you’re here tonight and you’re not saved, that’s a word I want you to wrestle with. Because that’s the Bible’s way of describing what you need. You need to be saved. Delivered. There needs to be a deliverance. And that deliverance comes about by the glory of only belief. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Albert McCauley—you hear me mention him all the time. It’s what happens when you spend a lot of time with good people. But Albert told me a story one time. He went to the door, and he was trying to evangelize and share the gospel with this person. And this person, who went to church and so on, he said, “I don’t like that word saved. I don’t like that word saved. Why do you use that word saved?”

And he said, “Well,” and he began to quote all the verses, just one after the other. After half a dozen verses—that’s right. That’s what the Bible describes as a need. That’s what Jesus Christ came to do, to seek and to save. Come into the world to save.

And when you feel your lost condition, when you know that your sin is worthy of eternal judgment and the wrath of God, and you feel lost, and then comes this news of spoil, there’s relief for you. Relief for you and your sin. Telling us not just of a person, but a pardon.

Yes, the guilty hear of mercy. In this very book, the condemned learn of how they might obtain righteousness. The unclean, who know their filth, are pointed in the direction of where they may be washed and made perfectly whole.

Matthew 9, verse 2: “‘Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins be forgiven thee,’ said Jesus.” Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee.

You see, be of good cheer. Rejoice, that’s what the psalm—rejoice. “I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil.” When those words come to you as a guilty, hell-deserving sinner, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee.”

I love that. I love that it’s not just the information of forgiveness. But it’s counsel of the spirit in which it should be received, isn’t it? It’s not just, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” That’s information, that’s factual, that’s telling you of something that has transpired.

Your sins are forgiven. But Jesus counsels the very spirit in which it should be received. Be of good cheer. Rejoice! You’ve heard this news. Your sins are forgiven.

It would be a wonderful thing to keep that, the sweetness of that spirit, every day of your life. Waking up every morning and saying, “I’m amazed that Christ receives sinners, even a sinner like me.”

I mean, you want to live a life of gratitude, that’s going to go a long way. Keep you from murmuring and complaining, and getting upset at your boss, annoyed at the company you work for, and frustrated at the politicians and the government, and so on and so forth. All these things that multiply your troubles.

And being able to wake up every morning and say, “Whatever I hear today, here’s what also comes to me. This which is great spoil, which I rejoice at, that Jesus says to me, thy sins be forgiven thee.”

Yes, the promise of Isaiah 55, telling the wicked to forsake their way and so on, and return unto the Lord because he will abundantly pardon.

He’s not doing a scrimp. He’s not stingy in his pardon. He will abundantly pardon. That’s good news for the person who thinks, “I can see how he could forgive this sin and that sin and the other sin, but is he aware of this? Is he aware of my history here? Can he really forgive that?” Our God will abundantly pardon.

Puts His omnipotent arms around the entire problem. And His Son, Jesus Christ, has paid the price to deal with it all in full.

But also because of the power it gives. Not only the person it reveals, the pardon it promises, but the power it gives. The Word of God gives power. It does.

This is what the psalmist expects. If you go back in Psalm 119 to verse 28, Psalm 119 verse 28: “My soul melteth for heaviness.” Right? This is the person who’s being weighed down, right? “My soul melteth.” That’s very descriptive, isn’t it? The soul weighed down because of all that is going on in life. You’re maybe there. You’re maybe there. The circumstances are such that you feel weighed down.

Where does he go for strength? “Strengthen thou me according unto thy word.” The Word will strengthen me. “I’m overwhelmed by what’s going on in my life right now. I don’t know where to turn or what to do. I feel the weakness.” And so he understands the Word doesn’t just inform, it strengthens. It’s an instrument of renewal, an instrument of renewal. “My soul melteth.” I feel the heat of what’s going on in life right now. “My soul melteth.”

Strengthen through thy word.

You know, Peter reveals the same, 1 Peter 2, verses 2 and 3: “as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow.” That’s the idea of strengthening, isn’t it? You know, when you see an infant grow, it’s getting stronger. This is what the Word of God does.

So, in the second place, consider then with me why we read the Word as spoil. Not only why we rejoice in the Word as spoil, but why we read the Word as spoil.

It’s not just the fact that they have the spoil, is it? It’s the finding of it. One that findeth great spoil. This is something that has been discovered. It’s been fought for, searched for. There’d be an effort applied. And so I think this is to tell us something here.

I think the one who’s going to rejoice at thy Word, as one that findeth great spoil, is the sense of, like, after the input of effort, there is this benefit, right? If you go to war and you apply all that effort and strategy and the execution of the strategy, and it all comes to a victory, there’s a sense of joy because of where it has brought you to.

Effort has been applied. All the planning, all the sacrifice, all the courage has brought about a victory. And there’s a sense in which we don’t really appreciate things, or we struggle to appreciate things at times, when it hasn’t cost us anything. I think that’s why we take the gospel so lightly. In a sense, it’s free. It’s free. We have to die. I think sometimes the freeness of it is part of the struggle that we have.

But here’s the point. When it comes to the Word of God then, there is a certain amount of effort necessary to it. And I might say to you, first of all, read with expectation. Read with expectation.

If you’re going to discover this joy in the Word and be able to liken it the way the psalmist does, it’s like one that findeth great spoil, it’s like the spoils after a victory of battle, you have to read with expectation. Don’t just, again, read for information. Read with expectation. Read with a sense of what we said earlier.

It’s revealing a person. It’s revealing pardon. It’s encouraging you in these ways and giving power to your life. Reading the Word—and here you are, you’re struggling with temptation, and you come to the Word to read it because here is what will strengthen me. I will say more about that in just a moment. But expectation, having expectation when you read the Word.

Again, the psalmist has this. Go back to verse 18 of this psalm. Some of these verses, because they’re in the same psalm, may be helpful to note. Verse 18 of Psalm 119: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Well, he has an expectation, doesn’t he?

Number one, there are wondrous things in the Word, in the law. There are wondrous things. And his prayer then has an expectation. If my eyes would only be open, I would see them. I would discover these wondrous things. So we should have expectation to have that sense of appetite, that sense of longing. What’s it going to say to me today? What’s God going to say to me today?

I’ve given this counsel before. I was talking to someone recently. They were speaking about the benefit of reading Daily Light. For those of you who don’t know, Daily Light is one of the older daily devotional books, and Daily Light is just Scripture. So it has a primary text at the top, and then it has all these related verses as well. It’s just Scripture.

And they were testifying to the benefit of reading Daily Light. And they actually said that there was a sense of benefit that they got out of reading Daily Light that they struggle to experience when they read a chapter of Scripture. So there’s a sense in which Daily Light is giving a text and then using Scripture, the analogy of Scripture, using the Scripture itself to fill in or multiply the encouragement of that theme, right?

And so I can see how the benefit would be easier. But I’ve given this advice before, and I give it again tonight. If when you read a portion of God’s Word—think of it, let’s take a chapter as an example. You read a chapter and feel yourself—and we might take this kind of visual for you to get the point, to drive it home—if you were at gunpoint asked, “What verse do you choose from that chapter that is of benefit? What verse? You must choose one.”

I don’t care if you’re stuck in Leviticus chapter 1 and you don’t know where to turn there, but you have to choose one verse. You must choose one. You choose it, and then, then, then you ask yourself why.

Why did I choose this verse? Why this one in this chapter? Even in some bizarre chapter of Ezekiel. Why this one? Why did I choose? You force yourself to meditate. You force yourself to think through it. Why did my eye fall on that? Why did that jump out? Why was that the verse? Why that?

And that process, choosing the text and then asking why. Why that one? What does it have to say to me? What is it saying to me?

Now sometimes it’ll be very obvious, right? It’s a verse of meaning to you. It jumps off the page to you. It’s like, that’s the verse for today. I mean, I don’t have to go hunting for it. It’s just gripped me. Just grabbed my soul this morning. And that’s great when that happens.

But even in the hardest chapter, in the most difficult morning of reading God’s Word, force yourself to choose a text. And then ask why. Why that one?

If you go through that process, you’re going to find more often than not, you will start to glean things from it. You’ll start to draw things out of it. Now, you can do even better when you say, “If I had to then explain the encouragement of this verse to someone else today, and I was to meet someone, and that someone was going to say to me, ‘Give me some encouragement from God’s Word that you read today,’” and you put yourself in that position, then it will force you again. What would I say?

Because many of you will know there’s a difference between hearing something and thinking you understand it, and then having to articulate it. It’s the articulation where you realize, do you really get it? Do you really understand?

When you go through that, oh beloved, young people especially, you go through it, you’re going to find that those things will not just stick with you for that day. Some of them will be as rubies that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Your own mining—put it this way, for this passage—your own going out to do battle in the reading of God’s Word, and the joy in what you discover will be with you perhaps for the rest of your life.

Expectation. You must have expectation.

You must read with meditation. That gets into what we’re just talking about as well, doesn’t it? It’s not just expecting the Word to be a blessing, but meditating then in it. Verse 97 of this very Psalm: “O how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day.” My meditation all the day.

Meditation is the deliberate, intentional lingering over the truth. It’s giving it time. It’s allowing it to marinate for all of its flavor to penetrate into your soul. Meditation. There’s not enough of this.

That’s where reading Spurgeon and Matthew Henry will help you, because they’re very, very application-heavy. And you’re going to find them helping you out there. So when you’re reading it, all their meditation you begin to benefit from, because they’ll just hand it to you. Here’s what they’ve mused upon and what has come to the light for them. And they hand it to you, and you go, “Oh yes, yes, it’s great, it’s good stuff.” Find your soul lifted up as you read it, the benefit of it.

Meditate, meditate. Oh, you know, it’s so annoying. It’s so annoying. It’s a part of me that kind of loathes the fact we live in this day in which we live, and you have this device that’s just always there in your hand. And it’s like an enemy to your meditation.

Think of it. The scene, right? I’ve been here, right, where I’m reading the Word, I’ve mused on the Word, meditated on the Word, and I’ve come away with gold from the Word. Then I pick up my phone. Instantly, it’s evaporated from my enjoyment of it in that moment. It’s like all of a sudden I’m distracted with this other thing, instead of going about my day, allowing that to linger a little more, you know, squeeze some more of the goodness out of it.

And you’re going to have to do warfare. This is where the battleground is. You’re going to have to give your mind the ability to actually think upon what you have read and the little nugget that you have taken. Try to stop the encroachment of the distraction of our digital age. You must meditate.

This is how we prosper. Meditating on the law of the Lord day and night is what Joshua was told. So linger. Don’t rush away. Allow it to bed in. Right?

You know, they start to see all the pollinators out, and the little bee goes to the flower. But he doesn’t just go to the flower, does he? He gathers while he’s there. He actually lingers for a little time, gathering the goods before he gets up and moves on.

And that’s what you need to do. Don’t just say, “Well, I actually picked up my Bible and read something from it today.” That’s like a bee who went to the flower and just sat on the lip of the petal. “I visited the flower.” The job’s not really done until you’ve gathered.

That’s what you need to do. You must. If you have any sense of self-preservation and desire to do war and be strong for the Lord, you must do this. It’s not a matter of an optional thing. This isn’t the territory of the superior Christian. This is Christianity 101, reading and meditating in what you have read.

And read with application. You must read with application. It must get home to the heart, doesn’t it? It has to.

James 1:22: “be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” I’ve done that. I’ve done that. Maybe it more applies to preaching, but I think if we think about reading it, be doers of the Word, not hearers only, not readers only.

And so you read, “I read the Word today.” Did I draw? Did I meditate? Did I see what sin it’s addressing? Did I confess that sin? Did I see what grace that is encouraged in my life, and did I pray that I might grow in that grace? Did it convict some area of my life and point me to reconcile with that brother or sister or family member? Did I do what it said?

Read with application. There’s a real danger here in the day in which we live.

That sermon I was scanning this afternoon of Spurgeon, he mentioned in there about writing in your Bible. And he was talking about specifically promises in Scripture. And he said there that you should write T and P beside those things that you can write T and P beside.

And the T and the P stands for tried and proved. Tried and proved. You see God’s Word there, and it’s coming to your own heart, some promise to your own soul, some encouragement in the battle, some time of challenge, and God gives you a word. And you put a T because that verse has seemed to shed some light and hope. And you put a T there, and you start praying over it. You start praying over it. “I’m bringing it before God. God, you said. God, you said.” And you come out the other side, maybe you’re in your next year through the Bible, you come across that T and you can put beside it a P. God has kept His Word.

Finally, why we use the Word as spoil. Why we use the Word as spoil. It’s not just about rejoicing in it and reading it. There is the using of it.

I want to very quickly just consider a couple of things here. Because spoil is not something that is to be merely admired, is it? When you gain spoil, it’s to be used. It benefits you, benefits the family, benefits the community.

You don’t leave it on the field of battle. You carry it home. It enriches those who are in poverty. It feeds the hungry. It has many benefits to the community. And so this is what you’re to do. You’re to have this rejoicing at the Word as one that findeth great spoil, because you’ve taken the spoil and you’ve made use of it.

So think of the ways in which you make use of it, because we struggle with confusion in the first place. We struggle with confusion. You struggle in life with confusion. There are decisions that need to be made, and you don’t know how to make them. You don’t know what God’s will is. You’re struggling to know what way to turn and what to do.

And the Word of God—oh listen, the Word of God is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. It is something that enables us to understand what the mind of God is. It illuminates us.

This is the prayer of the apostle for the Ephesians, that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened. Prays that for the Philippians as well. This sense of enlightenment that comes. And the Word of God, of course, is key to that. We’re not wise enough to guide ourselves through life. We don’t have all the answers. And even the most experienced Christian will fall at this, leaning upon previous experience, imagining.

This is one of the things I like about David. David had a lot of experience walking with God, and in some very trying circumstances. And what I like about David is—and I’ve mentioned this before, but I say it again because it’s relevant—is the repetition that the Spirit of God shines upon David’s life, in which he repeatedly goes, and this is how it’s put in our authorized version, “he inquired of the Lord.” He inquired of the Lord.

You go and do a word search and you find it for yourself, the number of times in which David went and he inquired of the Lord. And just because God on one occasion says, “Go up into the battle, go and fight them,” he did not then the next time he’s in a similar scenario say, “I know it’s God’s will for me to go and fight.” He got before God and he inquired, “Lord, what should we do here?” He sought for guidance. And you must too.

We need, in the midst of the confusion of life, we need the Lord to guide. Our feelings and temperaments are so changeable, our desires are so corrupt and carnal. We need guidance.

Also because we struggle with affliction. We not only struggle with confusion, but with affliction.

Again in this very Psalm, verse 50, he says, “this is my comfort in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me.” There’s comfort in our affliction. Comfort in our affliction. I want you to get that. Because when you’re in affliction, usually the only comfort you can imagine is when you’re on the other side and you’ve come through it and it’s now over.

Comfort is in getting through on the other side of the affliction, having it as a chapter of the history of my life and not the present. That’s where you think comfort is. But the psalmist knew that the Word of God is such that in the affliction there can be comfort.

And you need that. Some of you are going through things, or you will go through things, and they are not quickly going to go away. Some of you, your greatest fears that you’re facing right now will in some fashion perhaps be with you until you have breathed your last. It’s not going away. Does that mean you’re going to live the rest of your life without comfort?

Not if you take on board what God promises in his Word: comfort in affliction. Why? Because the Word quickened. The Word made him alive. It was health to his soul.

And because we struggle with temptation. We not only struggle with confusion and affliction, but with temptation. What do you need when you’re tempted? Well, you need the Word. You rejoice at the Word because you’ve found great spoil, and in that spoil is the answer for you in temptation.

Now there is no greater example of this than in our Lord Jesus Christ himself. When he is led of the Spirit out into the wilderness to be tempted 40 days by the devil, and in that confrontation we get a snapshot in which his response, being armed with the Word, was, “It is written. It is written. It is written.”

Oh, that we were so armed in our temptation, that immediately resurrected in our mind is the spoils of the Word against the tempter, against the great accuser, when he comes to lead us astray. It is written.

God’s great spoil for needy souls.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a needy soul. Every day, the needs, the feeling of need may ebb and flow. Sometimes the needs are, as we may view them, don’t seem to be as pressing. Sometimes the needs are so heavy and so burdensome, when you wake up in the morning, you don’t want to get out of bed.

How do you push on? “I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil.”

Yes. Young people, you need to be in this. You need to be in this. Edge-of-your-seat reading of Scripture. Edge of your seat.

You ever see young men playing video games? I’m sorry. I’m beating a dead horse, maybe. Young men, I mean, they’re right on the edge of their seat. I mean, have you seen—I didn’t see this until recently—the guys who actually compete at, like, the highest level in video games, have you ever seen them? They’re like, they’re an inch away from the screen. An inch, like they’re right up, because the time distance, visually, of what’s happening and how they need to react against their competitors and so on. There’s a delay, if they sit back two feet from the screen. There’s too much of a delay.

I’m serious, you go and see it for yourself. They play video games, literally on the edge of their seat. Read in God’s Word, on the edge of your seat.

What will God Almighty say to me today? Oh Lord, here I am waiting. I am waiting and expecting, and I want to meditate on it and benefit and be strengthened by what you have for me today. Give me your Word.

May the Lord help us. Let’s bow together in prayer.

A young person, there are believers here, and if they were to open up to you, they would warn you, because they have spent at times a season or two in their life in which they were neglectful of God’s Word, and they went astray. And what’s most precious to them was hanging in the balance. Some of them may have suffered even great loss. And it all goes back to the neglect of God’s Word and their lack of diligence in reading and meditating. Everything hangs on this.

Give yourself to the Word.

Lord, help us to value what thou dost value, to love what thou dost love. We’re so thankful that we worship a God who has revealed Himself and given to us this precious treasure, the written Word of God. And every Word of God is pure. Every Word of God is pure.

So give us hearts inclined toward it. Give us a love for every page of Scripture, for every jot and tittle.

May we have here in this congregation, young and old, mature and immature, strength, strength to obey, strength to live to God’s glory, strength to overcome the wicked one. Give us grace in times of confusion to turn to your Word. We pray, Lord, that our love for Thee would be seen in how we respond with awe at Thy Word.

Hear prayer. Give grace to follow through on what we’ve heard tonight. May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of the people of God now and evermore. Amen.