The Sufficient Scripture

The psalmist of Psalm 19:7-11 was David. He said, “The law of the Lord…” a reference to Scripture “…is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them…” the Word of God “…Your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.”

The great C.S. Lewis said that Psalm 19 is one of the greatest poems in the psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world. I agree. It has always been one of my favorite psalms because of its subject, the self-revelation of God. Because God is transcendent—He is above and beyond us—and He is infinite and we are finite, we cannot by searching find God. I cannot in my own unregenerate state come to know God, who is infinite, by searching or finding out. God must come to me. So for us to hear God speak, for us to know God, we must have God come to us.

It’s like being in a box, and you’re searching for God in this box and not finding Him, because He is outside the box. We can’t go outside the box, so God comes inside the box and reveals Himself to us.

In this psalm, the first revelation of God is in creation, in verses 1-6. It is known as “the general revelation of God.” Verses 1-4 say, “The heavens declare the glory of God….Day unto day utters speech….Their line has gone out through all the earth.” God is speaking, but He is speaking through creation. Any person living anywhere in the world can look up into the sky, see the stars and know that there is a Creator, that there is a God who is infinitely powerful and glorious.

But creation is not the complete and full revelation that Scripture is. So in verse 7, David moves from general revelation in creation to specific or special revelation in Scripture. I am convinced as never before that the Bible—“the B-i-b-l-e; yes, that’s the Book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-i-b-l-e”—is the greatest, most detailed, fullest revelation of God to us that there is. We want to know God’s love, God’s redemptive plan, about Jesus Christ—all this we find in the Word of God. God reveals Himself and His plan of redemption and salvation to us in the Bible. So the Bible is God’s greatest revelation to us.

In Psalm 19:7-11, we have perhaps one of the greatest summations of Scripture in all the Bible. It speaks of the Scripture’s inspiration, inerrancy, authority, clarity and sufficiency. Each time I meditate on this text and teach it, it is so grand and glorious that it can never be exhausted. So that frustrates me.

From our text, David makes six statements that we will examine about Scripture’s sufficiency. Each statement contains three characteristics of the Word of God, in verses 7-9. Each statement will have what the Bible is called or its title; what the Bible is, or its nature; and what the Bible will do, or its power. I’ll point them out and then go back and expound on each one.

First, we’ll look at what the Bible is called. In verse 7, it is called “the law of the Lord” and “the testimony of the Lord.” In verse 8, the Bible is called “the statutes of the Lord” and “the commandment of the Lord.” Then in verse 9, it is called “the fear of the Lord” and “the judgments of the Lord.” These are the titles for Scripture.

Second, we see that the Scripture’s nature is described, in verses 7-9. It is “perfect” and “sure,” in verse 7; it is “right” and “pure” or “clear,” in verse 8: and it is “clean” and “true,” in verse 9.

Third, we see what God’s Word will do for you, or its power. In verse 7, it is “converting the soul” and “making wise the simple”; in verse 8, it is “rejoicing the heart” and “enlightening the eyes”; and in verse 9, it is “enduring forever” and “righteous altogether.”

This is what’s called Hebrew poetry. It isn’t rhyme or meter; it’s contrast, or it says the same thing in different ways over and over. Here David is describing the splendors and glories of God’s sufficient Word.

Now notice the phrase “of the Lord” in verses 7-9. Six times in these three verses we see this phrase repeated. I believe that the Bible is the Word of God. It doesn’t contain the Word of God; it is the Word of God.

I believe in verbal, plenary inspiration. That means that all the words are given by inspiration of God. It is sufficient, inerrant, infallible, clear and authoritative. It is the Word of God. This is why I preach the Bible the way I do; the Bible is the authority and not the preacher. So we do expositional preaching.

I want to give you some classic references on the inspiration of Scripture. First, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Paul says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete…” or “mature” “…thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The key phrase here is “inspiration of God.” All Scripture is inspired by God. That means that it is God-breathed. We use the word “inspiration” for a singer or an artist or an athlete who may be doing an inspirational job on the field. But in the Bible, it means God-breathed. It is from the word “ruach,” which means “breath” in the Hebrew. It literally is the breath of God breathing out.

The best definition of “inspiration” I’ve ever heard is that God superintended the human authors so that the very words they wrote were the words of God. That’s why we have different kinds of literature: poetry, history, prophecy, didactic material. It’s because God used their own personalities and style, and there were historical settings for why they wrote and who they wrote to. This is so important to understand. So God gave the Word by breathing on the authors, superintending their words, and what they wrote were the very words of God.
The second verse is 2 Peter 1:20-21. Peter says, “…knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation…” men were not just writing their own ideas “…for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” The phrase “moved by the Holy Spirit” literally means “carried along.” It was used for a sailboat when the wind would fill the sail and carry the boat over the water. It’s so beautiful to see a sailboat on the water and see the sail billowed out by the wind and then the boat is carried over the water. So these authors who wrote the Bible were being carried along, or borne along by the Holy Spirit.

You cannot separate the Holy Spirit from the Bible. Paul said, “Take up the whole armor of God….and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:13, 17). You wouldn’t have a Bible if it weren’t for the Holy Spirit, because He is the author; God is the author. So the Bible is God-breathed, and God carried them along and were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Thomas Watson, a great Puritan preacher, of the past generation said that “The devil is always trying to blow out the light of Scripture.” That’s so true. Battle after battle that the church has had were Satan’s attempts to deny that the Bible is the Word of God. It is always his first attack. In Genesis 3:1, the first time Satan opens his mouth in the pages of Scripture in speech, he said, “Has God indeed said…?” That’s all he has had for all this time: attacking the Word of God.

God’s Word is like an anvil: the hammers of the critics hit the Bible and the hammers break but the anvil remains. It is God’s enduring Word.

Now let’s look at David’s six statements. In verses 7-9, there are six statements about Scripture, with each verse having those three categories: what it’s called, what it is and what it will do.

The first statement is in verse 7: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Its title is “the law of the Lord.” The Bible is God’s law for life.

We did a series on Sunday mornings on the Ten Commandments called “The Decalogue.” We called it “Laws that Liberate.” God has given to us His Word.

One of the reasons that America has so degenerated is because we have forsaken the Bible. The Bible used to be part of every fiber of America. But we have pushed it out of the public square, pushed it out of the pulpits of our churches and we are reaping what we have sown. Galatians 6:7 says, “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” And Hosea 8:7 says, “They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.”

You cannot govern a nation without God and the Bible. It’s impossible. What makes America great is the Bible. What made America great was the Bible and pastors preaching the Word of God and people believing the Word of God. It was only about 100 years ago most people believed the Bible to be the Word of God. They may not have agreed with it or wanted it in their lives, but they recognized that it was the Word of God. So the reason we are in the mess we’re in is that we’ve left out God’s law, taken the Ten Commandments out of the schools and the Bible, as well.
The first book used and taught in the public schools in America to teach kids to read was the Bible. But we have taken it out of our culture. So we have reaped what we have sown, as a result.

The Bible is God’s laws for life. The Bible is God’s manual for life. It is God’s authority.

Second, notice its nature, verse 7: “perfect.” That means “complete” or “comprehensive.” It literally means “all-sided.” This is what it means that the Bible is “sufficient.” It speaks of the sufficiency of Scripture.

I believe that the Bible is all that we need. In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, it says that the Bible is “profitable for doctrine,” meaning “for what is right”; “for reproof,” meaning “for what is wrong”; “for correction,” meaning “for how to get right”; and “for instruction in righteousness,” meaning “for how to stay right.” So everything we need is in the Bible.

This is why a lot of churches have a lot of problems: they forsake the Bible for psychology or philosophy or for other man-made ideas. It’s the Word of God that gives us guidance as a lamp and a transforming power in our lives. It’s our manual for life.

Third, notice that its power is that it is “converting the soul.” This means that it is a total transformation of the inner person. The “soul” is the total, inner person. Through the Spirit of God and the Word of God, you can be completely transformed. It is God’s Spirit working through God’s Word to change you into the image of the Son of God. The Holy Spirit uses the Bible to convict us of sin. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” 1 Peter 1:23 says, “…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

You cannot be born again apart from the Bible. The Spirit of God has a track that He runs on. That track is the Bible. So if you’re going to be born again, you need the seed of the Word and the work of the Spirit. You know that at your natural birth, there was the egg and the seed that came together and there was conception. That was you. In the spiritual birth, there is the Spirit of God and the Word of God coming together, and there is conception; you are born again.

When I was a senior in high school, my younger sister, Barbara, left a dog-eared paperback on my bed. It was called Letters to the Ephesians by Kenneth Taylor. It was pre-The Living Bible. The Living Bible first came out in the format of just letters to different people; it was just books of the Bible. So I began to read it for the first time.

I grew up in the church, but I never really read the Bible. So I opened this Letters to the Ephesians by Kenneth Taylor, and as I began to read, and the Spirit of God began to speak to my heart. Then the next thing I knew, I was weeping and crying in repentance and turning back to God. So it was the Word of God, the Spirit of God working in my life. God even used a paraphrase in such a powerful way in my life to get ahold of me and totally transformed me from the inside out. What a marvelous experience that was!

Jesus told Nicodemus, in John 3:3, “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus had all this knowledge, he was a teacher of the Jews, but he needed the rebirth of the Spirit in order to have illumination and transformation and understand the things of God. The Bible says, “Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). So it’s a work of the Spirit and the Word transforming our lives.

Now notice in verse 7 this statement: “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” So its title is “testimony of the Lord,” it’s nature is “sure” and its power is “making wise the simple.” “The testimony of the Lord” means it is God’s witness of who He is. When you go into a courtroom and testify, you are witnessing to what you know, see or hear. So God in His Word is giving His testimony. This is God speaking, so it is His self-revelation about His person, His nature and His character.

If you want to be born of God, you need the Bible, which is the enduring seed. If you want to know God, you find Him in the Bible.

I heard of a woman who had a brand-new Bible, and to her horror, she saw one of her little children underline things with a big, red crayon. She asked her little daughter, “Sweetheart, what are you doing?!”

She said, “I’m underlining every time I see the name ‘God,’ so I can find Him when I need Him.” Do you get angry at your child for doing that? No; you enjoy it.

So God is found in the Bible, and we come to know the Lord by His testimony.

And the nature of Scripture is called “sure.” It means “reliable” or “trustworthy.” This is what’s known as the “inerrancy” of the Bible. It is incapable of being wrong. The Bible does not have falsehoods; it’s true. The Bible is God’s Word, God cannot lie so the Bible cannot lie. The Bible is what the Scripture says, what God says through human agents and without error.

And its power, verse 7, is “making wise the simple.” This is one of my favorite statements in this psalm. “The simple” in the Hebrew describes a person with a simple mind; it’s what we would call “a simpleton.” They don’t know how to live their life, they’re just foolish.

The root idea is of an open door. Have you ever heard someone say, “I just want to have an open mind. I just want to open my mind to everything”? Please just shut it! Their minds are so open that nothing stays in there. When the truth comes into your mind and heart, shut the door.

You have a door in your house to keep bad people from coming in, and to let good people out and come back in. It’s for security. So when the truth of God’s Word enters your mind, you shut the door. You don’t have to look for truth anymore, because you have the truth. But some people are so open minded that nothing stays. They’re simpletons. They don’t know how to live their life.

What this means is that God takes a simple person and makes them wise about life. Things like marriage. People freak out. “How do you stay married?!” They don’t know what to do. If you want to know how to be a husband, it’s in the Bible. It says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). If you want to know how to be a wife, it’s in the Bible. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church” (Ephesians 5:22-23). Love your husband, respect your husband and submit to your husband.

You say, “I don’t like that verse!” I didn’t write it! I’m just passing it on! Don’t shoot the messenger!

This is why you must start with a knowledge of the Bible as God’s Word. Whatever God says, I’ll believe and I’ll do it, because it’s God’s Word. You don’t argue with God’s Word. It’s for our good and for God’s glory. Do you want to be wise about marriage? Read the Bible. Study the Word of God.

What about children? The Bible says to them, “Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1). It is the first commandment with a promise.

You say, “I like that verse!”

All through the Scriptures are God’s precepts for making simple people wise. When the Bible says, “making wise the simple,” it makes you skilled in the art of daily living. Some people don’t have a clue on how to live their life.

The third statement is in verse 8: “The statutes of the Lord…” there’s the title “…are right…” there’s its nature “…rejoicing the heart,” that’s its power. “The statutes of the Lord” means God’s precepts or God’s principles. God has given us His precepts and His principles. Its nature is that it is “right” or that it puts you on the right path. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” So we live in this dark world, and we need to know what path to walk on, so God’s Word gives us that light.

Notice its power, in verse 8. It is “rejoicing the heart.” I like that. The Word of God brings joy; it’s the path to joy. Jeremiah 15:16 says, “Your words were found, and I ate them. And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.”

You can always tell when you need to spend more time in your Bible and yielding to the Holy Spirit, because you begin to lose your joy. If joy is draining out of your life today, get the Bible, get to a quiet place, pray, wait on the Lord, yield to the Spirit of God and say, “Lord speak; Your servant is listening.” Then let the Lord speak to you. The greatest joy and pleasures of life come from hearing God speak to us through what He has spoken in the Word.

In Colossians 3:16, it says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” And in Ephesians 5:18, it says, “Be filled with the Spirit.” The reason I gave you these two verses is because both verses give you the same results or consequences in your life. They are “wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16).

I am absolutely convinced that to be Spirit filled, you must be Word filled. I know there are people who study the Bible and get a big head and don’t have a transformed heart, but when the Spirit of God is working through the Word of God in your life and you have surrendered to the will of God and are obedient to His Word, your life will bring forth fruit, you’ll be transformed and there will be joy.

Psalm 1:1-3 says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates…” not “medicate”; a lot of people are medicating “…day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” This “tree” is a word that describes fruitfulness.

This psalm says “blessed” or “oh, how happy.” It describes the blessed man or woman who meditates day and night in God’s Word. How marvelous that is!

In Psalm 119:111, it says, “Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart.” Is that true of you? Do you love God’s Word? Do you feed on God’s Word? Do you rejoice in God’s Word?

The fourth statement in Psalm 19 is in verse 8: “The commandment of the Lord…” that’s the title “…is pure…” that’s its nature “…enlightening the eyes,” that’s its power. The title of “The commandment of the Lord” shows us that this is not a suggestion; we must obey commandments. A “pure” nature can be translated “clear.” So the Scriptures have clarity. You can understand the Bible. Do you think God would give us His Word, knowing we couldn’t understand it? No. You can understand the Bible.

When it says, “Husbands, love your wives,” what does that mean? It means just what it says. It’s pretty simple. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. God didn’t stutter. It’s not clouded; it’s easy to understand.

Now there are verses that are challenging to understand sometimes. But the ones that are clear are so easy to understand. It’s not the things I don’t understand in the Bible that bother me; it’s the things I do understand. So the clarity of Scripture is so important. And we must obey the Bible. It is pure and clear.

The power of Scripture, in verse 8, is that it is “enlightening the eyes.” It helps you see and understand in this dark world. It gives you an eternal perspective in a carnal, material world. Psalm 119:130 says, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.”

R.H. Choi says that “The man who studies the Bible and neglects all other books will be wiser than the man who studies all other books and neglects the Bible.” I like that. We study so many things and know so much, yet we neglect the Bible.

One of the greatest problems in the church today is Biblical illiteracy. People do not know the Word of God, thus they do not have the joy and power of the Lord in their lives.

The fifth statement, in verse 9, is “The fear of the Lord…” that’s the title “,,,is clean…” that’s its nature “…enduring forever.” “The fear of the Lord” means that the Bible teaches us how to fear God and worship Him. It’s talking about our worship toward God. The Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). So when we love God and worship God, we do it with a reverential fear.

What does it mean to “fear the Lord”? It doesn’t mean that I’m afraid that God is going to judge me or smite me. It means that I don’t want to do anything to disappoint Him. I don’t want to do anything to grieve Him. I don’t want to do anything to hurt Him. I want God to be pleased with me. I want the approval of God. I want God to clap for me. When Jesus opened with His sermon on the mount, he opened with the Beatitudes. Those Beatitudes describe the blessed person, the person who gains the approval of God.

So living in “the fear of the Lord” is learned in the Bible. I learned to fear God, to respect God and to reverence God. And I learned to live to please the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).

Its nature is “clean,” which means “without spot” or it is “holy.”

Its power, verse 9, is “enduring forever.” It means the Scriptures are unchanging, immutable and eternal. Just like God, His Word is immutable and unchanging. Jesus said it like this in Matthew 24:35: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” The Bible teaches that truth is absolute and unchanging and is grounded in the character of God, who is unchanging.

This is why, my dearly beloved, that we must build our lives upon the solid rock of Scripture. Jesus gave the parable of the wise man and the foolish man. In that parable, the foolish man built his house on the sand—not a good idea; the foundation is important. When the winds came and the flood came and the rain beat against the house, the house fell, “And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:27). But the wise man built his house on rock, and when the winds blew and the storms came and hit that house, it stood strong. And Jesus said that the wise man is the one who hears His Word and does it. The foolish man is the one who hears His Word and doesn’t do it. So it’s not enough to hear the Scripture; we must “be doers of the word” (James 1:22). We must build our lives on the rock of Scripture that endures forever.

The sixth statement, in verse 9, is “The judgments of the Lord…” that’s its title “…are true…” that’s its nature “…and righteous altogether,” that’s its power or what it does.

“The judgements of the Lord” means that God’s Word is the final authority, it’s the final court of appeal. It is God’s verdict in all matters. It is important to stand on the authoritative Word of God.

We live today in a culture that has totally bought into relativism. Everything is relative; there are no absolute truths. You can’t know anything for sure. The only thing you can know for sure is that you can’t know anything for sure. That’s really where they are. I’ve had people say, “There is no absolute truth.”

You say, “Are you absolutely sure?” It’s self-defeating.

If you don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God and that there is a God, and He’s revealed in His Word, He’s given us His laws and precepts and statutes, you’re drifting on a sea of no moral absolutes. This is where America is now. Without God, without the Bible, we are hopelessly doomed. We have no life, no rudder, no sail, no map, no Word, no fixed point, no final authority; it’s your word against mine or what I think is right and what you think is right. It’s just utter chaos. There is no purpose and no meaning. That’s why people who buy into this philosophy end up committing suicide. It’s because there is no purpose and no meaning in life, there is no fixed point, there is no God.

But there is a God. He’s a God of love; He sent His Son to redeem us. There is purpose in life: to know God, to glorify Him forever. And there is judgment for unrighteousness and wickedness. There will be final retribution, and justice will be served. But without God and the Bible, we have nothing. It’s so sad and tragic.

Next, its nature is “true.” Jesus said in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” And one of the ways we know that the Bible is the Word of God is because Jesus believed that; Jesus believed the Bible to be the Word of God.

In verse 9, its power is “righteous altogether.” It means that it brings about a comprehensive righteousness. We read in Timothy3:17 that “…the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Comprehensive righteousness is produced in the life of the believer through the power of God’s Word.

Only God’s Word has the power to transform your life. God’s Word has the power to bring regeneration, and God’s Word has the power to bring transformation. Without that, there is no power. So it is God’s marvelous Word.

1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul said to the believers in Thessalonica, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.” When the Word of God is preached and taught faithfully from the pulpit of a church or from you reading the Scriptures, it is God’s Word, not man’s, and you should receive it as it is in truth, the Word of God. Then it will work effectually in you.

Now I want to close with how we are to respond to God’s sufficient Scripture, verses 10-11. “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them…” which is “Scripture” or “God’s Word” “…Your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward.”

There are three things we need to do in responding to God’s Word. Number one, desire God’s Word. “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold.” So the Scriptures are more precious than gold. God’s Word is our greatest possession.

Try to imagine a world with no Bible. It’s hard for us in the western world to imagine that. The whole western world and culture was made, shaped and fashioned by the Bible. All our values are from the Bible. Without the Bible, imagine the most primitive culture and the most primitive settings. There would be no light, no knowledge, no hope.

The Bible is our most precious possession, yet we won’t pick it up and read it. It’s a love letter from God to us, but we neglect it. It collects dust on the shelf. What a blessing it is that God has given us His Word. We should desire it.

In 1 Peter 2:1-3, Peter says, “Therefore, lay aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” So we must denounce sin and desire God’s Word.

Number two, delight in God’s Word. It’s our greatest pleasure. Desire God’s Word—it is our greatest possession—and delight in God’s Word—it is our greatest pleasure.

What is it that excites you more than anything else? Is it the Word of God? Is it discovering God’s truth? Learning about God? Getting to know God more? Is it God speaking to your own heart when you are discouraged? God speaks to you. When you are in sin, God convicts you. When you need wisdom from above, God directs you. Everything we need in life comes to us by God’s Word.

Number three, we need to be doers of the Word of God. Verse 11, “Moreover by them Your servant is warned…” and here’s the point “…and in keeping them there is great reward.” There are two things in this verse I want to point out: the Scriptures warn us and the Scriptures reward us.

As a warning, the Bible is our greatest protection. I like that. God’s Word is warning me. And then it keeps me. Notice that it brings “great reward.” So it warns us and rewards us. It is our greatest protection and it rewards us. It is our greatest profit.

So the Scriptures are our greatest pleasure, our greatest protection and our greatest profit.

In James 1:22 it says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” Then he uses a cool illustration. “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror.”

Mirrors in Bible days were not very good; they were just polished metal. So the image was distorted and not very good to look at. But today mirrors are too good, brutally good. I don’t like mirrors with bright lights around them. I like to look in the mirror when it is dimly lit. Then I’m lookin’ good! But when the lights around them are turned on—“Ugh! Turn them off!”
You ever get up in the morning and all your hair is going south? Those of you who have hair. And you say, “Forget it! I’m just going through the day the way it is.” And you get to the office and people ask you, “Do you have a mirror? Have you seen yourself?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re messed up, Dude!”

“Oh, it’s that mirror; I have to get a new mirror.” Can you imagine how stupid that would be to say? “I need a new mirror, because every time I look in this mirror, I look ugly.”

The problem is not the mirror—I hate to break it to you.

So when we look in the mirror of God’s Word, it convicts us. It warns us. It directs us and guides us to seek God’s grace, to seek God’s mercy, to seek God’s forgiveness, to be restored and to have the joy of the Lord. God’s Word is sufficient for every need.