Guard Your Heart

Adrian Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith.

He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you'll hear that in today's message. Now, let's join Adrian Rogers. There was a park there in the pool where the killer whale, Tilikum, was. They found the body of a boy. Evidently, this youngster had stayed in the park, and after the park closed, he decided he would go swimming with the whales. In that pool was a whale named Tilikum, 11,000 pounds.

When they came in the next morning, Tilikum was playing with the body of that boy. Evidently, he thought that he could have a good time, maybe a little fun, just swimming with the whales. Our kids today are being destroyed by a monster more dangerous than that orca, that killer whale.

So great, so big, so massive is the problem, and yet sometimes so seemingly small. There's a marine parasite, very small, almost invisible, that feeds on the shell of a clam and paralyzes the muscle of that clam so it cannot stay shut. And then that little parasite goes on the inside and begins to feed on the animal itself. Whether a killer whale or whether a tiny parasite feeding on the mind, destroying the resistance, our boys and girls today are in greater danger than boys and girls on the wild frontier many days ago. And there's danger everywhere, and we need to do something about it because Satan wants to corrupt their minds. The Bible has so much to say about the mind sometimes in the Old Testament. It's called the heart. Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23. Keep, keep, that means guard, guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it, out of your heart are the issues of life. Proverbs chapter 23, verse 7. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. A business motto said this, you're not what you think you are, but what you think you are.

As a man thinketh, so is he. Paul said in Romans chapter 8 and verse 6, to be carnally minded is death. Colossians 1, 21 says, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. Proverbs 15, verse 26, the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord. Just keep those verses in mind in a moment. We're going to come to our text in Psalm 119, but it saddens me to say that pornography is not something that you see any longer or pick up in a back alley somewhere.

It has gone mainstream. As I've said before, a tidal wave of sludge has hit the shores of these God-blessed Americas that we have today. We need to do something.

We need to be able to guard our mind so that we can protect our home. And people have done all kinds of things to see if they can correct the thought life. They have searched in caves. They've walked in deserts. They've gone to remote islands. They've lived in the jungles. They've climbed mountains.

They've lived as hermits, but they've not been able to control the thought life. But there is a way, and I can tell you it works. It works for me, and listen to me carefully. I will guarantee you, guarantee you, beyond the shadow of any doubt of peradventure, if you will do what these verses that I'm about to share with you tell you to do, you will guard your heart. And if you guard your heart, then you are prepared to protect your home. If you're a father, how you need to listen. If you're a mother, you need to pay attention.

If you're a teen or pre-teen, don't tune me out. I'm going to give you seven steps for a clean thought life. They're going to come right here from Psalm 119, and let me begin reading now with verse 9. that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. With my lips have I declared the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes.

I will not forget thy word. Comprised in these verses, 9 through 16, are seven steps. And I tell you with authority, I tell you with emphasis, I tell you with clarity, without stutter, without stammer, that if you will do the seven things that are listed here, you will, by God's grace, for His glory and your good, control your thought life. I want to say, contrary wise, if you don't do these things, you're going to fail. There's seven principles. Principle number one, the principle of purification, get perfectly clean.

Start there. Notice in verse 9, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. Now look at the word way, w-a-y. The Hebrew word there has the idea of a rut, a groove. It's something like a groove in a road, a muddy rut.

A farmer may drive his tractor back and forth over a farm road. Well, after a while, there is a rut in that road, a muddy rut, and he can just set the tractor and let go of the wheel, and the tractor will follow that way. Now what the devil has done to so many people is this. He has put a groove in their mind. He has put a muddy rut, a dirty track in their mind.

They have what I might call a one-track mind. Have you ever been around people that no matter what you say, they're going to make something suggestive out of it? I used to work as a kid on construction work. I'd given my heart to Christ. My heart was grieved with the men that I worked with. Everything that somebody would say, somebody else would make something dirty out of it, something obscene out of it, something suggestive out of it.

Why? Because these people had a rut in their mind. They had a dirty mind.

When you think of a way, just think somehow of a secret addiction. Many people have this. Jeremiah 11, verse 8 says, Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, they walked everyone in the imagination of their evil heart. The imagination of their evil heart.

That's what we would call a dirty mind. Even at nighttime before they go to sleep, lying on their bed, rather than thinking of God, rather than thinking of the Word of God, they're playing dirty scenes across the theater of their mind. And God knows their thoughts. Here's what the Bible says in Matthew, chapter 5, verses 27 and following.

Jesus is speaking. He said, You have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. Mental adultery. So wherewithal shall a man cleanse that dirty rut, that groove, that internal addiction?

Well, look at another word there. How shall a young man cleanse his way? The word cleanse is the word that we get our word catharsis from. Catharsimus.

That's the Greek word. How can you have a catharsis? Jesus uses that word catharsis in John 15, verse 3. Now you're clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Think of the Lord Jesus Christ coming into your mind and doing spring house cleaning. Think of Him just cleaning out everything in your mind that's not what it ought to be. Now He will do that. The Bible says in 1 John 1-9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us, now listen to this, from all unrighteousness.

Do you want some good news? No matter what your thought life has been, no matter how vile, no matter how obscene, you can be as clean, as pure as the driven snow. Listen, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us, not from some, but from all unrighteousness.

Think of the Lord Jesus Christ just making you perfectly, completely, totally clean. Now let's look at that word in 1 John 1-9, if we confess. It's a Greek word, homo legao. As I've told you before, it's a combination of two words that literally mean to say the same.

Homo, the same, legao, to speak, to speak the same thing. A confession of sin is not an admission of sin. It may be in a courtroom, but it is not before God. It is not just merely saying I have done thus and such, but it means I agree with you, God.

I come over and take sides against this sin. I say with you, dear God, that I have done it and it is wrong, and I say with you, God, what you say about that sin. That is a confession. Once you make that confession, I'm telling you that Almighty God is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you. Now, if all God does is to forgive you and doesn't cleanse you, then that is not enough because the problem would still be on the inside. But I'm telling you that if God does not forgive you and God does not cleanse you, according to his own word, God would be unfaithful and God would be unjust. God would be a liar and a criminal.

He would be unfaithful. He would be unjust if he didn't cleanse you. No matter what has been in your mind, no matter what kind of a rut is there, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. It's in the Word of God that you're going to find this cleansing. Jesus said in John 15, verse 3, You are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. And so that's the very first thing I want you to do. If you would have victory, that's the very first step. You're going to have to get your mind clean, and there's no reason you don't do that.

I mean, none at all. You can do it. There's no reason that you cannot do that.

You may not do it, but you can do it. You can get your mind perfectly clean, not just the sin of wrong thinking, but anything that is there, because if there's any sin there, any whatsoever that's unconfessed, unrepentant of, you're not going to have victory. If you don't have victory in one area, you can't have it in another area.

You can't have segmented victory. If we confess our sins, not our sin, our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When I was a boy preacher, I used to pastor in Felsmere, Florida. There's a sugar mill there, and I would go out and witness to the men at the sugar mill, a little sugar mill town. They had a big garage there where they fixed the tractors and the equipment.

One of the members of my church ran that big garage, machine shop and so forth. I went out to see him, and you wouldn't think that a machine shop could be that clean. The floors were clean and slick. There was no trash, nothing around.

There was no grease. Everything was clean. The tools were all put up in a certain place. And I looked at that place, and I stood in awe of how clean it was because it was a machine shop. Then I noticed something unusual. That man had painted every corner in that machine shop snow white.

I asked him about it. I said, why are the corners white? He said, I found out if you keep the corners white, you can keep the rest of the shop clean. He wouldn't allow anybody to put anything in a corner.

Every corner was snow white. Keep the corners of your mind clean. Don't just try to clean up the main part. Keep it all perfectly clean and the smallest thing. Let God make you perfectly clean. I want to ask you a question. Do you long to be perfectly clean?

I mean, really, do you? Would you like to say there is nothing between my soul and the Savior? Clean. There is no reason, none whatsoever, none that you cannot be absolutely, totally, perfectly clean.

If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now that's the first step. It's the principle of purification. Get totally clean. That's verse 9. Now, let's look at verse 10, and here's the next principle. Not only the principle of purification, but principle number two, the principle of determination.

Determine to stay clean. Look in verse 10. With my whole heart have I sought thee. With my whole heart. My whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not stray from thy commandments.

Some are going down tonight. Some will never have victory. And the reason you will not have victory is you're half-hearted rather than whole-hearted.

No one, no one, no one has ever won a moral victory half-heartedly. Let me give you some scriptures to add to this. Deuteronomy 4, verse 29. God says, But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

Have you ever sought God with all of your heart? James 4, verse 8. Draw nigh to God, and God will draw nigh unto you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your heart, ye double-minded.

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1, verse 8. Daniel, chapter 1, verse 8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. Have you purposed in your heart that you would not defile yourself? Job said in Job 31, verse 1, I made a covenant with my eyes that I would not look upon a maid. And the Hebrew idea is that I will not lust after a woman. I made a covenant with my eyes.

Question. Have you done that? Have you said, Oh, my God, with all of my heart, I determined to be pure? I'm telling you, if you don't say that and mean it, in today's society, you are going down without that determination. God does business with those that mean business. Now, after you do this, it doesn't mean the battle is over. But it will never be enjoined until you go in with all of your heart. You get perfectly clean.

And then you say, By God's grace, I will stay clean. Years ago, I read how people would hunt for a little animal that they made fur coats out of and ermine. This particular ermine had a coat of snow white, these kind of animals. What they would do, they would find the hole where the ermine would run in to hide. And they would take and smear filth around the hole, something vile, something dirty, something defiling. And then the dogs would hunt the ermine. And the ermine would run as fast as it could to the hole, to the lair, to get away.

But when it would see that filth and realize it would have to defile its coat of snow white to go into that hole, the ermine, rather than defile itself, would turn around and face the dogs and would give its life, give its life rather than defile itself. Does purity mean that much to you? If not, you're going to go down. You're half-hearted. And if you're half-hearted, you're not going to make it. The principle of purification, you get totally clean.

The principle of determination, you determine to stay clean. I tell you again, God does business with those that mean business. I went to the marriage altar a virgin. I married a virgin.

I'm glad I did. I knew the temptations that every young man knows. In college, I kept a motto on my desk, and it said this, He who would not fall down ought not to walk in slippery places.

Third principle, and that is the principle of fortification. Fortify yourself with the Word of God. Look in verse 11. Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. Yes, you can get clean.

Yes, you can be determined. But you need more than that. You need something to fortify you on the inside. You need to be fortified by the Word of God. First, you repent and get clean.

And then you refuse to participate. But next, after repentance and refusal comes replacement. You put something there in the place of that which you have refused and that which God has taken out. Then you put something else back in.

Nature abhors a vacuum. The Word of God hidden in your heart will fortify you, but it's got to be in your heart, not in a dresser drawer. Look at it. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. One of the greatest weapons against pornography is hiding God's Word in your heart.

That is memorization. That's the way to have a pure mind. You see, when you memorize Scripture, Scripture is the mind of God. Scripture is the Word of God. When you have Scripture in your heart and in your mind, you're thinking God's thoughts after Him. Casual thoughts, casual reading of the Bible, is like a bee just flitting over the surface of a flower. Memorization is like the bee going down into the heart of a flower and gathering the nectar. Meditation is like Him taking it back to the hive and making honey out of it.

What we need to do is gather the Word of God so we can meditate on the Word of God. You see, God gave you a memory. Memory is a wonderful thing. Oliver Wendell Holmes said about the memory, memory is a crazy witch.

She treasures bits of rags and straw and throws her jewels out the window. I imagine that most of you can remember the first dirty story you ever heard as a child. The first impure thing written upon your mind. Memory is there. And so many people remember what they ought not to remember and forget what they ought to remember. What Scripture memory does is this. It helps you to remember what you ought to remember and to forget what you ought to forget. The mind is a marvelous thing.

The best computer on earth is an idiot compared to the human mind. A mind can think about its self-thinking. It's an incredible thing. And you can hide God's Word in your heart.

Thy Word, thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Imagine a little box made of gold, platinum, silver, encrusted with gems and diamonds with a beautifully crafted hinge and latch. And you see that little box. You think, what an incredible box that is. And you open it up and look inside. It's got gem clips and toothpicks, gum wrappers and rubber bands. In that little box, the mind is like this.

Such an incredible instrument. And what do people put in their minds? Just junk.

Just junk. You want to teach your children to live victoriously. Teach them to memorize the Scripture.

And reward them for memorizing the Scripture. You say, well, I don't believe in bribing kids to do good. It is not a bribe. It's a reward.

A bribe is an inducement to do evil. A reward is a recognition for doing good. The Bible teaches rewards. Jesus said, behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me to give to every man according to his work shall be. Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. That is just simply plain and pure and true.

That's the way to do it. First of all, purification. Secondly, determination.

Thirdly, fortification. You fortify yourself with the Word of God. Let me show you what the Word of God will do.

Take your Bibles and turn to Philippians 4 verses 8 and 9. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things, those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do, and the God of peace shall be with you. Now, remember I told you that the thought is the dress rehearsal for the deed. You sow a thought, you reap a deed. Sow a deed, you reap a habit. Sow a habit, you reap a character.

Sow a character, and you reap a destiny. It all begins with the thought. Now, James Allen said this, good thoughts bear good fruit. Bad thoughts bear bad fruit.

And man is his own gardener. You can choose your thoughts like you choose your friends. What you need to do is to put a guard on your mind. When I travel in airports, as you do, and they say empty your pockets, take out the metal, take out the calculators, take this thing, that thing, and you put it in a tray. And you walk through and you start to go through and you say, you back up, you put your glasses, your fountain pen, you back up again, take the change out of your heart, out of your pocket, and you put that in the basket. And after a while, you go through.

You go through. Now, you need to have something like that at the gate of your mind, there's certain things you just don't let through. As a matter of fact, I've told you before, I'd like one of those over the door, each door as you go out, if there's any sin in your heart, you'll say, eh, come back in, let him preach some more. But not to get the sin out, but to keep the sin out, there's certain things that you just say, I'm not going to let into my mind. For example, let's let some words start with the letter R so you can remember them.

How do you put a gate there at your mind? Number one, there's what I want to call the reliance test. Whatsoever things are true. Can you rely on it? Is it true?

You see, we have a generation today that doesn't even believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth. We don't ask anymore, is it true? We just ask, does it work?

The reliance test. Number two, the respect test. Whatsoever things are honest. Now the word honest here literally means in the Greek language, whatsoever things are honorable. Worthy of respect. Don't let anything that is dishonorable into your mind.

Number three, the rightness test. Whatsoever things are just. The word just here means that which is straight. Don't let any crooked, warped thinking into your mind.

And then the reverence test. Whatsoever things are pure. Now the word pure here actually has the idea of free from contamination. It was used of animals that were ready to be sacrificed. An animal that was contaminated. It would have to be pure.

It would have to be without contamination. And it's something that you could use to worship God with. Can you worship God with your thoughts? I mean, with the Lord Jesus Christ looking into your mind, could you say, Lord, that's a thought that I'm happy to entertain with you. That is a pure thought.

Then the relationship test. Whatsoever things are lovely. That doesn't mean beautiful to look at.

That's a combination of two Greek words which means moving toward love. If it causes you to love. If it moves you to love.

If it's lovely, then you think about it. I told you that one of the worst things about pornography is that it is the opposite of love. Love wants to give, lust wants to get. Pornography looks upon people as objects. Things to be used rather than persons to be truly loved. So you ask yourself, is this causing me to have an attitude of love toward somebody else?

Or is it causing me to look at someone made in the image of God as less than lovable? The refinement test. Whatsoever things are of good report. Now that word actually means high tone. You don't have to listen to things that are low tone. Somebody says, well, you know, I just don't know why people tell me these things all the time. Well, I know why. They know they can use your ears for garbage cans. They know they can track their muddy feet on the carpet of your mind. But if it's not high tone, you don't have to listen to it. And then he says here, as he just sums it up, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Now, I've often told you something wonderful, something glorious. God made you where you can't think two thoughts at one time. And if you're thinking what is right, you cannot be thinking what is wrong. You cannot not think impure thoughts because while you're trying not to think impure thoughts, you're thinking about the impure thoughts you're trying not to think about. It's a catch-22.

It's a vicious trap. Try not to think about an elephant for a minute, okay? Now, what are you thinking about? You're thinking about the elephant you're trying not to think about. Isn't that right? But you were not thinking about a zebra because you were thinking about an elephant, right?

Right. All right, now, if you're thinking about one thing, you're not thinking about another thing. And you cannot think two thoughts at one time. And if you're thinking about what is right, you cannot be thinking about that which is wrong. No one can think two thoughts at one time, and that's the reason the Bible gives us this list of things that you think about.

Well, where are these things found? In the Word of God. You fortify yourself with the Word of God because when you have the Word of God in you, you're thinking God's thoughts after Him. You say, well, Pastor Rogers, what if I open up the catalogue and I see a lingerie ad? What if I'm watching television and all of a sudden a salacious thing comes on? That just bombards my mind. I didn't choose to watch that.

What do I do? Do you know the difference between unsaved people and Spirit-filled saved people, the way they look at these things? They see them from a different viewpoint. The minute they're confronted with something like this, then they still think about it in the light of God's Word. Now, listen, it is not only a matter of what you think about but how you think about these things. The Christian mind and the non-Christian mind may think about the same things but they don't think about the same things the same way. Now, if you're with your child and something bombards you like that, then what you do is take the Word of God and say, sweetheart, what does God's Word say about that? How do we see that? You see, we discern it from a different viewpoint.

Never willingly bring your mind to anything like that but when you have to face something like that, still you're facing that through the lens of God's Word. So there's the principle of fortification. Principle number four, there's the principle of vitalization.

Vitalization. Ask God to teach you. Look, if you will, in verse 12. Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. Then so what you do, you turn fortification into prayer. You say, now, O God, teach me. You pray.

Ask God to put his hand upon you. Facts and memory are not enough, even Bible facts. You cannot separate the Word of God from the God of that Word.

And you must pray, O God, make it real in my heart. The Holy Spirit in you will take the Word of God which is living and alive and will vitalize it to you. There was a man who was a new Christian. He was being mentored by another man named Charlie. And Charlie was his Bible teacher.

They had great fellowship and it was good to have a mentor to teach the Word of God to you. But one day this man was studying the Scripture and Charlie was nowhere around. He said, I wonder what that means. Boy, when Charlie comes, I'm going to ask Charlie what that means. And he felt the Holy Spirit whispering to him and said, why don't you ask me?

I'm the one that taught Charlie. Oh, you can pray and say, Lord, teach me, teach me thy statutes, thy law, vitalize it, make it real. You see, prayerlessness is bad enough. But what prayerlessness indicates is even worse.

It indicates that we're quite confident we can do it by ourselves. Now, you hide God's Word in your heart. But then you say, God, vitalize it.

Make it real to me. I just don't want to be rattling off memory verses. Rattling off memory verses is not enough.

Now, it's the principle of vitalization. Next principle is the principle of verbalization. Verbalization, keep the Word of God on your lips. Now, he speaks about the Word of God in your heart. But now he talks about the Word of God on your lips. Look in verse 13, With my lips have I declared all the judgment of thy mouth.

Begin to verbalize it. You see, when you vitalize it, memorize it, vitalize it, then verbalize it, confession and profession are linked together. You take the Word of God and begin to download it to other people or just take it and speak it out loud to God.

You may sing it. Singing Scripture is one of the best things that you can do. To have the Word of God in your mouth, in your lips.

Why is it? Because there is a symbiotic relationship. The Word of God goes from the heart to the mouth out and from the mouth back to the heart and one builds upon another. When you begin to give the Word of God away, the Word of God sticks to you. Did you know that? Did you know that there is a kind of a secret that preachers have?

It's a blessed secret. We get to preach the Bible. And you know when we get to preach the Bible, something happens.

It's just so wonderful. It's reflexive. You cannot study for a sermon, prepare, think, pray and preach it without it just saturating you.

That's just a trade secret. I find myself sometimes repeating passages of Scripture that I never even intended to memorize. And somehow just the very speaking of God's Word gives us force. You read in the book of the Revelation where the early Christians were at warfare with Satan. And the Bible says, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

And they loved not their lives unto the death. Did you know that you can give your testimony, give it to other people? But not only give it to other people. Give it to yourself. You can say, I belong to you, Lord Jesus.

You're mine. Have you ever given your testimony to yourself? I give mine to me lots of times. I just say, who I am in the Lord Jesus Christ and just speak it. But I tell you who else you can give your testimony to. You can give your testimony to the devil.

You can. The next time Satan gets on your trail with some dirty thought, some foul thing, some temptation, you can say this to him. When your heart is clean, when you've done that purification, when you've done that determination, when you have done that fortification, when you have done that vitalization, then the devil gets on your trail.

You can say, devil, I want to tell you something. Your back was broken at Calvary. You are defeated. You are a pervert. You have no right in my life. You have no authority in my life. I belong to Jesus Christ.

My body, heart, soul, mind is His. You're trespassing on my Father's property, and in the name of Jesus be gone. Draw an eye to God. God will draw an eye to you. Resist the devil.

He will flee from you. Learn to verbalize the Word of God. The principle of verbalization, verse 13. Verse 14, the principle of evaluation.

Remember your true riches. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimony as much as in all riches. Remember last week when we talked about Moses? Moses made a decision. He saw the pleasures of sin. He saw the riches of Christ. He made an evaluation. And when he made an evaluation, then he made a choice. And after he made the choice, then Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He refused to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the children of God. Why?

Because he esteemed the riches of Christ greater than all the treasures of Egypt. You see, you have to have an evaluation. Teach your boys and girls. Teach yourself what you're giving up. Who wants to give up diamonds for dirt? Who wants to eat swill when they can feed on man and nectar? If we can only get people to think, there has to be a choice. There has to be an evaluation. You have to choose. You choose the true riches.

And you're satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ. A mind that is feeding on trash is a mind that's hungry. I've seen people eating out of garbage cans, literally.

One of the most elegant, upscale places in America. I saw a man, a young man, with his head way down in the garbage can, literally eating out of the garbage can. My heart broke. What would cause a man to eat out of a garbage can? Number one, hunger.

Number two, no sense of shame. Why would a person put garbage in his mouth? Well, you say because he's hungry. Point, you don't have to be hungry. You can feed on Jesus. I don't have to be out in the back alley eating tin cans with the devil's billy goats if I've just been feasting with the Lord Jesus Christ. If I see what I have in the Lord Jesus Christ, I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches.

The principle of evaluation. Now, here's the final principle, and that's the principle of meditation. Maintain a constant communion with the Lord. Look now in verse 15, if you will. I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes.

I will not forget thy word. Meditation is a powerful, powerful force to keep your mind pure. There are three elements in meditation. Time, quietness, and concentration. If you will spend some time concentrating on the Word of God and thinking about it, it will do something wonderful for your thought life.

The word meditate has two thoughts. One, as I've told you before, it has the thought of a cow chewing the cud. And a cow will go out there in the pasture and get that clover and that alfalfa and grass or whatever it is, and he digests it and he has, I think, four stomachs and he just somehow places it there and then he'll go out to meditate. That is, he'll go out and lie down in the pasture somewhere and his brain sends a message to his stomach and says, alfalfa, please. Up comes the alfalfa. And he or she will chew it, swallow it down, maybe clover, please, and chew that for a while and get the juice out of it and send it back down again.

The Word of God is like that. You know, you get it in and you ingest it. Then you digest it.

You chew on it over and over and over and over again. I find myself going to bed thinking the Word of God, waking up the first thought in the morning, thinking the Word of God. It's also like a tune you can't get out of your mind. You ever had a little tune you can't get out of your mind, Dave? It just gets in your mind.

Whatever it is, it gets there. Well, get the Word of God in your mind so you meditate on it day after day. Let me just give you a few verses in this same Psalm, Psalm 119, verse 15. I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. Psalm 119, verse 23.

Princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. Psalm 119, verse 48. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved. I will meditate in thy statutes. Psalm 119, verse 97.

O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Now, what I have done is taken one short passage of Scripture and I have given you seven principles. Now, listen to me. Take these seven principles, memorize them. If you're not a good note-taker, you probably don't even have them all down yet. Get the tape, listen, over and over and over again.

It'll be worth it. Put it into practice. Don't you be a hypocrite to try to teach your children something that you're not practicing. You get your heart right. Get your heart clean.

You guard your heart so you can protect your home. Then you take your children. You walk your children through this thing. You say to them, look, you can be clean. You don't have to let the devil have a dirty groove in your mind, a rut in your mind. You can have that way cleansed.

And then you go through the rest of the steps. And again, I remind you that God does business with those that mean business. Would you pray right now, dear God, teach me your statutes? Would you pray what the psalmist prayed, Lord, teach me.

Lord, help me to know these things. Help me to take what the pastor said is out of your word and, Lord, apply it to my heart. If you've been having difficulty in these matters and a lot of fine people are fighting a real battle, tell God that you're having a battle, but you have determined with your whole heart to have victory.

Now, if you don't make that kind of decision, you're going down. And even if you make that kind of decision, if you don't use God's methods, you're still not going to have victory. Father God, in the name of Jesus, seal this message to our hearts and help me and help us, Lord, that we might truly have victory in our thought life. In Jesus' name, amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with Him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.