Amen. Chapter 14 of 1 Chronicles, Now Hyrum, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David and timber of cedars with masons and carpenters to build him a house.
And David perceived that the Lord had confirmed him king over Israel, for his kingdom was lifted up on high because of his people, Israel.
So in the previous few chapters we see David rising to power. Obviously we have the death of Saul and then various mighty men are coming to David and joining his band.
And remember he spent seven and a half years as the king of just Judah only, but now all of Israel has made him king.
So he's reached a point where he's stable in his throne and he perceives the fact that God has confirmed him king over Israel.
He's the king, he's in charge, the civil war is over, he's clearly the head of state and God is blessing him and putting his stamp of approval on him.
And it says that his kingdom was lifted up on high part way through verse 2 because of his people, Israel.
So the reason for God blessing this kingdom is not just David personally is such a great guy that God's blessing his kingdom,
but rather it's the people of Israel that are being blessed by God. They're being blessed with a godly leader, David,
and they're also being blessed with a kingdom that's lifted up on high, that's prospering because of the people of Israel.
So when it comes to a church, God's going to bless a good church with a good pastor.
God's going to bless a good nation with a good president.
And God's going to curse a wicked people with a wicked pastor and he's going to curse a wicked nation with a wicked leader.
So the leadership is often a reflection of what the people are.
And so they're being blessed with a powerful king, a godly king, and a king that's lifted up because of the fact that they are godly at this time.
Now it's not just that they're Israel because it says that his kingdom was lifted up on high because of his people Israel,
that his there is referring to God because the Lord was just mentioned, it's God's people Israel.
Because there are other times in the history of the nation of Israel where they're still called Israel, they're still the same group of people,
but when they're not right with God, did God bless them with a good leader? No.
They were not blessed with a good leader. They had many wicked kings throughout their history and other people who abused them and ruled over them poorly.
So God is blessing them with King David and he's secure, peaceful, and established as the king.
But look what it says in the next verse, verse 3.
And David took more wives at Jerusalem. Now is that the right thing for him to do? Absolutely not.
The law of God clearly said that the king shall not multiply wives. Period.
You know, God made them at the beginning, male and female, and for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, singular,
and they too, twain, shall be one flesh.
And so this is not right. And I think one thing that we can take away from this chapter right away is that when things are going good,
and God's blessing you, the tendency is often to take liberties, serve the flesh, become carnal, become selfish and self-serving, and get away from God.
You see, it's sometimes easier to serve God when things are going bad because you're praying to God, relying on God.
And when you're in the midst of a fight, sometimes it's easier to stay spiritual and right with God because you understand that you rely on God.
But when things go good, sometimes you can get comfortable, and you can get lazy, and you can start just indulging self and indulging the flesh.
So we have to be careful when things are going good in our life.
That at those times we make extra sure that we're staying spiritual and not falling into distress.
You know, David's not getting more spiritual in verse 3. He's getting more carnal in verse 3 by taking more wives.
God didn't want him to do that. He's doing that to indulge self, to indulge the flesh.
And I don't think it's a coincidence that God just finished telling us in the last breath that God's lifting up David. Why?
Because of his people Israel. But this is apparently going to David's head a little bit.
Now all of a sudden he feels like he's entitled to multiple wives and adding wives to the harem.
So we need to be careful when God is blessing us that we do the right things anyway.
Because otherwise God's going to have to send us fighting and hardship and suffering to make us spiritual again.
I mean, think about it. If you go through life and the only time you're seeking God is when things are going bad,
and you're praying, oh God, please get me out of this jam.
And then when things are going good, you're not praying, you're not reading your Bible, you're not going to church.
You know what God's going to do? He's like, well, I haven't heard from so-and-so in a while.
Let's turn up the heat in his life a little bit. Let's get him praying. Let's get him back in church.
We'll get him back out soul winning. Do you want that to happen? No.
So you'd better just serve God when it's easy so that it can stay easy, amen.
And that God doesn't have to send tribulation and trials to get you back on your knees and to humble you.
So David took more wives at Jerusalem and David begat more sons and daughters.
Now these are the names of his children, which he had in Jerusalem.
Shamuah and Shobab, Nathan and Solomon. I like those last two names, but those first two were a little rough.
Ibar and Elishua and Elpalet and Nogah and Nepheg and Jephiah and Elishama and Beelahadah and Eliphalet.
And when the Philistines heard that David was anointed king over all Israel,
all the Philistines went up to seek David and David heard of it and went out against him.
Now here's the next life lesson is that when things are going smooth and when things are going well,
there's often a battle right around the corner.
And when there's a great victory, it's often followed by a defeat or at least some kind of a struggle.
So when we have a great victory in our lives and things are going really well,
that's another time that we need to watch out, not just that we don't get carnal,
but we need to also watch out because that's when the attacks are going to come.
Because the Lord here is allowing the Philistines to come and fight against him at this time in his life.
And it says in verse 8, they heard that David was anointed king over all Israel.
All the Philistines went up to seek David and David heard of it and went out against them.
And the Philistines came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.
And David inquired of God saying, Shall I go up against the Philistines and wilt thou deliver them into mine hand?
And the Lord said unto him, Go up, for I will deliver them into thine hand.
So again, we see here that when the battle comes and when there's a danger,
we see David giving God all the glory and realizing that all deliverance is going to come from God.
He's fully trusting God to fight the battle for him.
He prays to God and asks, Should I go fight this battle? Will you deliver them up into my hand?
And the Lord said unto him, Go up, for I will deliver them into thy hand.
So they came up to Baal-parasim and David smote them there.
And then David said, God hath broken in upon mine enemies by mine hand like the breaking forth of waters.
Therefore they called the name of that place Baal-parasim.
Now notice at the beginning of verse 11, it's already calling the place Baal-parasim.
Obviously when they went there, it wasn't called that.
Because often the Bible uses place names of the time when the book is being written.
So 1 Chronicles is being written only just a few hundred years before Jesus Christ.
So this is way after the events.
So they already know that place as Baal-parasim because it's been called that ever since this battle.
So hey, he went up to Baal-parasim.
The reader presumably knows where that is at the time this book is written.
And then it explains how it got its name.
David said, God hath broken in upon mine enemies by my hand like the breaking forth of waters.
Therefore they called the name of that place Baal-parasim.
So just the lesson here is that when you're reading the Bible, sometimes the place names that it gives is not what it was called at that time.
Sometimes it's a place name that came later and God's just referring places by what we would know them as.
Now this name Baal-parasim, keep your finger here and go to Genesis chapter 38.
Genesis chapter 38.
The Bible sometimes has kind of a little built-in Hebrew dictionary when you're reading the King James Bible in English
where you'll start to get a feel for what a lot of Hebrew words and Hebrew names and places mean
because he'll define them in the text and sometimes you'll see patterns of the same names or the same words over and over again.
And this is one of those things.
This is the story in Genesis 38 about Phares and Zerah being born of Tamar.
Judah and Tamar produced these children that are twins.
And it says in verse 28, it came to pass when she travailed that the one put out his hand and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread saying, this came out first.
And it came to pass as he drew back his hand that behold his brother came out and she said, how has thou, watch this, broken forth.
So do you see that?
How has thou broken forth this breach be upon thee?
Therefore, his name was called Phares with a P, right?
P-H-A-R-A-Z is spelled there.
Well, think about it.
In 1 Chronicles chapter 14, David said that God had broken in upon my enemies by my hand like the breaking forth of waters.
So it's called Baal-parasim because of the breaking forth of waters.
And then remember when Phares had broken forth, that's why his name is called Phares.
So you can see how parasm is a plural, right, because that's the I-M ending.
So it's the breaking forth of waters, plural, multiple breaking forth, right?
So you can see how Phares' name is pretty similar to this place, Baal-parasim.
Now, another thing that could perplex you when you look at this, like, why is it called Baal-parasim?
Is he giving the credit unto Baal?
You know, because he just finished saying that what God has broken in upon my enemies by my hand.
But then he doesn't name the place Jehovah-parasim.
You know, he names the place Baal-parasim.
Now, here's why that is, is that the word Baal, or Baal, means Lord, okay?
That's what that word actually means.
Now, over time, this came to only be associated with false gods, okay?
But in the early days of the language, the word Baal just simply meant Lord.
So it could be the God of the Bible.
It could be a false god.
It actually means husband as well.
So even in modern Hebrew, when someone talks about their husband, this is the word that they would use for that, okay?
So basically, it just means boss, master, lord, or husband.
So in the early days of the children of Israel, it would be specified which Baal are we talking about.
And that's why you have these different Baal-peor, and Baal-zebub, and Baal-ekron, different lords or gods of these heathen.
But over time, Baal became just associated with false gods so much that God told them,
if you remember, we looked at this several weeks ago in the book of Hosea, where he told them,
don't call me Baal anymore. Don't even use that word.
Even if you want to call me husband, he said, call me Ishai, don't call me Baalai, right?
So he's saying, and those two words mean the same thing, but he said, hey, don't use that word Baal because that's associated with a false god.
But at this time, you remember, one of Saul's kids has Baal in the name as well because it just meant Lord back then.
So I think it's just an innocent name here of just calling it Baal-peorasm, just meaning the Lord has broken forth upon my enemies.
The other option would be that David said, hey, God has broken in upon my enemies, right?
And he said that, and then they called it Baal-peorasm because they're into that false god, and they gave some other god the glory.
So I think it's more likely, though, that it's just an innocent calling the Lord Baal innocently before that became a bad word to use.
And again, what do we learn from that is just that if words have a bad association or if they get associated with false religion, we should shy away from those words.
We don't want to call God Allah or something, and then people think we're talking about the god of Islam, which is the devil, by the way.
And we don't want to use words. What are some words that are associated with false religions?
They're not necessarily a bad word, but if we use it, they're going to think that we're like mass.
Sometimes people say to me, oh, what time is the mass at your church?
Now, the word mass by itself isn't really a bad word because mass just means like a gathering, like a mass of people, right?
All matter has mass. Amen?
But the point is, because mass is now associated with Catholicism, we would never want to use that term mass because we don't want to look like Catholics,
just like there's nothing inherently wrong with having your collar turned around backwards, except for the fact that you're going to look like you're Catholic.
And that would be wrong to look like a Catholic because the Bible says abstain from all appearance of evil.
So that's why we don't want to talk about Allah and mass and turn our collar backwards and dress like, act like, look like Catholics.
Did you have something to add? Did someone else have something to add for a word that has a bad?
What about like Eucharist? You know, we shouldn't use that term.
Priest? Well, I'm a priest. So are you, right? We're all priests.
Karma. Yeah, there you go.
Karma is a word that, you know, you could say, hey, what goes around comes around is a biblical concept.
But when we use the word karma, what does it sound like?
It sounds like we're endorsing new age Hinduism.
You know, I've been guilty of using that word just because we hear it so much in our culture.
But we don't want to use that word karma. We'd rather say you reap what you sow and use a biblical terminology and not you.
Has anybody got another one? What? Are you speaking English?
Oh, okay. Well, that, yeah, I don't know because that's a different language.
So he's got a Spanish thing to add.
But yeah, so, you know, just any kind of word that has a connotation of another language, you know,
we should stick with biblical terminology or terminology that says Baptist or that says, hey, we're Evangelical Christians.
We're not Catholic. We're not Hindus. We're not Muslims.
So, you know, even if a word could have an innocent origin or an innocent beginning,
we want to make sure that, you know, we don't put out the wrong vibe or the appearance of evil unto people.
What's that? Yeah, but that is a Bible word, though.
You know, so I guess I wouldn't want to say don't use a word that's in the Bible,
because any word that's in the Bible, we should be able to use.
But maybe certain words in the Bible that have a bad connotation with what they're used to.
Maybe we would explain them when we use them. What what we mean by that.
Yeah, like dispensation. I mean, we don't want to say, hey, don't say dispensation because the Bible says dispensation.
We just want to make sure that people know what we mean when we say dispensation.
We want to be clear that we're talking about dispense like a Pez dispenser.
When we say dispensation, we're talking about giving out something. Right.
All right. Very good. So we've got this place, Baal Peresim.
And when they had left their gods there, OK, David gave a commandment and they were burned with fire.
So it looks like when the Philistines are defeated here, you know, in their haste, they dropped some of their idols.
They're probably bringing their gods with them to battle as a little good luck charm.
They're kissing it and whatever before the battle, their little rabbit's foot and false god, their little Buddha around their neck or whatever to give them good luck.
And so they left them there. So David says, burn them.
He wasn't collecting them and thinking they were cool and using them for a decoration in his house.
You know, the Bible is really negative about these false gods, these idols.
So, you know, we don't want to have a Buddha in our house.
You know, some people might just have a little Buddha statue and just think it's an innocent thing.
Well, that's a false religion that's taken a lot of people to hell and that's got demons associated with it.
So we don't want to have a little Buddha in our house.
And, you know, when you go on that island vacation, don't come back with the big tiki mask and the totem pole because that stuff is associated with demons burning.
All right. That's what he said. He gave the commandment and he burned them there with fire.
Verse 13 and the Philistines yet again spread themselves abroad in the valley.
So the first battle is a decisive victory.
They defeat the Philistines.
God gets all the glory.
The false gods are burned with fire, but the Philistines are back for round two.
Right. So again, life lesson here is that just because you defeated your enemies,
just because God blessed you and you won the battle doesn't mean there's not going to be another fight.
You know, we need to always keep our guard up and be ready for round two.
So then this time again, he inquires of God.
Verse 14. Therefore, David inquired again of God and God said unto him,
Go not up after them, turn away from them and come upon them over against the mulberry trees.
And it shall be when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees that thou shalt go out to battle.
For God is gone forth before thee, despite the host of the Philistines.
So he's told this time to wait.
Don't just go straight into battle.
And you know, humanly speaking, you might think that he needs the element of surprise and he wants to get right in there and fight.
But God tells him to patiently wait by the mulberry trees.
And there's going to be a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees.
There's going to be basically like a breeze or a wind that would shake the trees so the trees would be moving.
And that would let him know that God had gone before him to smite the host of the Philistines.
So he's supposed to wait for God to go on ahead.
So the Holy Spirit is often represented by the wind.
If you remember in Acts chapter 2, when they were all assembled together on the day of Pentecost,
there came a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And this was known as the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Because he said, John truly baptized with water but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
Now, what does it mean to be baptized?
To be baptized means to be immersed, right?
Baptism in the Bible is when they're dunked under water.
They go down into the water and they come up out of the water.
That's baptism, right?
So when he said you'll be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire,
that's what took place when they were in that house where they were assembled.
Because the Bible says that the rushing mighty wind filled all the house where they were sitting.
So if you're sitting in this house and this rushing mighty wind fills all the house where they're sitting,
and then there are cloven tongues like as a fire that rests upon them,
then basically that's the baptism of the Holy Spirit is when they were basically immersed or surrounded by the Holy Spirit on all sides.
Because the Holy Spirit filled the house that they were sitting, they were baptized with the Holy Spirit at that time.
Now if you think about it, and it said and with fire, and there were the flames of fire that were present as well.
If you think about it, this entire earth has been flooded at one point, right, in the days of Noah.
And that was like a baptism, it's a picture of baptism.
And then one day the whole earth is going to be scorched with fire, all the grass going to be burned up.
That's a picture of the fire baptism, okay.
So baptism is and always has been by immersion.
When the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, it says they were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
because they were surrounded by water on all sides.
Because the fact that they were crossing the Red Sea, there was a wall of water on each side,
and the cloudy pillar above them, which a cloud is water, moisture, they were surrounded.
So that's what it means when it says they're baptized with the Holy Ghost, is that they were, it filled the house where they were sitting.
So that's what is similar here, God's presence is represented by this rushing wind in the tops of the trees.
And then the Bible says in verse number 15 there at the end,
For God has gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines.
David therefore did as God commanded him.
So he went to the mulberry trees, he waited, there was the wind, there was the presence of God coming through there.
Then he went forth to fight them, and they smote the host of the Philistines from Gibeon even to Gezer.
And the fame of David went out into all lands, and the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations.
So, what does the Bible tell us? Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
David is humble and saying, God, do you want me to fight against the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hand?
And he follows instructions. The second time he gets different instructions, he follows the new instructions, he gives God all the glory,
and as a result, God lifts him up. His fame goes into all lands. People hear about him all over the world.
Now that's important because, you know, it's good that people heard about David all over the place because then they're going to hear about the God of David.
You know, David's writing the Psalms. David has been one who stood for the Lord.
Even when he killed Goliath, he said that the whole world may know that there's a God in Israel, and he defeated Goliath.
You know, hoping that the fame of that story would spread abroad and give God more glory in all lands, right?
So that people all over the world could hear about the wonderful works of God so that they could put their faith and trust in the true God, not in idols and false religion.
And so it says the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations. God's lifting him up, exalting him, and putting other people in fear of him.
Now this is how God often gives peace to his people throughout their history so that they don't have to be at war all the time.
Other righteous kings besides David. When they did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, God put the fear of them on the surrounding nations so that they would leave them alone.
Even Jacob. Remember when Simeon and Levi got out of line and just started wiping out an entire town because of what that one person had done to their sister?
They go and wipe out the whole town, and Jacob is scared to death that there's going to be retaliation.
And so it says that God put the fear of Jacob on the people around him. That's on a smaller scale.
But God also did that for the nation of Israel on a large scale where he puts the fear of them on the nations so everybody will just be afraid to mess with them and everybody will just leave them alone.
This is the answer for us to have peace today in 2018.
And I'm not saying world peace because there's no peace to the wicked, the Bible says.
And this world is filled with wickedness, wicked nations, wicked people. There will never be world peace until Jesus Christ is ruling and reigning on this earth.
The Prince of Peace. Now before that there's going to be an imposter, a counterfeit, who is going to claim to bring peace and they're going to say peace and safety.
But as soon as they say that, sudden destruction cometh upon them as a travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape.
So there's going to be a counterfeit world peace but the true peace is only going to come when Christ rules.
This is why we as Christians, we should be for peace. David said I'm for peace but when I speak they're for war.
We should be for peace but you know we should not be for world peace. We should not have a sticker on our car that says visualize world peace.
We shouldn't be out there trying to push for world peace. We shouldn't have a peace symbol which is what an upside down broken cross or whatever.
We should not be trying to be a part of this counterfeit peace process before the Lord Jesus Christ returns.
Now you say well Pastor Anderson, how can you be for peace and not be for world peace? Because we should be peace for us personally, for our church, for our house, for our state, for our nation.
We should want the United States to be at peace, Arizona to be at peace, our church to be at peace.
But you say well why don't you want that for the whole world? Because it's just not possible for the rest of the world. You know why?
Because if you're Muslim, if you're Hindu, if you're Buddhist, if you're atheist, God's not going to bless that and you're not going to have peace because there's no peace save my God to the wicked.
You say well we're going to bring world peace. The only way is through Christ. But the world peace movement is not about Jesus Christ.
It's about trying to have peace without Christ. That will inevitably fail. So the way they're going to enforce that is saying well we've got to have a one world government.
You know because how can we have war if there's only one country? There's nobody to fight with, right? One country, one nation.
So that's what they're trying to do is bring about a one world government. And that's what their fake peace is ultimately going to be. The new world order is going to be a one world government.
A one world government is not scriptural. It's not of God. The result is scary to any person who knows anything about world history that when you give all the power to one person or one government, that government is inevitably going to be corrupt and abusive toward its people.
And there's nowhere left to go. I mean think about it. If one country goes bad, the refugees are fleeing somewhere else. Well if the whole world is under one government, there's nowhere to go.
I mean think about it. People came to the Americas to get away from junk that was going on in Europe, oppression over there. Well at least they had somewhere to go.
You know when the whole world is under that tyrannical system, there's just nowhere left to go. So the world wants to have peace without Christ. It's a new world order that they have in mind.
A one world government. And we shouldn't have anything to do with that. We shouldn't promote that. We should promote peace. How can we promote peace in our lives, in our church, in our city, and in our nation?
Well here's the thing. The right way to have peace is by loving the Lord, following His commandments, being righteous in His sight, and He'll bless you with peace.
I mean if the United States of America would turn to the Lord, obey His commandments, do right in His sight, then God would bless us with peace as a reward.
And He would put the fear of us on the surrounding nations so that we wouldn't have to fight them, they would just leave us alone.
Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't have defense. I mean God taught them to do what? To build a wall, and to have weapons, and to have the horse prepared against the day of battle, but to ultimately know that safety is of the Lord.
So no matter how much you have in the way of defenses, weapons, and strategy, you know what? It doesn't matter. If God isn't protecting you, you're not safe.
You're not safe. It doesn't matter if you have the most powerful military in the world. There's no threat to us. Look, there's always a threat.
Because any time God wants to, He can bring you down. There have been great armies that have lost battles because of the weather.
And severely outnumbered opponents have won the battle because God changed the weather, or some other factor, the snow came early or late, or the wind came.
You know, remember the kamikaze? The destroying wind. That was when the Mongolians tried to invade Japan. They had this massive army, 110,000 soldiers on ships, thousands of ships coming into Japan.
They defeated the Japanese in battle, but they had to go back on the ships for the night. They weren't able to land yet, and they still had the samurais or whoever they were fighting against in Japan.
And there was a great destroying wind, and obviously God controlled stuff like that, that wiped out the Mongolian armada.
And the Mongolians, you know, basically had to give up, and they stopped going back to Japan, and they decided, you know, we're going to keep invading Europe and other places, and go deeper into China, etc.
But obviously, Japan didn't give glory to the God of the Bible, but they gave glory to their false gods. And they said it was the divine wind, which is what the kamikaze means, the divine wind, the destroying wind.
It reminded me of one time we registered the church van with the Department of Motor Vehicles, and it always blows my mind when people get the name of our church wrong.
It's not that hard of a name, Faithful Word, but so many people think it's Faithful World, Faithful World Baptist Church. Yeah, in what universe is the world that faithful, you know what I mean?
More like, you know, Corrupt World, you know. But it is Faithful World Baptist Church. But anyway, one time we registered our vehicle, and we got the registration back, it said Faithful Wind Baptist Church.
I mean, come on, I can see how they mess up Faithful World. It said, have you seen that on the register? Are we still Faithful Wind, or did we ever get that fixed?
Yeah, so we were jokingly calling it kamikaze Baptist Church, you know, like the divine wind Baptist Church, Faithful Wind.
But anyway, the point is that God decides who wins and who loses. God decides who is going to win that battle.
The battle is not always to the strong, the Bible says. The race is not always to the swift. He said, time and chance happeneth to them all, Ecclesiastes 9-11.
And so, you don't know what God could do to us if we turn our back on God, spit in his face, and commit all these abominations, which is exactly what the United States is doing right now.
But you think, oh, but we have such a powerful military. You know, God can and will eventually wipe us out.
You say, well, you need to be stronger on national security, and we need to vote for this person, and this guy is going to...
You know, the best thing we could do for national security is to win people to Christ.
I mean, we're doing more to help our nation as independent fundamental Baptists be safe from the enemy than the Department of Defense ever dreamed of doing,
because every person that we win to the Lord, and every person that after they get saved, we teach them to observe all things Christ commanded and turn them away from their wickedness of their lifestyle.
You know, the more righteousness we preach, the more people we can pull out of the fire, the more salt there is and light in this country, the more likely God is going to protect us.
And you know what? I believe that God has been blessing Arizona lately for the last several years.
I mean, there are many blessings that I could point to in Arizona over the last several years where I just...
I look at it as, you know what? We're winning a lot of people to the Lord here.
I mean, we have soul winning times going on, you know, 14, 15 times a week, and, you know, we're just going out and getting hundreds and hundreds of people saved,
and thousands and thousands of people saved, and we're reaching all these Indian reservations.
You know, the way I see it is every time we win somebody to the Lord, it's like a little light comes on, right?
Because now that person's got the Holy Spirit inside of them.
Now they're the light of the world, or at least they might have it under a bushel, but the little light's coming on.
So if we could look with spiritual glasses all over Arizona, all these little lights are coming on, right?
And all over Texas, little lights are coming on, and all over Northern California and Southern California, all these little lights are going on.
You know, wherever God's people are aggressively winning souls, little lights are coming on, and it brings the blessing of God.
I believe that. Let me just explain some of the blessings that I've noticed, and I don't even really follow politics or government,
so I don't really even know as much about those subjects to be able to point to all the blessings,
but just some things I've noticed, like since we've been here, I mean, here we are.
We're a church that rents space in an office complex, right?
And people love to bring that up to make our church sound rinky-dink, but obviously this is a great building.
It's 9,200 square feet. It's not, you know, they try to make it sound like we're just like in an office space or something, like one little office.
We're all crammed into an office somewhere or something, right?
But anyway, you know, we are a church meeting in office space.
Well, did you know that several years ago, the legislature of Arizona passed a law that said if you're a landlord that rents office space to a church, you get a special tax break?
I mean, who ever even heard of such a law? Hey, let's pass a law to give a tax break to landlords who rent office space to churches.
That law was passed several years ago. I read about it in the news.
I went to our landlord and said, hey, are you taking advantage of this blessing of, you know, this tax break that you get?
And he said, yeah, actually we are taking advantage of that.
And, you know, it's funny, the landlord was treating us pretty well after that.
Now, they treated us well before that, but it seemed like after that they really treated us even better.
You know, it was, I believe, a different manager than we have now. We love the new manager, but the point is God sent this law as a blessing that directly blessed us.
And it probably blessed some other Bible-believing churches that are doing the same type of thing and meeting in office space or this kind of a real estate space.
So, anyway, that's a good blessing. You know, since I've been here, the gun laws have gotten better.
I mean, when I got here, you had to have a permit to carry concealed. Now it's just constitutional carry.
And, you know, if you're 18 and legal to own a gun, you can carry concealed, you can open carry.
There's no permit needed. There's no licensing needed. I mean, the gun laws are getting better.
I mean, it just seems like the laws are getting better. The economy is getting better. It just seems like God is blessing us here in Arizona.
You know what? Let's just keep winning souls. Let's keep lighting that fire of the gospel everywhere we can.
Let all those little candles light up. And, you know what? If we keep getting a lot of people saved and teaching people to live right, and righteousness exalted the nation.
But sin is a reproach to any people. And if we want God to bless us with good homeschooling laws, and if we don't want him to be forcing us into vaccines and stuff that we don't believe in, you know what?
We need to do right. And we need to win people to Christ. And we need to preach the whole Bible. Why? So that God will bless us.
Because God will put the fear of us on the enemy. God will bless us and he will exalt us because of his people.
And by the way, his people is not Israel anymore. Now it's the spiritual Israel. God's chosen people are the elect, the saved, born again children of God in the New Testament.
So let's fill up this state with spiritual Israelites and get that blessing. And we've got our King David, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, and we can receive these blessings and safety and so forth. You know, it's safer than any alarm system in your house just being right with God.
And I'm not saying that we shouldn't bolt the door and load the shotgun, but I am saying that better than all that is the blessing and safety that comes from God.
I mean, I'd rather have no weapon and no lock on the door and a good conscience before God than to be in Fort Knox knowing that God is not with me.
So this is a great lesson that we need to realize that safety comes from God. Our nation needs to realize that.
You know, and people often rebuke me or correct me for not voting, but I tell people, you know what, I do way more to put good leaders in just by winning people to Christ.
Just by going out every week and preaching the gospel and just by getting up and pounding the pulpit and preaching righteousness.
You know, I'm doing more for this country than just picking the lesser of two evils down at the voting booth.
You know, and a lot of people believe that Trump is a great blessing, you know, and I don't really know that much about politics anymore because when Ron Paul retired from politics, I retired from politics too.
So I'm not really interested. I don't follow it. But a lot of people have told me, hey, you know, Donald Trump is doing a lot of good things. He's been a blessing.
And I know there have been some good things he did, like at least he shut down that LGBT section on the whitehouse.gov. At least he didn't celebrate that in June.
And, you know, they're pointing to the fact that unemployment is at record low and they point to all these blessings, you know.
Can somebody tell that to the worker that we fired, Garrett Kirschway, who went and applied for unemployment two days after getting fired? Lazy scum.
Can somebody tell him that unemployment is at a record low?
That's another story. But anyway.
Any blessing that has happened, whether it's shutting down this tranny agenda, this LGBT agenda, lower unemployment, whatever's going on, you know, averting World War III or whatever.
You know, any blessing, ultimately, you know, Trump doesn't get the glory in the end, you know.
And I'm not saying that people shouldn't point out, hey, he did this right or he did this wrong. I'm not saying that at all.
But what I am saying is that at the end of the day, though, if Trump does what we want him to do, if he does stuff that we like, we need to realize that's God blessing us at that point.
Because God could have just snapped his fingers and given us Hillary. That's who everybody thought was going to win anyway, right?
So couldn't he have just snapped his fingers and we'd have Hillary right now?
But he decided to snap his fingers and allow Trump to win for whatever reason, whatever he's got planned.
And you know what? If that allows us to do more soul winning, if that allows people to get better jobs and have a better economy, you know, I don't believe that Trump is a righteous person because of his smutty personal life.
Okay? And he certainly doesn't give Jesus Christ the glory for anything. He takes a lot of glory unto himself.
But the point is, though, at the end of the day, you know, God could still bless us through someone like Trump if he did stuff that we like.
It could still be a blessing to shut down this faggoty part of the government's website or, you know, cut this spending.
I don't think he's done that yet, but hopefully, right?
But anyway, the point is, you know, any blessing politically is ultimately coming from God and it's going to come to bless the people of God for doing right.
And any bad thing that happens is going to come as a curse from God and it's going to be cursing the people of God for doing wrong.
Because he said, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
So if God's people will do right, he'll heal their land.
And I don't believe that the majority has to be righteous for God to bless a country.
I mean, think about it. If you salt meat, it doesn't have to be 51% salt to be preserved, does it?
No. All you need is a sprinkling of salt. You need a certain percentage of salt or nitrates or whatever in order to preserve it.
And you know what? If we get enough salt, then we'll be preserved.
If we can get enough people saved and enough of those saved people doing right before God, then God will not...
He won't refrain from judging America because there's been too much innocent blood that's been shed through abortion and different wars and things.
The innocent blood must be avenged. But you know what he often does in the Bible in situations like that?
He'll postpone. He'll postpone it. Like where he said, hey, I'm not going to do this in the days of Hezekiah.
You know, I'm going to wait. Or, oh, I was going to wipe you guys out, but Josiah is such a righteous king.
I'm going to postpone it until after Josiah is gone.
You know, I don't know about you, but if God's going to wipe out America, I want that postponed.
Let's postpone that. And he's going to wipe it out. Just watch Babylon USA if you have a question about that.
But I want to see that postponed. I want there to be peace and truth in my days.
And I would even like to get so many people saved and preach so much righteousness in the state of Arizona that even my kids and kids' kids would be okay as well.
And you know, I want it to be that even if our whole country goes to hell in a handbasket, and even if all kinds of wicked laws are being passed and persecutions are happening,
I want Arizona to be the last state standing. Right? It's going to be the last stronghold. Amen? I hope so.
You know, but hopefully we'll light fires all over the... Sorry, Brother Shelley.
You got a big job for you there in Texas, but you got a few other preachers helping you, so it's going to be great.
So you guys are on your own. I want Texas to be second to last, all right? Yeah, all right.
But the point is, at the end of the day, it's a spiritual battle, friend.
Instead of being so worried about, you know, you're biting your nails. Oh man, is it going to be Trump? Is it going to be Hillary?
Oh man, at the end of the day, you ought to be biting your nails, saying like, man, is God pleased with me?
Is God pleased with our church? Is God pleased with my family?
Because if so, just go to bed and sleep like a baby. Everything's going to be fine. Right?
Just humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. He'll lift you up. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord, about David humbling himself, giving you the glory and being exalted, Lord.
But Lord, this chapter also shows the dangers of when things are going good, you know, David took some liberties and he got dangerously close to shipwreck, Lord.
Help us not to slack off during the good times. Help us to work hard for you, even in the good times.
And help us to trust you and rely on you at all times for our safety and for everything else.
In Jesus' name we pray.