In 1 Chronicles 16, the Bible reads in verse 1,
So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it,
and they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings before God.
And when David had made an end of offering the burnt offerings and the peace offerings,
he blessed the people in the name of the Lord, and he dealt to every one of Israel,
both man and woman, to every one a loaf of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.
And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord,
and to record and to thank and praise the Lord God of Israel.
So in the last chapter we saw that the ark of the covenant was brought into Jerusalem,
and it's being established in the city of David.
This is going to be the new place of worship for the children of Israel.
The tabernacle is before the temple, so there wasn't a permanent structure
for the ark of the covenant, and the offering upon the burnt altar,
or the burnt offering upon the altar, and so forth.
So it was portable, and throughout the Old Testament up to this point,
you'll see it resting in different locations.
Sometimes it's in Shiloh, or Bethel, or places like that.
Well now it's being moved to Jerusalem, but at this time it's still intense.
Because if you remember, it's Solomon who's actually going to build the temple,
and that's going to be after the death of David.
That's going to be in the next generation.
In this generation it's in a tent, and really what this chapter is about is,
now that the ark of the covenant is brought to Jerusalem and set up in its place,
then they're setting up just the continual worship of the Lord
that's going to be taking place all the time.
They start out with this big celebration.
They're all happy that the ark has been brought to Jerusalem,
and everybody has a big meal, and they all get their piece of meat,
and their bread, and wine, and so forth.
And then it talks about how he appointed certain of the Levites, verse 4,
to minister before the ark of the Lord, and to record.
What does it mean to record?
Well there are guys whose job was just to write things down.
These are what the New Testament calls the scribes, right?
They're just constantly writing things down, keeping records,
and documenting everything, writing down the songs that they write.
And he says that they're there to minister before the ark of the Lord, to record,
and to thank and praise the Lord God of Israel.
And then it lists some of the names of the key players.
Asaph, the chief.
And of course you'll find Asaph as the author of many of the psalms.
Next to him, Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shema-remoth,
and Jeiel, and Mattathiah, and Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obed-edom,
and Jeiel, with salt trees, and with harps, but Asaph made a sound with cymbals.
Benaiah also, and Jehesiel the priest, with trumpets continually before the ark of the covenant of God.
So they're just praising God constantly at this thing.
So even after the big party and the hoopla is over, just on a daily continual basis,
these musicians and Levites are there to just sing and praise God, playing trumpets,
salt trees, harps, stringed instruments, the cymbals, and so forth.
Keep your finger there.
Flip back to chapter 9.
I want to remind you of something back in chapter 9, verse 33,
where the Bible reads in 1 Chronicles chapter 9, verse 33.
And these are the singers, chief of the fathers of the Levites.
So these are important people.
The singers are not just guys who couldn't really get an important job in the tabernacle,
so they're given a low-end job.
It's actually an important job because these are the chief of the fathers of the Levites.
So this is a very prestigious position to be in when you're one of the singers.
And it says here, these are the singers, chief of the fathers of the Levites,
who remaining in the chambers were free, for they were employed in that work day and night.
And what I believe that this means here, when it says that they're employed in that work day
and night, is that they literally were singing praises to God day and night.
Now, obviously, no human being could ever do such a thing.
But I believe that they're taking shifts so that someone is singing and praising God all the time.
You know, they have all these musical instruments, they have all these singers.
And at all times, I believe 24 hours a day, because it said they're doing it day and night,
that somebody is singing praises to God in that tabernacle before the Ark of the Covenant.
And this mirrors what's going on in heaven.
Because if you remember, the whole purpose of the tabernacle was to mirror
that which is going on in heaven.
And that it was to be made after the pattern that Moses was shown.
And so everything, the showbread table, the incense, the altar,
all of that stuff has a corresponding piece in heaven.
There's an Ark of the Covenant up in heaven.
There's the most holy place up in heaven.
There's all those things.
You'd find those in heaven.
And the ones on earth were a figure of the true, or a pattern of the true instruments up in heaven.
And so in heaven, if you look in Isaiah chapter 6, or if you look in Revelation chapter 4,
you see that they are singing praises to God.
You have the four beasts and the 24 elders.
And it said they have no rest day or night, just all day, all night.
What do they do?
They praise God, and they're singing holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
which was, and is, and is to come.
They're throwing down their crowns before him.
But the Bible said it's going on day and night.
So this is like a little picture of that on earth,
where in David's tabernacle, worship of the Lord was taken very seriously.
And so the Ark of the Covenant is there.
And there are people just singing praises to God, just all day and all night.
Okay.
So what do we learn from that?
Go back to 1 Chronicles chapter 16.
You know, we learn from that, that God is worthy to be praised, that God desires to be praised,
and that praising God and worshiping God is important.
So when we go to church and we sing praises to God,
that's an important part of the service.
That's not just something that we do to kill a little time
because we know people are going to be late.
We don't want them to miss the beginning of the sermon or something like that.
The point of singing is singing praises to God.
And in fact, the songs that we learn in church on Sunday morning,
and we learn them in church on Sunday night and Wednesday night,
we should be singing those throughout the week.
You know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, God wants to hear us lift up our voices and sing.
And I believe that people are praising God right now 24 hours a day
because of the fact that in today's world, we have Christians all over the globe, don't we?
I mean, we have people in all different time zones.
So that literally at any given second, I guarantee you right now,
somebody somewhere is singing praises to God.
I'm sure that millions of people are probably singing almost all the time.
You know, in Asia, Africa, Europe, United States, everywhere.
Now at this time though, the world had a lot less people in it.
And there were a lot of parts of the world that had not yet become inhabited.
And most of the worship of the Lord was concentrated in Israel.
Obviously there are people worshiping the Lord in other places,
but it's pretty concentrated, isn't it?
In the land of Israel.
So they're going to just do it day and night.
But I believe nowadays, God's probably hearing praises to his name
every second of every day out of just thousands and 10 thousands of mouths.
And that pleases God.
He's that brings him honor and glory.
And he's worthy to be praised.
If singing praises to God is not important,
if worshiping the Lord in song through musical instruments and singing is not important,
then why is it that the longest book in the Bible is a song book, right?
The book of Psalms, 150 chapters.
It must be pretty important.
I mean, God's putting great emphasis on that.
Not to mention the songs that are found in the books of Moses, in the book of Judges,
in the books of the Kings, you have Psalms and songs built in.
You've got the book of Psalms itself.
You've got the song of Solomon.
You know, it's pretty important.
There's a song in Isaiah.
There are songs in the minor prophets.
Habakkuk chapter three is a song.
All throughout the Bible, music is important.
Singing praises to God is important.
So don't be somebody who comes to church and just doesn't sing.
Now, you say, well, I don't know the songs.
That's why we sing all the verses.
Because by the fourth verse, you should be picking it up by then.
You know, even if you've never heard the song, by the time you get to that third, fourth verse,
you're starting to be able to pick it up.
You can give it a shot.
But you know, a lot of you, you probably do know the songs
because you've been in church a long time.
So come to church and sing it out.
You know, sing and don't just sing half-heartedly.
Sing from the heart.
Sing loud.
And even if you're not a good singer, just sing loud anyway.
You know, just belt it out and make a joyful noise under the Lord.
I believe it's an important part of our service.
It's important for your own heart.
And you know, if you got in church later in life, maybe you don't know the songs as much.
Maybe you're not as good of a singer.
But just give it your best shot.
A lot of churches, in fact, probably 99% of independent Baptist churches I've been to,
they don't sing all the verses.
They only sing the first verse or the first and the last or the first and the second.
Well, the problem is if somebody's new to church,
just when they're starting to pick up the song, it's over.
At least three, four verses gives you a chance to learn.
And it gives new people and visitors a chance to pick up the songs.
And then hopefully these songs will stick with you throughout the week
and you can keep singing them and so forth.
So it's very important.
We don't want to downplay the singing of praises to God.
Obviously, it's not the main thing.
It's not the most important thing.
Obviously, the Word of God and preaching take precedence.
Soul winning is more important than a music program.
But we do want to understand that music is important and it does have its place.
Now, my former pastor from Sacramento, California,
he used to say, as goes the music, so goes the church.
That's what he would say.
And the thing about that is that you'd be hard pressed to find a rock and roll church
that's doctrinally sound soul winning church.
You know what I mean?
Because when you bring in that kind of just party atmosphere
and the purple lights and the rock band, you know what?
It does change the church.
It changes the atmosphere.
It changes the focus and it brings in the wrong kind of people
when you turn it into a nightclub and a party and a rock concert and everything like that.
And you know, it's so funny.
Whenever I preach about this and I'm talking about that,
people leave comments on YouTube and say, nobody listens to rock music anymore.
What are you talking about?
What's rock?
It's all rap now.
That's what everybody's saying to me.
I don't think that's true.
Is that really true?
I'd be shocked if that's true.
So I think there's just a bunch of hip hop or rap activists, you know,
attacking our YouTube channel, saying that nobody listens to rock music anymore.
Because it seems like all the Christian contemporary churches have a rock band.
I mean, that's my understanding.
Unless they just don't understand what that word means, rock or something like that.
But I haven't seen a lot of rap artists in church on Sunday morning.
Now I'm sure it's out there.
You know, I'm sure there are churches where, you know, it's a hip hop rap show.
But most of the time it's more the touchy feely kind of a rock band
with the kind of the ballads and everything.
And these worship ballads, a lot of times they sound like a man is singing to his girlfriend.
But you just switch out the girlfriend for God or Jesus.
Very shallow.
It's just all about love.
But there's not a lot of doctrine.
Not a lot of content.
Not a lot of depth to that music.
And that isn't interesting when the sermon starts.
There's not a lot of content.
Not a lot of depth.
And it's all about one thing, you know.
And it's not very balanced.
So music does matter.
It is important.
The Bible says in verse 7 of 1 Chronicles chapter 16,
Then on that day David delivered this, first this psalm,
to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.
So David himself is taking part in writing songs of praise unto the Lord.
So he writes this song.
And he's known elsewhere in the Bible as the sweet psalmist of Israel.
He writes this psalm and he delivers it unto the musicians and says,
Hey, this is the psalm that I've written.
And it's a brand new psalm that they're debuting.
And they're going to be singing this and praising God with this.
And then it goes into the text of this psalm itself.
It says in verse 8,
Give thanks unto the Lord.
Call upon his name.
Make known his deeds among the people.
Sing unto him.
Sing psalms unto him.
Talk ye of all his wondrous works.
Glory ye in his holy name.
Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.
Seek the Lord and his strength.
Seek his face continually.
Remember his marvelous works that he had done.
His wonders and the judgments of his mouth.
This is a great psalm.
It has a lot of great content here.
Talking about the fact that we should tell the stories of God's mighty acts.
You know, these would be Bible stories is what we would know them as.
All the great things that the Lord has done.
His miracles.
His works.
The different Bible stories.
You know, God's saying we should preach those and tell those to everybody that we can.
And give praise unto him for all the great things that he's done.
To sing to him.
To sing psalms unto him.
Singing unto the Lord.
You know, the Bible says in the New Testament,
Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
So, music basically has two different directions.
You know, on one hand we're singing unto the Lord.
And praising the Lord.
But on the other hand, music is also a tool to teach.
That's why the Bible says,
Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
See, songs are actually teaching you doctrine as well.
That's why we should make sure that our music is doctrinally sound.
Because even if people don't think they're learning,
they're actually learning from the music.
From the songs.
And when you hear it over and over again, music gets really drilled into your head.
And it can really drill scripture into your head if you're,
if you're singing the literal psalms themselves set to music.
Or just the songs in the hymnal.
Whatever doctrines they're putting forth, that stuff's going into your head.
So we want to make sure that we're singing songs that are doctrinally sound.
Because it's not only directed toward the Lord, but it's also directed toward one another.
We can be taught the Word of God through music.
And so that's one of the ways that they tell all lands and make known to all people.
The works of the Lord is through the music, through the songs.
Some of the psalms themselves have stories embedded into them.
They tell Bible stories about Joseph and Moses and crossing the Red Sea.
That stuff's all in the book of Psalms.
As well as psalms about the crucifixion of Christ and things of that nature.
So songs can be to tell a story to other people.
And then they can also be to sing praises to God.
And you know, telling stories to people is
sometimes a great way to get them interested in the Word of God.
I remember when I used to work at Round Table Pizza.
Sometimes when we'd be kind of slow and bored and we're just kind of all standing there making
pizzas, people would ask me to tell stories.
Because I, I've always been a storyteller.
I really like to tell stories from my own life, from other people's lives.
Just to tell the story of books that I've read.
I just love telling stories.
I would tell Bible stories and even, you know, just grown men and adults, teenagers,
you know, they loved a good, everybody loves a good story.
You know, stories aren't just for children.
So sometimes I could get people literally sometimes at Round Table Pizza who had no
interest in going to church and had no interest in the things of God.
I would just tell Bible stories for hours and they just loved it.
Just because it was a good story.
I mean, think about all the cool stories in Genesis.
Sometimes I would just start in Genesis and just start telling all the stories and just
kind of putting it as a story format.
And then, you know, throw in a little scripture here and there, but just telling the story,
telling the story.
And then I'm going through all the judges and just telling stories just off the top
of my head.
You know, if you actually learn the Bible stories, you can actually get even unsaved
people to take an interest in the Bible just by telling them, hey, let me tell you a really
cool story.
There was a guy named, you know, and then just start telling it as a story.
And I've done sermons like that.
Some of my sermons I've done are Bible story sermons where I kind of just tell a story
and then make applications from that story.
So, you know, that's one way to get the word of God out to people is through Bible stories.
You know, because those Bible stories capture the imagination of people and then it makes
them interested in the things of God.
And then they might want to go read the book of Genesis and God's word has power.
And if you tell them the Bible stories about the life of Jesus Christ, they might want
to go read the book of Matthew or read the book of Mark, read the book of Luke.
And so it's a powerful tool just to make known unto all people the Lord's mighty acts and
tell of all his deeds and his greatness as the Bible says here.
Look at verse 13.
The Bible says, O ye seed of Israel, his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
Now, let me just point out right here that at this time, the children of Israel, the
nation of Israel, the seed of Jacob, they were God's chosen people in the Old Testament.
You know, we don't want to lose sight of that because obviously today the so-called Jews
are not God's chosen people.
We as Christians are God's chosen people.
And it doesn't matter what our ethnicity is.
We're specifically told to avoid genealogies, red and yellow, black and white.
If we believe on Jesus Christ, we are the chosen people because it's no longer that
physical nation of Israel, but it's a spiritual nation now that's made up of all believers.
But we don't want to forget that in the Old Testament, it was a physical nation and it
really was God's chosen people when we looked at the nation of Israel.
Now, some people, they get, they get so caught up in the truth of the fact that we're God's
chosen people.
I've heard some people erroneously say like, well, it's always been that way.
It's always just been the saved.
It's always just been those who were truly saved of all nationalities that made up God's
people.
But that's not really true.
See, we believe that the Old Testament physical nation of Israel was replaced, hashtag replaced,
all right, by believers in the New Testament.
Now, if it had always been that way, then there wouldn't be any replacement going on.
There'd be no New Testament, right, without having an Old Testament.
Well, the Old Covenant, the Old Testament was made with the physical nation of Israel.
That was his covenant people.
Those were the chosen people in the Old Testament.
There's no question about that.
There's plenty of scripture about that, okay?
It's in the New Testament that Christ said, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you
and given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Now, if they didn't have it, he couldn't take it from them.
If it was a law, it's always been this way.
No, no, no.
They had it, but it was taken away from them and given to a nation, bringing forth the
fruits thereof.
And so in the New Testament, it's the spiritual seed of Abraham.
Everyone who believes on Jesus Christ is a child of Abraham.
But in the Old Testament, there was a physical nation.
Now, we're not talking about salvation.
Salvation's always been a personal faith in the Lord.
But when it comes to being the chosen people, being that group, there's an Old Testament
version of that, and there's a New Testament version of that, and they're not the same.
Now, let's look down at our Bible here, verse 14.
It says, He is the Lord our God.
His judgments are in all the earth.
What does that mean?
That means that there's no place on earth that is outside of God's jurisdiction, right?
His judgments are everywhere.
Right is right, and wrong is wrong everywhere.
Be ye mindful always of his covenant, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations,
even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac, and hath confirmed
the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, saying unto thee
will I give the land of Canaan the lot of your inheritance, when ye were but few, even
a few, and strangers in it.
And you say, well, it's an everlasting covenant to Israel.
Right, but in the New Testament, we are Israel.
In the New Testament, he says, they're not all Israel which are of Israel, neither because
they are of the seed of Abraham are they all children, but an Isaac shall thy seed be
called.
That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God,
but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.
And the Bible tells us that the promise was made to Abraham and his seed.
He sayeth seed singular, not seed plural, seeds.
He says, if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and errs according to the
promise.
So the reason that the promise to Abraham could be eternal is that it's fulfilled in
Christ.
Christ is eternal, and we are in Christ.
We inherit the promises.
So this does not mean he had an eternal covenant with a certain ethnicity.
He used that ethnicity in the Old Testament for a period of time, but at the time of Christ,
he backed off from them, took it from them, and gave it to someone else.
But the covenant is still there.
Not only that, but some of the Israelites did get saved and are still God's chosen people.
You know, the apostle Paul himself is a great example of that.
But he's not one of the chosen in the New Testament because he's of the tribe of Benjamin.
He's one of the chosen in the New Testament because he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was part of that election of grace, not by works, not of blood or bloodlines or anything
like that.
So the Bible says in verse number 20,
And when they went from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people, he
suffered no man to do them wrong.
Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets
no harm.
Now look, we can apply these promises to ourselves in the New Testament because we are the people
of God.
As I've been saying, you know, the New Testament Christians are the people of God.
So we can claim these promises that when we go from nation to nation, God's going to protect
us.
God's going to be with us.
And God will not suffer any man to harm us.
He'll reprove kings for our sakes, and he will say to them, Touch not mine anointed,
do my prophets no harm.
So when we go on that mission strip, we know that the angel of the Lord encampeth round
about them that fear him.
When we go soul winning in that rough neighborhood, we can rest assured that God is with us.
Yea, that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death will fear no evil because
God is with us.
And if God is for us, who can be against us?
And so in this scripture here, it's saying that they went from nation to nation, and
God protected them.
But you know what?
In the New Testament, we're his prophets.
We're anointed with the Holy Spirit.
And when you're out soul winning, he's with you all the way, even unto the end of the
world, the Bible says.
Look at verse 23.
Sing unto the Lord all the earth.
Show forth from day to day his salvation.
Declare his glory among the heathen, his marvelous works among all nations.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, he also is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.
He's saying, look, every other so-called god is bogus.
It's fake.
It's an idol.
It's carved out of wood, stone, molten image, whatever.
It's all junk.
They're all idols.
God is the creator of the entire world.
There's not a certain god for this nationality and a different, either the white man's god
and the god of India and the black man's god.
No, it's one god of the whole earth.
The Lord is his name.
It says glory and honor are in his presence.
Strength and gladness are in his place.
Give unto the Lord, verse 28, ye kindreds of the people.
Give unto the Lord glory and strength.
Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.
Bring an offering and come before him.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
And it says in verse 30, fear before him all the earth.
The world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
Let me just park it on this verse here a minute, okay?
This verse is so twisted and misused by people with their crazy ideas about the flat earth
or geocentricity or whatever other dumb thing.
Because it says the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.
And here's what they want this verse to say.
They want this verse to say the earth doesn't move.
Is that what this verse says?
That's not what it says.
This verse does not say the earth doesn't move.
What this verse actually says is that it shall not be moved.
And there's a big difference between moving and being moved, okay?
Let me just illustrate the difference, okay?
This is me moving, all right?
I'm moving, right?
Okay, brother Dustin, come on up here.
Move me, move me.
All right, this is me being moved, all right?
Does everybody see the difference?
Okay, now look, here I am moving, moving, moving, moving, moving.
I'm not being moved, right?
I'm just moving, right?
All right, come move me.
Moving, moving, moving, moving, moving, moving, moving, moving, moving.
Whoa, now I'm being moved.
Does everybody understand the difference?
That's a big difference.
So when the Bible says that the earth is stable and that it shall not be moved, what it's
saying is that it is in its course, it's in its orbit, it's spinning, it's doing its
thing, and it's not going to stop and it's not going to change, okay?
It's going to continue doing the same thing.
I mean, even the word stable, if we said that something is stable, we wouldn't say that
about say this, for example.
You know, this right here is a fake rock formation, okay?
You would not describe this as being stable.
You know what you would describe it as?
Being stationary.
Does everybody understand?
You would not, it would not make any sense to say this is stable.
That wouldn't make any sense, okay?
Because something that is stable is often moving, but it is moving in a way that is
predictable.
If something is unstable, then it's unpredictable.
We don't know what it's going to do, right?
It's not following its normal pattern.
Like, a person could be said to be stable or, hey, he's unstable.
A stable person isn't stationary.
They're not fixed.
And even the psalmist himself says, I shall not be moved.
Does that mean he's just frozen in one place?
No.
Being moved is an outside force coming and changing what you're doing.
Like, here I am preaching on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, every week,
month after month, year after year, and I say, hey, I shall not be moved.
I'm not going to stop, right?
Now, if somebody comes and stops me, they moved me.
Somebody comes and says, hey, you can't preach anymore.
And I'm like, okay, I'm sorry, I won't do it anymore.
Then I'm being moved at that point.
So this is just another verse about the permanence of the earth.
Because there are lots of verses that say the earth abideth forever.
One generation cometh, another generation passes away, but the earth abideth forever.
That's what's being stated here, is that the earth isn't going anywhere.
Now, if I say, hey, you know, I'm not going anywhere, does that mean I just never move?
No.
It means I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.
I'm going to follow the pattern that I'm following.
Now, the atheists would love for this verse to say the earth doesn't move.
Right?
Because they want to disprove the Bible.
So they want to say that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate.
So they love to pull this out and say, oh, see, you know, the Bible says the earth isn't moving.
Now, my whole life, atheists would try to say that the Bible says the earth doesn't move.
The Bible says the moon gives off its own light.
The Bible says the earth is flat.
All this dumb stuff.
You only heard it from atheists.
But ever since the year 2009, all of a sudden, now, all of a sudden, Christians are saying the same thing.
So-called Christians or misguided Christians and people, I'm using that term loosely because most of them aren't saved.
But even some saved people get caught up in this.
And now you're starting to see Christians say, oh, the Bible says that the earth is stationary.
The Bible says that, you know, that the earth is flat and all this dumb stuff.
But that was what the atheist said to disprove the Bible.
And now the Christians are just like playing right into their hands with just, yes, we're idiots.
Help us.
We're going to help you prove it.
How dumb we are.
Okay.
Now, look, you say, well, I don't believe the earth's flat, but I'm into geocentricity.
Geocentricity is the gateway drug to the flat earth.
Now, admittedly, the geocentricity is not as goofy as the flat earth because it's not as goofy as the flat earth.
It's not as goofy as the flat earth because the flat earth is just stupid.
It's crazy.
Okay.
It just defies everything that we know and everything that we can observe and see.
And saying that the moon is giving off its own light is just crazy because you can actually just go outside and look at it.
You can literally see the shadows on it.
You can just use binoculars.
You don't even need a telescope.
Just get binoculars and look at it.
And you can see the mountains and canyons and shadows.
That's something you can just look at in the sky.
Geocentricity is not as crazy.
I can see where people are coming from when they fall into this thing of, well, the earth's stationary and everything else is moving.
Because it's kind of like, okay, well, which finger is going around which finger, you know?
I don't know.
Okay.
But let me just explain to you why geocentricity is false.
Okay.
Let me just explain it to you.
Okay.
And I'm going to use an illustration of when I was a kid, I had this dog.
It was a Boston Terrier.
And these are the only dogs I ever really loved were Boston Terriers, you know?
But we had Boston Terriers before they were cool.
We had to drive several hours to go buy one.
And we brought them to the Sacramento area.
And we actually bred Boston Terriers for years.
And to this day, it's my favorite dog breed.
Who likes Boston Terriers?
Well, we have this Boston Terrier named Casey.
Okay.
And this is our family dog for a long time.
And I used to do this thing where I would take the skimmer, the pool skimmer, and it was like 10 feet long.
Okay.
And this dog just wanted to bite the skimmer so bad.
So I would just stand with the skimmer like this and just rotate like this.
Okay.
Now, I could make a complete rotation in a pretty short amount of time, right?
Like less than two seconds.
And I'm making a complete rotation, right?
But here's the thing.
I'm not moving very far, am I?
I mean, if I just go like this, I've barely even moved a few inches, right?
But how far did that skimmer move?
Well, let's just do some real simple math.
Let's just say it was like 10 feet long, right?
That means it was going like what?
63 feet, right?
Wouldn't that be the circumference?
Like two times pi times the radius of 10 feet.
So basically, in the time it takes me to just move a few inches like this,
the dog is traveling in a circle that's like 62 feet.
So the dog is just like, it was like a racetrack
where they have those things that they hang out there for the dogs to chase.
So the dog would just be tearing through the grass, like grass is just flying up at it.
It was like, and I mean, the dog would almost keep up.
It was intense.
So in just a couple of seconds, the dog is going like 62 feet.
So the dog is moving at this incredible speed.
So I just thought it was hilarious
just watching the dog just run so fast to try to get that skimmer.
Even though I'm just moving with very little effort.
So here's the thing.
We look up in the sky and there's one of two options, friend.
Either the earth is moving like this, right?
Rotating, which we know to be true.
In 24 hours, it makes one rotation.
Just this short little distance, relatively speaking.
Or the stars and the planets are like that skimmer out on the end of that pole
moving at incredible speeds, except they're not 10 feet away.
So they're moving at just incredible speeds, if that were the case.
So in order for the earth to be standing still,
everything in the sky would have to be going around us.
And the problem is those things are so far away, they would be going.
So these bunch of geocentrists or flat earthers would say like,
oh, well, you mean to tell me that the earth's moving at a thousand miles an hour?
They think stuff is moving at like millions of miles an hour or billions of miles an hour.
I mean, think about it.
Just the outer planets in our solar system,
even, you know, forget the stars, which are way further than the planets.
Even just the outer planets in our solar system
would have to be moving at like 80,000 miles a second or something.
And by the time you got out to the edge of our solar system,
stuff would start moving like faster than the speed of light.
So we're supposed to believe that these planets are just barreling through the sky
at like one-third the speed of light, half the speed of light, the speed of light itself,
and that the stars are just moving at these incredible speeds,
like hundreds of times faster than the speed of light.
Now, I think it's a little easier just to believe that the earth is rotating
than that everything else is just moving at just these insane speeds.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Okay, earth is the guy holding the skimmer.
Okay, the end of the skimmer is the stars, except that they're really far away.
Now you say, well, but they're not really that far away.
You know, they're actually pretty close.
Again, that can easily be demonstrated to be false.
Now, I'm not saying we can measure exactly how far away these things are,
but even just with a pair of binoculars,
you can go outside and look at this stuff and see that it's super far away, okay?
So you can look at it with binoculars, and I've done this,
where you take the binoculars and you zoom them in.
And you know what happens when you zoom them in?
When you zoom in on a planet, which is incredibly far away,
you zoom in on a planet, it gets a little bigger.
You know when you zoom in on things, they get a little bigger.
You zoom in on the moon, it gets a little bigger, right?
Okay, well, guess what happens when you zoom in on the stars?
They don't get any bigger because they're so incredibly far away
that even zooming it doesn't change the size
because they're just that much further away from the planets.
They don't react the same in your lens when you look at them.
Now, I've never looked through a telescope.
I'm not that sophisticated, but I've looked through zoom lenses
and I've looked through binoculars and things like that.
So that right there shows you that this geocentricity
just doesn't make any sense, okay?
But not only that, that's one thing.
How about the fact that there are all these thousands of satellites
that have been launched into space that we use every day
for our GPS and everything else.
And in fact, approximately 600 of these satellites
are called geostationary satellites.
And what that means is that these geostationary satellites
are moving at the same speed that the Earth is moving.
And so because they're moving through space
at the same speed that the Earth is moving,
they're always above the same point.
So basically, you know, the satellite that's above Phoenix
is always above Phoenix.
That's what a geostationary satellite is
because the Earth's moving and it's moving.
So according to this geocentric model,
I guess that satellite's just sitting there.
How could it just sit there like that?
I mean, it has to be moving,
otherwise it would just fall out of the sky, right?
It can't just sit there.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
So, but you talk to these flat Earthers
and even, you know, some of these people
that are into geocentrism, they say,
oh, satellites don't exist.
You can look up in the sky and see them.
You can see the International Space Station
with your naked eye.
I've seen it.
You know, you look up and people are looking at it
and they got their binoculars and they're looking at it.
And you know, it's a little light dot
and it's moving.
No, no, no satellites.
Then how does our stuff work?
How does satellite TV work?
Okay.
And then they say, well, it's all just towers on the ground
or it's fibroids.
Look, if you take a GPS unit deep into canyons,
like, you know, if you're into nature and into hiking,
if you go deep into a canyon,
you don't get any cell phone reception ever
because cell phones work on towers that are on the ground.
And so there has to be some kind of line of sight.
So if you're deep into a canyon,
but if you pull out your tom-tom,
you will still have reception on satellites.
Now, when you're in the city or in an open area,
it'll say like nine satellites are communicating right now.
But then when you go down deep in that canyon,
it'll show like four or five satellites
that it's in touch with.
But still the GPS will work because it's going straight up
and to satellites that are in the sky.
So it doesn't, you know,
being in the canyon doesn't shut you down completely.
So anyway, you know, you say,
why do you spend time on that?
Because there are just,
there's so many people who get off on this stuff
and it just becomes their big thing, geocentricity.
And then next thing you know,
they're into the flat earth and all this stuff.
It's ridiculous.
And it's kind of embarrassing that I even have to get up
and talk about the flat earth.
Okay.
And everything like that.
And, you know, but I know this geocentricity
is a little bit enticing for people
because people, they like to be like Buddha,
where they take the middle way.
You know how people like to be moderate
or kind of like compromised a little bit.
So they're like,
okay, well, I'm not going to go flat earth, you know,
but I'm not going to buy into the, you know,
the normal view of the solar system either.
So I'm just going to kind of take a middle route.
Geocentricity.
It's false.
There's no geocentricity.
This verse does not prove anything.
There's nothing in the Bible that proves geocentricity
or any of this stuff.
Okay.
So why don't we just go with what we see outside
and just call it a day.
This verse is not here to tell you about the universe.
It's just talking about the fact that the earth is going
to be here forever.
That's all that he's saying.
And that's something that's reiterated throughout scripture.
So don't get caught up in these fads,
but you can disprove geocentricity six ways to Sunday.
That's why people stopped believing in it about 500 years ago.
Okay.
Now people have known the earth is round for thousands of years.
People have always known that because people have always been
into astronomy and navigation and stuff like that all the way back
to ancient Egypt, ancient Sumerians, Romans, Greeks, whatever.
But, you know, people did believe in geocentricity for a long time.
And that, you know, that became, that kind of went out the window
of only about four to 500 years ago, but it's false.
It's been proven false tons of different ways.
So don't just look, just because some conspiracy theories are true.
You don't want to just believe every conspiracy theory.
You know, it's, you need to do a la carte with your,
with your conspiracy theories, not just buy the whole package.
All right.
I got to get off that.
Sorry.
I just, I had to get that off my chest.
All right.
Verse 31.
Let me hurry up and finish here.
Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice and let men say
among the nations, the Lord reigneth, let the sea roar
and the fullness thereof.
Let the fields rejoice and all that is there in.
Then shall the trees of the woods sing out at the presence of the Lord
because he cometh to judge the earth.
You probably noticed the similarity with Psalm 96.
It's not exactly the same, but one of the songs that we sing has a lot of these words.
Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
Verse 35 and say ye, save us.
Oh God of our salvation and gather us together and deliver us from the heathen
that we may give thanks to thy holy name and glory in thy praise.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for ever and ever.
And all the people said, amen and praise the Lord.
So he left there before the arc of the covenant of the Lord ASAP and his
brethren to minister before the arc continually as every day's work required
and Obed-Edom with their brethren three score and eight Obed-Edom.
Also the son of Judothan and Hosea to be the porters and Zadok the priest
and his brother and the priest before the tabernacle of the Lord in the high place
that was at Gibeon to offer burnt offerings under the Lord upon the altar of the
burnt offering continually morning and evening.
And to do according to all that is written in the law of the Lord,
which he commanded Israel and with them, he man and Judothan and the rest that
were chosen who were expressed by name to give thanks to the Lord because his
mercy endureth forever.
And of course, let me just point out at the end of verse 40 there to do according
to all that is written in the law of the Lord, which he commanded Israel.
So our worship should be according to God's word.
You know, our praises to God should be governed by the word of God and the laws
of God.
Look at verse 42 and with them, he man and Judothan with trumpets and symbols for
those that should make a sound and with musical instruments of God and the sons
of Judothan were porters.
Porters are the ones who open and shut the doors and all the people departed
every man to his house and David returned to bless his house.
And then the next verse in chapter 17 verse one is where David begins to talk
about the fact, you know, why don't we build a house for the Lord instead of
having it in curtains, instead of having it in a tent, he basically comes up with
the idea to build the temple.
And then, you know, God tells him, Hey, it's a good idea.
You're not going to do it, but your son Solomon is going to do it.
Now, one of the things that's interesting about that is that we have the
tabernacle, which is God's idea.
That's what God commanded.
And that's the model of what God has in heaven.
The tabernacle, right?
Then we have man's idea, the temple, man's style of worshiping God, but nothing
wrong with it.
It was just one that was dreamed up by man because then God approves of it.
He puts a stamp of approval of it.
And I think that God takes pleasure in what we invent to his glory and to his
praise.
So that's why I think that not only should we sing the Psalms as in taking God's
word, that which God wrote and putting it to music, but I think it's good to also
have our own manmade songs as well.
If some people go overboard, like don't sing any hymns, just only sing the Psalms,
only scripture songs.
No, I think that God is glorified when we worship him in our own words as well, from
our own heart.
You know, sing unto the Lord a new song, the Bible says.
And so there's a balance there of that which God has ordained, the tabernacle, and
that which man ordained, the temple, but he ordained it for the glory of God.
He ordained it with the approval of God.
You know, we can come up with things on our own that please God and we could write
music and songs that would be pleasing to God and offer that to him.
Because God created us to be creative and he actually is pleased by our creativity,
not just only robotically saying back to him his own word.
You know, so when we pray to God, we don't just recite scripture to him.
We don't just say like, God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause thy face to
shine upon us.
You know, we don't just recite prayers, do we?
No, we talk to God in our own words also.
Now, it could be good sometimes to quote scripture unto the Lord, but a mixture of
that plus our own words from our own heart.
And I think that's part of what the temple signifies.
Man's worship of the Lord that came from his own heart, you know.
So we have both, the man-made and the God-made, and they're both bringing honor and
glory to the Lord.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord, and we just pray that you would
just help us to worship you on a daily basis, to sing praises to your name continually,
both in church and also just in our everyday lives.
By ourselves, Lord, help us to understand the importance of praising you and singing
to you and also praising you unto others and telling other people about you and your
wonderful works and all the mighty acts that you've done, Lord.
We just pray that everything we say and do throughout the week would honor and glorify
you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.