This time, I'm going to be joined by Pastor Dylan Oz from Anchor Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
and we're gonna be entering the numbers one through 1189
into a random number generator.
Whatever number pops up,
that's which chapter of the Bible we're gonna do.
So for example, if the number one popped up,
it's Genesis one.
If 51 popped up, it's Exodus chapter one.
So we have no idea what chapter we're gonna be studying.
And so this just makes it kind of fun, kind of interesting.
And so Pastor Oz, are you with me?
I am. Thanks for inviting me. How are you doing?
I'm doing awesome. Thanks for coming on and hopefully we get another softball like we got last time
with Pastor Shelley. We got 2nd Timothy 1. That was super easy. Okay, 596.
All right.
That's definitely going to be something in the Old Testament. So let me look at my list of chapters here
and see what chapter 596 is.
Wow well we this almost could have been a really short broadcast if it would have been 117 or a really long one
Yeah, or we could have been here all night with one night. So all right song 118 it is
Let's check it out and so what we can do is just kind of you know read a verse talk about it and just kind of talk
About whatever comes to mind and so let's see what we got here Psalm
118 it says in verse number one. Oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good
Because his mercy endureth forever
So if you think about it, there's so much to be thankful for I mean even though we all go through trials and tribulations in
Our lives. I mean there's always a lot to be thankful for and specifically here. It says because his mercy
Endured forever if you think about it. We as saved Christians
we're constantly sinning right the Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin and
So we're probably sinning every day if you include just thinking something stupid
Yet, God's mercy endures forever.
He never comes to a point where it's like, oh, that's it.
I'm going to stop forgiving you.
You've sinned too many times.
The Bible says we're sin and bounded, graced it much more about.
So what do you think pastor Oz? Yeah, and we're just living in a time right now. That's very entitled and
I feel like a lot of people take a lot of things for granted and
I've been on some missions trips in my life and visited some other countries and
While I appreciate and enjoy those trips
I always come back to the United States being very thankful for where I live and where I was born
And while there's definitely a lot of faults and sins that we rightly should be pointing out with where we live,
one of the things that I'm just really thankful for to God is the fact that I was born in America.
And it just seems like there's a lot of complainers,
even in America right now,
there's a lot of people in Oklahoma City
that are dealing with layoffs.
And you know, it's a good time to just be,
take an account of your life
and just be thankful to God for your job if you have one.
You know, don't be like one of these employees
that won't respond to your boss
telling them what you did for the week.
You know, be thankful for your job.
For all the things that God has done for you.
And be thankful you have a boss to report to.
and we have to recognize that that comes from God at the end of the day.
Yeah, because the Bible says every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
So the Bible says, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good and he's good to us. He's constantly
giving us good gifts. The Bible says, if you then be evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
And so if we're praying to God
He's going to bestow a lot of good things upon us and he's not going to withhold any good thing from those who fear him
And so there's a lot to be thankful for as Christians, especially if we're praying and getting our prayers answered and God's blessing us
Etc
Yeah, and that should be a big part of every Christian's prayer life is not just asking for things from God
But also thanking him for that which he's already done
Verse 2 says let Israel now say that his mercy endureth forever
Let the house of Aaron now say that his mercy endureth forever
Let them now that fear the Lord say that his mercy endureth forever
So here the psalmist kind of brings up
Couple different groups that should be talking about the mercy of God how it endures for forever
Specifically Israel the house of Aaron and those that fear the Lord
And I like how it mentions those that fear the Lord because a lot of people want to
Kind of weaponize in their preaching the mercy of God
To where they almost encourage people to not fear the Lord. I think of like the new evangelical style of churches
That really just down place in they don't preach hard about sin
They certainly don't preach that you should fear God
Whereas the Bible teaches to fear the Lord even in trembling literally
But it's kind of on the surface, it sounds a little counterintuitive that those that fear God are talking about his mercy.
But truly, if you understand how sinful we are as people and how holy and righteous God is...
That really makes you appreciate his mercy that he gave to us,
and really it should cause us to fear him because we know what God is capable of doing.
We've seen his judgments against both the unsaved
and even the saved in the Bible oftentimes were judged very harshly.
So the mercy of God should make us appreciative of him, but also cause us to fear him.
Yeah, that that is such an excellent point that it's really the people who fear him
Who appreciate his mercy because if you don't have the fear of God?
If you don't even believe in the punishments that are possible, then, you know, his mercy is not really going to be that meaningful to you because you don't really think that you were really guilty of that much anyway, or you don't really think you were in that much danger of anything happening anyway.
Whereas those who fear God and are serving him with trembling, yeah, they're going to have a greater appreciation for his mercy because it's of the Lord's mercies that were not consumed.
Right.
And, you know, backing up to what he mentioned, you know, let the house of Israel now say
and let the house of Aaron now say.
If you think about it in the Old Testament.
You know, those are God's chosen people back then.
Of course, they're not God's chosen people anymore
because they've rejected the Lord Jesus Christ
and been rejected by God.
But at the time, Israel as a nation was God's chosen people.
And then within Israel,
you have another choosing of the house of Aaron
to be the priesthood.
Aaron, the High Priest, and all of his descendants are that Levitical priesthood.
And so in the New Testament, it would be Christians that should be proclaiming God's mercy and
saying that His mercy endures forever.
Israel, and specifically the Levites and the priests were the ones that were supposed to be proclaiming God's word to the world.
And they were supposed to be a light to the Gentiles.
But of course, now in the New Testament, it's we as Christians that have replaced Israel as that light of the world, you know?
And Jesus said, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world.
But then he said, you are the light of the world.
And so that's directed at us as Christians.
We should be proclaiming the fact
that God's mercy endures forever.
One of the best ways we do that is by telling people
that salvation endures forever, right?
It's like God's mercy isn't to just save you
and then you mess up and lose your salvation.
No, you can never lose your salvation
because the Lord's mercy endures forever
and nothing can separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We have eternal life.
Yeah, verse 5 says I called upon the Lord in my in distress
The Lord answered me and set me in a large place
You know, it's pretty common and it's pretty normal when someone's in a stressful situation to call upon the Lord
But I get again. I think this kind of ties back to
Fearing the Lord because we see situations in the Bible where saved people call out to God
But God is not listening to them like King Saul
There comes towards the end of his life where he's trying to communicate with God with dreams and the Urim and with prophets
and God's not listening to him.
But this person, the psalmist, is talking about those that fear the Lord.
Those people, they call upon the Lord in distress and the Lord answers me.
You know the Bible says he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law even his prayer shall be abomination
So that's another really important aspect of fearing God is that you know
We're all going to have stressful situations in our life where it seems like things are just crashing down
And we want to be able to call upon God in those moments and actually have him hear us
And be on our side during those times
Oh, yeah, I mean what what a scary thought to think that you really need help and you're calling out
and he's not there for you, right?
It's a comfort to know that he's actually gonna answer you.
And of course, we have verses in 1 John that say,
we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask.
And it says, because we do his commandments,
because we keep his commandments
and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
you know, we know that he's hearing our prayers and so forth.
And so, we want to make sure that we stay right with God so that we don't end up, like you said, King Saul,
where although previously he had had a great relationship with God,
at the end of his life, he got to a point where he's calling out to God
and God's not helping him because he's just gone too far into sin
and, you know, all the mistakes that he made.
And so it's interesting, he says,
I called him the Lord in my distress,
the Lord answered me and set me in a large place.
You know, and that's kind of an interesting statement, right?
Like being put in a large place.
And I was thinking about how our lives as Christians
as servants of God are actually really expansive.
And if you think about it, people that are not right
with God, like backslidden Christians,
God's laws and they look at the Christian life as being restrictive like oh it's all these rules
that are sort of preventing me from doing all the stuff that I want to do and you know taking
away my freedom because I just have all these commandments and all these dos and don'ts and
everything and so the the ungodly people or even just backslidden Christians or baby Christians
Whereas, you know, the psalmist here who's right with God is saying, look, God has delivered me
out of my distresses and he has set me in a large place, meaning I've got space, I've got elbow room,
I'm not tight or confined or restricted. And you know, it's sort of like in the Garden of Eden,
God's telling him, you can eat of all the trees of the garden except for this one tree,
but then the devil comes along and tries to make it sound restrictive, like
oh you can't eat of all the trees and she's like well no actually we can't eat of all the trees
just except one and so I think that the more right with God you are the more like possibilities you
see in the Christian life and like me personally at this stage in my life I'm in my 20th year of
pastoring and I've been serving God for decades I just kind of feel like wow there's just so many
ahead of me in life, like all these different directions I could go, all these different
things I could do.
I just feel like I have so much freedom, but it's like, ah, but you can't go to the
bar.
You can't go to the casino.
You can't go to the strip club.
It's like, who cares, man?
Like, there's so many cool things that I can do.
I'm just trying to pick, like, what am I going to do?
Yeah, amen verse 6 says the Lord is on my side. I will not fear
What can man do unto me?
And you know, this to me is one of the greatest things about being a Christian and beyond that being someone that's just wanting to serve the Lord and be close to him is this thing in life called peace.
And I think that it's one of the most coveted attributes of life that everybody is seeking is to have peace in their life.
But Christians need to realize that the way to get peace in your life is to have God on your side.
How does that happen? Draw a night of God, and He will draw a night to you.
A lot of people, you know, when they're going through a stressful situation, they kind of think,
well, God, if you get me through this situation, then I'm going to serve you, then I'm going to really get serious.
But really, you shouldn't think about it that way. You should think about it as draw a night of God, period.
Seek him fear him period and then that's when God draws nigh to you
So when you call upon the Lord in distress you could have peace and not fear because you can know for sure
That the Lord is on your side and this doesn't come from evaluating your
circumstances of life
Because notice the psalmist is saying that he's calling upon the Lord in distress
Yet, God is on his side. So sometimes life can be stressful. Sometimes you can go through things that are hard
Sometimes you could be enduring persecution and you could be lied about and just all sorts of crazy things can be happening to you
But at the end of the day when you're right with God
You could have peace knowing that he is on your side and you know, that's more important than anything
Yeah, I like the fact that you brought up peace because actually I'm in a series on the fruit of the Spirit
and I just did love and joy last Sunday.
This Sunday I'm gonna be preaching on peace.
Nice.
And it's like you said, I mean,
These are the things that people want in life, right? Everybody's looking for true love
Everybody's on that pursuit of happiness or joy, right? And everybody wants peace. There's so much worry. There's so much anxiety and
People just want to have that peace not not necessarily, you know, we're not talking about necessarily world peace or something
We're talking about like inner peace. Yeah, and
Knowing that the Lord is on your side. I mean that really does set your mind at ease in a lot of ways
but frankly, not everybody can say that, right? I mean, not everybody has God on their side.
And you know, the Bible says, the Lord's on my side, I will not fear. What can man do unto me?
Like if God before us, who can be against us, right?
I mean, all the enemies can lie about us, slander us,
foam at the mouth, gnash on us with their teeth.
But at the end of the day, you know,
only God can really lift us up or bring us down.
And you know, that's a reassuring thought for me.
It gives me peace to think about that.
And then in verse seven, it says,
the Lord taketh my part with them that help me.
Therefore, shall I see my desire upon them that hate me?"
So in this verse, there are kind of two classes of people.
They're the people that are helping the man of God or helping the psalmist or, you know,
the Christian that's praying this prayer.
There are the people that are helping him, and then there are the people that hate him,
right?
And the Bible says that God is going to take his part with those that help him.
You know, it kind of reminds me of the promises made to Abraham where God said I'll bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you
And of course a lot of a lot of people will try to wrongfully apply that to the modern-day Christ rejecting nation of Israel
But of course those of us who you know have read and understood what the New Testament says
in chapters like Galatians 3 and 4, we know that actually Christians inherit the promises of Abraham
and that God will actually bless those who bless Christians and curse those who curse
Christians. It's not unsaved Christ rejecting Jews that are under the blessing of God,
They can incur the wrath of God on themselves,
or if they are a blessing to us and support us
as God's people, well then,
they're gonna get a blessing from God,
from doing something for their brother or sister in Christ.
Absolutely. Yeah, verse 8 says it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in
man. One of the things that people do during times of distress,
especially when you're not right with God, is they want to put their confidence somewhere.
They want to hang their hat on something to give them that peace or at least the promise of peace.
But the Bible makes it clear that the only person that you really should do that to, it's better to trust in
the Lord than to put confidence in man. And at the end of the day, we have to realize that the
only person that we can 100% rely on is the Lord. Now, that's not to say that we can't have
wonderful great relationships and, you know, rely on our spouse or have great friends that we can
That rock is God and I think a lot of people get themselves in trouble sometimes when they want to put their confidence in man
To help their situation right so this could look like even putting their confidence in man's wisdom
You know, some people, the reason why they're going through stressful times,
yes, sometimes it's because of persecution, of being righteous.
Other times it's just the consequences of their action,
and we need to trust in the Lord with all of our heart,
not lean onto our own understanding,
get our guidance and use the word of God as the light for our feet
to show us the way that we should go and not put our trust in man.
yeah absolutely and then you know the next verse it's almost the same but it
says it's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes and
you know we could think of that as politicians right because what are
princes we're talking about like political authority figures or people
that are powerful politically you know and and so many people today their
confidence is in government like government's gonna fix everything and
I don't really follow the news that much, but it obviously it's kind of impossible to ignore
some of the things that have been going on over the last several weeks because, you know, it seems
like everybody's talking about, like, you know, the department of, what is it, government expenditures?
What's that? Department of government efficiency. Yeah, department of government efficiency and
stuff. So, you know, from where I'm standing, from stuff that I'm hearing,
Like, it sounds like, you know, the Trump administration has been, you know, doing a lot of things to just cut spending and maybe get rid of some of the bloated out of control government spending and, you know, RFK is hopefully going to bring some accountability on the vaccines and get some of the poisonous crap out of our food or whatever.
You know, you hear about these things and look.
you know, I want to be optimistic about it. I'm not down on it. You know, I like what I see,
and I hope it continues, and I hope that, you know, they can just keep fixing things and changing
things and improving things. But at the end of the day, you know, I'm not really going to ever
You know, I feel like at the end of the day, even though these political things can be helpful and you know, the government saying that they're, you know, only two genders could be helpful.
in keeping us from just going into complete insanity in this country.
But at the end of the day, what I'd rather see
is like God's people taking a stand on these things,
preachers getting up and preaching these things.
You know, I'd rather see Baptist churches across America
actually having the guts to preach about this stuff.
And, you know, you wouldn't even have these problems in the first place
if the churches had been doing their jobs.
And so, you know, ultimately,
the biggest problem in this country is a spiritual problem.
And so I'm not going to rely on princes to fix it, I'm more interested in, you know, having a spiritual revival in our country so that the Lord can bless us.
Yeah, and I'm pretty optimistic about how things have been going as well, and I think that...
Some of the things that are happening are as a direct result of great preaching, you know, for example, like I saw that the
Legislature of the state of Idaho is petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn the wicked 2015
Gay marriage ruling and I almost have to believe that if politicians are
Petitioning for something like that. It's because they feel that it's culturally safe to do that right now
Why? Well, I think because of people like you and other pastors and the new IFB that have been preaching about this for decades
And we actually are making a difference. Sometimes it may not feel that way
But I truly believe we are changing people's minds and people's hearts
Where I work I work with a lot of saved people with a lot of people that read their Bibles and are awake on a lot of these issues
And yeah, you know righteousness exalted the nation
Sin is a reproach to any people, you know, if our nation is going to start going on the right track and be exalted by God
It's gonna come through us turning to the Lord to his statutes to his commandments, but of course
Yeah, we're not gonna put our trust in princes because in four years some wicked person can just undo a lot of this stuff
That's how it works oftentimes
But when God is on our side, then the blessings could have more of a lasting effect
Yeah, amen the next verse says all nations compass me about
But in the name of the Lord will I destroy them they compass me about yay
They compass me about but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them and you know one thing
I want to point out is just that there are some people that are just slated for destruction
And sometimes Christians get this attitude of just kind of sweetness and light toward everyone and, you know, everyone can be redeemed and everyone can be fixed and let's just be nice to everybody and whatever.
And at the end of the day, obviously, yeah, we do want to extend grace and mercy as much as possible.
We want to strive to live peaceably with all men.
We want to love our enemies.
We want to try as best we can to overcome evil with good, but the Bible is also super clear.
that there are people that just cannot be fixed.
There are just rotten people in this world,
people to the core that are just rotten.
And that's why, you know, a little bit earlier,
a couple of verses ago, the Psalmist had said,
You know that God is taking his part with those that help him. He said therefore
Shall I see my desire upon them that hate me?
He's saying man, I want to see these people that hate me. I want to see them get what's coming to them
And he says in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them
You know and obviously this is the word of God folks. This isn't just the psalmist is getting a little crazy
Having a bad day getting out of control. He's speaking by inspiration of the Holy Ghost here
And so there are some people out there that God is through with that need to be smoked
God's gonna take care and look we as Christians. It's not our job to take vengeance
We're not gonna go out and be violent or anything like that, but you know what? There's a place
according to scripture
for imprecatory prayer, where, you know, we pray that God would punish these super evil,
super wicked people. And I'm not just talking about your garden variety sinners or just,
you know, people who are, are sinning in ignorance or they're confused or they're, they're persecuting
God's people in ignorance. I'm talking about just these evil God hating reprobates.
And, you know, God is telling us over and over again that these people are doomed and
damned.
And so, you know, I just wish Christians would look at both sides.
You know, I love talking about the love of God, loving your enemies.
I mean, I just preached about it on Sunday morning about loving your enemies.
I'm for it.
But there's a difference between your personal enemies and just these enemies of God, enemies of humanity, just horrific, rotten people, and, you know, I just wish people would kind of balance everything Scripture says and get a more, you know, balanced view instead of just going all sweetness and light.
You know what I'm saying? Oh, absolutely. It's definitely not a balanced view, but verse 12 says they compassed me about like
Bees they are quenched as the fire of thorns for in the name of the Lord. I will
Destroy them. This is just kind of a funny illustration that the Bible uses
But it's so true like real men of God godly Christians that are striving to please and serve him
It's like your enemies
the people that hate you are gonna compass you about like bees. There's gonna
be so many of them and you know I've seen this for years and years. I've been in
church for over a decade and you know Pastor Thompson's my father-in-law. I've
seen his life closely. I worked for Pastor Shelley for many years and I've
seen firsthand just like how many enemies these men have and how like
unjustly they're attacked.
And then I get ordained and boy that wasn't quick until it seems like there's a bunch of bees around me to
lying and all sorts of crazy attacks
but
Back to verse 7 how it says therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me
I was reminded about the conversation you had with pastor Shelley last week about how praying
Against someone it's not necessarily always for extreme reprobates
I've been going through the book of 1st Samuel in our Wednesday evening Bible study and I think about how David said to
Sol the Lord judge between me and thee and
That's definitely how I feel sometimes when I hear about all the crazy lies about me
And I definitely have been praying for God to judge some of these people. I'll tell you that
Yeah, amen
And you know what's funny is when he says they compass me about like bees one thing and I'm not an expert on bees or anything
I don't know if you've heard this too
But I actually have heard that the way it works is that like if one of the bees stings you
Then it kind of like sends a signal to the rest of the hive
Or all of them to say have you ever heard about that? I have heard about that. That's funny
Yeah, like then so so what happens is that when it comes to attacking Christians attacking men
of God attacking preachers a lot of times what it is is there's a herd mentality or you know in
this case like a swarm mentality where it's like you're told oh this guy's bad you're supposed to
be mad at this guy you're supposed to hate this guy can you believe what this guy is preaching
Even if he's just preaching the Bible, but then it's like the media is going to tell everyone, oh, yeah, this is the this is the enemy.
This is the bad guy. And it's so if you think about bees also bees don't really think
Yeah, bees are kind of just doing what the queen
wants them to do and they're they're they're sort of just on this autopilot
just doing
You know sacrificing even themselves for
You know the rest of the bees and everything and so what you have is and and you know, it's a perfect word mindless drones
Sort of just attacking whoever they're told to attack
Hating whoever they're told to hate
With their teeth upon whomever they're supposed to nash upon and so a lot of the people that end up attacking
Men of God are influenced by the media. They don't think
And they just you know they just oh well let's all jump in and start stinging definitely got to watch out for those queen bees
I'll tell you
A lot of people being gently led by some queen bees out there
A lot of a lot of drones that are yeah under the control of their queen. That's right
Go ahead and go on to verse 13 pastor
Okay, yeah, it says
Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall
But the Lord helped me. This is kind of interesting because so far everything about the enemies has been in the third person
You know, they did this they compass me about they compass me about like bees
Then he turns and actually addresses the enemy with a second person pronoun, right?
Thou has thrust sore at me that I might fall but the Lord helped me
And you know what, the Lord's always gonna help us
if we're in a righteous cause.
And look, there have been times in my life
when I was pushed to my absolute limit,
like I was pushed to the brink.
And I believe that sometimes God will allow us
to be pushed to our limit,
but he's not gonna allow us to be tempted
above what we're able to handle.
And so even though sometimes he takes us right up to the line,
He knows what we can handle, and if we can just maintain our faith in Him and put our confidence in the Lord and push through, we can get through any trial or tribulation that comes our way.
Yeah, it makes me think of Romans chapter 5 and verse 3 where it says and not only so but we glory in
Tribulations also knowing that tribulation work with patience and patience experience and experience
Hope and hope make it not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
Which is given unto us and I think you know one of the reasons why God sometimes allows
people to get pushed that far
is so that we could develop that patience, that ability to wait on the Lord and trust in Him.
And then from that we get experience where we've gone through something before
so that the next trial that we face or in helping someone else in their trial we can have hope.
And man, hope is one of the most important things to hang on to when people lose hope
King David at one point where he was kind of backslidden
He kind of gave up hope that God was going to continue to deliver him from the hand of King Saul and he kind of says
Oh man, there's nothing better for me than to go live in the land of the Philistines and that wasn't necessarily true
You know God had constantly come through for him in the past
And it's probably very likely, I believe so, of course,
that God would have continued to do so.
So we have to just continue to have patience
and get that experience so that we can hang on to hope in the future.
Yeah, and then the next few verses, you know, talk a little bit about song
or music or rejoicing, if you think about it, because it says,
in verse 14, the Lord is my strength and song.
So when he says the Lord is my song, he's basically saying I'm singing about the Lord and of course, you know
The book of Psalms is a songbook song when 18 is literally a song and it says, you know
The Lord is my strength and song and is become my salvation
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous
the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.
So we have a lot to praise God for
and to sing praises to God about in our tabernacles.
And I think here probably that the context of tabernacles
is like where they live, you know,
as far as like living in tents,
because obviously we know that a lot of the Israelites
were pastoral people living in tents.
And you could also, you know, apply this as, you know,
as far as being Tabernacles as well. I used to go to a church called Tabernacle Baptist Church
and some churches will be called something like, you know, Calvary Baptist Tabernacle or something.
But the idea here is that we're singing praises to God about our salvation, like about the fact
that we're saved, and about the fact that he has also not only spiritually saved us,
but he's physically delivered us out of a lot of just the bad situations that we found ourselves in.
And so, you know, the right hand of the Lord has done valiantly. God has done great things for us.
There's a lot to praise God for. And so many great hymns in the hymnal have themes about salvation, themes about God's great works.
And then I kind of like the fact that our churches in particular are sort of bringing back this...
practice of singing the actual Psalms themselves because most independent fundamental Baptists
have done very little singing of the Psalms. They've sung the hymns that are like man-made hymns,
and I think those are great, and I love those, and I think we should keep singing them,
but I like the fact that we supplement them with actually singing like the biblical Psalms.
Yeah, I was about to say that's one of the things that
I really love because even just so far reading this chapter, like this chapter gets me fired up,
it gives me hope. It's just a really positive chapter about those who love the Lord and how God's
going to be on our side. And when you sing this stuff, so much the more. I mean, this is,
when you sing this stuff, it's definitely going to be filling you with the spirit.
It's going to make you want to do things that are spiritual.
Definitely agree we definitely need to bring this back, but it kind of brings me to verse 17 where it says I shall not die
but live and
Declare the works of the Lord and that's kind of one of the things that we're doing
When we're singing the Psalms is that we are declaring the works of the Lord and there's something about
Singing the words of God that just moves your spirit in a very very deep way
I don't know what it is, but there's just something about music that moves you when you sing the words of God
And you're in a group of Christians that love him and you're together declaring the works of the Lord
It's just gonna fill you with the Spirit for sure. Oh
Yeah, that's absolutely. I mean the Bible flat out says be filled with the Spirit
Speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord
And then, you know, right after the verse that you read there, it says in verse 18,
the Lord hath chastened me sore, but he hath not given me over unto death.
And so when we think about the Lord chastising or punishing or disciplining or chastening
his children, you know, he doesn't necessarily always discipline us lightly because here
And the Bible says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteth, and scourges every son whom he receiveeth.
I mean, that sounds serious.
You know and yet yet today we live in this generation where now we have a bunch of whining brats
Laning about their upbringing complaining about difference. Oh my parents chasing me sore, right?
Yeah, but did they kill you though? No, they didn't and what does the Bible say it literally says if thou beatest him with the
Rod he shall not die. It says right with hold not correction from the child
for if thou beatest him with the rod, he'll not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod
and shalt deliver his soul from hell."
Right?
And then here we have him saying,
look, the Lord chastened me sore,
but he didn't deliver me over to death.
And you have these kids that are growing up.
They have no injuries, they're, they're healthy, saved, well-adjusted adults, but oh, I just
make too hard, oh, my parents are so mean, you know, it's evil, rebellious, disobedience
to parents.
It's wicked as hell, and the people who defend it are wicked as hell.
Yeah, I wonder, like, if you get up and say, hey, you should chase in your children, soar,
I wonder if they would say, oh, that's abuse, or is God a bad father because he chasens
his children's sore? By the way, the psalmist isn't some wicked piece of crap. The psalmist
is a pretty good guy, yet he still is getting chasens sore, so it's not all of God's children
So the way I look at it is all of my children need that as well
That's actually a blessing from God to be chastised and to be corrected
Because when someone is going down the wrong path in life
That leads to destruction. Sin is going to destroy your life and by God
Chasing us sore and bringing us back to the right path. That's actually a blessing and gift from God and
spanking your children
Yay, chastening them sore is a gift and an act of love toward your children.
It's actually the hateful person, the Bible says, that spares the rod.
He that spared the rod hated his son, but he that loved with him, chastened with him, betimes."
I literally read that verse in church and said,
hey, the Bible says to chasten them betimes, and I see all these morons and people that don't
believe the Bible saying, I can't believe that he said you should chasten your children betimes.
It's what the Bible literally says.
It's like you're not even attacking me at that point or you or whatever people just don't believe in authority or something
Or they don't believe in discipline
But I mean here we have this all miss being chased and soar by the Lord, but of course not given over unto death
Yeah, exactly, and you know proverbs 312 comes to mind for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth
even as a father, the son in whom he delighteth.
It's a blessing.
And so the thing is, you know,
we delight in our children as Christian parents.
Amen.
We love them deeply.
We, you know, change their diapers.
and we watch them be cute little babies and cute little toddlers
and they grow up to be fun little kids that we can play with when they're seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, you know, then they become adolescents, teenagers 12, 13, 14, 15.
We're taking them on mission strips. We're taking them out soul winning.
We're able to, you know, hang out with them on a more mature level and, you know, play board games
play sports together you know we have all this joy all this delight all this love and affection
for our children but you know what when we see them going down a dark path we discipline them
not because we enjoy it obviously there's no pleasure or joy
in disciplining your children. It's a chore. It's something that you'd rather not do. It's a burden
because, you know, you'd rather just be, you know, Mr. Good Guy, be their buddy and everything.
But it's a responsibility. And if we really love our children and care about them,
you know what, we're going to bring the discipline that they need when they need it.
Obviously, the punishment fits the crime. But at the end of the day, a sore, you know, a sore
crime or a sore, you know, violation deserves a sore punishment. And, and the thing is that,
you know, when we discipline our children, that might make them, you know, get influenced by this,
this weird, rebellious society we're in to somehow think that they're a victim or something. And,
and you know what? And then it's like, oh, you shouldn't have done that or whatever. But you
know what? At the end of the day, even if they resent us for it, we still did the right thing.
Yeah, and like I can stand here I could stand here as an adult and honestly say like I wish my parents had spanked me more
And I'm thankful to God that my parents spanked me at all
but I have to remind myself of that because
It's not fun spanking your kids. It's not something that I like to do
I'm constantly having to remind myself of the verse he that spare with his rod hate at this son because it doesn't even say
He that doesn't give the rod at all
It's even he that spareth his rod, hate at his son.
So to me, that's talking about how you have to consistently discipline your children.
And that is hard work.
I mean, there's just times where you just flat out don't want to do it.
But I constantly have to remind myself, like, this is loving.
This is what my children need.
I'm an adult.
I'm thinking, hey, I wish I would have even gotten it more.
If they love God, they're gonna have the same attitude.
And if kids grow up and despise their parents for following the Bible,
that's their problem, that's their hard issue, but at least we could stand up with a clear
conscience before God saying, hey, we're not sparing the rod, we're doing what the Bible says.
Yep, amen. So verse number 19 says, open to me the gates of righteousness, I will go into them
and I will praise the Lord. So again, you know, just coming right off of talking about, hey, the
that he chastened me soar.
No man, open the door of righteousness.
I'm ready to walk through it, right?
Open to me the gates of righteousness.
I'll go into them and I will praise the Lord.
I'm not going to be bitter like,
oh, why did God allow this to happen to me, right?
And a lot, you know, the Bible says
that the foolishness of man perverted his way
and then he fretteth against the Lord.
So it's like, like people will do dumb things in life
and then God will chasing them soar.
And they're like, oh, why is God doing this to me?
You know, why is God allowing this to happen to me?
It's like, well, dude, you did wrong.
You got chastened.
Time to enter the gates of righteousness
and praise the Lord.
Yeah.
And thankful.
Yeah, you know don't have your Pikachu face on when you sin and God punishes you
You know that Pikachu meme where it's like what what the heck's going on?
No, don't be surprised if you're living a wicked life to receive punishment
That's what God said is gonna happen when it happens
Thank the Lord for it when he corrects you thank him love him continue to serve him verse 20 says
This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter. I will praise thee
for thou hast heard me and art become my salvation."
So it kind of talks about the gate of the Lord, which one of the applications I think
of that is just going to church and being in the house of God, which is where the righteous are.
It says into which the righteous shall enter. You know, one of the joys of life is just being
around the righteous, being around other Christians.
And I, myself, need church.
You need church. We all need church.
We need to be around the righteous of this earth.
It encourages us.
And while I'm thankful for things like livestream...
We can never get to the point where we just forsake going to church because you're not going to get that fellowship with the righteous
You know, you need to make sure you're in the assembly of God verse 21
I will praise thee for thou hast heard me and art become my salvation
I like verse 21 and one of the things that I try to do often is
Just to thank the Lord for the privilege of prayer itself
Like, thank you, God, for hearing our prayers.
Thank you, you know, for listening to us.
When we, you know, people could get pretty entitled and take for granted the fact that
here we are, these little tiny specks of dust sinners deserving of hell.
And at any time we want, we could just enter to the throne room of grace and speak to the Creator of the universe.
You know, that is not a small thing. That's not a light thing.
And we should thank the Lord for the opportunity of prayer and actually take advantage of that privilege and not neglect our prayer life.
Amen.
which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner.
This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.
And obviously our mind immediately goes to the Christological interpretation of this as it should.
I think one of the best ways to read the Old Testament
to be thinking about how this points us to Jesus on every page because you know
that that's really the most important message of the Old Testament is to point
us to Jesus Christ and so Jesus was that stone which the builders refused.
That became the headstone of the corner, but you know, not only that there were also human leaders
About which this could be said as well because you know with the book of Psalms
Obviously we have the prophetic interpretation about Christ, but then there's also sort of a historical or retrospective
Interpretation that's there as well that when people would have initially heard this Psalm in the Old Testament times
You know, they would have been able to think of
Things that were happening currently or in the past that also fit this bill like for example, you know if you think about Moses
You know the Israelites rejected Moses
From being a prince and a judge over them, but that same Moses that they rejected
did, in fact, become a prince and a deliverer over them, according to Acts chapter 7.
And so, in that sense, you know, Moses is picturing Jesus Christ as well,
where the Jews say,
we will not have this man to rule over us about Jesus.
But, of course, ultimately, every knee is going to bow,
and every tongue is going to confess.
And, you know, the same thing with leaders like Moses, or even, you know, you could think about the example of Jephthah in the book of Judges, you know, someone else that, you know, initially people had refused or rejected him, but then he ended up becoming an important leader.
For God's people and and so, you know one thing that I would point out because I was just preaching about second Chronicles chapter
36 last night
So this is kind of on my mind a little bit is that sometimes the leader that people choose
Isn't necessarily the best leader as the leader that God chooses, you know because like like for example when Josiah died
the people just sort of hastily grab one of his sons and
Make him the king and he ends up just being a disaster
And he reigns for three months. He does evil in the side of the Lord
Even the king of Egypt is is you know seeing him as too wicked and taking him out of power and
Making the next guy, you know, basically
I promise to worship the Lord, of course he doesn't do that, but my point is that a lot
of people are obsessed with this idea of democracy or power to the people and that kind of stuff.
But honestly, sometimes people don't pick the best leaders sometimes and really God
As being a great leader do you kind of see what I'm saying there? Yeah for sure
I mean the Bible makes it very clear that the Apostle Paul was someone that was chosen by God
But I don't think that you know
Your average person would have chosen him because he was constantly having his authority questioned and people were saying that his
Speech was contemptible and his bodily presence was weak
But of course, you know, he was a mighty man of God. So yeah, I think that's a good example of what you're saying
Or like Aaron for example like Aaron is another one where you know the people were
Trying to reject after they had you know tried to reject Moses. They tried to reject Aaron
As the high priest then God had to go through that whole thing where Aaron's rod butted
in order to prove that God had chosen Aaron to be the leader.
And so, you know, like I said, I think the most important thing to take away here is
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the stone which the builders rejected.
The same became the head of the corner. But then we also just need to understand that
in general human beings do not necessarily
always choose the best leaders.
And so, you know, this is why we end up with a lot of idiots in government.
I mean, if people are so good at choosing leaders, then explain the United States Senate to me.
Because there are really only a few cool senators.
Yeah. I mean, I'm not that into politics, but that's my understanding, you know.
Yeah, it's the 99% of crappy congressmen that make the 1% look bad, right?
Yeah, and especially in the Senate, it just seems like there's very few real ones in the US Senate, for example.
And so, you know, I don't necessarily believe that it's always the best idea to just let the people just pick their leader, you know, like in a church setting, for example.
You know like hey, we're just gonna vote in the next pastor or something
You know and I could see maybe situations where that would be appropriate
But they're not always gonna pick the best person, you know, I think that you know pastors should ordain other pastors
rather than just
Like kind of running for office and getting elected as a pastor from the bottom up
I mean, what do you think have you thought much about that? Yeah, I just think this whole idea of
Democracy has been so ingrained in our culture
But I really wish that we would move away from it because even at work. I notice this like I'm in a management position at work
I work in the central business office of my company and every once in a while
We do like these classes and I'll find myself
Just mingling with a lot of frontline workers and more lower-level people in the company and every single time
I'm in one of these classes. It's like one giant
crap talking session about
how management is stupid how management doesn't care how management doesn't make good decisions,
but it's like i i actually work with these people and see them and i see that they're competent
hardworking people that care a lot about their employees and they're making decisions for the
You know help the budget go well so that employees can get paid well like I see this stuff
But yet it's just constant crap topping talking from lower level people when often they don't see the bigger picture
So the truth is is it may sound kind of bad, but it's just true like not everyone should be making decisions
Not everyone should have men when it comes that kind of stuff because quite frankly a lot of people are just stupid or lazy
And, you know, people get to those positions of leadership usually for a good reason.
Usually your boss is smarter than you.
Usually your boss is more skilled than you.
Yeah, sure, there's exceptions, but the exception proves the rule.
And let's be honest, it's very similar even in the church world.
It's like the reason the pastor is the pastor is because he's read the Bible scores of times
and he knows what the Word of God says and he's been steadfast
And in a church setting, we don't need a democracy where every random woman and child and teenager and man are doing a vote to make decisions.
You need someone who's just qualified to run the show.
And that doesn't mean you can't get input.
I think it's wise for leaders to get counsel and input and for bosses to spend some time with their frontline workers and see the challenges that they're facing and stuff like that.
But no, I definitely think we need to bring back a culture of authority and leadership in every sphere of life
Yeah, amen because democracy gives us bravis instead of jesus. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they chose
They chose bravis. Yep
Yeah, so then it follows up with this part that's also quoted a lot in the New Testament.
This is the Lord's doing.
It is marvelous in our eyes.
And so again, the idea here is that God is going to choose the best leaders and that,
you know, people don't necessarily choose the best leaders.
you know, brought as the way that leads to destruction. And there are just so many people
that like you just said, you know, they're not really qualified to make good decisions. And I
think that, you know, we have a lot of freedom in America, but part of that is because historically,
we've been an intelligent people. And there's been, you know, a high level of literacy, a high
level of Christianity, morality, because you know what I used to always wonder, I don't know if you
If the United States is so successful, which it obviously is,
and we've had this Constitution since 1787 that is just working so well,
I've just wondered, like, why don't all these other countries just pretty much adopt...
Pretty much a copy and paste of our system of government and then they could all kind of be enjoying the same success
But but here's what I've noticed though is that if you give freedom to a population that is largely illiterate
And when I say illiterate, I'm talking about literally illiterate, like they literally can't read and write, so they're just super uneducated, super illiterate, or super immoral, super ungodly, super non-christian.
It doesn't work, you know, because, you know, there, for example, you know, I've read up on the history of Mexico quite a bit, super interesting.
Mexico but you know if you think about it during the 19th century there were times when they kind
of tried sort of you know uh libertarian type of ideas like like classical liberalism kind of you
know having more freedom and and and you know a more democratic system and you know even though
Because at that time in their history, you know, Mexico was like 85 to 90% illiterate.
Obviously, it's not that way anymore. Obviously, now in Mexico, people can read and write, you know,
it's totally different now. But I'm saying back then.
It was like even at the turn of the 20th century like, you know, when it became 1900
I think illiteracy was around 85%
You know, now thank God it's not that way anymore
But yeah, that's what it was like 150 years ago
And so then they ended up having, you know, a
dictator for a while called Porfirio Diaz and you know, that period of time is called the porfirio di apto
And during that time, yeah, there's a lot of corruption and a lot of cronyism and he's a dictator and I'm sure there were abuses and everything, but the country was like doing better under a dictator than when they had freedom simply because they don't, they're not mature enough to govern themselves if they can't read and write.
It's sort of like you don't see eight and nine year olds running their own house or having their own apartment, do you?
Right.
You can't give that kind of freedom to children.
And so if you want to have freedom, it's only going to work with mature people, with you
know, moral people.
And I believe that the American system of government is a pretty good system for a godly,
mature, literate, intelligent people.
That's why it has worked.
You know, they they often need to just be ruled over because they are not capable of governing themselves just like children
They need a parent
to rule, you know, a lot of these less literate societies,
they need a nanny state, in a sense,
or they need to be colonized or, you know,
ruled over in some way, because frankly,
they're just not capable of ruling themselves.
That's when fascism starts becoming attractive
for a population.
is when things have just gotten so bad and they just,
they hear someone saying,
hey, I'm just going to rule the iron fist
and take care of this.
And they're like, okay, please sign us up.
But yeah, it is funny what you were just saying,
because it makes me think of India,
back when the British were ruling over them,
India was a lot better of a place then.
And yeah, sure, there was a lot of racist people
during that time when Winston Churchill
was obviously a big pusher of colonizing the Indian people.
But like, at least, at least they were like benevolent racists, okay, where they like, wanted to bless them with waters and, you know, clean streets and stuff like that.
But it's just India has always been, for at least a long time, super godless, super immoral, rejecting Christianity, and like, that's why they have a terrible nation.
Okay, but you still love the Indian food though, right?
I don't even I think I've had Indian food once in my life. Okay, so that's a really diplomatic answer. You're being loyal to your mentor
I seriously don't even remember it was like 2017 or something and it was before there was ever any drama about it
So it just wasn't that memorable for me
I absolutely love Indian food. I'm not gonna lie
I you know, and there's there's a lot that I like about Indian culture and everything as well, you know, I've never been there
But obviously, yeah, there, there is obviously a lot of poverty and illiteracy, you know,
I'll blame that on Hinduism, of course. Absolutely. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. But there's, there's,
there are good things there. And it's, it's, you know, it's not about, you know, being negative
toward any, you know, particular group of people because, you know, it's, it's really just about
being literate and being Christian, you know, it's not about the color of your skin. You know,
You know, I think you can succeed with a more libertarian form of government, but if you're
just going to be a bunch of godless, wicked people, or if you're going to be illiterate
and uneducated, you know, you need to be ruled over, just like children need parents to rule
over them because, you know, what does the Bible say, you know, that the child, as long as he's
a child and under governors and tutors, you know, he differeth nothing from a servant.
Even if he's Lord of all, even if he's going to inherit everything, you know
Well, I think our founders definitely agree with you because you know president john adams famously said that our constitution was made
For a moral and religious people, you know, so this was definitely something that was on their mind too
During the time it was written
Yeah, that's great. And then the next verse says and this is of course a super famous verse that we all love
You know what's funny is that like
We just use a random number generator
Every chapter is just a banger of a chapter. Yeah, I think it's just because the Bible is just awesome
Yeah, I feel like there's so many great awesome verses in every chapter and you know
I mean, yeah some someone 18s an awesome chapter, but it's like I was kind of just last night
I was just kind of just um
hitting the random number generator a couple times and just just kind of just looking at random chapters
just just thinking about what it would be like to hit those chapters and I was just like everything was awesome. Hey man
You know and I did tell I told you this and I and you know the other pastors that I'm gonna do this with I
Mentioned them that if we if we ended up getting you know a really like
Obscure chapter where it's just like a list of names or something. You know, we could always just spin the wheel again
Yeah, so far we're two for two for just awesome chapters. Yeah, this is God's word. It's the best. Yeah
So the next verse says and this is the famous verse. This is the day which the Lord have made
We will rejoice and be glad in it. Hmm and man
Do I think about that verse a lot because you know, there's so many times where your life is is not?
The way you want it or you know, you're going through physical ailments or
Relationship problems or financial problems or just whatever trials and tribulations
And you know what we have to remind ourselves is that even when we have all these huge problems in our life
there's still a ton to be thankful for and
Sometimes I'll catch myself kind of feeling sorry for myself
But then I just look at everything I have and I'm like, well, how could I feel sorry for myself when I have all these blessings?
You know and I and I feel
Ungrateful, you know being too down in the dumps when there's just so much good, you know, like like even when I'm going through
persecution trials whatever
Sickness whatever, you know, I just think about all the good food I have to eat
the clothing that I have, the climate-controlled, comfortable house, comfortable bed.
I'm surrounded by family. I'm surrounded by, you know, wonderful people at my church.
I have so many friends, so many loved ones, you know, I mean, just in my home alone,
I'm living with nine other people here.
And I love all nine of them, you know?
And it's just, there's plenty of things to be thankful for.
I look in the backyard, see a swimming pool,
and I'm just like, you know,
how sorry can I really feel for myself, you know,
when I've been given all these blessings.
And yeah, I could sit here and talk about everything
that I don't like about my life,
but wouldn't you rather just
focus on the things that you do like about your life and just say,
you know what? This is the day which the Lord has made.
Forget about whatever happened yesterday, whatever crap we have to deal with tomorrow.
This is the day which the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
There's plenty to be happy about.
There's plenty of good that we can do today.
Yeah, and this verse also makes me think about the importance of living in the moment, too.
Because it says this is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. I think one of the
Traps of our modern society that we live in is it seems like it seems like most people are
Discontented they're always thinking about the next thing. What are they going to do next week? What's the next job?
What's the next house? What's the next thing?
And we just always just busy busy busy. It's it's maybe it's just our american culture
But sometimes it's good just to sit here and live in today and just be thankful for God today.
Be thankful for things that you have today and ask yourself,
what can I do to serve God today?
You know, never mind of, well, what's my ministry going to look like in 20 years from now?
I got to start making the plans and doing everything.
What are you doing for God today?
What are you thinking Him for today?
This is the day that the Lord hath made.
You don't even know if you'll have tomorrow.
You could die in a car accident tonight.
This could be your last day. Hey, rejoice in this day that God's given you.
Amen. I love it. You stated that extremely well. Very good.
Verse 25, Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord. O Lord, I beseech thee. Send now prosperity.
You know, prosperity comes from God. If we want to prosper, we need to meditate on God's Word day and night.
We need to not walk in the council of the ungodly,
stand in the way of sinners,
sit in the seat of the scornful,
but our delight should be in the law of the Lord.
And in his law, we need to meditate day and night.
You know, then whatsoever we do is gonna prosper.
And so, you know, if we want to prosper and succeed,
which obviously everyone does,
we need to realize that God is the one who actually
You know holds our destiny in his hand with that regard
Yeah, and I think prosperity can come in different forms. You know, obviously you have the big-name TV preachers that preach what we call the
Prosperity gospel, right that if you're doing what's right, you're gonna be healthy and wealthy and everything in your life is gonna be going great
Of course, we know that's not often the case, but like we talked about on the beginning of this chapter in verse 6
The Lord is on my side. I will not fear what can man do unto me
You know, that's a level of prosperity right there is just having peace
And so, you know, it is a guarantee that when you serve God, you will have some level of prosperity.
But, you know, a lot of times, that's spiritual prosperity.
And that's really what's more important anyways.
And hey, God could bless you with carnal prosperity too.
There's rich men in the Bible that lived high on the hog, if you will.
But really...
The spiritual prosperity is what I'm after. Yeah, absolutely. And and also, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be rich
But you know, I think it's prosperity
Just to be able to just have food in the fridge
Yeah, and have a bed to sleep in and have a car in the driveway even if it's not a fancy car
Just having a car a house a bed to sleep in, you know a backyard
it doesn't have to be rich or fancy or nice, just, you know, just to have those things and just to
be able to live comfortably in the sense that your bills are paid and you're not super stressed
about these things. I mean, that, to me, that's material prosperity.
Yeah. I mean, we're not just living with, with water, rice and a roof over our head. Like,
I wake up in the morning and I go out to my coffee maker and I have a cup of coffee, a really nice
every single day like that you drink it right like you you you drink it
Yeah, yeah, that's too far yikes
All right, so that you know the next verse here's another good one that's quoted in the New Testament blessed
Be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord
And obviously, again, the first thing that jumps to our mind,
the first thing that should jump to our mind
is the Christological application.
This is about Jesus.
He's the one at that triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.
But not only that though, if again,
we take the more like Old Testament generic interpretation
besides the prophetic interpretation,
really those who come in the name of the Lord,
should be blessed out of the house of the Lord.
And obviously the house of the Lord is the local church.
And if you think about it, you know, the local church, we as Christians should be, as the Bible says, lovers of good men, you know, or like the Bible talks about in the book of, you know, where he says, for his namesake, they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles, we therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers of the truth, book of third John.
You know, you have this idea of we as Christians are supposed to love the brethren and bless those who come to us in the name of the Lord.
You know, obviously the ultimate person who's blessed is Jesus coming in the name of the Lord.
But you know what? We're also coming in the name of the Lord.
All of God's people, all of those who are in Christ are also coming to the church in the name of the Lord.
And you know what? Obviously we're supposed to love one another as Christians.
and we're supposed to bless one another
and be kind one to another.
And, you know, when you think about, again,
the qualifications for the pastor,
he's supposed to be a lover of hospitality,
a lover of good men, you know?
And what's funny to me is when you see pastors
who are just so hateful,
to godly Christians and
Good men of God and and they'll even say oh this guy wins a ton of souls to Christ
But oh here now let me hate on him and trash him and you know, well, what's that about?
Yeah, everyone needs to be careful not to allow envy bitterness to get into your heart because it definitely
Makes Christians lose their mind and start acting wickedly for sure
Yeah, yeah, and it's just you know, we should love one another and and and bless people out of the house of the Lord like the church
Should bless God's people, you know, it should be it should be basically
first of all
educating them in the word of God
Also, encouraging them.
comforting them, motivating them,
stirring them up.
Those are all blessings, you know.
Like, how many times have you come to church
and been blessed by the service, right?
Or been blessed by the...
You've been blessed by the fellowship.
You've been blessed by the singing.
You've been blessed by the preaching, right?
You've been blessed out of the house of the Lord.
Amen.
Yeah, every time you go to God's house,
every single time,
even when I was going to churches that we
call the old IFB,
you know,
I was blessed by the singing, I was blessed by the word of God being preached, the word of God being read.
There was a lot of great things that were preached, even if it was like a sermon that I didn't fully agree with,
like, we're still reading the Bible here and I'm getting blessed.
So, yeah, anytime you're in the house of God, you feel that way.
Amen.
Yeah, verse 27 says,
buying the sacrifice with cords
Even unto the horns of the altar in this verse makes me think of the Lord Jesus Christ
The beginning part of verse where it says God is the Lord
I like to think that one of the applications of this is God is the Lord. I think about the Father
Which hath showed us light. I think about the Sun because in John chapter one it says and the light
shineth in darkness and
Comprehended it not
There was a man sent from God whose name was John the same came for a witness to bear witness of the light
That all men through him might believe
He was not that light
But was sent to bear witness of that light
That was the true light which lighted every man that cometh into the world. So which is jesus right the light of the world
Yeah, so god has showed us the light and it even talks about a sacrifice, which of course that light
Jesus Christ was of course sacrificed for our sins, so a beautiful picture there of Christ.
Oh, there's many great references to Jesus in this passage. I mean,
Jesus has clearly come up, you know, repeatedly in this passage. And then he says in verse 28,
Thou art my God, and I will praise thee. Thou art my God, I will exalt thee,
O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever.
And so again, just back to those main themes of the book of Psalms in general.
Praising God, thanking God, exalting God, lifting up his name on high because of all the great things that he's done for us,
the great things that he's done throughout history, and the great things that he has done with regard to our spiritual salvation.
Christ sacrificed on the cross that has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
And so, you know, there's just so much to rejoice about, so much to be happy about.
What a cool chapter, huh?
This was a good one, no?
Absolutely.
And just let's just appreciate the beauty of the King James Bible too, because I don't
know if this is a literary device or what the name of this literary device is.
But I love it when chapters start on a thought.
Then finish on that same thought, you know verse one talking about his mercy and earth forever verse 29
We'll give thanks unto the Lord for his good for his mercy and earth forever
You know, it's just a really powerful way to bookend all these great truths
We've been hearing about how the Lord's on our side how we're gonna get to see our desire upon those that hate us
Hey, God, you know chastises us, but not unto death. I'm still pleased and happy to be you know going to the gates of righteousness
And it's just, it's a wonderful, wonderful psalm and truly his mercy and earth forever.
Yeah, and you know, one of the things that I love about Psalms is, is how personal it is.
Mm-hmm.
Because, you know, some of the psalmists, they really open up their heart and really
talk about some personal stuff.
And, you know, the book of Psalms just feels really personal to me, and I think that a lot of times we are reading ourselves into Scripture, and I've heard people be negative about that, or chastised preachers like, oh, you're just reading yourself into every story.
But it's like, you know, I think everybody does that when they read the Bible, as far as, you know, we try to relate to Bible characters, you know, we see, you know, Peter doubting.
You know and sinking in the water we think about our self doubting or something or we think about
You know Job being persecuted and then we look at stuff that we're going through and say oh well, you know
At least i'm not going at least i'm not covered in boils
You know, even if i'm going through something different and and and so i think that when we read the book of psalms
We often read ourselves into it because he's talking about
Filling his bed with tears or something and then we think about times that we're crying and sad
you know what I mean like
There's a lot of personal stuff in Psalms and so I think we kind of end up reading ourselves into scripture
No matter where we're reading, but it seems like Psalms. It makes it especially easy to do that
Yeah, because God is a personal God like verse 28 thou art my God
I will praise thee. How can you not read yourself into that?
And, you know, what a comforting thought, what a blessing it is that God is my God, and that I'm going to praise him.
And that you could say the same thing of you. You know, that is a beautiful, powerful truth.
And I think that even not in the Psalms, yeah, I would read yourself into all the stories of the Bible because, personally, that's what helps me understand the Bible more.
Is when I'm really thinking about, like, instead of just reading words on a page, like, oh, yeah, this happened, like, put yourself there.
like, whoa, imagine these guys being dropped into hell, like, whoa, imagine the Red Sea parting,
put yourself in the story, it'll make the Bible more powerful to you that way.
Yeah, absolutely. And the Bible explicitly says,
take my brother and the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord for an example
of suffering, affliction, and a patience. Yeah. So he's saying, you know, look to these examples
and take them as an example for yourself, you know, that you would also follow in their footsteps.
do the things that they did right,
not do the things that they did wrong.
And so, you know, I like that kind of personal reading
of scripture and Psalms, like you said,
I mean, there's all these personal pronouns, I, my, me.
And when you read it, you're supposed to kind of be
applying that to yourself.
Like I'm just glancing down at the page, you know,
and I'm looking at Psalm 119, it's like, you know,
teach me, oh Lord, the way of thy statutes.
That should be our prayer to God.
You know, I mean, any of these things,
we could go on all day.
But hey, man, it was great.
It was great having you on.
I really enjoyed what you had to say.
And you had a lot of great insights on the passage.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate you inviting me.
I definitely feel like I have a deeper love for Psalm 118 now.
So thanks again, Pastor.
Awesome.
Yeah, and anybody who's watching this,
if you're not following Pastor Dylan Oz on X,
then make sure that you jump on and follow him.
on X. I kind of like X because it seems like, you know, we might be having some freedom of speech here.
Yeah, this was my first date. It's pretty cool. So
Yeah, I think it's great. We'll see. We'll see how long the party lasts, but yeah, absolutely. If you live in Oklahoma,
you know, Pastor Dylan Oz
is the pastor of Anchor Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.
And I highly recommend that church.
Well, I appreciate that and thanks everyone for listening. God bless you guys
Pastor Anderson you have a great day. Yep. You too. God bless