Man, the title of my sermon this morning is, Our Enemies Are Dreaming.
Our enemies are dreaming.
Look if you would at verse number 7 there in Isaiah 29.
And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, even all that fight against
her and her munition and the distress her, shall be as a dream of a night vision.
It shall even be as when a hungry man dreameth, and behold he eateth, but he awaketh and his
soul is empty.
Or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and behold he drinketh, but he awaketh, and behold he
is faint and his soul hath appetite.
So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.
Obviously this is an Old Testament scripture, so it talks about God defending Zion, defending
Jerusalem, defending Israel.
But of course we know that in the New Testament all of these promises apply unto us.
We are Israel.
We are Zion.
We are the chosen people.
We are God's elect.
It's no longer a physical nation like it was in the Old Testament, but rather it is the
New Testament people of God.
So when God talks about protecting his people, he's going to protect his people.
And that's us.
And the Bible says here that everyone who fights against Zion is going to be like someone
who is having a dream.
They're dreaming.
And you know, so we would say to them basically, dream on.
You will not defeat us.
You will not consume us.
You will not devour us.
Because they want to be satisfied by destroying God's people.
And it's going to be about as satisfying as when you eat in your dream, and you could
eat a huge meal in your dream, but you're still going to wake up hungry.
You could drink a lot in your dream, and you wake up and you're still thirsty.
They're not going to be satisfied.
They're not going to get what they want, is what the Bible is saying.
Now go back if you would to Psalm 11.
Psalm 11.
We're going to look at a lot of Psalms this morning.
Look at Psalm 11, and we'll see the same idea here, that our enemies are dreaming.
They can't win.
It's impossible.
Whatever they think they're going to achieve, whatever they think they're going to gain,
they're going to gain absolutely nothing.
They're going to get about as many calories as you get from fantasizing about eating food,
or fantasizing about drinking water in a dream.
Look what the Bible says in Psalm 11 verse 1.
In the Lord put I my trust.
How say you to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain.
He's like, what do you mean flee?
Why are you trying to put me in some kind of fear, or trying to intimidate me?
If I've got my trust in the Lord, then I'm not afraid of these people, is what he's saying.
Don't tell me to go flee to my mountain.
Well here's the reason why you need to flee to your mountain, verse 2.
For lo, the wicked bend their bow.
They make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privately shoot at the upright
in heart.
Now is that true?
Absolutely.
Of course, the wicked are constantly scheming and plotting against the just, and they make
ready their arrow upon the string so that they can secretly shoot at the upright in
heart.
And if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
But guess what?
The foundations shall never be destroyed.
So we don't have to worry about that because the Bible says in verse 4, the Lord is in
his holy temple.
So no matter what is accomplished on this earth, no matter what arrows are fired, no
matter what attacks on the word of God are made, the word of God is always going to be
sanded.
You know, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do, is a verse that's
often quoted when we talk about the importance of sticking with the King James Bible.
Because that's the, you know, the word of God is the foundation, so if you can corrupt
the foundation, what can we do, right?
If you have a corrupt Bible, then what do we base our faith on?
And that's why it's so important to make sure that we don't get caught up in these corrupted
modern versions that are twisting the word of God.
But in reality, the foundations will never truly be destroyed.
They might be destroyed in a certain area, in a certain household, but in general the
foundations are not going to be destroyed because God's always going to be in his holy
temple and the word of God is a rock that will never change.
The word of God will never be eradicated from this earth.
Now we defend God's word and we get up and preach against the false versions and we stand
for the right version and we stand for the traditional text, we stand for the received
text, but you know what, even if we didn't, it would still always be there because God's
going to preserve his word and it'll always be around.
The foundations will always be there because God's always going to be on his throne.
He said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
He said heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
And so the foundation is always there.
Jesus Christ is the foundation.
The Bible is the foundation and they're not going anywhere.
The Lord's in his holy temple.
The Lord's throne is in heaven.
But not only is God in heaven, not only is his word always going to be around, but God
is not just disinterested and kind of just sitting back watching it all play out, but
he is actually involved because the Bible says his eyes behold, his eyelids try the
children of men.
So his eyes behold, behold simply means to look at.
So it's saying, look, God is looking at the children of men and he's examining them, he's
testing them, he's trying them, and it says the Lord tried the righteous, but the wicked
and him that loveth violence his soul hateth, upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire
and brimstone and an horrible tempest, this shall be the portion of their cup, for the
righteous Lord loveth righteousness, his countenance doth behold the upright.
So when it comes to the enemies of God's people, they are for sure going to lose.
They're for sure going to be destroyed.
God is looking down from heaven.
He sees everything that's going on.
Maybe you're under attack or maybe you will be under attack someday for your faith and
the enemies of the Lord are always going to be defeated.
They're always going to be confounded.
No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper.
Anyone who devises schemes of attacking and destroying God's people, destroying Christianity,
destroying the Word of God or the work of the Lord, it's a joke, it's a dream.
They're dreaming.
They can accomplish nothing.
They can get up and promote their false phony Bible versions, but isn't it interesting how
the King James is just always still there, always still there.
And by the way, it's trending.
By the way, more churches are switching to the King James right now.
Even on Google Trends, the KJV is trending because of the fact that it's the true Word
of God.
It cannot be defeated.
All the imitations are always going to be out there.
And look, all the imitation churches are always going to be out there.
The phony churches, the phony Bibles, the phony religions, but yet the true churches
are always there.
The true Word of God is always there.
God's in heaven.
And so the enemies of the Lord are wasting their lives.
They're wasting their time.
They accomplish nothing.
Look if you would at Psalm 37.
Psalm 37, we're going to start reading in verse number 9.
I'll start reading while you get there.
Psalm 37 verse 9, for evildoers shall be cut off.
But those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.
For yet a little while, verse 10, and the wicked shall not be.
Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be.
But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
The wicked ploddeth against the just and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming.
The wicked have drawn out the sword and have bent their bow to cast down the poor and needy
and to slay such as be of upright conversation.
Watch verse 15.
Their sword shall enter into their own heart and their bows shall be broken.
You know the Bible says that people who attack the Lord or attack God's people, who attack
me, who attack you, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
They are going to destroy themselves.
They can't destroy us.
No one can destroy us but us.
Because God is for us.
No one can be against us.
No weapon that's formed against us shall prosper.
We are on the Lord's side.
He's our strength.
He's our shield.
He's our tower.
And we can't lose.
And those who attack us, they're destroying themselves.
They're ruining their own lives.
They're destroying their own future.
They are only hurting themselves.
They're not hurting us.
They're dreaming.
It's a fantasy.
You know, oh yeah, we're going to destroy this church.
We're going to, you know, we're going to get this church shut down.
You know, we're going to stop this preacher.
We're going to stop this man of God.
It's a fantasy.
It's a fantasy land.
It's not real.
It can't ever happen.
Look how they tried to destroy the word of God in the book of Acts and the more they
persecuted them, the more they multiplied and grew.
And we see them stoning Stephen, but what did they accomplish by killing Stephen?
They just created another Stephen that was even more powerful than the first Stephen
named the Apostle Paul.
And they just kept multiplying God's people.
The more they persecuted them, the more they just hurt themselves and destroyed themselves
and invoked God's wrath upon themselves.
And so the meek are going to inherit the earth.
We are going to be blessed.
Make no mistake, the wicked plot against the just.
Oh, you're paranoid.
It's a conspiracy theory.
The Bible says in verse 12, the wicked plotteth against the just.
That is a fact.
That is something that's happening all the time.
Wicked people, you say, why would they spend their lives on that?
You know, if they hate church, if they hate God, if they hate us, why wouldn't they just
go do something else?
Because they're under the control of Satan.
Because they're of the devil.
Because they exist just to hurt people.
Just because they want to get in and cause damage.
We can't understand their motives because we're not wicked people.
You know, you try to understand the mind of a serial killer, you're not going to.
Try to understand the mind of a Judas Iscariot, it's never going to make sense to you because
you're not a Judas Iscariot, you're not going to be able to comprehend what it's like to
be a reprobate, a traitor, an infiltrator, or whatever because you're not that.
When you're, you know, the Bible says unto the pure, all things are pure.
But unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience
is defiled.
You know, it's hard to put yourself in those shoes when that's not how you think.
But we need to just trust the Lord when he says that the wicked plot's against the just.
We need to trust the Lord when he said, look, there were false prophets among the people
and there shall also be false prophets among you that are going to bring in damnable heresy
and they're going to deny even the Lord that bought them.
And so we see that the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrows to shoot at the
upright in heart, they plot against the just, they gnash on him with their teeth.
Now does that sound familiar?
That's the same wording that's used in Acts chapter 7 when it talks about Stephen.
You know, Stephen preached that powerful sermon and they were cut to the heart and they gnashed
on him with their teeth.
Just grrr, you know, just grinding their teeth in anger and rage.
But it's not going to prosper.
They're dreaming.
Look if you would at Psalm 3, back toward the beginning of the book of Psalms.
Look at Psalm 3.
And you know, we're not even going to be able to look at all the Psalms this morning that
teach this because there are just so many.
This is a major theme of the book of Psalms.
But you know, when something comes up over and over again in the word of God, it means
that it's something that we need to think about.
Something that we need to pay attention to.
It needs to become a part of our mentality to realize that our enemies are dreaming.
They can't win.
They can't succeed.
And the more viciously they fight against us, the more they hurt themselves.
All we need to do is just keep serving God, keep on continuing doing the right thing,
and God will go to bat for us.
Look what the Bible says in Psalm 3, beginning in verse 1.
Lord, how are they increased that trouble me?
Many are they that rise up against me.
Many there be which say of my soul, there's no help for him in God.
Selah, but thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory in the lifter up of my head.
I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill, Selah.
I laid me down and slept.
I awaked, for the Lord sustained me.
You know, the Bible is telling us here that it's possible to have peace even when you
are compassed about with enemies.
Even when the wicked are gnashing on you with their teeth.
The Bible says in verse 6, I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves
against me round about.
He said in verse 5, I laid me down and slept.
I slept like a baby because I know that God is on my side, that no one can defeat me.
I'm not worried about it.
I'm not tossing and turning and fretting.
No, no, no.
I just laid me down and slept, and I woke up, and guess what?
When I woke up, God was still on my side and still defending me.
When they wake up, they realize that they've accomplished nothing and wasted their lives,
according to Isaiah.
Verse number 7, Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, for Thou has smitten all mine enemies
upon the cheekbone.
Thou has broken the teeth of the ungodly.
Salvation belongeth unto the Lord, Thy blessing is upon Thy people, Selah.
Flip over to Psalm 5, just a couple pages to the right, Psalm 5.
Verse number 8 says this, Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness, because of mine enemies
make Thy way straight before my face.
For there's no faithfulness in their mouth.
He's saying, you can't trust these people.
They're not going to do what they said they will do.
They're not faithful.
They're not reliable.
You can't trust what they say.
Their inward parts vary wickedness.
Their throat is an open sepulchre.
They flatter with their tongue.
So here's what he's saying.
You can't trust these people.
They're rotten on the inside, even though they're flattering you with their tongue.
See flattery is when people give you compliments, but they're typically compliments that are
out of place.
Compliments that are over the top, overboard, or they just don't fit.
That's flattery.
Right?
Now, there's such thing as a legitimate compliment that someone can give you, but you know, when
you're not good looking and you got strangers telling you how good you look, you know, you
got to be warned at that point, right?
I mean, strangers are coming up to you and telling you how good you look and you're thinking
like, I don't look that good.
You know what I mean?
That's legit.
Or people just give you overboard praise.
And look, as a pastor, I have to be aware of this.
There are constantly sycophantic people that are trying to get close to me so that they
can harm me or harm my family.
They try to get in with my family.
They'll flatter me.
They'll flatter my kids.
They'll flatter us because they want to get in there and they're deceivers.
But it's not just a pastor that needs to be aware of this.
We all need to be aware of this.
You know, when people are flattering us, we need to stop and ask, you know, what's the
catch?
Because the Bible says that the one who flatters you, they're setting a trap for you.
You know, they're laying a snare for you.
And so, you can't trust these people.
They flatter with their tongue.
You know, their inward part is very wickedness.
But look at verse 10.
Destroy thou them, O God.
You say, well, how dare you say something like that.
No, no, that's the Bible.
I'm reading the Bible right now.
I mean, what if I got up and prayed a prayer in 2021 and said, God, just destroy these
people.
Of course, amen, right?
Because I'd be just basically praying exactly like the Bible taught me how to pray.
Lord, teach us to pray.
Here it is.
We've got all these scriptures in the book of Psalms that people just ignore.
It doesn't make any sense, my friend.
If I got up and prayed, destroy these people, God, people would say that I'm what?
Oh, you're hateful.
You're a hate preacher.
It's hate speech.
What does the Bible say?
It says destroy thou them, O God.
Let them fall by their own counsels.
Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee.
But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.
Let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them.
Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee, for thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous.
With favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield.
You say, what about bless your enemies, love your enemies?
Here's the thing.
Notice the problem with these people is not just that they've crossed David.
The problem with these people is that what?
Look what the Bible says.
It says they have rebelled at the end of verse 10.
They've rebelled against who?
He's saying, God, look, these people have rebelled against you, God.
These people are your enemies, God.
It's not about the fact that they crossed David.
And you know, the proof of this is that if there's one person in the entire Bible who
loved his enemies, you know, besides Jesus, of course, of course, Jesus loved his enemies.
He did everything right.
But as far as a human being that, that loved his enemies, you know, David is a supreme
example of this.
David is a supreme example of this because Saul was his all-out enemy.
Saul took away his wife from him.
Saul is trying to kill him.
Saul repeatedly chases him and hunts him and tries to kill him even though he did nothing
wrong.
Saul lies to him and, I mean, just a terrible enemy.
And David was 100% in the right and Saul was 100% in the wrong.
And yet we see David just constantly extending mercy to Saul, defending Saul.
And then when Saul dies, David's crying about it and blessing Saul and blessing Jonathan.
And he was always loyal and loving his enemy Saul.
Why?
Because Saul was not the Lord's enemy in the sense of, you know, hating God or obviously
he had, you know, obviously gone against the Lord.
So in that sense he was.
But he was not like a God-hating reprobate is what I mean to say.
Because if you think about it, you know, Saul, yes, he got backslidden and prideful and sinful
and whatever, but he's still the Lord's anointed.
And that's what David pointed out when people said, man, why don't you just destroy Saul?
Why don't you fight Saul?
Why won't you hurt Saul?
He said, well, I'm not going to put forth my hand against the Lord's anointed.
So it's not about a personal beef.
You know, it's not like, well, I have a beef with someone.
Destroy them, O God.
That's the wrong attitude.
But when someone's an evil, reprobate, hater of God, wicked person, then that's where these
kind of prayers come into play.
You know, man, destroy these wicked people, O God, these, these Judases, these horrible
false prophets, these enemies of all righteousness, these enemies of the Lord, destroy them.
And so it's kind of funny how people will look at the book of Psalms and try to discount
all these passages we're looking at and they'll say, oh, that's just David talking.
That's kind of funny because when I look at the character of David and they're basically
saying he's wrong, which is absurd because this is God's word.
It's the Psalms.
But and by the way, these are actual songs that the children of Israel sang in their
worship.
I mean, they would go to the house of God and sing these songs just like we come to
church and sing songs.
This was their songbook literally.
Okay.
But here's the thing about that.
Oh, that's just David.
I guess he just had a problem with not loving his enemies.
That's, that's ridiculous because we know David didn't have a problem with that at all.
David was really good about that.
He was one of the best examples in the whole Bible about that.
But you know what?
He did hate God's enemies.
That's why David said in Psalm 139, do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee, and am
not I grieve with those that rise up against thee.
So he basically is, is, you know, cursing these people because they've rebelled against
the Lord, not because they've rebelled against him.
Because he's not the issue.
And you know, when people do us wrong, we're supposed to love our enemies, do good to them
that hate us, and so forth, despitefully use and persecute us.
But there are other people who are reprobates, haters of God, just evil, wicked perverts,
predators.
And that's where these prayers are appropriate of just destroy them, break their teeth in
their mouth, et cetera.
So we want to make sure we understand that distinction, I'm sure most people do.
It says in verse number, I actually go to chapter 6, Psalm 6, verse 7, the Bible says,
Mine eyes consume because of grief, it waxeth old because of all my enemies.
Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
The Lord hath heard my supplication, the Lord will receive my prayer.
Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed.
Let them return and be ashamed suddenly.
Now the word ashamed is an interesting word in the Bible.
If you look up all the different times it occurs.
But what this is referring to is when someone has an expectation of something happening
and it doesn't happen and they're kind of let down, that's part of the idea behind this
word ashamed.
You know, that's why the Bible says, you know, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Like he's not going to let you down.
If you put your faith and trust in Christ, he's going to save you and he's not going
to let you down.
You're not going to be ashamed.
And so here he's saying the enemies are going to be ashamed.
That means they thought they were going to win.
They thought they had this in the bag.
They thought they had the victory.
They thought they're going to destroy the man of God.
They thought they're going to destroy the people of God.
He says they're going to be ashamed.
They're going to be like that guy who's in the dream, right?
He's asleep at night and he's dreaming and he's eating that great meal and he's
so happy and it's so good and then he wakes up and his stomach's growling.
He wakes up and he's starving and there's no more cereal in the cupboard and he's got
nothing.
Somebody, somebody commented on my YouTube channel that I've been bringing up cereal
a lot lately so I don't, I don't want to disappoint them.
You wake up and there's no Cinnamon Toast Crunch at all, okay?
That is the worst.
So you know, he's saying, look, these people are going to be ashamed.
You know, they, they think like, oh man, this is so, this is going to be great.
We got them now.
But how many times have we seen it in our lives?
Look, I've been pastoring for 16 years and I've seen the enemies that have come down
here and said, we're not going to stop until Pastor Anderson's finished.
We're not going to stop until this church is shut down.
We're not going to stop until he stops preaching hate or whatever they accuse me of, right?
You know, it reminds me of in the book of Acts what they say about the Apostle Paul.
We're not going to eat or drink until Paul's dead.
Years later, Paul's not dead.
They either ate or drank or they're in trouble, right?
So you know, that's what's going on and look, it's not just preachers.
You know, when the Bible says, touch not mine anointed, do my prophets no harm.
Yeah, that's about preachers.
But you know what, even as God's people, you also have protection from God.
You don't have to be a pastor.
You don't have to have the title to have protection from God because you know, every single Christian
is anointed by the Holy Spirit.
So you're the Lord's anointed.
As long as you're saved, you're the Lord's anointed in that sense because you're anointed
by the Holy Spirit.
And you know what, if you're out soul winning and you're out preaching the gospel to every
creature, you know, you have a special protection on you.
You have God's blessing on you because you're his ambassador.
And so, you know, to mess with you is to mess with him.
I mean, think about what if the ambassador from a certain country came over here.
Let's say the ambassador from China is over here, right?
And let's say that we as Americans, we take the guy and just beat him up and just make
fun of him and shave his head and just, you know, just kind of just humiliate him, tattoo
him with something weird and then send him back to China.
What do you think is going to happen?
Because basically, we just be like, well, we just didn't like this guy.
We just had an issue with this guy.
You think they're going to believe that?
Well, it's nothing against China.
It was just this particular guy's, you know, we, no, no, he, if he, he's the ambassador
for China.
So you know, you have to mind your P's and Q's with this guy, right?
You have to be careful.
I mean, if an American ambassador is in another country and somebody messes with them, they're
basically messing with America at that point, right?
Because that person represents America.
The Chinese ambassador represents China.
Does everybody understand that?
I mean, if you send an ambassador, and here's the thing, throughout history for thousands
of years, you know, if you send an ambassador, even if you're at war, even if the two countries
are at war, when you send an ambassador, it's like, okay, ceasefire.
This is an ambassador.
We need to talk to this guy.
And there's going to be a truce while we talk to this guy or whatever.
You know, these things are sacred.
You don't mess with the embassy.
You don't mess with the ambassador.
That's why people, when they're in another country and things go bad, they flee to the
embassy, right?
If we're in another country and we're getting arrested wrongfully or something, man, we
want to get to that U.S. embassy because that U.S. embassy is like a sacred holy ground.
You know, maybe the police are chasing us or something, and we run into the embassy
and the police just have to stop because their jurisdiction stops because it's like, hey,
we don't want to violate the embassy.
If we violate the embassy, it could be seen as a hostile act.
It could be seen as an act of war, an act of aggression, right?
Does everybody understand?
Well, guess what you're sitting in?
God's embassy.
You are right now, we're in a foreign land today.
The United States is a land that's foreign to us because we are Christians and our citizenship
is in heaven.
This world's not our home.
We are just resident aliens in the United States.
Every single one of us is a resident alien today if we're saved.
Because our citizenship's in heaven.
We're just sojourning here.
And so we come to the house of God, and the house of God is the embassy.
It's God's embassy.
It's the embassy of heaven.
And so an attack on the church is an attack on God's embassy.
And an attack on you personally is an attack on God's ambassador.
You know, you're out there and you're soul-winning.
You're bringing the gospel and you're showing people how to be saved.
You know, someone assaults you.
You know what?
That's an act of war on God Almighty.
And you know what, you think God's just going to sit back and say, well, you know, it's
no big deal.
No, he's going to defend you.
Is there any doubt about it?
Is there any question?
You are God's ambassador.
You will be defended by God.
God will go to bat for you.
The church is God's embassy.
And it will be defended by God.
He said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And so we don't have to worry about being defeated or attacked by God's enemies because
we know that the power of God is there to protect us.
And that he will destroy these people.
And that's why we don't have to take vengeance into our own hands.
You know, sometimes when things happen, we're tempted to want to go bring the battle to
them, aren't we?
You know, you get angry and you say, man, these wicked people, let's go take it to them.
But we don't need to do that.
All we need to do is realize that vengeance belongs unto God and that he will repay.
And the meek shall inherit the earth.
We turn the other cheek, God will destroy these people.
That's what the Bible says.
What did we just read?
Which verse?
What chapter?
6.
Are we in 6?
Okay, let's go to chapter 17, Psalm 17.
Let's go to Psalm 17 and start in verse number 7.
The Bible reads, show thy marvelous loving kindness.
O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee, from those
that rise up against them, keep me as the apple of thine eye, as the apple of the eye.
Hide me under the shadow of thy wings, from the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly
enemies who compass me about.
Now you might think that sounds scary, like man, just deadly enemies surrounding you?
Because to compass about means to surround.
And you say, well Pastor Anderson, you know, I've been a Christian for a long time, I just
don't feel like I've ever been surrounded by deadly enemies ever at all.
Well you know, what I would say to that is, you know, are you even in the Lord's battle?
Because you know, people who stay home from battle, they're not surrounded by enemies
either.
But the Bible says ye and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And so if you live godly in Christ Jesus, you end up suffering some persecution.
And maybe you are living godly in Christ Jesus, and you've not yet suffered any persecution.
That's okay, just wait, it's coming.
Don't feel left out.
And I remember when I started Faith Forward Baptist Church, I've been pastoring for like
a year and a half or so, and I was talking to a preacher friend of mine, and he was telling
me all these horror stories about all the persecutions and all the things that had happened.
Just really hair-raising stories.
And I told him, I said, you know, that's funny guys, I haven't been persecuted at all.
Am I doing something wrong?
What am I doing wrong?
Because I'm not being persecuted at all.
He said, oh, when I'd been pastoring for only a couple years, I hadn't been persecuted either.
You know, give it some time.
And you know, you give it some time, and it's, you know what?
The Lord is faithful.
It will happen.
Alright?
It's true.
And so if you serve God, even if you're not a pastor, if you serve God, you're going to
experience persecution.
You're going to experience adversity.
And here's the thing, there's a relationship between how much adversity you suffer and
how much you serve God.
Those things are related.
So the more you do for God, the more enemies there are going to be.
If you're not doing much, there aren't going to be that many enemies, right?
The more you do, the more enemies there will be.
And so you have to realize that the deadly enemies surrounding you is a reality that
you either are facing now, maybe you will face, or you're eventually going to face,
if you do a lot for God.
But David says, you know, yeah, I'm surrounded by deadly enemies, but I'm not worried about
it though.
I laid me down and slipped.
It's like, what do you do when your house is surrounded by deadly enemies?
Well, if it's bedtime, I'm just going to go to bed.
And obviously that's, you know, being facetious.
But figuratively speaking, you know, I'm not going to literally go to bed in that situation,
but figuratively speaking, you know, it's just like, yeah, just go to bed, wake up and
God will still be protecting me.
They'll be gone.
From the wicked that oppress me, verse nine, from my deadly enemies who compass me about,
that means they surround me, they're enclosed in their own fat.
With their mouth, they speak proudly.
They've now compassed us in our steps.
They've set their eyes bowing down to the earth, like I was a lion that's greedy of
his prey.
So their eyes are bowing down to the earth.
It's like when people look at you like, you know, they like, they lower their face and
they kind of like look at you like this, you know, like a, like a beast, right?
Like a lion, like, like an animal of prey.
And he's saying, they're enclosed in their own fat.
What is it?
Is he just saying, oh, by the way, they're fat.
No.
When he says they're enclosed in their own fat, here's what he's basically saying.
He's saying, look, they appear to be prospering, you know, because this is, this is coming
from a time when food wasn't as abundant as it is right now.
So back then, in order to get fat, you had to have a lot of money to be able to afford
all that food and afford all that leisure.
Whereas now today in America, we kind of live like kings, so we can be fat whenever we want.
It's a piece of cake.
Getting fat's easy for us.
But back then, you know, if somebody's enclosed in their own fat, you know, this is somebody
who's prospering.
Not to say it was ever healthy.
It's just to say that, you know, this person seems to be living an easy life because they've
got an abundance of food and an abundance of, of leisure.
Okay.
That, that's what he's saying here.
He's saying, man, they look like they're doing well and they're surrounding us.
They seem blessed.
They're surrounding us.
They seem like they have strength and power and they're kind of looking down at us greedily
like a lion looks at his prey and as it were, a young lion lurking in secret places.
Verse 13, Arise O Lord, disappoint him.
I love that phrase.
Disappoint him, disappoint him, cast him down, deliver my soul from the wicked, which is
thy sword.
And so we see here that they're going to be ashamed.
They're going to be disappointed.
It's not going to be what, isn't that what disappointed means?
It's not going to be what it's cracked up to be.
You thought you were dreaming.
Dream on buddy.
Oh, I'm going to destroy God's people.
I'm going to take down pastor so and so.
I'm going to take down brother so and so.
I'm going to take down sister so and so.
And then you wake up and you've accomplished nothing.
Just like the man who's having a dream.
He eats a great meal.
He wakes up starving.
In fact, if you dream about eating gourmet food and you wake up from that, you're probably
going to be even hungrier than if you had not had that dream because now it's on your
mind.
You know, you wake up from that dream of drinking all that water.
You're going to be even more thirsty.
And so these people, they're not going to be satisfied.
They're life spent attacking the work of God or assaulting God's people.
It's not going to bring any kind of satisfaction to their soul.
In fact, it's going to leave them with an even greater lack, an even greater appetite.
They're going to feel even worse.
They're going to accomplish absolutely nothing.
Look at Psalm 18.
Psalm 18 verse 35 says this, thou has also given me the shield of thy salvation and thy
right hand is holding me up and thy gentleness has made me great.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me that my feet did not slip.
I've pursued mine enemies and overtaken them.
Neither did I turn again until they were consumed.
I've wounded them that they were not able to rise.
They're fallen under my feet.
For thou has girded me with strength under the battle, thou has subdued under me those
that rose up against me, thou has given me the next, thou has also given me the next
of mine enemies that I might destroy them that hate me.
They cried, but there was none to save them, even to the Lord, but he answered them not.
Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind.
I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
Thou has delivered me from the strivings of the people and thou has made me the head of
the heathen, a people whom I've not known shall serve me.
As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me.
The stranger shall submit themselves unto me.
The stranger shall fade away and be afraid out of their close places.
The Lord liveth and blessed be my rock and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
It is God that avengeth me and subdueeth the people under me.
He delivereth me from mine enemies, yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against
me.
Thou has delivered me from the violent man.
Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen and sing praises unto
thy name."
This is Psalm 25.
Psalm 25.
Folks, the whole book of Psalms is like this.
Over and over again, this is hammered.
That's why I don't understand some people's mentality when they, you know, they hear hard
preaching and they're shocked.
It's like, well, did you forget to read the book of Psalms?
You know, I'd like you to sing the Psalms.
But if you're not going to sing them, can you at least just read them?
And you'd get your doctrine right.
You'd get your understanding right.
You'd get a balanced view of the Lord.
And you'd have peace in your heart because so many people today are worried, aren't they?
People are stressed out.
They're nervous.
And our country is going through kind of a strange time right now, the understatement
of the century.
I mean, strange things are happening right now.
Very weird things that you would have never imagined.
I mean, right now in California, there's a transvestite running for governor.
As a Republican.
What?
Am I telling the, who, who, who says I'm telling the truth?
Can I get a witness, sir?
There's a literal transvestite, you know, running for governor in California as a Republican
against the Democrat incumbent, Gavin Newsom.
I mean that's pretty weird.
You know, and, and, and, and people get nervous about stuff like that, you know.
And somebody said, well, you know, Gavin Newsom's just as bad.
Yeah, but at least I don't have to like, you know, pour bleach in my eyes after I look
at Gavin Newsom.
You know what I mean?
At least, at least my eyeballs don't get sodomized by looking at Gavin Newsom.
Whatever, you know, and yeah, he's a piece of trash as well, but you know what?
We're living in some bizarre times where this kind of wickedness could even happen for five
seconds.
Where, where, where, where any Republicans would be, I mean, what is the world coming
to?
And it's like, oh man, what's going to happen?
But you know what?
I'm not worried about that at all.
You know, I'm just sitting here just, just with my popcorn, just like, whatever.
Let God burn it all down.
Even so, amen.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
You know, you think about our economy.
I mean, there are strange things going on with our economy.
The government just keeps mailing me more money.
And I just keep having more kids and they just keep mailing me more money.
And I'm just like, okay.
But in the back of my mind, I'm wondering, you know, what's this doing to the economy
down the road?
Just all the trillions and trillions, I get these letters in the mail, they want to send
me more money.
And I'm just like, okay, I'll cast the check.
But look, I mean, and look, the economy is in a strange time right now.
It's kind of unprecedented.
We don't know what's going to happen.
You know, plywood is like a hundred dollars or something, right?
Is that on a good day?
How much is a piece of plywood these days?
70 or 80 bucks or something for a piece.
And I think about how many times I had spare wood around my house and I'm just like burning
it.
Just like, I don't want to store this.
I can just buy more if I need it.
And it was, you're burning gold.
But you know, you know, there's a lot of inflation happening.
You know, strange things with just, you know, when you're just shelling out 2 trillion here,
2 trillion there, you know, you don't really know what's going to happen.
People get nervous.
They wonder, you know, what's going to happen for Christians.
What's going to happen with coronavirus, what, you know, what's going to happen with this
other disease that sprung up in India and different, you know, people worry about this
stuff.
But you know, at the end of the day, we need to just rest in the Lord and just trust the
Lord and not worry about it.
There's nothing that that transvestite over in California can do to hurt us because we're
in Arizona.
Amen.
But you know what?
I don't care if I was in Cal, I don't care if I lived in Sacramento, California.
You know what?
And that transvestite got elected.
I wouldn't be worried at all.
I wouldn't be worried at all because you know what?
God's got an embassy in Sacramento too.
God's got an embassy in Los Angeles.
God's got an embassy in Fresno.
God's got an embassy in Phoenix.
Hey, there's always the embassy.
And even when you walk out of the embassy, you're like a walking embassy because you're
the ambassador.
You take the embassy with you everywhere you go.
And the Bible says the angel of the Lord and camp with round about them that fear him.
And so I'm not worried about the economy because I know that God's going to take care
of me.
But you know what?
Not just me.
I know God's going to take care of you as long as you love God.
If you love God, the Bible says all things work together for good to them that love God.
I believe that.
So God's going to work it out for you.
God's going to take care of you.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
Not just me, but you.
Now them out there, I can't make any promises.
I can't make any promises about what's going to happen out there.
But I know that I'm going to be taken care of.
I know you're going to be taken care of because you love God.
I love God.
And if any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.
Oh, oh, how do you say?
That's a New Testament Bible verse.
Read the New Testament sometime.
So he says in Psalm 25, this used to be a really famous song when I was a kid.
This is one that we would sing all the time in church.
Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
Oh my God, I trust in thee.
Let me not be ashamed.
Let not my enemies triumph over me.
Don't let me be ashamed.
He says, Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed.
Let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.
Let them be ashamed.
Let them be disappointed.
Let the joke be on them, Lord, but protect your people.
And you know what?
That's exactly what God's going to do.
He's going to disappoint them.
He's going to confound them.
He's going to destroy them.
They're going to be ashamed.
They're going to be confounded, disappointed.
They are going to be starving.
And the food that they ate is just in their dreams because they will never consume us.
You know, I was reading somewhere else in the Bible this week.
I don't remember which part.
It just kept talking about the wicked just opening their, I think it was later in Psalms,
opening their mouth wide to just swallow.
They just want to just swallow up God's people in there.
Their mouth is just open wide to just swallow everybody.
And you know what?
They are not going to get a single bite of God's people, okay, because we are protected
by God.
The angel of the Lord camps about them that fear him.
They are dreaming.
In fact, let's sing the song right now, right?
Psalm 25.
Who knows the song?
All right, let's do it.
The two of us.
Anybody else know the song?
All right, we got about three of us.
You know what?
This is just the more reason why we need to sing it because nobody, I thought it was going
to be like half the church and I was going to be like, all right, it's going to be easy.
Let's do it.
Let's sing the song right now.
Do I lift up my soul, it's an echo thing, to Thee, O Lord.
Do I lift up my soul, O my God, I trust in Thee, let me not be ashamed, let not mine
enemies triumph over me.
All right, next verse.
Yea, let none that wait, on thee be ashamed, Yea, let none that wait, on thee be ashamed,
O my God, I trust in Thee, let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over
me.
You know, once you've prayed that prayer, don't worry about it.
Nuts to these people.
You know, and if you're going to spend your life just worried about the enemies and everything,
you're going to become an angry person, you're going to become a bitter person, you know,
going on the news every day and seeing what all the enemies and the haters and all the
bad people are doing, you know, you're just going to get stressed out, you're just going
to get mad.
Why don't you just go to sleep?
Why don't you just lay down and sleep and rest and wake up and you know what, God's
still going to be sustaining you, everything's still going to be good to go.
Trust in the Lord.
He's the strength, He's the shield.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You know, the Bible says, what shall we say then to these things, I'm going to close
with this, you can turn there if you want, it's from Romans 8, but I'm going to start
reading in verse 31.
What shall we say then to these things?
If God be for us, who could be against us?
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him
also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justifies.
Who is he that condemneth?
You say, ah, these people are lying about me, they're slandering me, they're condemning
me.
Well you know what, they can't condemn you because God knows the truth, God knows you're
innocent.
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea rather than has risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
You know, you've got Jesus at the right hand of God, he's going to bat for you, he's interceding
for you, he's looking out for you, he's against the enemies, he's for us, nothing can separate
us from the love of Christ.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, verse 35, shall tribulation or distress or
persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written, for thy sake were
killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter, nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us, for I am persuaded that
neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to
come nor Biden nor Bruce Jenner nor the Democrats nor the Republicans nor coronavirus nor Catholics,
Mormons, Muslims, Chicoms, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord, nothing, nothing!
So who can destroy us?
No one.
Who can hurt us?
No one.
We're invincible!
Nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And if God's for us, no one can be against us.
No one can be against us.
Don't worry about it, chill out, relax, hang loose, baby.
You know, you don't have to sit there and just worry about everything that's going on
and be scared all the time, number one.
And number two, you don't have to get mad and hateful and angry at the enemies all the
time.
No, look, is there a time for anger?
Yeah.
There's a time to love, time to hate.
But you know what, don't let the sun go down on your wrath.
Be angry and sin not.
And don't let the sun go down on your wrath.
And you know what, every night, why don't you just let it all go?
Just let it all go and just relax and just thank God that he's up in heaven seeing everything.
It's just not fair!
It's not fair!
You know what, God will settle it.
God's going to take care of it.
My paycheck wasn't fair!
God will take care of it.
God is going to go to bat for you, but you know what you've got to do?
What your responsibility is, is not to worry.
It's not to stress about it.
It's not to get out and take the battle to them and go fight them.
No, here's what you need to do.
You need to keep doing God's work.
Seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Why don't you just read your Bible, love your family, be faithful to church, get out soul
winning, pray to the Lord.
Why don't you just do the stuff you're supposed to do?
Be faithful.
Just work on being a good Christian.
And just let God work on everything else and he'll take care of it.
You know what?
I've been doing this for 16 years and I've made some enemies.
I've been compassed by some deadly enemies, but yet here I am.
And you know what?
Next year, I'll be here.
The year after that, I'll be here.
You say, what if someone, what if someone comes in and kills you or something?
If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
And you know what?
But guess what?
If anybody actually were to kill me, they would just make my preaching a hundred times
more popular than it already is, right?
So go ahead and kill me and then I'll be up in heaven just watching all the view counts
on YouTube go through the roof, right?
And I'll be in a better place and more people will hear my preaching.
I'll be doing more.
I'll accomplish more.
To die is gain.
To live is Christ.
To die is gain.
Hey, you know what?
I hope that God allows me to live a long life.
I would love to become a very old man and keep serving God all the way to the end and
see my children's children and great grandchildren and everything.
But you know what?
I've already lived a great life so far and I don't mean that I've lived a great life
like I did good things.
I mean I've received great things.
I'm saying like I've lived a great life as in it's been great.
It's been a great ride.
It's been a great run.
Go ahead and kill me now and you know what?
It's been a great run and I'm thankful to the Lord for all the days that He gave me
and everything I was able to accomplish and I will just become even more powerful of a
preacher than I was before I got killed.
So guess what?
You're just dreaming.
If you think that killing me is going to accomplish anything, you're dreaming.
That's why I'm saying I can't be destroyed.
They're going to take you off YouTube.
There will always be some pirated bootleg floating around.
There will always be a way to get it.
Because you know, whenever the government makes stuff illegal, you can't get it anymore.
Just like drugs, right?
It's just like drugs.
I mean, you know, when drugs are illegal, there's no drugs.
Just like a gun-free zone.
There's no guns there.
Folks, there's nothing to fear.
Fear not.
Trust the Lord.
Lean on His protection.
And you know what?
Be happy.
Joy.
The joy of the Lord's your strength.
It's easy in these times to become a bitter person.
I've seen people over the last couple of years become kind of a bitter person.
And people have even come to me and even asked me for advice
and said, like, Pastor Anderson, you know, I'm just, I'm unhappy.
I'm angry because I keep seeing what's going on in the news every day and it just bothers me so much.
I'm like, well, that's easy.
You don't even need my help to counsel you right now.
What would I tell them?
Quit watching it.
Quit reading it.
That's a quick fix.
It's like, you know, every time I go like this, my arm hurts.
Quit doing that.
Every time I'm reading the news, I'm getting stressed out.
Did you know that you could literally go your whole life without ever reading a newspaper?
And you could live a full, happy life and it wouldn't even matter.
Like, why do you need to know?
I don't even care.
Like, something's going on in Palestine right now.
I'm not even sure what it is.
I'm not kidding.
I haven't read a single article so I don't understand it.
I don't care.
It's not important to me.
But you know what?
The sun still came up in the morning.
Birds are chirping.
Everything's fine from where I live.
Hamas didn't send any rockets over here.
Nor did the Israelis.
So I'm fine.
I'm fine.
Thank you.
I'm doing fine.
I'm in the middle of a planet and it's like we have to hear about it every day.
Isn't that a little too much for one person to handle?
Isn't it kind of hard for one guy in Tempe to worry about bombs going off in Israel at the same time I'm worried about like a brain eating fungus in India?
At the same time I'm worried about, you know, it's just like, it's too much for me to handle.
I can't take it all.
It's like overload.
Because with eight billion people, somebody's getting murdered all the time.
Somebody's getting a disease all the time.
Somebody's fighting all the time.
Something's blowing up all the time.
It's just, you know what, though?
Tell me about it when it's on my block.
You know what I mean?
Because I can't handle hearing everything that's in the world.
But you know what, some of you, you hang on every word of it.
And look, if that's entertainment for you,
I don't want to take away your fun.
You know what I mean?
Because it's better than going to the bar
and getting drunk every night.
If that's what you do for fun, if you
think it's fun to read the news every day,
I'm not trying to take away your fun.
But if it's making you an angry person, a bitter person,
a stressed out person, then I would
recommend just realizing that you can survive
without the news.
It's doing nothing for you.
You'll be fine without it.
This is the only newspaper I need.
You know, this is today's paper, as far as I'm concerned.
Read the paper.
This is the paper.
There's no comics or anything, but you know, it's the paper.
The articles are better.
Our enemies are dreaming, amen.
As far as I know, a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord,
and your protection, and that you love us and take care
of us, Lord.
And we just pray that you would please just
help every single person that's here, Lord,
to experience the peace that passeth all understanding,
the peace where the whole world can be coming down around us.
And we know that you're on your throne,
you're looking down from heaven, and you've
got everything under control.
And so Lord, help us to have the faith to believe that, Lord.
And help us to just focus on doing our part,
doing the commands that you've given us.
Help us to focus on our responsibilities
to our family, our responsibilities to our job,
our responsibilities to church, or to whoever
we're responsible to.
But most importantly, our responsibilities to you.
And Lord, we're just going to let you deal with whatever's
going on in other parts of the world.
And we're going to let you deal with things that
are out of our control, Lord.
And we're going to let you deal with that transvestite
and break his teeth out of his mouth or whatever, Lord.
But we're not going to worry about it because it's not our problem.
And we thank you so much for blessing us, Lord.
Help our church, the embassy here, to continue to thrive and grow.
And Lord, just to spiritually succeed.
And in Jesus' name, we pray.
Amen.