In Psalm chapter 4, it says in the first verse there,
Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness.
Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.
Have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.
So twice in that verse, he's asking God to hear his prayer.
He says in verse 3,
But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself.
The Lord will hear when I call unto him.
Now you say, wait a minute, doesn't God just hear everybody's prayer?
Well, David said this,
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.
And so God does not hear everyone's prayer, unfortunately.
In fact, the Bible says in the book of Psalms,
I don't have the exact scripture in front of me,
but it says that, you know,
if someone turns away their ear from hearing the law,
even their prayer is abomination, the Bible says.
You know, God doesn't want to hear from somebody
who doesn't want to hear from him.
Because God's law is right here in the Bible.
And if we aren't going to listen to God,
then God's not going to listen to us.
Because if we turn away our ear from hearing the law,
even our prayer will be sent, the Bible says.
And here he's basically asking God,
Hear me when I call.
I want God to hear my prayer.
Now look as you would at 1 John 3.
Right at the end of the New Testament,
shortly before the book of Revelation,
1 John 3 will tell you one way to get your prayers answered.
Because, see, if you're constantly praying to God,
and God is not answering you, then something is wrong.
You know, God should be answering your prayers.
He's promised to hear us and to answer us
and to show us great things.
And so if God's never answering your prayers,
then something's wrong.
Even number one, you're not praying.
Number two, well, let's see what number two is.
It says right here in verse number 22.
Well, look at verse 21, actually, of chapter 3.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not,
then have we confidence toward God.
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him
because we keep his commandments
and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
So part of getting your prayers answered,
according to this, is to keep God's commandments
and to do the things that are pleasing in his sight.
Now that can be a reason why people's prayers aren't answered.
They're doing things that are displeasing to God.
They're not keeping his commandments.
They're not reading the Bible.
God's not going to answer their prayer.
That's what the Bible says.
In fact, God won't even hear them.
Look at chapter 5, just a few pages over to the right.
Look at chapter number 5, verse 14.
And this is the confidence that we have in him.
That's the exact word that it said in chapter 3
about having confidence toward God.
That if we ask anything according to his will,
he heareth us.
And if we know that he hear us whatsoever we ask,
we know that we have the petitions
that we desire of him.
Now flip back to the book of James.
Just go back a few pages to the book of James, chapter 4.
And look at James 4.1.
The Bible says,
From whence come wars and fighting among you?
Come they not hence, even of your lusts
that war in your members?
Ye lust and have not,
ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain,
ye fight and war,
yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
So that's the first problem.
If you're not giving your prayers,
that's because you're not praying.
But he says,
ye ask, in verse 3,
and receive not,
because ye ask amiss.
Which means you're asking wrong.
He says ye ask amiss,
that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
So basically, God is saying,
look, if you pray to me,
if you obey me and keep my commandments
and do my will,
I will hear you when you pray,
I'll hear you when you call upon me,
and I will answer you and give you your petition,
I'll give you what you ask for.
But he says, you know,
you've got to do the right things,
you've got to keep his commands.
But he says you can't pray for things
just to consume upon your lusts.
Pray for things that fit into God's will.
So if I'm just praying and just saying,
oh God, please give me this ice cream cone
as a little kid or something,
that's just this lust for food.
That's not what God is really interested in.
Oh, let me just dispatch one of my angels right away
to make them.
Or you sit there and say,
oh God, please give me a sports car.
Oh God, please give me this fancy suit
that I'm going to wear,
and please give me this fancy house of the waterfall
and that water slide and a tennis court.
Look, it's not just your lust for money,
your lust for power,
your lust for food,
your lust for things that God wants to fulfill.
That's not what prayer is for.
He wants you to pray for spiritual things,
pray for things that fit into his will.
Nothing that consumes upon your lust.
Not just, God, fill my lust.
That's not the prayer that he's going to answer.
If you say, give us this day our daily bread,
he's going to answer you.
He's going to feed you.
He's not necessarily going to feed you
with the best, tastiest, most wonderful food
every single time.
He's going to sustain you and keep you alive.
Look back at Psalm 4, if you would,
go back there.
We saw some things in the New Testament
about getting your prayers answered.
You've got to do what he wants you to do.
You've got to keep his commandments.
You've got to be praying,
and you've got to be praying for the right things.
Now, sometimes God does not always answer our prayers
in the timing that we want either.
But if you take the time to wait,
you will see that God will basically answer your prayers.
For example, my sister was telling me
that she keeps a journal of every time that she prays.
She writes down major prayer requests.
She just gets it out.
Sometimes she does it all the time.
But she gets it out every few months,
and every few months she writes down
everything that she's praying for right now.
You know, at this time in my life,
this is the things that I'm praying for,
and she makes this list.
And then she goes back, and she said
when she goes back on that list,
six months later, 12 months later,
basically she'll either cross stuff out
because God answered that prayer,
or other things she'll say,
well, I don't even want that anymore.
You know, that's not even...
Now I understand why that would not be what I want.
And so she'll either change it and say,
no, I didn't even want that in the first place,
or she'll say it's been answered.
And she said it's amazing how many prayers are answered,
and when you write it down,
it's when you really recognize that.
And so God answers prayer.
I mean, God has answered many prayers.
Many times I've called upon Him,
and He's answered me.
And God has said that He'll protect us,
He'll feed us, He'll do these things for us,
but we've got to call upon Him and ask Him.
Now, many people today are Calvinists,
where they think that God is just up in Heaven
controlling everyone like a puppet.
Now, that's a strange God, my friend,
because He's really making people do a lot of weird things,
is what I say.
I mean, He's really making people do a lot of sick
and evil things in this world,
and that's why I think most people who are Calvinists
are perverted to an extent,
because I've heard some of these Calvinist preachers
talk about how God is the one
who ordained people being molested,
and God didn't just allow it.
I mean, God planned it, and God did.
I heard Dr. Jack Scott make a statement like that.
He said these people who have been molested,
they need to understand it wasn't just God allowed it,
but it actually came across His desk up in Heaven.
That's what Scott said.
It came across it, and he put his stand to approval
and allowed that, like, yes, go ahead and do that.
I mean, that is the most filthy and perverted doctrine,
and that's why I can't see how any normal righteous person
could have a God that basically is doing these things,
I mean, that He's controlling people who do evil things.
No, that's not what the Bible teaches about God.
What the Bible teaches is that man,
the wicked imagination of his own heart
does all these wicked things.
God, Ecclesiastes 7.21,
God hath made man upright,
but they have sought out many inventions.
God made man perfect.
It's man who dreams up all the filthy things.
It's man who does...
That's why it says in Romans chapter 1,
where it says God gave them up to vile effects,
He said God gave them up to uncleanness
through the lusts of their own hearts.
So where did all this filthy perversion come from?
Not from the mind of God.
It came from their perverted heart.
Let me give you further proof.
In the Old Testament,
God brought up the fact that the heathen
were doing human sacrifice to Molech.
And God said this.
He said, I neither commanded that,
neither came it into my mind.
That's what God said.
He said, that did not even come into my mind
to sacrifice your children unto a god, unto Molech.
He said, that was never commanded,
nor did I even think it up.
So don't tell me that God's up in heaven
just controlling all the wicked things in this world.
And that's why I think the people who believe that,
I mean, it's a perverted doctrine.
And I can understand people who go to the church
and they've just been taught that
and they're just going along with it,
but I mean the preachers who preach this
are sick people,
because if they can think,
if that's their image of God,
I mean, that's pretty sick.
That's not what the Bible teaches.
God is good.
God is the source of all things good and right.
Man in his wicked heart has dreamed up wicked things.
And so get that clear.
You say, why do you bring that up?
Well, because a lot of people
who have this Calvinist mentality think,
well, I'm not going to pray because they say,
well, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen anyway.
Or then Calvinists will say,
well, even though it's going to happen anyway,
I'm going to pray just so that I can have a part in it,
even though it's going to happen anyway.
No, my friend, the reason that I pray
is because I want something to change.
Amen.
I'm praying because I want God to do something.
Amen.
God said you have not because you ask not.
It doesn't sound like it's just going to happen anyway
whether you pray for it or not.
Oh, people are going to get saved
whether you go tell them or not.
God will find a way to get them saved.
No.
How should they hear without a preacher?
How should they preach except they be sick?
And so we need to be praying.
If we want God to step in,
don't expect God to step in in your life
if you're not asking Him.
If you're not praying,
don't expect God to give you things
because you've got to pray
and then He'll answer your prayer and give you things.
And so praying does change things.
It's not just this exercise that we do
like five times a day, we point toward Mecca,
you know, we get on our knees
and go through some kind of a ritual.
No.
No, I mean, prayer is when we ask God to change something,
ask God to do something,
ask God to give us something that we need,
that would actually be beneficial to us,
not just to consume upon our life.
But look at, are you in Psalm 4?
Did I have to turn to Daniel 9?
Flip over to Daniel 9.
Put your finger in Psalm 4
because obviously that's where we're going to be tonight.
I'll read the scriptures from Psalm 4 again.
Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness.
And then a little bit later on,
He said, Hear my prayer.
Verse 3, He said,
The Lord will hear me when I call unto Him.
See, David had that confidence
because he knew that he was doing God's will.
Look at Daniel 9.
This is a really interesting passage.
It says in verse number 1,
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus
of the seed of Medes,
which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans,
in the first year of his reign I, Daniel,
understood by books the number of the years
whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet
that he would accomplish seventy years
in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Verse 3,
And I set my face unto the Lord God
to seek by prayer and supplications
with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
And I prayed unto the Lord my God
and made my confession,
and said, O Lord, great and dreadful,
keeping covenant and mercy to them that love him
and to them that keep his commands.
And he goes on and he prays and prays and prays
and look down, if you would, let's jump down
to verse number 20.
He's praying and he's basically confessing
all the sins of his fathers and all the sins of his nation.
In verse 21 it says,
And while I was speaking,
so he's in the middle of praying,
and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel
and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God
for the holy mountain of my God,
yet while I was speaking in prayer,
even the man Gabriel,
whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning,
being caused to fly swiftly to touch me
about the time of the evening of Laetian.
And he informed me and talked with me and said,
O Daniel, I have now come forth
to give thee skill and understanding.
At the beginning of my supplications,
the commandment came forth,
and I have come to show thee,
for thou art greatly beloved,
therefore understand the matter and consider the vision.
And skip down, if you would, to, let me find the verse up.
I'm having trouble finding the verse I was looking for.
Let's see here.
Does anybody know what I'm looking for?
I thought it was right there.
Good night.
Oh, here we go, here we go, I got it.
Chapter 10.
I was right there.
Okay, look at chapter 10, verse 1.
In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia,
a thing was revealed unto Daniel,
whose name was called Belteshazzar.
And the thing was true, but the time appointed was long,
and he understood the thing
and had an understanding of the vision.
In those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.
I ate no pleasant bread,
neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth,
neither did I anoint myself at all,
till three whole weeks were fulfilled.
So basically, he's not kind of a bread and water.
Just he's in sackcloth, he's mourning, he's weeping,
he's praying for three weeks straight,
just on bread and water,
he's not eating any good foods or anything.
And that says, in verse number 4,
and in the four and 20th day of the first month,
I was by the side of the great river, which is Hinnikel.
Then I looked up my eyes and looked,
and behold, a certain man clothed in the living,
whose points were girded with the fine gold of ewe fast.
And he explains basically this whole, you know, vision,
but jump down to verse 10.
He says, and behold, a hand touched me,
which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hand.
And he said to me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved,
understand the words that I speak unto thee
and stand upright, for unto thee am I now spent.
And when he had spoken this word unto me,
I stood trembling.
Then said he unto thee, Fear not, Daniel,
now watch this, for from the first day
that thou didst set thy heart to understand
and to chasten thyself before thy God,
thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
But the prince of the kingdom of Persia
withstood me one and twenty days.
But lo, Michael, one of the chief princes,
came to help me, and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
Now I am come to make thee understand
what shall befall thy people in the latter days,
for yet the vision is for many days,
and on and on it goes.
So in chapter 9, he got on his knees
and was praying to God.
He prayed this really long prayer in chapter 9
that we jumped over, okay?
But he prays this great big long prayer,
and while he's in the middle of praying,
basically God brings the answer to his prayer, okay?
But then in chapter 10, he prays again.
This time, 21 days go by before he gets an answer to his prayer.
And I mean, he's starving himself,
he's mourning, he's weeping,
and basically he finds out that from the very first moment
that he prayed, the first day that he prayed,
God heard his prayer, God loved him, he said,
and God wanted to answer him,
and he basically sent this angel with the answer to his prayer.
But it took him 21 days to get there, okay?
Because he got tied up.
And you know, it's interesting,
there's a spiritual warfare going on, basically,
is what's going on.
You know, there's all the devils and the angels
that are like having this spiritual warfare,
and that's what's going on in this passage.
And you know, we don't see it, we don't know what's going on,
but we wrestle not against flesh as blood,
against principalities, against powers,
against the rules of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places.
And so his answer to prayer, and we're talking about Daniel,
I mean, this is a great man.
He's praying, he's begging God,
and yet it took 21 days to get the answer.
So basically, God is not always going to answer it
in the timing that you made me think.
Or maybe he even does answer it,
but it just takes longer for that answer to take effect.
And so don't give up on prayer.
Prayer without ceasing.
Don't give up and say, well, God's not hearing me,
I better take these into my own hands.
Okay, Isaac had to pray for 20 years
because his wife was buried,
and after 20 years, she had the twins, Jacob and Esau.
And so you have to give God time to answer your prayer
and not give up on it.
Keep praying, keep trusting God,
keep waiting upon the Lord.
Abraham did not wait, remember?
He basically lied with his handmaid
because he didn't have the faith
to wait for God to answer his prayer.
And so it can take time sometimes.
And look, when I read this story of Daniel right here,
it makes me think, man, I need to be praying.
Because if there's all this other crazy stuff going on
that I don't even know about, you know,
these devils and the forces of evil
that I don't even understand what they're doing,
I better have God on my side.
I mean, I better be praying to get some help on my side here
because this spiritual battle's obviously too much for me,
too much for you.
And so that's another reason why we need to be praying.
So that's just an interesting passage in Daniel 9 and 10
about how it can take a while to get your prayer answered.
Sometimes it just gets lost in the mail or whatever.
You know, it takes time to get there.
But look at Psalm 4.
I want to show you something else in verse 1.
It says, hear me when I call, O God, of my righteousness.
And then look at this next phrase.
Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.
Now, that's what basically is saying
sometimes the times that you grow the most
is when you're in distress.
What does it mean to be enlarged?
To grow.
And he's basically saying that he was enlarged
in the time of distress.
Think about this.
Have you ever seen people where they got an adrenaline rush
and they picked up a car that was smashing a kid or something?
Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
All of a sudden they have super human strength.
You know, the car is smashing a kid.
Grrr!
It's adrenaline.
I mean, it's a real phenomenon.
Because sometimes you're only as strong as you need to be.
Like, I was thinking about this.
When we were kids, we would have contests of push-ups.
And it was like, well, how many push-ups are you going to do?
Now, it's amazing.
Because if you said, I'm going to do 30, after 30,
you were tired.
And you couldn't do anything.
But if you said, I'm going to do 40, you blew right past 30.
And then when you started getting to 40,
you started getting tired.
And it's real.
I mean, it's a phenomenon.
It's psyching yourself up for how much you have to do.
That's how much strength you're going to have to do it sometimes.
And so God sometimes is going to put us through
some very strenuous and trying situations
to try our faith, to strengthen us.
Because that's the only way we're going to grow.
I mean, if we just live this cush and easy, smooth life,
we're never going to grow.
In fact, we're going to get weak.
We're going to get soft.
Think about it.
If you didn't do any physical activity,
you're going to go soft.
You're going to get flabby.
You're going to be soft.
You're going to get weak.
But if you're constantly being pushed and strengthened,
it's amazing how, in our life,
we always have a plan in our life
about how we're going to get everything straight.
You know, this is how we're going to get our finances on track
and we get it all planned out, right?
This is how I'm going to get my family on track.
It's all planned out.
This is how faithful we're at at this church.
We're going to get organized.
The church is going to be just humming along.
But you know what?
It always seems like just about the time
you're just about to get things straightened out,
it all falls apart.
I mean, I was thinking about my finances.
You know, I have my finances.
I was working on getting my business to a point
where I didn't have to work so much crazy overtime
because I was working just way too many hours
and too much traveling.
And I was just trying to get it to a point
where I wasn't in such an intense mode.
I didn't want to live such a stressful life
and die young and stuff.
So I was like, I need to tone things down.
So I was working and working and working to get to a point.
And I was just about got to that point
and I had about three weeks where I was really coasting.
And I was like, man, this is great.
I finally got this business going.
It's kind of just running itself.
You know what I mean?
I could just put in like a normal work week
and be done with it.
And then I lose my biggest customer, the whole thing.
It all falls through.
And now I'm back doing all the work myself.
It's just back to where it was a couple years ago.
But I think God allows that to happen
because he doesn't want us to get too comfortable.
Because we get too comfortable, we get prideful.
Because, oh yeah, we don't need to pray
because we have everything.
And so God likes to keep us a little hungry sometimes.
And we don't like it, but it's true.
God likes to keep us in positions
where we're being pushed and strained.
And sometimes we're put in danger
because he wants to strengthen our faith
and he wants us to trust him and rely upon him.
And it's all because he's trying to enlarge us.
He's trying to build us.
The Bible says the trying of our faith
is much more precious than gold.
And so we need to endure the temptations.
We need to endure the strain that God puts on us.
And sometimes it's hard.
I mean, bad things happen, horrible situations.
But God is allowing that to happen
in order to strengthen us and in order to enlarge us.
And David said, you know, that's when I was enlarged,
was when I was in distress.
What does distress mean?
Think of a distress signal.
SOS.
It's when you're in danger.
It's when you're in an emergency.
He said, that's when I was enlarged.
Later on in the book of Psalms, David said,
it's good for me that I have been afflicted,
that I might keep thy word.
Psalm 119.
He said, I'm glad I've been afflicted
so that I could learn the Bible,
so that I could grow in the Lord.
Look at the rest of the verse there.
It says, have mercy upon me and hear my prayer.
O ye sons of men,
how long will you turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love vanity
and seek after lies and zeal?
What is lies and deceit?
And think about this now.
There are people who actually seek after lies.
There are people who desire to be lied to.
Now that's a strange thought to me.
Because I've always wanted to know the truth in my life.
Growing up, during school, you want to know the truth.
You grow up, you start thinking about religion.
You want to know the truth.
I grew up a Baptist,
but there were a lot of things that I was taught
that were incorrect.
And I didn't just say, well, this is what I'm taught.
I'm just going to keep on believing it
and keep on preaching.
No.
I got to the point where I said
I'm going to read the Bible
and find the truth for myself.
I'm not just going to blindly follow this.
I want to know the truth.
But sadly, there are some people
who don't care about the truth.
Do you ever have soul winning
and you show people a point of my own Bible
and they just don't care,
they just want to follow their religion,
even though they see it right there in their own Bible?
Why?
Because there are people
who like to be lied to.
There are people who said in the book of Isaiah,
you know, prophesy unto us smooth things.
And they said, the next thing they said,
after they said prophesy smooth things,
prophesy deceit.
Lie to us.
It's like where the Bible says
that there will come a time
when they'll not endure sound doctrine,
but after their own lust
shall they keep to themselves teachers
having itching ears
and they shall turn away their ears from the truth
and shall be turned unto fables.
People who actually tell the preacher,
lie to us.
Tell us what we want to hear.
Prophesy smooth.
You say, Pastor Anderson,
you're not very smooth when you preach.
Why, thank you.
And look, I'm not smooth.
I'm not trying to be smooth.
You know what some people
have said about me before?
Well, he's a good guy
but he's a little rougher on the edges.
You know what I mean?
You ever heard that?
He's a great guy
but he's just a little rough around the edges.
Good.
I hope I'm always rough around the edges.
I want to be more rough than that.
You know, I don't want to be smooth.
You know, like, what's that kind of music?
Smooth jazz.
You know, welcome to faith.
And you know, the disc jockeys
on the smooth jazz station,
they talk in this really soft voice.
You know, other stations
are talking like normal voice or loud.
Or sometimes they're even talking
like that infomercial guy
that just passed away.
What was his name?
Billy Mays.
Sometimes they have a Billy Mays voice.
But, you know, the real smooth voice,
like, you're listening to 92.3 smooth jazz.
You know, welcome to Faithful World Baptist Church.
Turn your Bibles tonight to Psalms Chapter 4.
And let me soothe you with the Word.
Soothe you with the promises of God.
You know, this is what people like to hear.
Now, it blows my mind.
And I see these, you know, these preachers,
and you know, you hear them on the radio
or, you know, these kind of TV evangelist type guys,
the Joel Osteen or whoever.
And whenever I see a clip of these guys
or hear these guys,
I'm always just thinking,
like, who listens to this?
Don't you think this is?
Like, who listens to this?
And yet you look at the crowd,
there's like 10,000 people.
And you're like,
does anybody actually listen to this guy?
And then they hand it to the crowd,
and it's like 20,000.
And I still listen to this guy.
And I still,
if you can explain it to me after the service,
explain it to me,
because I don't get it.
I don't get it how the biggest churches in Phoenix
are just these gigantic, love, you know,
the smooth, peace, whoa, feel good.
And it's just so boring.
It's boring to hear the same thing
over and over again.
You know, to just have somebody
just patting you on the back continually.
It's boring.
It's a lie.
It's deceit.
Anybody who's just as happy all the time
and positive all the time
and everything's great all the time
is a deceiver.
Jesus was a man of sorrows
and a queen of reprieve.
Okay, he wasn't just going around
and praying all the time.
And so don't be deceived.
Don't be lied to by the...
There's this one Jesus movie.
You know, these Jesus movies
that they've come out with for years.
And, you know, Peter always has this giant afro,
and Jesus has the long, flowing hair,
and he's wearing a dress and everything.
But there's this one particular Jesus movie.
And a lot of them don't have names.
A lot of them are just called Jesus
or Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus whatever.
But there's this one Jesus movie
that's actually known as the Smiling Jesus movie.
Now, that's not what it's officially called,
but that's what it's come to be known as
because in this movie,
Jesus is smiling all the time, okay?
And it's known as that.
People refer...
Are you talking about the smiling film?
And there was this thrift store
that we used to shop at in Sacramento,
and they had a TV on the counter,
and it just looped the Smiling Jesus movie
the whole time.
That's all that we ever find.
And I literally walked up to it,
and I see it,
and Jesus is chewing out the Pharisees with a smile.
And it was the part in Matthew 23,
and he's literally smiling.
You generation of vipers.
Joe, how can you escape the damnation of hell?
He's like smiling and preaching about hell and all.
It was weird.
But that's because our society says,
oh, if you're not happy all the time,
something is wrong with you,
take these pills
because there's something wrong with you
because you're depressed.
You have depression.
You're down.
You know, oh, man, don't just live with it.
You know, you see a film?
Don't live with depression.
You don't have to live this way.
Just take this drug.
You'll be great.
And that's what the world will tell you.
But let me tell you something.
It's normal to be sad,
to be upset,
to be angry,
to be happy,
to go through the different phases of emotion
just like God does,
just like he created us in his image,
to have these normal emotions of sadness,
sorrow, anger, happiness,
joy, peace.
I mean, this is part of being a human being.
Okay?
And so don't buy into this.
You know, we seek after the vanity.
And by the way, these churches are vain.
They're worthless.
That's what vain means.
Empty, worthless.
You come and just hear some kind of motivational speaker.
That's not going to change your life.
Right.
Somebody telling you, you know,
oh, you're wonderful.
You're great.
You're smart.
People like you.
You're good looking.
It's not going to make you look any different
than the way you look.
But it's just, you know,
this motivational speaker is just going to tell you,
oh, everything's great.
You're going places in life.
You are somebody.
Common faithful word.
You know, I'll tell you how to be somebody.
Because I'll open the Bible and preach to you
that God has works that He before ordained you to walk in them.
Amen.
That's going to make you somebody when you do God's work.
Not just because you look in the mirror and say,
I love the way that I look right now, you know.
I feel good about myself.
Because Joel, Joel told me, you know,
that I can live my best life now and all this stuff.
But he says in verse number 2,
oh, you sons of men,
how long will you turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love vanity?
And seek after leasing, see that.
But know that the Lord has set apart
Him that is godly for Himself.
The Lord will hear what I call to Him.
What does it mean to be set apart?
To be holy.
That's what set apart means.
To be sanctified.
And God says that He has set apart
Him that is godly for Himself.
He basically takes you,
once you decide to separate yourself
and to do God's work and to follow His laws,
He sets you apart for Himself.
Now, that's where I want to be.
I want to be sanctified,
separated to where I basically belong to God.
I belong to Him.
I take orders from Him.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
When He says set apart for Himself,
it means I don't have two masters.
You know, God and mammon.
God and money.
God and the denomination.
You know, God and these other people
that are pulling me in another direction.
No, God has set apart Him that is godly for Himself.
He wants you to be His and His only.
You only take orders from Him.
He set you apart for Himself.
And you know, that's the way I want to be as a preacher.
I don't want to take orders from you in the pew
to tell me, oh, this is what we want you to preach.
This is what we want you...
Now, if you have a suggestion of something
that I'm leaving out in my preaching,
then by all means let me know and I'll preach it.
But I'm going to tell you something.
You are not the boss.
God has to be the boss.
I've been set apart, okay, for God.
And so I belong to God.
God owns me.
God pays my salary.
Not that I take a salary from the church,
but God's the one who provides for me
and in my business.
Even just me working in the firearm business.
I know that's God providing for me.
I recognize that.
And so I'm on God's payroll.
God owns me.
God tells me what to do.
Not anybody else.
I mean, I can't have two masters.
I can't answer to more than one master
when it comes to these key areas.
And so he's saying the Lord has set apart
him that is godly for himself.
The Lord will hear what I call unto him.
Stand in awe and sin not.
You see, we'll not sin when we realize
how powerful God is, how great he is.
That's what he's saying.
Stand in awe and sin not.
You see, many people today flippantly,
casually sin because they have a little respect for God.
That's why.
But if we have great respect for God
and his magnificence and his power,
that he created the whole world,
that by him all things consist,
we're not just going to blow him up and say,
well, that's what God said,
but I don't really care.
I'm going to do what I want to do.
No, if we have respect for God's holiness,
if we stand in awe of his great power,
we're not just going to blow up.
We're going to see what he says.
And when he says jump,
we're going to ask how high.
And we're not going to sit there and say,
oh, well, that's what God's will is,
but I have other plans, you know,
or I have another situation that doesn't fit in with that.
No, we need to stand in awe and sin not.
He said this,
Commune with your own heart upon your bed
and be still, Selah.
Commune with your own heart upon your bed and stand still.
This is what many people today have missed
because of our society of electronics
where you are never in quiet at all.
I mean, think about this.
Nowadays, even when you're pumping gas,
and this is new,
it didn't used to be this way,
but when you're pumping gas,
they're playing music
and sometimes even a TV screen at the gas pump.
Who's seen the TV screen at the gas pump?
Okay, who's seen the TV screens at Walmart?
I think the Walmart at Elliott and,
am I right about that?
The one on Priest and Elliott.
I go to Walmart about once every like two years,
but, you know,
so I don't know if they're still there or what,
but whenever I was there last,
they had this TV screen in the checkout aisle.
Why?
Because the devil just wants you to never think.
He doesn't want you to stop and think about,
like, what's going on in the world.
He doesn't want you to think about what the Bible says.
He doesn't want you to stop and think,
well, you know,
what am I doing in life?
What is my life really about?
What am I,
what's going to happen when I die?
Okay?
What is the purpose of life?
What is the meaning of it all?
He wants you to just be caught up in just this make believe,
just you're going straight from movie to radio to friends
to internet to video game to music,
and then your clock radio,
it's set to music, you know,
and it comes on.
It's playing music.
You listen to that music while you're in the shower.
You get out of the shower.
You turn on the TV.
You sit in front of the breakfast with the TV playing.
Then you get in your car to go to work.
You turn on the morning show.
I mean, this is literally some people's life.
No quiet.
Turn on the morning show.
Then you get to the office.
You walk in the office and work.
Hi, how you doing?
There's music playing at the office,
background music,
or you go to work at a restaurant.
The music is blasting.
You go to work at the airport.
The music is playing.
You go to work at the mall,
the department store.
The music is playing.
You go to the construction job site.
The boomboxes are blasting.
They're playing music,
and it's just you hear that all day at work.
Then you get in your car.
Then you've got to have your drive home
with Ken and Paul.
I don't know.
It's always these people's names.
They're your buddies.
These are your friends.
These are your buddies.
Mitch and Ralph and John
on the afternoon drive home
will get you home.
You get on them,
and they talk,
and they talk.
Then you get home,
and oh, let's make dinner.
The TV's on throughout dinner.
You've got your sitcoms.
You've got your TV shows.
Then when dinner's done,
they go sit down and watch a movie.
You sit down and watch a movie.
Then when you're done with the movie,
it's the Late Late Show.
Then you fall asleep
watching the Late Late Show.
You wake up in the morning
when your clock radio goes off
playing music.
I mean, this is people's life.
I mean, is what I'm saying
just totally out in left field
or ridiculous or silly?
No.
That is literally how some people live.
Yet God says this.
He says,
Commune with your own heart
upon your bed or on your head.
He says,
and be still.
Sit still for a minute
and relax and think.
He said in another place,
be still and know that I'm God.
We need to meditate.
When Rebecca was brought back,
remember that the servant
went on a journey in Genesis 24
to go get a wife for Isaac,
and she goes and gets Rebecca
from his home country.
What was he doing
when she got there?
He was sitting out in the field
meditating.
He's out in the field thinking,
and that's what we ought to do.
Take time to think.
Meditate.
Commune with your own heart.
Not always,
well, I'm going to commune
with my buddies.
I'm going to commune with TV.
I'm going to commune with my friends.
No, commune with yourself.
You've got to take private time
alone by yourself.
Yes, to pray.
That's important too.
Yes, to read your Bible.
Very important.
Sometimes you just need
to take time with yourself.
Not even praying,
not even reading the Bible,
but just communing
with your own heart.
If people would think more,
they would stop and get out
of just the rush and the hubbub
and actually stop and think.
They might actually seek after God.
They might actually make some
better decisions in their life
because they can just stop
and step back and relax
and just think things over.
Commune with your own heart.
It reminds me of when Nehemiah said,
I consulted with myself.
A lot of times,
we have advice for everybody else,
but then when things happen to us,
we make all these wrong decisions
and these dumb decisions
when we would never give that advice
to other people, what we're doing.
We need to consult with ourselves
and stop and say,
and I ask myself this all the time.
When I have a decision,
I always pretend,
okay, what if somebody at church
walked up to me
and they were in the same position
that I'm in right now
and they asked me for advice,
what would I tell them?
A lot of times,
that will open my eyes
about what I should be doing
in my life
because sometimes,
we're so emotional
and caught up in our own situation
that we can't see clearly
like an outsider can.
That's why it's good
if I sit there and say,
what if Brother Dave came up to me
and was in this situation that I'm in,
what would I tell him to do
because I'm going to be all hard on him.
Man, you need to do what's right.
You need to have faith in God.
Oh ye of little faith,
you're being weak, you know.
But when it's me,
it's like, oh yeah,
what am I going to do?
That's why you've got to stop
and look at it that way
and commune with your own heart.
Consult with yourself
like you'd have a consultation
with a counselor.
And a lot of times,
we go to counsel,
you go to the pastor
and say, oh pastor,
give me advice,
give me counsel
when really,
if you would consult with yourself,
you already know the answer.
You already know the answer.
But the problem is,
you just don't want to do it.
You've got to be able to
step back from your life.
And I like to do this every once in a while.
I just step back and say,
what am I doing in life?
Where am I going?
What's my life about?
And take that over to you.
And I think a lot of people
who are unsaved
will probably be more open to get saved
if they would stop and think about it.
Then when somebody knocks on the door,
they'd say,
tell me how to do it.
Because they'd stop and think about,
wait, I'm going to die.
What's going to happen?
I need to know.
I need to look into this.
Instead of just being so caught up,
like many young people and teenagers
that we knock the door in Tempe, for example,
college students just blow us off.
College students will just blow us off.
When I first started this church,
I thought to myself,
oh, we're going to reach
all kinds of college students.
I was like, man,
we're going to reach
so many students at ASU.
But the reality is,
most of the time,
they just blow us off.
I mean, we get a lot of people saved
in other parts of town,
but that's probably the hardest area of Soling
is on that campus.
Because when we're on that campus,
they're just too caught up
with the cares of this world.
And they're just so busy
with all the cares
and all the weeds choking it out
that they just don't even have time
to stop and think about God
or the Bible.
They're just too busy
to hear the truth.
But as Christians,
we need to stop
and take some time to think.
Think things through.
Think about decisions
that we're going to make
and be still, be silent.
Don't always,
one final thing to say about that,
just don't always,
24 hours a day,
have some electronic device going.
Even if you're listening to preaching,
even if you're listening
to the Bible on CD,
I mean, that's great
to listen to the Bible on CD.
It's great to listen to preaching.
Even if you're just,
and there's not a whole lot else
that's great to listen to.
But if you're listening
to people that are godly
and righteous,
that are telling you good things
and whatever,
okay.
But let me tell you something.
Take some time
to just be quiet.
And that's what I love
about our house.
We haven't had a TV
since we've been married,
but, you know,
our house is not quiet
because we have
five screaming kids,
but when the kids
go to bed, though,
I mean, our house
is totally quiet.
Man.
You know,
and when they're awake,
then the kids are loud.
But anyway,
but we love the kids,
so we're glad they're there.
Anyway,
quickly, it says in verse five,
offer the sacrifices
of righteousness
and put your trust
in the Lord.
There will be many that say,
who will show us any good?
Lord,
lift thou up the light
of thy countenance upon us.
Thou has put gladness
in my heart
more than in the time
that their corn
and their wine increase.
What does that mean?
Well, he's basically saying
that there are a lot
of people out there
who,
all they really say to God,
all they really ask for
is just things for themselves.
This is kind of like
what we saw in James 4,
like asking a mist
to consume it
upon your lust.
He's saying there are a lot
of people out there
who basically pray and say,
oh God, you know,
show us some good.
You know,
lift out the light
of thy countenance upon us.
But he says,
you know what?
He said,
I've got more gladness
in my heart
than in the time
when their corn
and their wine increase.
You see,
if you're a Christian
who's serving God
and doing his will
like David was,
you can have more happiness
even through the leanest times,
right,
even through the poorest time,
or you don't have the right food,
you're struggling,
than in the time
when their corn
and their wine increase,
when others are rejoicing
because they have
all this money
and they're just thriving
and doing great.
You know,
the real joy in life
comes from serving God
and knowing God.
Honestly,
the happiest people
that I know
are the people
who are serving God.
And the people
who are backslidden Christians,
who are not serving God,
they're not winning souls,
they're grumpy,
they're depressed,
they're angry,
and the people
who are doing the soul-winning
are the ones that are happy.
They're the ones
who are cheering.
I mean,
you see them,
they're up.
Even when things
are really bad,
they're up.
You know,
they're not just
down all the time.
Why?
Because there's joy
in serving God
more than just corn
and wine.
I mean,
there's real lasting joy
in doing what's right
and serving God.
Hey,
there's joy
in going to bed at night
with a clear conscience
and saying,
I served God,
even though things went bad.
But,
I'm going to tell you something,
guilt,
guilt is worse than anything.
Going to bed at night
and knowing
that you're living in sin,
that you're,
you know,
you feel guilty.
You know,
it's better to feel good
and say,
hey,
I did what was right.
I served God.
I can rejoice in the Lord,
okay,
and not just in corn.
You know what I mean?
Now,
I understand this first
because when I was a kid,
there was never enough corn.
My mom had this thing,
okay,
and we're getting a little
off topic here,
but my mom had this thing
when I was a kid
where no matter how many kids
she gave birth to
and no matter how big they got,
the meals were the same size,
okay?
Like,
a pack of hot dogs,
when I was 10,
it was the same pack of hot dogs
when I was 17.
And it's just,
you know,
obviously our appetites
increased,
we got bigger,
and so,
there was never,
and one thing that there
was never enough of was corn.
And so she would make corn
and we always fought over the corn.
And we basically,
we would get our first,
we'd call it,
you know,
first and second.
So we'd get our firsts,
and there was enough
for everybody to get their firsts,
you know,
mom would supervise us
dipping up our firsts,
and we'd go sit down.
Okay,
well,
we couldn't even enjoy
the first plate
because let me tell you why.
There was only enough seconds
two people to get seconds in the whole thing. Well, the first, you couldn't enjoy it. You
just had to wolf it down. Because if you're done, you get seconds, okay? And so you had
to be one of the two winners, you know? So you're like, you know, just scarfing it down
and you get it all down, and then you rush over there, get your seconds, and then you
sit down and you're just putting each piece of corn in your mouth, you know? Then you're
just savoring the flavor. Then you're just enjoying it. But I mean, corn was something
that we thought, I mean, who likes corn? Whatever, man. Who thinks corn tortillas are better than
flour tortillas, huh? All right. Who likes corn chips? Yellow corn chips by Santitas,
okay? This message has been brought to you in part by Santitas. But I love corn. We used
to fight over corn. You know, you could just stick whatever you wanted here. You know,
when your paycheck increased, even in the days, instead, maybe it's not corn and wine,
but even in the day when your paycheck increased, even in the day when you got an ice cream
cone or whatever you like, okay? He's saying, look, I have more joy serving God, even just
eating the most meager diet, even just scraping by, even on bread and water like Daniel was.
But quickly, it says in verse 8, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, you know,
doing his head on his pillow at night saying, hey, God's with me, God's protecting me. And
he says, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. And really, almost every Psalm
we're going to see that. Psalms is an encouraging book. If I have to give just the theme of
Psalms, it's hey, do what's right, God's going to bless you, God's going to protect you,
God's going to take care of you. Even when you go through bad things, you're going to
be more joyful, he's going to strengthen you, he's going to protect you, the wicked are
going to have the teeth busted out of their head and they're going to go to hell and all
this stuff. That's basically what Psalms is about. He says, go to bed tonight and sleep
peacefully because you're on the winning side. That's basically what Psalms is about. That's
why I didn't have a word of prayer. Father, please just bless these words to our ears
today, God, help us to keep this in mind and pray here, God, help us to spend time praying.
Help us to pray to you for you to do things for us and to give things to us, not just
to consume it upon our lust but rather spiritual things, things that we need, blessings that
we need that will actually help us and bring us closer to you and bring other people closer
to you. Help us to pray for the right things, help us to spend time praying, help us to
spend time reading the Bible and then help us to spend time alone just communing with
our own heart. Help us not to get too caught up in the rat race, dear God, but to just
be still and know that you're God. Read the Bible, pray, think, meditate, and keep us
safe, dear God, like you said you would. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.