["Pomp and Circumstance"]
number 140, singing all three verses.
Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
Sing it out on this first verse now.
Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?
When the clouds unfold, their wings are shy.
When the strong tides lift and the cables strain,
will your anchor drift or firm remain?
We have an anchor that keeps us sold.
Set fast and sure while the billows roll.
Fasten to the rock which cannot move.
Grounded firm and deep is the Savior's love.
It is safe, Lord, twill the storm withstand.
For it is well secured by the Savior's hand.
Though a tempest breaks and the wild winds blow,
not an angry wage, not our mark or flow.
We have an anchor that keeps us sold.
Set fast and sure while the billows roll.
Fasten to the rock which cannot move.
Grounded firm and deep is the Savior's love.
When our eyes behold through the gathering night,
the city of gold, our harbor bright.
We shall anchor fast by the heavenly shore
when the storms all pass forevermore.
We have an anchor that keeps us sold.
Set fast and sure while the billows roll.
Fasten to the rock which cannot move.
Grounded firm and deep is the Savior's love.
Lord, thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight,
and I pray that you would fill Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit
and please help us all to be edified by the preaching.
It's in Christ's name I pray, amen.
Amen.
Let's turn to our next song, hymn number 137.
In times like these, number 137.
Singing all three verses.
In times like these, you need a Savior.
Number 137.
Sing it out on this first verse.
In times like these, you need a Savior.
In times like these, you need an anchor.
Be very sure, be very sure.
Your anchor holds and grips the solid rock.
This rock is Jesus, yes, he's the one.
This rock is Jesus, the only one.
Be very sure, be very sure.
Your anchor holds and grips the solid rock.
In times like these, you need a Bible.
In times like these, hope be not idle.
Be very sure, be very sure.
Your anchor holds and grips the solid rock.
This rock is Jesus, yes, he's the one.
This rock is Jesus, the only one.
Be very sure, be very sure.
Your anchor holds and grips the solid rock.
In times like these, I have a Savior.
In times like these, I have an anchor.
I'm very sure, I'm very sure.
My anchor holds and grips the solid rock.
This rock is Jesus, yes, he's the one.
This rock is Jesus, the only one.
I'm very sure, I'm very sure.
My anchor holds and grips the solid rock.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside, we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 10.30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6.
Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
Tonight, we're in Psalm 63.
We've got the soul wanting times listed there below,
as well as salvations and baptisms.
And then across the page are the birthdays and anniversaries for September.
On the back, we've got the Bible memory passage.
We're working on Isaiah 40, 21 through 31.
And the deadline for the whole thing is going to be October the 11th.
So we're seven weeks into that 11-week memory passage.
Don't forget, tomorrow night is the Spanish night.
Every second Thursday of the month, we have the Spanish night,
where we have singing and preaching in Spanish.
All levels of Spanish are welcome.
If you're learning Spanish, but there's absolutely no English allowed.
So even the fellowship before and after is all in Spanish.
Even if you have to speak kind of a Tarzan style or caveman style,
just do what you can.
You can use like a dictionary or an app to help you, but no English.
It's an immersion thing, all right?
And then below that, we've got, of course, the singing classes on Sundays at 4.30.
Preaching class at 7 o'clock on Tuesday nights for participants only.
And the Tucson shuttle every single week you can ride down to Tucson
with Brother Corbin Russell.
Leaves here at 3.30 sharp.
That's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days.
Going back to Monday.
Anything from Monday?
Any soul winning from Monday?
Gotcha.
Anything else from Monday?
What about Tuesday?
Anything from Tuesday?
Okay, gotcha.
Here, here.
Eight for the surprise group.
All right.
Gotcha.
Anything else from Tuesday?
And then today, the van had three, right?
Three for the van?
Oh, right.
Yeah, we should mention that, too, that we had a great weekend down at the
Tucson anniversary.
Fifty-five people came out soul winning on Saturday and had 31 salvations.
And then the visitors on Sunday and the attendance is didn't we break 100
when 105 down there when Pastor Mejia preached.
So that was exciting.
And then, yeah, it was just a big success, all around success.
Congratulations on the two-year anniversary.
Let's give Brother Corbin Russell a big hand for his work down there.
Any other soul winning today besides the three in the van?
Okay.
Anything else from today?
All right.
Very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
You should find the insert of the hymn, He is Mine.
We'll sing both verses.
If you need an insert, you can raise your hand.
You'll be given one.
Long before the fall of man.
Let's sing it on this first verse, nice and loud, all together.
Long before the fall of man.
God is mine no matter when.
He exchanged the sinner for the sinner's one.
Jesus left his throne on high.
Into the world to bleed and die.
He said, Father, not by will but by design.
He is mine.
I am blessed beyond all measure.
He is mine.
I am vital and free.
Through the blood he shed for me.
Safe forever I shall be.
He is mine.
Through God's mercy and his grace.
He prepared for us a place.
Words cannot describe a master's beauty there.
We will praise the perfect man.
He will repeat the great I am.
He has made the joys of heaven ours to share.
He is mine.
I am blessed beyond all measure.
He is mine.
I am vital and free.
Through the blood he shed for me.
Safe forever I shall be.
He is mine.
Amen. Number 135.
I know I am saved. Number 135.
Do you get the verse for this one?
Number 135.
For Christ set me free. Number 135.
I know I am saved.
For Christ set me free.
He ransomed my poor soul
on the cross of Calvary.
And now I can see.
For Christ is my King.
I'll see.
For Christ is my King.
I'll see his face in glory by and by.
I know I am saved.
For Christ set me free.
He ransomed my poor soul
on the cross of Calvary.
And now I can see.
For Christ is my King.
I'll see his face in glory by and by.
Amen.
Alright, this time we'll quickly pass our offering plates.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 63.
Psalm 63, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with Brother Hester as he reads.
Psalm 63, starting in verse number 1.
Psalm 63, the Bible reads,
O God, thou art my God.
Early will I seek thee.
My soul thirsteth for thee.
My flesh longeth for thee
in a dry and thirsty land
where no water is.
To see thy power and thy glory,
so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Because thy lovingkindness is better than life,
my lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live.
I will lift up my hands in thy name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips
when I remember thee upon my bed
and meditate on thee in the night watches.
Because thou hast been my help,
therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
My soul followeth hard after thee.
Thy right hand upholdeth me.
But those that seek my soul to destroy it
shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
They shall fall by the sword.
They shall be apportioned for foxes.
But the king shall rejoice in God.
Every one that sweareth by him shall glory.
But the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this church.
At this time, Lord, please fill Pastor Anderson with your spirit
and allow us to be edified by your word for your glory
and in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Psalm 63, beginning verse 1, the Bible reads,
O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee.
My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee,
in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.
You can see why David is the man after God's own heart
because David clearly loves God.
And it comes across in this psalm and many other psalms.
He's expressing his love in such powerful language.
But the first thing I want to point out at the beginning of verse 1 there
is where it says, O God, thou art my God.
Now, this is a profound statement
because we need to take ownership of the Lord for ourselves,
especially if we grew up in a Christian home.
You know, just because you grow up in a Christian home
doesn't mean that God is your God
because there are a lot of kids who grow up in a Christian home
and they go to the devil.
It happens all the time.
And let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
I can think back to the youth group that I grew up in,
Christian schools that I went to,
churches that I went to where those young people were not saved.
You say, how do you know they weren't saved?
Because now they've totally apostatized.
They don't believe in Christ.
They don't even claim the name of Jesus Christ.
They're openly agnostic or atheist or whatever.
And that tells me that they were never of us.
And they went out that they might be made manifest
that they were not all of us.
And it's amazing sometimes to think about how they sat
and listened to the exact same sermons that I listened to.
They heard the exact Bible lessons.
They went to the same Christian school or whatever the Bible class is.
And yet I got saved.
I learned the Bible.
I want to serve God.
And they don't. Why?
Because God wasn't their God.
He was their parents' God.
Their parents brought them,
but we need to make sure that every Christian young person
makes God their God and has their own walk with God.
You see, there came a time in my life
when I couldn't just lean on my parents' faith,
my parents' Christianity,
where I had to have my own walk with God personally.
And so David is saying that God is his God.
Also, we tend to use the personal pronoun my
about things that we like.
In fact, this is one of the first words that anyone ever learns in their life.
Every toddler knows the word mine.
Even if that's all they know.
Even if they can barely talk,
one of the first words they learn is like mine, mine, mine.
Because kids are very possessive of things,
especially when there are 11 of them living in one house.
They get pretty possessive of things.
They don't like to share a lot, okay?
And so he says God is my God.
That's an expression of love toward God,
claiming God, owning God, saying God is my God.
I want to identify myself with God.
And then he says, early will I seek thee.
And that, of course, has to do with getting up early in the morning
and just first thing, seeking the Lord.
That should be the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning.
We should immediately read our Bible or immediately pray,
immediately sing praise unto God.
That's how we should start the day.
The Bible says those that seek me early shall find me.
And so seeking God early, meeting God in the morning
is important to start the day off right.
We don't want to just start the day off walking in the flesh
with some, you know, one of these brainless morning shows.
And morning shows are some of the brainless,
most brainless programming on either radio or TV.
It seems like morning shows tend to be the most intellectually bankrupt
of all of them.
It's just a lot of vain jangling and blathering and blah, blah, blah.
You know, wouldn't you rather get the Word of God in you first?
Wouldn't you rather get in Psalms or get in Proverbs
or get in the Gospels and read about Jesus?
First thing in the morning, that's going to start off your day better.
And even before your feet even touch the floor,
you should be already praying to the Lord and walking with God right away.
It's great to seek God early.
But I'll tell you exactly why David is seeking God early.
It's not because he has a post-it by the bed that says,
hey, don't forget to pray.
Don't forget, the pastor, you know, told us, read our Bible first thing,
you know, want to follow that.
Hold on a second.
It says, early will I seek thee, my soul thirsteth for thee.
You see, it's not that David had to force himself,
oh, man, you know, we got to put on the new man,
better read the Bible, better pray.
See, David wanted to seek God early.
David woke up in the morning looking forward to reading his Bible.
He woke up looking forward to praying.
He didn't have to be reminded.
You know, it's amazing how when you wake up in the morning,
you don't necessarily have to be reminded to take a drink of water.
You know, I always have a glass of water right by my bed in the window sill,
right above my bed.
There's been a few terrible accidents from that.
But usually, you know, that's like one out of a thousand times
when I get doused in cold water, you know.
But most of the time, it works out great.
But I always, every single night when I go to bed,
I put a glass of cold water in the window sill
so that when I wake up in the morning, I can take a drink of water.
But you know what?
I have my glass of water in the window sill,
but I have a shelf right next to it, and you know what's in the shelf?
My New Testament, so I can grab it and start reading right out of the gate.
I can take a drink of water, and I can read my Bible.
See, he's comparing reading the Bible or praying or walking with God
or seeking God early.
He's comparing it to physical thirst,
which is one of the strongest compulsions that we have.
It's a lot easier to go without eating than to go without drinking.
You can go without a lot of things,
but going without water is one of the worst deprivations that you could experience.
And so he says,
My soul thirsteth for thee.
My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.
So he's painting this vivid image of just being out in this dry, parched desert,
and you can just imagine somebody crawling on their hands and knees through the desert,
just like, water, water.
He said, that's how I feel about seeking God.
I'm that thirsty for the things of God.
The Bible says,
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
Let me ask you this.
If you hunger and thirst after riches, do you think you're going to be filled?
Let's ask Bill Gates if he's filled.
Ask Ted Turner if he's filled, or is he already in hell?
Ask these millionaires and billionaires if they're filled,
and let me tell you something.
They just want more.
It doesn't satisfy.
If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you'll be filled.
You hunger and thirst after winning at the casino, you're not going to be filled.
Hunger and thirst after fornication, you're not going to be filled.
You're just going to want more.
You're going to hunger and thirst after drink or drugs.
You're not going to be filled.
The thing that satisfies is God.
And so if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we shall be filled.
The Bible says in verse 2, the thing that he's thirsting for is
to see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
Now, we've all hopefully had these sort of mountaintop experiences with God.
You know, if you've been saved for any length of time,
hopefully you've had those type of experiences,
whether it's sitting in church listening to a powerful sermon
or whether it's reading your Bible on your own or praying or singing hymns,
where you have those mountaintop experiences where you feel the presence of God
and where you are filled with the Holy Spirit.
And when you have those experiences, you want to have that again.
You know, you want to feel that again.
And you can get backslidden and maybe you go through weeks or months
where the Christian life is kind of a drudgery
and you're just kind of going through the motions
and you're dragging yourself to church,
you're dragging yourself through Bible reading,
you're dragging yourself through prayer,
but you want to get back to that point, don't you,
where you love the Lord, where you love spending time with God
and where you have those mountaintop experiences.
Now, you know, the charismatic movement has kind of ruined this kind of preaching for a lot of people.
You know, so some people tend to kind of react overboard in the other direction,
like trying to go too far the other way because you've got the holy rollers on one hand
and they've made a laughing stock out of the fullness of the Holy Spirit
or they've made a laughing stock out of having an emotional experience at the house of God
where they've turned it into a circus,
where they're falling on the ground and laughing and barking like a dog
and rolling in the aisles and having all these weird ecstatic utterances
and just strange things.
And then also they've got a doctrine and a knowledge and preaching of the Bible
that's about as deep as a Frisbee
and then they have all these experiences, you know,
yet isn't it amazing how the people down the street that are actually reading the Bible,
actually praying, actually preaching the gospel,
actually going out and winning souls to Christ,
they're not rolling in the aisles.
So you expect me to believe that these super carnal, super worldly Christians
with the wrong Bible, wrong doctrine, wrong gospel,
with an hour-long rock concert and a 15-minute sermonette from the Bible,
you expect me to believe that that's where God's pouring out the Holy Spirit?
It's a joke.
Hey, God pours out his Holy Spirit when there's spiritual people doing spiritual things,
not some kind of a scantily clad woman up gyrating her body and rocking out for Jesus.
Folks, that is ridiculous.
That is not the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
So we've got the charismatic movement which has turned it into a circus.
You've got the televangelist covered in sequins
and he's stealing your money and fake healings and all these things.
So in many cases, though, real Bible-believing Christians
have gone too far in the other direction where they never want to talk about the emotion.
They never want to talk about feelings
because it's true that we don't want to base our belief on a feeling, okay,
because we don't want to have feelings as the foundation of our faith
because feelings are kind of a shifting sand.
We want to be founded on the rock.
The rock is the Word of God.
The rock is Jesus and his sayings.
We want to be founded on this rock.
This is what our doctrine is based on.
Hey, you know why I know I'm going to heaven?
It's not because I had a feeling.
It's not because of an emotional experience.
It's not because of any kind of tingling.
It's because of the fact that the Bible says I'm going to heaven
because I believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
that he died for my sins, was buried and rose again, and my faith is in him.
That's how I know I'm going to heaven.
But let me tell you something.
I've had many emotional experiences.
I've had many feelings.
Many times I can relate with the disciples on the road to Emmaus
where they said, did not our hearts burn within us?
Hey, I've been there.
But that's not the basis of my faith.
That is the icing on the cake.
That is not the basis.
That's not the foundation.
That is something else.
And the Bible talks a lot about these kind of emotions and feelings
and love for God and passion and joy and all of these experiences.
And so we don't want to shy away from the Bible's teaching on this.
We don't want to let some bozo ruin it for us
because of the fact that he's, you know, some wild Pentecostal preacher,
you know, bam, bam, bam, you know, dunking people over and over again,
yelling bam and doing all this crazy stuff.
We don't want to let that ruin the real experience.
And let me tell you something.
It's an experience to read the Bible
and to actually have God to speak to you from the Bible
and to go to a sermon where God speaks to you.
You know, that is an experience.
And it's a lot better than what the world has to offer anyway.
You know, the world offers you experiences, don't they?
People are paying for an experience,
whether it's going on a roller coaster and feeling that adrenaline
and feeling that surge of emotion as you go on the roller coaster
or go down the water slide or whatever the experience
that people want to go on this safari and that trip and everything.
But you know what?
There's a lot of joy to be had just from serving God
and just from loving God and walking with God.
It's there.
David here is speaking from experience and talking about,
hey, I've seen the glory of God in the sanctuary
and I long to be in that place once again.
I long to tag that spiritual summit once again is what he's saying.
I'm thirsting for that closeness and walk with God.
To see thy power and thy glory so as I've seen thee in the sanctuary
because thy loving kindness is better than life.
My lips shall praise thee.
Thus will I bless thee while I live.
I will lift up my hands in thy name.
He's saying as long as I have any breath, as long as I'm alive,
I will continue praising God and blessing God in this way.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness.
You know, this is talking about choice food.
You know, someone else eats a delicate meal.
Someone else eats expensive food or goes to the all-you-can-eat buffet of their choice.
And David is saying, you know, my soul gets satisfied from God
like you get satisfied eating filet mignon and foie gras and truffles and all that.
You know, I only found out like a year ago that truffles aren't chocolates that come in a box.
You know, so that's the kind of fine dining that I do.
And I still don't know what a truffle is.
I know it's some kind of a fauna or flora or I don't know what it is to be honest.
What is a truffle? Don't even tell me. I don't care.
I could go to the grave without knowing.
It's something that grows out of the ground.
I don't know what it is. Is it a mushroom?
It's a fungus.
It's a very expensive fungus.
It comes from Italy.
Man, I'm learning a lot. This is educational.
I'm learning more than you're learning tonight.
This is great. This is a great deal.
Truffles.
Why would you get so excited about some Italian stinking goomba?
You know what I mean?
What does it matter? Amen?
All my generation knows what a goomba is, right?
If you don't know what a goomba is, you're too young to hang out with us.
No, I'm just kidding.
So it says,
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.
When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee and then I watch.
This is what I'm talking about. First thing in the morning, right?
You're laying in bed.
Think about the things of God.
Meditate on the things of God.
Quote scripture.
Pray to the Lord.
You know, sing a hymn.
Praise God from your bed.
Let that be the start and end of your day.
Start and end the day thinking about the Lord.
Or at least start for sure.
Start out thinking about the Lord praising God on your bed and meditating in the night watches.
Here's the thing about meditating on God and praising God in your bed is that in your bed also signifies being alone.
You know, it's one thing you go to church and you're in a big group and everybody's singing out.
Everybody's praising God.
Everybody's reading the Bible together as a church.
But, you know, on your bed this is kind of your most vulnerable, private moment is when you're by yourself.
And he's saying that's where he meets with God.
We don't want our Christianity just to be a show.
Just something that's public or open.
It ought to be something that's real and we should enter into the prayer closet and pray to the Lord.
And we should spend time reading our Bible even when no one knows.
Even when no one's paying attention or no one watches.
We need to do that on our own and praise God at all times.
David said, I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
He said, seven times a day will I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.
Do you have that desire to read your Bible?
Do you have the desire to come to church?
Are you here because you want to be here or are you here because someone dragged you here?
Okay, either way I'm glad you're here.
You know, I'm glad for every person who has been dragged here tonight.
Because of the fact that, you know, sometimes Christianity starts with being dragged in.
Sometimes that's where it starts.
So look, if your teenagers don't want to come to church, drag them in anyway.
I'm not saying let them stay home.
Drag them in, drag them in, drag them away from their video games.
Drag them in, drag them in, drag the backslidden ones to Jesus.
Look, drag them in.
Hey, I'm glad for people who are here even if they don't want to be here.
I'm glad you're here anyway because you need to hear this whether you think you do or not.
Whether you want it or not, you need to eat your vegetables tonight.
You need to eat your truffles right now because you need God's word in your life.
And here's the thing.
Many things you start out doing them by character but then eventually they become something you love.
Think about things in your life that you started out doing by character but you ended up loving them.
What are the foods or drinks that you did because you had to?
I remember one time I was really sick and I had to drink cranberry juice.
I don't know if that's still a thing but back in the 80s it was all about saltines, 7-Up, cranberry juice and the price is right.
I mean that was your prescription when you were sick, right?
And so I remember one time I was sick and if you were throwing up,
then my mom would always say if you're throwing up you had to drink like boiled water.
She would boil our water before we drank it just so it would be more benign I guess.
She would boil the tap water.
Whoever had your mom boil the water for you?
Two people out of like hundreds?
Oh is that the purification?
I guess that wasn't that common.
What's that?
Break it up, ionize it a little bit.
But the thing is, you know, I was so sick all I could drink was either boiled water or 7-Up or cranberry juice.
My mom wanted me to drink cranberry juice and I hated cranberry juice.
And so I had to mingle it and we're not talking about cranberry juice, we're talking about cranberry juice cocktail.
So this is not the 100% juice.
This was the one that's 27% juice, Ocean Spray.
Okay.
And I would drink it half water, half ocean spray.
So it was literally only like an eighth cranberry juice.
And I'm just like, you know, drinking it.
But after a week and a half of that, I started loving it and it became my favorite drink.
And to this day I would love to drink a glass of cranberry juice cocktail.
It's so good.
I even drink the straight cranberry juice 100%.
Just drink it just like that and I love it.
And it's because of the fact that I just kept doing it.
So sometimes there's something to be said for forcing yourself to do something and then eventually you like it.
You know, I used to hate running and I forced myself to run.
And then one day I just had this major breakthrough where I was just like, I'm enjoying running right now.
I like running. This feels good to run.
It's possible.
And there are other things like that that you start out forcing yourself to do and then you end up loving them.
You end up like, so look, if you don't feel like reading your Bible, read it anyway.
If you don't feel like praying, pray anyway.
If you don't feel like going to church, drag yourself to church anyway.
But it's even better if you can get to the point in your Christian life where you like doing those things.
It's a lot easier to serve God if you like doing it.
And here's the thing, if you don't like it, you're probably not going to stick with it.
Character can only get you so far.
Sorry, but that's just true.
You know, whenever I've had workout programs that I didn't really like that I was forcing myself to do,
I could stick with them for a while, but there's going to be that day where you have a bad day
and you don't have the willpower and you're just like, forget it, I'm not doing it.
And then next thing you know, a week went by, two weeks went by, three weeks went by and you haven't worked out.
It has to be a workout that you love in order to stick with it.
You know, I've had people always tell me, oh, this is the most effective workout.
And I'm always thinking to myself, you know what the most effective workout is?
The one that I'm actually going to do.
I don't care if it's the lamest workout.
The one I do is better than the awesome workout that I don't do.
The mediocre, okay workout that I do is better than the awesome workout that I don't do.
And so therefore, you know, I'm saying, yes, there are areas of the Christian life where you have to force yourself,
but if you really want to be in it for the long haul, if you want to be here five years from now,
10 years from now, 20 years from now, you're going to have to love God.
There's just no way around it.
You cannot succeed in the Christian life without loving God.
When Jesus said that's the number one commandment, love God with all your heart.
He didn't just say, hey, love God a little bit.
He said a little bit of faith is okay.
But he said you need to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength.
With all your strength, with all your might, you must love God in order to be successful in the Christian life.
That's commandment number one.
Commandment number two is love your neighbor as yourself.
But they go hand in hand.
It's, you know, loving God and loving your neighbor are connected.
And so therefore, you must love God.
You must love the Lord Jesus Christ.
You must love the Bible in order to succeed in the Christian life.
If you don't love church, you're not going to be here forever.
You have to have love in your heart for Christ.
And if you don't, you say, well, I'm sorry, it's just not there.
I'm looking at my heart.
It just isn't there.
Well, you know what, though?
You better get it.
Now, if you look really hard and search all the recesses and you can't find it, you're probably just not even saved.
You better get on your knees and put all your faith in Christ and ask him to save you because there's something wrong if it's not there at all.
But if it's just a tiny little bit that's just off in some deep, dark corner of your heart, hey, you better start cultivating that thing.
You better water that seed.
You better work on that because otherwise you will crash and burn.
If you're reading Psalm 63, you're just like, I can't relate to that at all.
I don't feel that way.
I've never felt that way.
I don't even know what he's talking about.
Tag the summit.
He's talking about the hike at Mount Humphreys.
What's he talking about?
Hey, if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, if you have no clue what this even means, if this is going over your head right now, then you know what?
Why don't you just take it to the bank?
I will crash and burn someday.
You might as well just say that right now.
You might as well just say, you know what?
I'm not going to be here two years from now.
I'm going to crash and burn.
I'm going to make shipwreck.
I'm going to be a castaway because this is the essential component in the Christian life.
The desire has to be there.
Through desire, a man, having separated himself, seeketh an inner metallist with all wisdom.
You don't do it without desire.
You can't succeed at anything in life without desire.
People who don't love their job are never going to be the best at that job.
They're never going to excel at that job.
People who don't like their job are going to be delinquent in their job in the long run, or they're going to just drag everybody down.
Look, if I were hiring someone, one of the biggest things I'd look for is enthusiasm, zeal, somebody who wants the job, somebody who wants to do it, somebody who's passionate about it.
I mean, can you imagine somebody working for church and they just don't really care about the things of God or don't really care about church?
Yeah, it's the kind of person we want working for Faith Forward Baptist Church, somebody who doesn't feel strongly about the things of God.
It wouldn't make any sense, right?
You know, I like to see somebody who works for a company that they believe in and is enthusiastic about their job because the Bible says,
Because the Bible says,
Even if it's something mundane that you do, you better get passionate about landscaping, get passionate about plumbing, get passionate about electrical.
Hey, get passionate about putting in a good day's work, take pride in your work, doing things well, making the customer happy, whatever your line of work is.
Hey, you better do it with love or find something that you do love.
But here's the number one thing you better love. You better love God.
Because even if you're not a pastor, even if you don't work for the church, hey, your life ought to be a Christian life and you've got to love God.
It's absolutely essential that you love God.
It's too bad that this message about the love of God is struggling to find its way on YouTube.
It's pretty sad when my wife has to call me before the service and say,
Where's the channel? I can't find it because YouTube has been deleting our channel.
It's not her fault. YouTube is deleting our channel like every week, every day.
You know, meanwhile, Insane Clown Posse's channel is doing fine.
OK, and think about the vile and the filth and the garbage that's on that kind of stuff.
I mean, you think Insane Clown Posse is a little bit of filth, a little bit hateful, a little bit.
You know what? But that's OK because it's not Jesus Christ and the word of God that's being preached.
Truth is hate to those who hate the truth.
And right now, you know, YouTube has just banned me and just deleting my channels one after the other.
You know, it's just I make a new channel, it gets deleted.
I keep respawning every time I die.
I've got I'm not I don't have nine lives. I just keep coming back, keep respawning again and again.
They cannot stop us from preaching the word of God.
Even the world knows that you can't stop an idea whose time has come.
And let me tell you something. The word of God's always in season for men of God.
It's there are always people who want to hear the Bible.
I don't care what year it is. I don't care what the geography is.
They're always going to be people who want to hear God's word preach.
And there's a famine of hearing God's word.
And there are a lot of people out there right now that are like this guy in the desert saying water, water.
And they're going on YouTube like water.
And they find some biblical preaching and it's like a big gulp of fresh water to them.
They like it. OK.
And people are going to find it.
Now, some people are just going to be lazy and they can't figure out, even though for 15 years,
there's been one place to always find every sermon from Faith Forward Baptist Church and it's always been the same.
Never changes.
It's called the church Web site.
Where do I find it? I can't find it.
You know, but here's the die hards are always going to find it by hook or by crook.
Some people will even be smart enough to bookmark the preaching page of Faith Forward Baptist Church is as complex of a process as that is.
You know, where is I can't find your preaching, so I just watched the Kardashians instead.
You know, I just I just switched to something else because I just, you know, it always blows my mind.
You know how some people are not really willing to put in that much work unless it just like pops up on their phone.
Faithful words live now.
They're not willing to look for it.
Seek it.
Look for it.
Amen.
The preaching dot com.
It's easy to remember.
Folks bookmark it.
Save it.
Love it.
All right.
This message has been brought to you in part by the preaching dot com.
But anyway, you know, maybe maybe the fact that California is going up in flames right now.
Maybe that maybe maybe God can just go like and maybe it can hit Mountain View, California, and torch old YouTube's headquarters, torch old Google's headquarters, right?
Where they want to promote a bunch of filth and smut all day long.
Folks, you don't think there's filth and smut on YouTube?
Garbage on there.
But the word of God's too offensive.
It's going to it's going to hurt your little eardrums.
Folks, there's only one point of view allowed in America today.
It's not the biblical point of view.
You preach a different point of view and you have to be silenced.
And you know why you have to be silenced?
Because the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
So they want to disarm the population of that weapon because it's such a powerful weapon to destroy the forces of evil, to destroy the devil and his minions.
For this purpose, the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.
And they know that God's word has the power to cut through all their junk, cut through all their lies, cut through all their trash, and they're scared of the word of God.
Well, you know what? They ought to be scared.
Be very afraid, YouTube.
And look, here's just a total, you know what?
Don't let me deviate from Psalm 63.
Let's stay with Psalm 63.
Because you know what?
Psalm 63 is going where I want to go anyway.
It's going to go where I want to go.
Let's get back in the car and let Psalm 63 take us there.
All right?
Get back in the car.
Let's get back on the road.
All right?
I took a little exit there.
Okay?
We fueled up.
We're getting back on the road, though, because this road's going where I was going anyway.
Verse 7.
Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
My soul followeth hard after thee, thy right hand upholds me.
I love this statement.
My soul followeth hard after thee.
Have you ever had someone follow you in their car and they follow you from far away?
Don't you hate that?
I don't like it.
I don't like it when people follow afar off like Peter.
Next thing you know, they're going to deny that they even know you.
But when you're driving down the road and you're like, okay, follow me.
And they're just like way back there.
And you're like, is he still with us?
And you're kind of slowing down and then they slow down.
And you're like, what's going on here?
You know, you got to follow close enough to where I can see that you're with me.
And here he says, my soul followeth hard after thee.
The other illustration is in the New Testament where the Bible says Peter followed afar off.
Now, obviously that's talking about spatially.
He was actually far from Jesus physically following him.
But you know what?
That's symbolic of the fact that he started to backslide.
He's starting to drift.
He's falling afar off.
Next thing you know, he denies the Lord because he followed afar off.
David here is saying the opposite.
I'm not falling afar off.
I'm right behind you.
I'm falling hard after you.
Thy right hand upholdeth me.
Okay, here's where we're going.
Verse 9.
But those that seek my soul to destroy it, they shall go into the lowest parts of the earth.
They're going to hell.
And you know what?
This is why we don't need to be envious of the wicked or we get frustrated sometimes.
Like, God, I'm serving you.
I love you.
I'm seeking you.
And yet I see the wicked thriving.
The wicked prospering.
I'm going through all kinds of problems and difficulties.
Don't ever forget, though, that these wicked haters, where are they going to go?
The Bible says they're going to the lowest part of the earth.
They're not going spelunking, folks.
They're going to hell.
The lowest parts of the earth, we're talking about hell.
They're going to be burning in hell.
And let me tell you something.
California today is experiencing a little foretaste of hell today.
In fact, the headline in the London Guardian was, Good Morning, Hell.
California wakes up to apocalyptic images of fire in the sky.
Okay?
That's what's going on in California.
You know, I always love the song.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine.
And you know, we're reading our Bible and having those mountaintop experiences in church,
have a mountaintop experience, singing hymns, mountaintop experience.
You know what?
That's the foretaste of glory divine.
Right?
Well, there's a little foretaste of the underworld going on in California.
And look, I'm not here to bash California tonight because let me tell you something.
First of all, I'm from California.
I'm from Sacramento, California.
Who else is from California?
All right.
See, lots of people are from California.
And these are some of the coolest people at our church.
Because people from California are always the coolest people.
But anyway, no, I'm just...
The point is, though, I'm not up here to bash California.
Okay?
Because let me tell you something, except you repent, you shall likewise perish.
You know, it's not that California is that much more wicked than the rest of the nation
because guess what?
This whole nation is going the same way.
And this whole nation, they all watch the same stuff produced in Hollywood, California,
and they've adopted that mentality.
They've adopted that culture.
And so, look, I don't care if you're in Arkansas today.
You're going to find the same wickedness.
You're going to find a bunch of sodomites.
You're going to find abortion.
You're going to find blasphemy.
You're going to find godlessness, just like in California.
And as goes California, so goes the nation.
I mean, people right now are trying to flee California and saying,
oh, man, I got to get out of here.
It's getting too wicked.
And the laws are getting too strict.
But let me say this, you know, if you move out of California because of that reason,
and I'm just being honest, wherever you're going is probably just a few steps behind California.
Chances are, you know, so think about that.
I'm not down on California.
I don't hate California.
I love California.
You know, Pastor Roger Jimenez and Pastor Bruce Mejia and myself, you know, we have a vision for California.
We want to start churches in California.
We want to evangelize California.
I believe in that.
That's near and dear to my heart.
I still love California.
If I didn't live in Arizona, I would live in California.
But hey, Arizona is superior to California.
Amen.
It's better.
All right.
But but I like California.
It's a great place.
I love Oregon.
I love Washington.
I love the West Coast.
The West Coast is the best coast.
All right.
But sorry to the visitor from Virginia.
But anyway, plug your ears, kids.
But anyway, the point is, though.
I'm not down on California, but guess what?
That's the judgment of God happening over there.
Period.
I have no doubt about that.
I don't think it's questionable at all.
You know, the Bible asks the question, is there an evil in the city and the Lord has not done it?
You know, God is sending a lot of natural disasters.
Mega drought.
They're calling it the mega drought.
Well, I seem to recall that in the Bible a few times.
It starts with an F and it ends with Ammon.
Does everybody know what I'm talking about?
How many times did God send a famine?
What is that?
What is a famine?
He sent a drought.
What did Elijah say?
It's not going to rain.
And for three and a half years, it didn't rain.
There was no rain for three years and six months, the Bible says.
That was a punishment from God.
And right now, I just read an article today that said that 20 times as many acres have burned this year as last year.
And last year was already some record-breaking fire or something.
And now it's just burning and burning and the hot winds are coming in.
And here's all they want to talk about.
They just want to talk about, it's global warming, it's climate change, it's the environment.
Guess what?
Guess who controls the environment?
You don't think God has an influence on this?
And you know what?
Here's the thing.
You say, it's global warming, it's climate change.
Okay.
Okay, it's global warming, it's climate change.
Okay.
But you know what?
It's still a punishment from God.
Well, it's man-made.
Well, how many punishments from God in the Bible were man-made?
Are you telling me God doesn't use a man-made punishment in the Bible?
What about all the times when God wants to punish the Israelites, who did he send to punish the Israelites in the book of Judges?
Who did he send?
The Philistines.
Who did he send?
The Edomites.
Who did he send?
The Moabites.
Who did he send?
The Canaanites.
Who did he send?
The Babylonians.
Who did he send?
The Assyrians.
Well, that's not the judgment of God.
That's just the king of Babylon just happened to come here.
It's just a coincidence.
No, it's a God incidence.
God sent the Assyrians.
God sent the Babylonians.
God sent this.
And so here's the thing.
If you want to take the view, and I know that's a controversial issue about global warming and people have different views about climate change and global warming.
But let me say this.
I don't care which view you have on that subject.
I don't care if it's man-made, then God's the one who allowed a bunch of greedy people to dump a bunch of junk into the environment and dump a bunch of stuff into the atmosphere so that we could all cook.
It's not a blessing.
It's not a blessing from God.
It's the judgment of God.
Okay?
Natural disasters that come upon a wicked nation are always the judgment of God.
100% of the time.
Now you say, well, how do you know a natural disaster judgment from God?
If it's happening to a wicked nation, then it's the judgment of God.
People have brought up Job and said, well, what about Job?
You know, his friends said that it was God punishing him.
So we shouldn't say that God's punishing America or we shouldn't say that God's punishing California because that's what Job's friends said.
Is California Job?
You're going to compare California to Job?
Job's the most righteous man on the planet.
Is California the most righteous place on the planet?
I mean, it's the most righteous.
Amen?
Because it's like awesome.
I mean, it's like totally righteous of a place, but it's not righteous in the biblical sense.
Okay?
It's, you can't compare it to Job.
Job, here's what Job's three friends did.
You want to know what they did?
They showed up and they said, you've got sin in your life because bad things are happening.
We already knew California had sin in their life before the bad things started happening.
Amen?
I mean, did we have to wait and say, oh, God's judging.
I wonder what they're doing wrong.
I wonder what it could be.
Could it be the porno industry in LA?
Could it be the Hollywood industry in LA?
Could it be the music industry in LA?
I wonder if it's all the abortions.
I wonder if it's the laws that they just passed last week where they're decriminalizing and
softening penalties on acts against minors and softening penalties on pedophilia and
things like that.
And maybe it's the bunch of socialist commie liberal devils that are running.
I don't know.
Or maybe they're just like Job.
Governor Job Newsome.
You know, Mayor Job Villarigoso.
I think he was the mayor like 10 years ago.
Look, folks, it's a judgment of God.
And people say, well, everybody wants to bash California.
But here's the thing.
If Tempe goes up in flames tomorrow, I'll be the first one to say it's a judgment of
God.
I'll be the first one.
I'll be the first.
I'll be the first one.
I'll be the first.
If all of Tempe burns to the ground, if ASU and even this complex and everything in Tempe,
the Tempe marketplace and the downtown and the Mill Avenue, if it all went up in flames
tomorrow, I'd be the first one to say God's judging Tempe.
I wouldn't be like, well, I live here so God can't be judging it because I live here.
Did you know that righteous people live in places that get judged by God?
Did you know when the Babylonians invaded Israel, righteous people lived there?
Did you know when the Assyrians invaded Israel, righteous people?
When the Philistines invaded, righteous people lived there.
Hey, of course.
Now, look, God can often protect the righteous and salvage them and save them out of their
distresses.
But it's not just like, oh, faithful word Baptist is in Tempe.
Well, it's immune from destruction.
Wrong.
You know, in fact, if Tempe burned to the ground tomorrow, you know what I would say?
I would say, well, you know, this is a punishment because we knocked so many doors in Tempe.
We did so much soloning in Tempe.
And out of all the towns that we knocked doors in, Tempe was one of the most unreceptive.
And so now God's burning it all down.
That's what I would say.
That's how I would look at it.
Okay?
And I'd say the same thing no matter where we are.
And look, I don't think Arizona is more righteous than California.
Like I said, it's the whole nation.
But make no mistake, when you're looking up in the sky, I mean, look, I looked at time-lapse
videos of San Francisco today and it was just like, it was a biblical proportions.
Who saw those images from San Francisco today?
Like daytime.
I watched like a two-hour time-lapse and the daytime was just like, the whole sky is just
bright orange.
It's just like fire and smoke.
And my son was out visiting my dad and he said that the cars were covered in ashes,
even in Sacramento, California.
The cars had like a layer of ashes on them being in the sky.
It's like, and you say, well, you know, why isn't it more targeted?
You know, why isn't it just hitting the worst, most sinful places?
Because you know what?
If God targeted the worst, most sinful places, it would send a message like, oh, the rest
of you guys are all okay.
Folks, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.
Did you know that you don't have to be a horrible person to go to hell?
You just have to be unsaved.
You just have to reject the Lord Jesus Christ.
You don't have to be a mass murderer.
You don't have to be a rapist.
You don't have to be a serial killer.
You don't have to be a career criminal.
You don't have to be a bank robber to go to hell.
You know what you have to do to go to hell is simply not believe on the name of the son
of God.
That's what the Bible, that's what we'll send you there because you know what?
We've all lied.
We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and without Jesus Christ, we're doomed.
And so it's not just, oh, well, you know, these worst people are doomed.
Nope.
Everybody who forgets God is doomed.
The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that go full blown Sodom and Gomorrah.
Is that what the Bible said?
The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that go completely off the deep
end like Haight Ashbury and Castro and the worst parts of San Francisco.
No, no, no.
It says all the nations that forget God.
It could be a conservative area that forgets God, that doesn't honor God, that doesn't
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that is filled with other sins and you know what?
God will punish.
And you know what?
Our country is not being punished.
Can anybody really say, hey, 2020 God's blessing America.
Can anybody look at the last nine months and tell me God's blessing America?
Can anybody say that?
Great year.
It's been great.
Yeah.
Let's, let's, let's think about, think about the year.
Think about what's going on.
Coronavirus.
Economic shutdown and economic gridlock.
People losing their businesses.
Okay.
Then you've got just rioting, looting, you know, and when God's not setting California
on fire, Antifa setting themselves on fire.
You know, they're burning it all down.
It's like fire.
We're between two fires.
We got the, the, the, the looters firing it up over here.
And folks, what's going to happen in November?
Is it going to be another great big blessing all wrapped up with a bow on it?
It's going to be more problems, more punishments, more.
Look, folks, if you want things to get better, seek God.
And you know what?
Look, if you seek God, you can live in your own little Goshen on your bed in the night
watches, praising God like David, enjoying a mountaintop experience while it's all burning
down outside.
Just, you know, put a filter in your air conditioner and filter out some of that junk and just
enjoy.
You know, God can protect us.
God can take care of us.
God can bless us personally.
But in order for our nation to be blessed, we're going to have to have some kind of a
mass movement turning back to God, back to the Bible, back to the basics of Christianity,
back to following the Bible, honoring God.
And you know what?
It doesn't look like it's happening.
It doesn't seem likely, folks.
So buckle up for more.
Now, I'm not worried about it because I know all things work together for good to them
that love God and then that are called according to his purpose.
But let me tell you something, you know, California today is experiencing a little bit of a taste
of that smoke and fire.
And how insensitive to say, well, is it insensitive if I preach about the Babylonian captivity
because of all the women and children that got killed in that?
You know, is it incense?
It's not insensitive to get up and talk about the judgment of God.
It doesn't mean I don't love the victims.
It doesn't mean I don't love the people that are hurt.
It doesn't mean I don't feel bad for firefighters right now that are having to go out and deal
with these fires and risk their lives and put themselves in harm's way.
Hey, it doesn't mean that I don't want them to be safe and come out okay.
But let me tell you something.
I'm not going to lie to you and get up and just say, oh, nothing to see here, folks.
I'm going to tell you the truth, that this is a shot across the bow for our country.
And you know what?
2020 has been one thing after another.
You say, well, California always has wildfires.
Never like this before.
I've never seen.
You grew up in the Bay Area.
So you grew up in what?
Palo Alto?
Redwood City?
Those are some of the places you've lived, right?
Did you ever just wake up in the morning and think that the world ended overnight and you
missed it and you slept through it?
Do you ever wake up thinking like, oh, wow, you know, I didn't realize the apocalypse
was happening.
I'm a sound sleeper.
Did you ever walk out and just see the whole sky lit up red and orange the entire day?
And folks, even in Arizona, who's been seeing the red moons and the red suns over here?
Somebody told me about it.
I didn't even believe it.
I thought it was a lunar eclipse because it was almost a full moon and it was bright red.
I was like, cool, everybody.
Look at the lunar eclipse.
Nope.
It turns out we're having a lot of the lunar eclipses.
Folks, it is the fires.
I saw just like a bright blood red crescent moon recently from the fires that I woke up
yet.
Who saw the sun yesterday?
I think you saw it, Thomas, right?
You posted about it.
I took a picture with my phone, but the picture can't capture it.
It felt like I was on another planet or so.
Wasn't it?
It was a trip.
I've never seen the sun look like that.
And I was kind of wondering, like, I know you're never supposed to look at the sun,
but like, is this okay when it's just the red, you know, when it's only the red part
of the spectrum?
Is it going to hurt me?
Because I don't want to be like those people at Woodstock, you know, who took all the drugs
and stared at the sun and had to go to the hospital because they were so drugged out,
they stared directly at the sun.
That's another sermon that shall be preached at another time.
Weird.
Unprecedented.
And you know what?
And you're wrong, Pastor.
Okay, let's pretend for a minute that I'm wrong, even though I know for a fact that
I'm not.
Let's pretend for a minute I'm wrong.
Well, you know what?
I'd rather be wrong and scream and yell about sin and call people to repentance and just
be safe than to kind of just tell people, no, no, no, you're okay.
This is normal.
This is not, this is normal.
You know, all these forests being on fire, it's just a thing, you know, the sky turning
blood red and don't worry about that.
That's just, you know, it's just that the blue part of the spectrum, you know, those
waves are being, those electromagnetic waves are being dispersed by the particular contaminants
in the atmosphere and only the red portion of the wavelength is getting through.
Okay.
I believe that.
I believe in science.
I believe in the God of science.
You know, all these scientific laws, you know, that all the, all the scientists, man, to
them, it's like the 10 commandments.
You know, we're, we're like, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal.
They're like F equals MA.
You know, nobody knows what that means.
God bless you.
I see that hand.
Hey, those laws.
Guess who made those laws of nature?
Guess who made the laws of physics?
Guess who made the laws governing atoms and molecules?
And guess who may God is the one who created all that.
God's the one who controls that.
And you know what?
God can control the forces of nature.
And you know what?
If, if the fires are raging and a hot wind comes and spreads it, that's God that did
that.
That's God that did that.
And God could have easily just said, peace be still.
God can make it snow the day after a 90 degree day.
Colorado went from 90 degrees to 35 degrees in one day.
Fire to snow in one day.
And even scientists were joking about it being the end of the world.
But they think it's like, darn that global warming.
But here's the thing.
And look, obviously there are, you know what?
There are a bunch of idiots pumping a bunch of toxic junk into our atmosphere.
I mean, isn't that the reason why we even try to eat organic and try to filter water?
Because we already know that there's a bunch of people out there who don't care about us
and they're willing to just pollute everything and dump everything out in the environment.
Right?
I mean, don't we realize that?
But it's just amazing how Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, gets up and says,
I've got no time for people who are climate change deniers.
I don't have any time for these people.
We're seeing it.
Well, you know what?
I don't have any time for people who deny the judgment of God.
I don't have any time for people who are pro-Homo.
I don't have time for people that are pro-abortion.
I don't have time for people who spit in the face of God.
I don't have time for you, Gavin Newsom.
You know why your country, or not really a country, but your countryside,
you know why your state is on fire?
That's the word I was looking for.
You know why your state is on fire, Gavin Newsom?
It's because of you.
Because you hate God.
Gavin Newsom's a God-hating devil.
He's an adulterer.
He hates the Lord.
He loves sodomy.
He loves abortion.
He loves murder.
He loves perversion.
He's a wicked pervert.
And he's elected by a bunch of people who must love him because they voted for him.
And you know what?
That's why it's on fire today.
Why?
Because you know what?
Those that seek David's soul to destroy it are going to go to the lowest parts of the earth.
And people who persecute Christians, persecute God's people,
they want to censor the word of God while they broadcast filth to the whole world.
I mean, what's California doing?
Broadcasting filth to the whole world through Hollywood?
And yet they want to persecute God's people.
They want to shut down the YouTube channels of Pastor Jimenez, of myself, of others.
They shut down the YouTube channels of preachers that are actually reaching a large audience or making a difference.
Shut it down.
They don't want to shut down Hollywood.
They don't want to shut down Insane Clown Posse.
They don't want to shut down wickedness.
They only want to shut down what's right.
But those that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lowest parts of the earth.
Verse 10, they shall fall by the sword.
Is that man-made?
Last time I checked, every single sword on this planet is man-made except the one that the flaming sword that's, you know, keeping the weight of the tree of life.
Hey, every sword is man-made.
It was forged by man, wielded by man.
And the Bible says they shall fall by the sword.
It's still the judgment of God, friend.
But the king shall rejoice in God.
Everyone that sweareth by him shall glory.
But the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.
You know, God has a way of shutting up the liars of this world.
And he has a way of making sure that everyone gets what's coming to them.
And you know what? The Bible teaches love for God and love for our neighbor and having emotional feelings toward God and loving God.
But you know what? In the same chapter that's probably one of the best chapters on loving God.
I mean, this is one of my favorite chapters on loving God.
Like, I read this chapter and it moves me.
I'm just like, yes.
When I read those first few verses about thirsting for God and loving God and communing with God upon my bed.
My heart is stirred. But you know, it's the same chapter that says, you know what?
The people that are seeking my soul to destroy it are going to hell.
And you know what? He's not saying that like it's a bad thing.
Unless you're trying to twist this song.
He's saying, hey, I don't need to worry about them.
I don't need to worry about Google's headquarters.
I don't need to worry about YouTube.
I don't need to worry about Mountain View, California, because you know what?
God will take care of them.
That's why we don't need to ever take any vengeance or retribution or, you know, vengeance belongs under the Lord.
He will repay.
And I'm telling you something, we need to win souls to Christ.
And we need to also preach right living to Christians.
If we're going to stay the hand of judgment of God upon Arizona or our nation or California.
And at least slow it down.
And at least withhold God's judgment long enough for us to get more people saved.
But you know what? In the end, we're going to be okay.
David is going to be okay. Look what the Bible says. I'll close on this.
In verse 7, because thou has been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
You know, God has been my help.
And in the shadow of his wings, I can rejoice.
You know, I can get under God's wings and all the ashes are raining out of the sky.
You know, I'm just safe under the wings of the Lord.
He can protect us. He's going to keep us safe.
But you know what? All bets are off for the nations that forget God.
They're going to be turned into hell.
It's kind of an interesting wording there, isn't it?
He didn't say, like, they're going to go to hell.
He said, the wicked shall be turned into hell.
And all the nations that forget God, let me complete the thought for you, shall be turned into hell.
That's what that means.
If you grammatically look at that sentence, let's go over the grammar quickly.
The wicked shall be turned into hell.
Everybody got that first part?
Anybody understand?
The wicked shall be turned into hell.
Right? Got it?
Okay. Now, next part of the sentence.
And all the nations that forget God.
Now, let me ask you this.
Is and all the nations that forget God, is that a complete sentence?
Is that a complete thought?
And all the nations that forget God.
What's missing?
The main verb.
There's no main.
Because the that forget God, you know, if you were diagramming this sentence, that would be a little branch off.
That wouldn't be your main subject and predicate, would it?
All the nations that forget God, that's a subordinate clause there.
That forget God.
That's not the main structure of the sentence.
Where's the verb?
All the nations, where's our main verb, shall be turned into hell.
All the nations that forget God shall be turned into hell.
It's in the first part of the sentence.
The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God shall be turned into hell.
That's what the meaning is there.
Does everybody understand that?
Otherwise, the sentence is not grammatically correct.
So, the nations, so here's the thing, we could move that around a little bit and here's the meaning we would derive.
The nations that forget God shall be turned into hell.
You know, God can actually do that literally sometimes.
Now, sometimes he just does that figuratively.
You know, you talk about someone's life becoming hell or, you know, it's a living hell or whatever.
But here's the thing, sometimes he can literally, because the Bible says that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the vengeance of eternal fire.
And so, he literally turned Sodom and Gomorrah into hell because of the fact that, what is hell?
I mean, it's a place of fiery torment.
He can turn a nation into hell. He can burn it all down.
And how many times did armies come and burn cities in the Old Testament?
And that was one of the ways they get punished.
The city would get burned.
That's man-made.
It was man-made, yup.
It wasn't always like a fireball.
It's like...
But God could do that too.
It's called a meteor.
He could send a meteor whenever he wants.
He could send the fireball.
He could erupt a volcano.
And then you say, oh, it's global warming.
It's climate change.
Made volcanoes erupt or whatever.
Folks, it doesn't matter whether it's climate change or not.
That's irrelevant to me.
What matters to me is, are we right with God?
Because if I'm right with God and bad things happen to me,
then I know it's just trials and tribulations that Christians suffer.
But if I'm living in sin and bad things happen to me,
then I know it's the judgment of God.
How do you know when something bad happens to you,
how do you know if it's the judgment of God
or if it's just trials and tribulations?
Are you being wicked?
There's your answer, right?
If you're doing the right things and following God and bad things happen,
you say, hey, God's just testing me.
He's trying me.
I'm like Job right now.
But when you're out living a wicked life,
when your name's Gavin Newsom,
when you're YouTube, okay,
and bad things happen to you,
everybody knows why.
It's because of the fact that you're being punished by God.
And there's something concrete we could point to as the reason.
It's not like Job's Friends where we're just making stuff up.
And so, folks, I encourage you, make God your God.
We're immune with him in the morning.
We are living in a very troubled time.
And so we need to make sure more than ever
that we tighten up on that walk with God, amen?
And that we wake up tomorrow morning
and read our Bible and pray
so that we can be safe in that bubble,
safe under his wing,
and not be moved by any of these afflictions.
And you know what?
All we can do is pray for California.
And here's what I would pray for California.
And look, yeah, you could pray for the safety of the firefighters.
You could pray for the righteous people to be safe.
That's typically what I pray in a situation like that.
I pray, Lord, preserve the righteous.
You know, if you're judging the wicked over there,
preserve the righteous.
But you know, here's a big thing you could pray.
God, use this as a wake-up call
so that people will get saved.
I mean, look, we were just out soloing last Wednesday.
We knocked on a young lady's door,
and she got saved.
And she was pretty easy to get saved.
And then she's like, hey, before you guys go,
I got some questions for you.
And she was asking, I was like,
do you think that we're in, is this the end of the world?
Like, is that what's happening right now?
And we told her, no, this is only a drill.
But we did explain, we explained to her like,
no, this is not the end of the world
because, you know, it's going to be a lot more extreme,
a lot worse.
You know, maybe down the road,
it could start soon or something.
We don't know.
There's a lot of stuff we've seen so far
that's not even close to what the Bible describes,
so no, you're okay, it's not the end of the world.
But you know what?
I wonder if the fact that she's been worried,
is this the end of the world?
I wonder if that had something to do with her
being so receptive to the gospel.
So maybe when you woke up in the morning
and looked outside and see all the smoke
and fire and the brimstone, you might be like,
hmm, maybe it's time to get back in church.
Maybe I'll go search for some biblical preaching on YouTube.
It's all gone.
Folks, there's a lot of good prayers that we could pray
for California right now.
But folks, we're next.
You say, well, we don't have anything to burn
because it's also, it's a desert here.
You know, well, other parts of the state could burn.
But you know what?
God can hurt us in other ways.
We have a nuclear power plant, you know, 45 minutes away.
And God can hurt us in other ways, amen.
Better seek the Lord, trust him.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for loving us, Lord,
and thank you for those emotional experiences, Lord.
Thank you for those mountaintop experiences, Lord,
that have occurred when we were close to you, Lord.
And I just pray that if there's anybody here, Lord,
that isn't saved, I pray that they would get saved
before it's eternally too late, Lord.
And if there's anybody here who's saved but they just,
their heart doesn't burn with a passion
for spiritual things, Lord,
I pray that you would just help them to learn
what David's talking about in Psalm 63, Lord.
And I just pray that you would please just punish
the haters, Lord, the ones who hate you.
And Lord, you're justified to punish those who hate you.
But Lord, I pray that you would just be merciful
on those that are in the valley of decision, Lord,
and help them to get saved before it's eternally too late.
And please protect your people, Lord.
Protect every member of Verity Baptist Church
and First Works Baptist Church and others, Lord.
I just pray that you'd protect your people
and all that are here tonight, Lord,
bless them for coming out tonight,
and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
All right, if you'd please take your hymnals,
we'll be dismissing in number 143.
Number 143, Blessed Assurance,
Jesus is mine, watch me on the end.
We'll hold that out on the third verse.
Watch me on the, we'll hold that chorus out
and do that fancy ending.
Number 143, let's sing it out on the first one.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,
O what a foretaste of glory divine,
Fair of salvation, merciful God,
Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Blessed submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my side.
Angels resending, great from above,
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
Hiding my Savior, unhappy and blessed,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.