It's church this evening.
So good to see you all here for a Wednesday night service.
Find your seats, please.
Grab the hymn.
They'll go to hymn number 216.
Number 216, surely goodness and mercy.
Hymn number 216.
When you find your place,
we'll start singing together on that first.
216, the pilgrim was I.
And the one.
216.
Your heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you this evening and we just give you thanks
for giving us privilege and the opportunity to be in church tonight.
We thank you for the safety you've given us this week to be able to be here and the health.
And Lord, we just ask that as we meet together and come before your presence that we just
be filled with your spirit as we sing out these hymns unto you, help us to focus on
the words as we sing them and as we worship you this evening.
able to preach your word this evening to us and help us also to be attentive and receive
the message tonight and that everything that's said and done would give the honor and the
glory that you deserve for it with thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Hymn number 69, number 69, we shall shine as the stars. Hymn number 69, number 69, we
You're the best.
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 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
This evening we will be in Psalm 85.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below
as well as salvation and baptisms.
Across the page, this Sunday morning,
right after the service, we'll be taking a group photo.
for the church yearbook.
It only takes just a couple minutes.
We just all step out these doors over here
and just gather in a big crowd
and just take a far away shot of the whole group.
And so we're gonna be doing that
this Sunday morning right after the service.
So just keep that in mind.
And then also this weekend,
we got a couple different things going on.
We've got the trip up to the Navajo reservation
leaving on Friday morning,
coming back Saturday evening.
And so if you're already signed up for that, great.
Otherwise, there's a sign up and itinerary over here to my right.
Also this weekend, Brother Caleb back in Osho is going to be doing
a soul winning marathon in Denver, Colorado.
And so that also has a sign up sheet and everything.
And if you're going, I'm sure you've probably already made those plans
and make sure to spread the word to those out in Colorado.
And then on the back, we've got the list of expectant ladies.
Keep praying for them to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
And then other upcoming events there below.
That's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning going back to Monday.
Anything from Monday?
OK. All right.
Anything else from Monday?
How about Tuesday? OK.
Okay, anything else from Tuesday?
And then what about today, Wednesday?
So two for the van with Brother Ramon.
How about outside of the van?
Got it, got it.
All right, anything else from today?
Very good, keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
All right, turn your hymnos to hymn number 117.
Hymn number 117.
Safe in the arms of Jesus him number 117
hymn number 308 hymn number 308 I surrender all hymn number 308 all to Jesus I surrender all to him
offering plates around as the plates go around.
Let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 85.
Psalm 85, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads.
Psalm 85, beginning in verse number one.
Psalm 85, the Bible reads.
Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.
Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sins, Silah.
Thou hast taken away all thy wrath. Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.
Turn us, O God, of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
Wilt thou be angry with us forever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?
Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?
Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.
I will hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints,
but let them not turn again to folly.
Surely his salvation is nigh then that fear him,
that glory may dwell in our land.
Mercy and truth are met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good,
and our land shall yield her increase.
Righteousness shall go before him,
and shall set us in the way of his steps.
Definitely, Father, Lord, thank you for our faithful work,
Baptist Church.
Please fill Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit
so that he may preach boldly from your preserved words
so that we may be edified by the sermon.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Man, Psalm 85, beginning verse number one,
the Bible reads,
One important thing to remember about the book of Psalms
is that all of the Psalms are not coming from the time of David.
They're not all written by David,
and they're not even all from that period.
Some of the Psalms even explicitly
bring up the Babylonian captivity,
which means that we're talking, you know,
five, maybe 600 years after David lived.
So the book of Psalms is a collection of Psalms
from a whole bunch of different authors
at a lot of different times.
Obviously David is the most famous author
and many, many, many of the Psalms are written by David.
We just finished a big group of Psalms
that were written by Asaph.
probably from around the time of David,
but again, we can't really be sure about that either.
This particular Psalm though,
talking about coming back from captivity
is probably best understood in the context
of returning from the Babylonian captivity
because that's the big captivity,
that's probably what we're talking about.
And so just to put this in a little bit
of historical context,
the children of Israel started out as a united
Kingdom and they were under the judges for about 400 years, then they started having kings so they
became the United Monarchy and you have of course King Saul followed by King David followed by King
Solomon reigning for 40 years each and then after that if you remember the kingdom split
in the days of Rehoboam in the south
Jeroboam in the north, and then you have this divided kingdom where you have the ten tribes
in the north, two tribes of the south, northern kingdom is called Israel, capital city is
Samaria, southern kingdom is called Judah, capital city is Jerusalem, and you have this
divided kingdom where the northern kingdom is almost always not right with God.
They never had a righteous godly king who's worshiping the Lord.
It's always idolatry and false doctrine,
but God is still kind of working on him and working with them.
And there were a lot of great prophets that preached in that northern kingdom.
And you think of, of course, Elijah and Elisha,
they're doing a lot in that northern kingdom, other prophets as well.
But the southern kingdom had a lot more.
Good things going on. They had a lot of kings that were gobbledy
They kind of went back and forth between good and bad kings, whereas the northern king was just all bad kings
Okay, so in that southern kingdom, they'll worship the Lord for a while
not worship the Lord for a while, go back and forth depending on who's in power.
Well ultimately the northern kingdom gets so bad
that God ends up just throwing them in the trash as it were.
And so the Assyrians come in and take the northern kingdom of Israel captive
and what does that mean? Took them captive. Basically they come in, they invade
and then they take hostages and they actually take them to a foreign country.
I mean imagine a foreign power coming in and taking over the United States.
and you're just abducted and put on some kind of a ship and just shipped off to
some other country where you don't speak the language where you're just gonna be
a slave or whatever. Okay so what happened was when the Assyrians took over
that northern kingdom
They took a bunch of captives and then they replaced the people that they took captive with their own people
that are going to do what they want and so it's this total
change of population that happens in the Northern Kingdom and
what happens with that captivity is that those ten tribes that go away captive, they never end up coming back.
So God never restores them, that northern kingdom of Israel just stops existing, doesn't come back.
The ten tribes are scattered throughout the entire world, literally the entire world, literally every nation.
And of course you have some of them down in the southern kingdom of Judah,
but the vast majority of them are just dispersed, never to be identified again,
because they just assimilated into whatever countries where they were taken captive.
The southern kingdom on the other hand lasted a little bit longer and they obviously also
turned away from the Lord and ultimately God became so angry with them that he sent the Babylonians.
So the Assyrians took the northern kingdom captive. The Babylonians took the southern kingdom of Judah
captive but the difference with that southern kingdom is that the captivity only lasted for 70
years, 70 years, but that's obviously long enough
for virtually everyone who's taken captive
to die in captivity, and everybody who returns back
was born in captivity.
So it's obviously a completely different generation,
virtually no one, very few people that went captive
are actually coming back.
So it's not the same people coming back,
but just the nation of Judah is able to be reestablished.
They come back, they rebuild Jerusalem,
they rebuild the temple, they rebuild the wall.
That's what we read about in books like Ezra and Nehemiah and so forth.
And so the historical backdrop of this particular psalm is being brought back from captivity,
which most notably occurred, of course, with the 70 years and coming back from the Babylonian
captivity.
So it says, Lord,
thou has been favorable unto thy land, thou has brought back the captivity of Jacob."
Jacob is just another word for Israel just talking about, you know, the Israelites, whatever tribe
they be of. In this case, we're probably talking Southern Kingdom of Judah coming back.
And then it says in verse two,
thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people,
thou hast covered all their sin, Sila.
The reason that they went into captivity in the first place
is because of idolatry, worshiping other gods,
shedding innocent blood, committing adultery, et cetera,
et cetera.
And so God has forgiven that.
He's looking favorably upon them.
He's bringing them back from captivity.
And then he says in verse three,
thou hast taken away
all thy wrath thou has turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger." So God was really
extremely fiercely angry with Judah because of their sins, but now he's forgiven that,
he's taken away his wrath, he's not angry anymore, and he's brought them back into the land.
But look what it says in verse 4, it says,
to cease. That's kind of interesting because in verse three, it sounded like that was already kind of a done deal, right?
In verse three, he's saying, you know, you've taken away all your wrath.
You know, you've turned yourself from the fierceness of your anger.
So it sounds like it's already done in verse three.
But then in verse four, he's praying and saying, turn us, O God of our salvation,
and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
Wilt thou be angry with us forever?
to all generations will thou not revive us again, that people may rejoice in thee?
And so what you have to understand is that there's a tendency when things are going good
for the children of Israel to get back slidden, go back to their old ways.
The Bible says as a dog returns to his vomit, so does a fool return to his folly.
And so what the psalmist is getting at here is that he's happy, he's thrilled that God
no longer angry with them and that he's giving them another chance
and that he's brought them back into the land and obviously that shows
some level of forgiveness and putting this behind them
and starting over, pushing a reset button. But what he also understands
is that if they do not continue serving God
then the return is not going to work out, the blessings are not going to last and
they're going to end up exactly where they were
back in captivity.
So in one sense, yeah, it's been taken care of
in the sense that they've been brought back,
but he knows that as soon as they screw up,
the party is over, okay?
They have to continue to do right
in order to still be there in the land.
Now, of course, today we have this modern, fake nation of Israel.
It's a fraud.
It's a counterfeit because of the fact that all throughout history, God is very consistent
with the fact that He tells them, this land does not belong to you, Israel.
He said, the land belongs to me and you are sojourners on my land.
And he says, that's why you can't sell the land because it actually belongs to me and you're just tenants on my land.
And he warns them over and over again that if you worship other gods, if you commit these sins and break these rules, you're out, okay?
And even when they first showed up at the Promised Land after coming out of Egypt, it says they could not enter in because of unbelief.
And then once they believed God, once they had the faith, then they were allowed to enter.
When they were bad, he kicked them out.
When they get right with God, he brings them back.
Okay, that is not what we see happening in 1948 with the establishment of the fake, modern, counterfeit nation of Israel.
We don't see people getting saved, believing in Christ,
turning back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
No, because Judaism is worshiping Satan.
It's the synagogue of Satan.
It is not worshiping the God of the Hebrews.
The Bible says if you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father.
If you deny that Jesus is the Messiah, you're anti-Christ.
That's what the Bible says, okay?
They're anti-Christ, they don't have the Son, they don't have the Father,
they're not worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
They say they're Jews.
and they're not, they're liars.
The Bible says there's a synagogue of Satan,
they're of the father of the devil, et cetera, et cetera.
And so we don't see them getting right with God,
believing on Christ, and then coming back to land.
So we've been sold this bill of goods in the 20th century.
I was born in 1981, and so I grew up hearing this preaching
in the 80s and 90s.
Many of you that are my age grew up just having this pounded
on in the 80s and 90s.
us this bill of goods where they told us, well, I know they don't believe in Jesus
now but what it is that God brought them into the land in unbelief and then once they get
there they get saved.
So it's like he brings them unsaved, but then once they get to Israel, they're going to get saved.
So you have all these missionaries going over there, like trying to get them saved.
Constantly, we're hearing from preachers and missionaries who are called to Israel, you know, to evangelize Israel.
And here we are. And how long has it been, folks?
I mean, we're talking about approximately 80 years later, and what the dispensationalists predicted did not happen.
It didn't happen. They made a bunch of false predictions,
and at some point we need to just realize they were wrong.
because the dispensationalists told us, number one, they said,
well, he's going to bring them in in unbelief and then they're going to get saved
after they're established as a nation. Well, here we are almost 80 years later
and not only has zero progress been made,
there are less saved Christians per capita
in Palestine and Israel than there have ever been in the past.
It's literally just been on a downward trajectory
and every year there are less people over there saved.
than there were before. So the dispies were wrong. When are we going to admit it that they
were wrong in their prediction? And then they made another prediction as well. They made a
prediction that said, well, now that God has brought them back to the land, that's quote-unquote
Because the Bible says, hey, when you see the fig tree, you know, come to fruition,
you know, that's when you know that it's near, even at the doors, this generation shall not pass away.
And they said, Christ will return in this generation,
because that's the blossoming of the fig tree, Israel, and Christ will return in this generation.
And here we are again, almost 80 years later, and Christ did not return in that generation.
Right and we're not even you know when crisis isn't returning in 2025 either or 26 or 27
Because there are other prophetic events that need to happen that haven't happened yet and the bottom line is they said
that it was going to happen in that generation.
They said Jews were going to get saved on mass.
They claimed that there were all these revivals going on in Israel.
And this is before you could fact check things on the Internet,
so they could get away with just telling these tall tales
about masses of Jews getting saved.
And it was all false. None of it happened.
And there are less Christians over there than ever.
And so the pattern is that, no, God brings them back when they're right with God and in order to stay in that land they had to stay right with God.
But here's what happened. When they rejected Jesus Christ, He destroyed them from being a nation and it was permanent.
It was permanent and that's where you want to talk about the fig tree blossoming
Let's talk about the fig tree Jesus cursed the fig tree because he showed up looking for fruit on the fig tree
And there was no fruit and he said to the fig tree that it would be cursed and that it would never bring forth fruit again
Let no fruit grow on thee from henceforth forever
Okay, and so Israel is done, it's toast, put a fork in it, it's over for Israel, okay?
They are not God's people, they're not God's chosen people, they're not the elect, they
are awarded no points and may God have mercy on their souls.
And so that's what we see from this perspective is that the Psalmist here understands, well
because we're worshiping the Lord and if we screw this up we're gonna end up
incurring God's wrath once again. Now obviously we're living in the New
Testament, 2025, America, we're New Testament Christians but again we always
want to apply these things to ourselves in the present day. As it has always been
the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience.
When it comes to spiritual salvation, as far as going to heaven and escaping hell,
that is simply by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Believing in Jesus saves your soul eternally.
But when it comes to your life on this earth...
How good things go for you on this earth is determined by how you live your life
You reap what you sow on this earth on this earth in this lifetime whom the Lord
Love it he chasing it and scourge it every son whom he received it
And so if you don't fly right on this earth, you will incur God's anger God's chastisement
And it's just like with your parents
you know your parents will always be your parents and if you're a little nine-year-old boy
and you disobey your parents you're going to get punished but they're not going to throw you out of the family.
Right, and you're still their son. What's the same thing with God if you disobey God's rules?
He's gonna discipline you. He's gonna punish you, but you're still his child. You're still saved
You're still unswelded by the Holy Spirit. You're still going to heaven. You still have eternal life
He will never renege on that promise that he gave you to save you
But he will tan your hide because whom the Lord loveth he chastened it and scourges every son whom he received it
That's what the Bible clearly states
So, we can find ourselves on the receiving end of anger, or discipline, or displeasure
from God.
You know, we can find ourselves in trouble with God as His children, just like children
get in trouble with their parents.
You know, they're not in danger of losing their sonship, but they are in danger of getting
a whipping.
And so, we can find ourselves in the same situation.
So, we want to make sure that we're living right so that we can be blessed by God on
this earth right now.
So it says right here in verse 4, turn us, O God, of our salvation.
and cause thine anger toward us to cease."
Now, what does he mean by turn us?
He's saying, you know, God, do a work in our hearts
and point us in the right direction.
Get us worshiping you.
Get us living for you.
Get us doing the right things so that you can bless us, okay?
It's foolish to think that God can just bless people that aren't obeying.
that aren't serving Him,
that are just living lives of sin and debauchery.
Oh God, please bless me. I mean, it's crazy.
It's never going to happen.
We can't just pray for God to bless America
if America is not right with God.
A better thing to pray
is that America would get right with God.
Turn us as a nation Lord turn us to you God turn us and you and look obviously
At the end of the day, it's up to people what they're gonna do, right?
It's up to all of us to decide are we gonna serve the Lord or not gonna serve the Lord
The Bible says choose you this day whom you will serve
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
But whatever other people do, we can't necessarily control.
But we want to influence people and we want to pray
that God would work in their hearts and lives.
But ultimately people have to make that decision.
You know, I've been preaching against Calvinism lately
because it's so stupid and unbiblical
and I hate it and everything else.
But the thing about Calvinism is,
Calvinism just thinks that this is a for-god conclusion.
See, they'll look at a verse like this and say,
see, look, God has to turn us.
But again, this defeats their own argument
because why would we have to ask God to do it
if he's just automatically doing it?
If he's just already controlling
and he's already decided, he already,
no, when we're praying, turn us.
You know, that is still us making the decision
to ask for that.
to pray that prayer and say, God, I want to do what's right. Help me do what's right, God.
It doesn't mean that God's going to control us like a puppet, but if we ask God to help us,
if we ask God to turn us, if we say, God, I want to love you more, I want to obey you,
I want to be a good Christian, Lord, help me to be a good Christian,
then he can show us things in the Bible to help us, to turn us, he can lead us to a church.
where we can hear the preaching that's going to turn us in the right direction, right?
He has all different ways that he can turn us, but we have to want to be turned,
and we have to pray to be turned, and ask to be turned, okay?
And then the Bible says here, turn us, O God, of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us
to cease. Why? Because those two things go hand in hand. If you're, if you're flying right,
then God's not mad at you. If you're doing the opposite of everything God says,
then God is going to be mad at you. That should go without saying.
He says in verse 6,
we'll thou not revive us again.
that thy people may rejoice in thee."
Now, what does the word revive mean, right?
Well, we know that vive is sort of like
the Spanish word for live, which is Biber, right?
I know we have a lot of Spanish speakers.
And so revive, vive means alive.
And so he's saying, you know, bring us back to life.
Revive us again.
And we'll talk a lot in our modern vernacular
about churches experiencing revival.
Right and people even use this in a worldly context. They'll say hey, there's been a revival of
folk music or a
revival of
Classic rock or so you could really just be used about anything where you're kind of like
Bringing something that had died and you're bringing it back to life. Okay, that's the idea behind the word revival
Okay, so churches will talk about revival and they're praying for revival and everything like that
Well, what does this really mean when we talk about revival?
Well, if you stop and think about it, the Bible says that faith without works is dead.
So, let's say we have a church that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior,
and they have the right gospel, they believe in Jesus, they're saved, they're going to heaven.
But what if they're just not really doing much for God?
They're just not doing a lot of work.
And there are a lot of churches like this.
There are thousands of churches across America that are pretty much doctrinally sound.
They believe in Jesus, they're saved, but are they doing any soul winning?
No.
Are they evangelizing?
No.
Are they going out and doing the do-it-yourself mission strips?
No.
They're dead as a doornail and we walk into these type of churches and say, this is a
dead church.
Why would we say it's a dead church?
Nobody's being baptized lives aren't being changed the church isn't growing there are no works being done
You know, I remember having this Pentecostal girl who came and visited my church say when I was a teenager
She said oh you Baptist are dead you Baptist are dead because what she thought alive meant was just a wild service
So, there's wild music, wild service, running around, you know, getting all wild and getting
excited.
That's what they consider alive.
But what does God consider alive?
He considers works alive, right?
That's what he goes about.
He says, faith without works is dead.
What he considers a live church is a church that's doing a lot of work.
Okay, the church that stops working is a dead church.
This is why in Revelation chapter two and three,
when he's diagnosing these seven different churches
and talking about what they're doing right,
what they're doing wrong,
the first thing he says to all seven churches,
doesn't matter if it's Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus,
Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Latter-C,
I know Thy works.
Ephesus, I know thy works.
Smyrna, I know thy works.
It's the first thing out of his mouth.
And then sometimes they'll bring it up repeatedly.
Do the first works, you know, and your works.
I know your works and your labor and your works.
It's like what, that's a little redundant.
Hey, he really hammers this thing of the works
of those churches.
And he says of one church, Sardis in particular,
he says, you have a name that you live, but you're dead.
You're a dead church.
I know your works, that thou hast a name,
that thou livest in our dead.
So how does he know that they have a name that they live
and they're dead because he knows their works?
Because faith without works is dead, okay?
And it doesn't mean that those people in those churches are not saved.
These people who just show up to church and they're there, they sing the songs, they listen
to a nice little sermon, they go home, come back and do it next Sunday.
No salvations, no baptisms, no evangelism, no missions, no great works forgot.
And then sometimes these churches will also be only elderly people.
or maybe a few of their kids or grandkids will show up or whatever,
but for the most part, they're not really reaching a new crowd
because they're just kind of dead, right?
This church, in that case, needs a revival,
meaning that they need to get fired up and that's going to lead to doing work.
So here's the thing, if a church supposedly has a revival,
I want to know what work was completed.
Because if no additional works are being completed,
if no work is being engaged,
then I don't see how that could be a revival.
Might just be a dynamic sermon, wild service,
a lot of crying, a lot of laughing,
a lot of hugs and high fives,
doesn't really equal revival.
You know, and if you look at like Old Testament revivals where you have like Revival under King Hezekiah,
Revival under King Josiah or whatever, it's work that they're doing. They're going out like evangelizing. They're preaching the gospel.
They're going and doing missions in the adjacent countries and preaching about the Lord. They're destroying idols. They're tearing down altars.
They're doing work. You know, that's what it comes down to. And so it says, wilt thou not revive us again.
What's he saying? You know, we need to be people that are actually doing good works for the Lord,
that are actually obeying the Lord's commandments, doing right so that we cannot be a dead church,
that thy people may rejoice in thee.
Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation."
Now, in verse seven, when it says salvation,
this is not talking about eternal life,
going to heaven kind of salvation.
You gotta be careful when you're reading the Bible
that you don't always assume,
every time you see the word save or salvation,
that we're talking about spiritual salvation,
because a lot of times it's a physical salvation.
It's, you know, save us from our enemies, especially in the book of Psalms.
You have a lot of verses about, hey, let us be saved from our enemies.
Or what about when Peter is drowning and he says, Lord, save me?
He's not saying, hey, I want to go to heaven when I die.
He's saying, no, I don't want to die at all.
Pull me out of the water before I drown.
That's what, when he says, Lord save me,
he's saying like I'm physically drowning,
physically save me.
Matthew 24, famous verse,
except those days should be shortened,
there should no flesh be saved.
But for the elect's sake,
those days shall be shortened.
And then it talks about the tribulation
and says, he that endures to the end shall be saved.
It's talking about if you endure to the end,
you're gonna be physically spared
because the days are gonna be shortened.
except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.
Are we talking about spiritual salvation?
We're talking about the flesh being saved.
Okay, and then people will take that verse, endure to the end,
and then they'll try to apply that to going to heaven.
Hey, you've got to endure to the end to go to heaven.
That's garbage.
That's taking a verse out of context to teach a false doctrine.
Okay, we're saved because we believe in Jesus, we cannot lose our salvation,
we're sealed by the Holy Ghost under the Day of Redemption,
nothing could separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
But, sometimes we need some physical salvation.
You know, your bank account sometimes needs salvation, your marriage needs salvation,
your family needs salvation, your vehicle needs salvation, you know, physical salvation
from our enemies.
I mean, if somebody's surrounding your house and pointing guns at you, you need some salvation.
I'm not talking about going to heaven now.
And that's what we're talking about here because the context is they've already been defeated
by a foreign power, the Babylonians, they're back from captivity, and let's face it, they're
And if you read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah,
you see that they're on thin ice
because there are a lot of people around them
that are trying to stop them from re-establishing Jerusalem,
from getting the house of God built,
from building the walls around Jerusalem.
There are a lot of people that don't want to see that happen,
right, sand ballad and gashmoo and these guys
that we read about in Nehemiah.
And also, you know, there's just a lot of enemies
and they don't know, hey, are the Babylonians coming back?
Say, look, grant to us to be spared, to be able to thrive in the land of Judea and not
to go back into captivity.
And so, you know, how's that going to happen?
Well, we need revival, right?
If we want God to bless us, we need to be revived, we need to be working, we need to be keeping
God's command, we need God to turn us and point us in the right direction so that we're
Senate says in verse number eight, it says,
I will hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints,
but let them not turn again to folly.
Do you see how this is the same pattern over and over in this psalm?
Hey, guys, it's going to be great, it's going to be peace,
but let them not turn again to folly.
You say, look, if you turn again to folly, it's not going to be peace.
God's not going to bless again as the dog returns to his vomit. So a fool returns to his folly
folly is another word for stupidity
foolishness
Don't be stupid, but let them not turn again to folly.
Let them not be idiots and squander the opportunity that God has given them.
And look, if God has blessed you, if things are going well for you, if you're doing well
tonight, you say, man, I like the way my life is going.
God's really blessing me.
Things are going good.
Hey, don't be a fool.
Don't ruin it.
Don't turn again to folly.
Don't get too comfortable in your blessings and think oh, I don't need to work for God
I don't need to be serious about reading my Bible
Maybe I can just kind of go back to some of my old sins or whatever
No, man
We got to be still doing right if we want God's blessings to keep on flowing
It says in verse number nine surely his salvation is nigh then that fear him
that glory may dwell in our land.
Mercy and truth are met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
That's an interesting statement.
Mercy and truth are met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
These are things that go together.
These are things that go well together
that should be found together.
And when we think about mercy and truth,
what does it mean to show mercy?
What does it mean to show mercy? Well, here's the thing. The opposite of
mercy would be just bringing down on someone the full force of the law, right?
So let's say you're arrested for a crime and you go to court and
let's say there's a range where this can be like six months to five years.
Well, the worst case scenario when the court is just really upset with somebody and really
wants to socket to them and punish them, they're just going to give them that maximum sentence.
Just give them that full five years and no parole and no mercy and just hitting them
with the hardest.
It doesn't necessarily mean that you're just totally getting off the hook.
It could just mean, well, we're going to give you the lightest possible sentence.
And we're going to count some time that you've already served.
And some of it's just going to be probation and community service, right?
It's sometimes just a lighter sentence can also be mercy, right?
and just being pardoned and getting total clemency
and totally being let off the hook,
sometimes it can just be a reduced sentence,
a milder sentence, a gentler sentence, okay?
So, what do mercy and truth have to do with one another?
Well, in a human sense, if you think about it, telling the truth is how you receive mercy.
You see, part of the way that people get lighter sentences in the criminal justice system is
by admitting what they did, and then they can do a plea deal where they basically say,
And in return for admitting what I've done and all of that they can't just say yeah, I did it
But I'm glad I did it whatever now give me the deal
Usually they have to show contrition usually have to show up and tell the judge. I did this. I'm sorry
It was bad. I'm not going to do it again and not make excuses and just tell the truth about what happened,
the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and say that they're sorry.
And this is biblical because the Bible says that if you cover your sin, you will not prosper.
But it says that if you confess and forsake your sin, you'll find mercy.
Right? Confessing is telling the truth.
This is what I did.
This is why it was wrong, and I'm forsaking it,
meaning I'm not gonna do it again.
That's typically what it's gonna take
in order to get mercy in that courtroom.
In order to get the judge to go easy on you
in order for the prosecutor to give you that plea deal,
virtually always there's gonna need to be an admission
of guilt and some kind of contrition
and a show that you're actually sorry
and that you're not gonna do it again.
And then usually it's even contingent like,
well, if you do it again.
Then all these charges come back like let's say hey, we're gonna dismiss this charge or you're gonna be on probation or whatever
What's probation right? It means that you know, okay?
You're not going to prison, but as soon as you screw up
You're not only gonna get in trouble for that screw up this other thing is gonna come back and bite you as well
in order to be forgiven of this,
you have to be sorry and change and whatever.
And so mercy and truth are connected in human justice
in the sense that if we confess our sins, right?
And forsake them, we're gonna find mercy of our parents
or the judge in a courtroom, whatever the case may be, right?
This is an important, if you're lying about what you did,
then how can you find mercy?
If you're still lying and not admitting that you did anything wrong, you think you're going to get mercy?
No, you're probably going to get the full extent of the law if you're lying about it and refusing to even acknowledge what you've done.
And also, when it comes to our relationship with God,
our walk with God, it says if we confess our sins,
he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And so we want to confess our sins to God,
we want to tell the truth,
and be honest about those things,
be honest with ourselves.
Because some people, you know, there's such liars,
they even lie to themselves
and convince themselves of their own lies.
This is what's known as a pathological liar.
Somebody who lies so much they start believing their own lies and that is truly sick
So mercy and truth are met together when it comes to spiritual salvation
You know obviously the biggest mercy of all is that if you believe on Jesus Christ
He forgives you of your sins and gives you a home in heaven and you don't have to go to hell when you die
That is mercy big time because you're getting a total presidential pardon
And you're just completely off the hook with regard to your eternal destiny, so that is mercy.
But again, in order to get that mercy, what does it take? You have to believe the truth of the gospel.
But you have to believe, you can't believe lies.
You can't believe some false prophet's lies telling you how to get to heaven some other
way, getting to heaven by chanting and rubbing beads and praying Hail Marys and bowing down
to idols and bowing down in front of smoking incense altars and.
bones of dead saints and relics and, you know, meditation and all these crazy things, right?
No, you've got to believe the truth of the gospel in order to get that mercy and salvation.
So mercy and truth are met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Righteousness and peace go together as well.
You know, because if we do right, we'll have peace.
Think about the book of Judges.
When the children of Israel disobey the Lord,
Warfare is the result, right? Foreign invaders and then when they get right with God
then it'll say the land had rest for 20 years. The land had rest for 40 years. 40 years of peace
because God's blessing them. The Bible says it's God's will in the New Testament that we would be able to live a quiet and
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
But the Bible says there's no rest for the wicked. There's no peace to the wicked.
And so peace and righteousness also go hand in hand.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
It says in verse 11,
truth shall spring out of the earth.
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good,
and our land shall yield her increase.
Righteousness shall go before him,
and shall set us in the way of his steps."
So notice the direction here.
In verse 11, we have something going up, right?
We have truth shall spring up out of the earth.
righteousness shall look down from heaven. Okay, so we have up and then down and then
the next verse, the Lord shall give that which is good. There's another downward
motion of God giving that which is good and our land shall yield her increase,
right? So we have up, down, down, up. This is not the Konami Code, okay? That's up, up,
down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. What we're actually talking about
is this idea of God responding to man doing right
in what we would call in science,
a positive feedback loop, right?
Of serving God, doing right, God blessing us,
and then God blesses us also by turning us,
and then we do even more right,
and then we get even more blessed,
and it just gets better and better and better.
This is biblical. The Bible says, draw an eye to God and he will draw an eye to you.
If you draw an eye to God, God will draw an eye to you.
And hopefully you can kind of keep that cycle going of verse number 11, you know, truth springs out of the earth.
So, you know, it starts with us on earth here, confessing our faults, confessing our sins.
Acknowledging the truth, believing the truth, telling the truth about ourselves, our sins,
our condition, the Word of God, what God expects, what about, you know, we send up the truth
and then righteousness looks down from heaven, you know, God looks down from heaven and he
sees that and he responds to that.
How does he respond to that?
The Lord shall give that which is good, right?
So God blesses.
Right, so we lift up our hearts in truth to God, God turns around and blesses us, and
then we bring forth good fruits, right, the land brings forth their fruit, we bring forth
good fruit as Christians, we go out and do the works, we win souls to Christ, we get
people saved, we accomplish something big for the Lord, we thrive as a church.
And then as we thrive as a church, we rejoice, and we're happy about that, right?
And then more truth, more preaching, more good works.
God looks down, sends even more blessings, right?
And we want to keep that going, right?
We want to keep that cycle going.
And that's what this Psalm's all about, because the other tendency could be that when things are going good,
we get lazy, we get soft, we decide we're just going to coast.
And we decide that maybe we're going to get sloppy
and we're going to get a little backslidden
and we're not going to push ourselves
and we're going to just take it easy.
And then next thing you know,
we're getting judged by God.
And then, you know, it's really just which cycle
do you want to be in?
Because there are a couple of different cycles.
You can get on that Book of Judges cycle.
Where God blesses you, then you act like an idiot, and then God punishes you, then you get right with God,
then God blesses you, then you get comfortable, act like an idiot, and you keep kind of just
getting right with God, and then getting out, getting in, getting out, and you go through this cycle
of every time things go good, you slack on your service for God, and then you go through that cycle again.
That's a bad cycle. That's the book of judges type cycle right what we want to do is we want to get in this cycle
That's more like a cycle of sewing and reaping good things almost like a year
You know we have the spring the summer the fall and the winter
You know we want to go through that kind of a cycle where we're being productive every year
That's a good cycle where it's not like, oh man, 20 years lost serving the Ammonites,
serving the Philistines, serving the Moabites, serving the Hittites.
That's what judges, judges you lose like whole decades of your life, right?
And we see people losing whole decades of their life to alcohol, to drugs, just getting
backslidden, just not serving God for their entire 20s.
Or they're 30s or what you know just losing old decades 20 years and then come back. No, that's not what we want
To be on a like a yearly
production cycle
Now life's not always going to be going good. Okay. It's not always going to be summer
You know unless you live in Phoenix, Arizona or San Diego, California or something like that
But in general, you know life has its seasons doesn't it?
And so, what we want to have is this cycle of truth going up and God looking down, blessings
coming down, earth bearing its fruit.
You know, we want to have this cycle of sowing and reaping, where we have seasons of really
sowing a lot of seeds, preaching the gospel.
getting a lot of people saved, lots of soul winning, lots of missions, right?
And then other seasons where we're reaping the benefits from that
and maybe the church is growing, maybe you're discipling friends and family
and you're getting to see all those wins. Now look, everybody's life is going to
have that winter though.
We're always gonna have those times where things are going bad where we're hunkered down and you know pretend
You don't live in Arizona for a minute. I'm sure but
Here's the thing everybody's probably lived somewhere else
Who's lived somewhere where it got really cold and snowy in the winter in your life?
Put up your hand like all like half the people in here
The other half we're gonna have to just use your imagination
Okay, but here's the thing. You know, what is winter like for people who don't live in Arizona?
Winter is a time when it's a lot of darkness.
Because first of all, the days are shorter,
so you just have a lot more dark.
You have a little bit of light,
but it's mainly darkness.
You might have eight hours of light, 16 hours of dark.
It just depends on what latitude you're at,
how serious this is gonna be.
But you're gonna have a lot more dark than light.
It's cold.
And then even when the sun is supposedly out,
it might be obscured by clouds.
and it could be raining or snowing or whatever.
And so if you think about winter,
there are going to be times in our life,
and these seasons are going to come pretty often,
dark times in our life.
Just like if we think about winter,
literally it comes like once a year, you know?
So maybe in our own Christian lives,
we're going to go through frequent winters,
frequent trials.
The Bible says many are the afflictions of the righteous.
but out of them all the Lord delivers them.
So we're going to go through like these dark times,
cold times, lonely times, miserable times, you know,
and then we're going to go through times of being really productive,
you know, like spring time, we're sowing a lot of seeds,
we're being really productive, we're getting a lot done,
and then summer could be thought of as a time to enjoy.
There are going to be times in our life when we're enjoying and when things are going well
and we're happy.
It's like the opposite of winter, way more light than dark, outside, spending time with
other people, having a good time, enjoying the fruits of our labors and so forth.
And then there are going to be harvest times, you know, when again, we're seeing God do
great things and we're seeing people added to the church and we're seeing a lot of
Good things happening as a result of the seeds that we've sown
But the key is to be able to navigate all four of these cycles or seasons in
The right way where we're right with God, you know
so when we're out there sowing a lot of seeds and
Working hard for the Lord in that springtime season, you know, we need to be out there given God the glory and
Out there relying on God
and trusting in God to give us the strength to do it,
to fill us with His Spirit.
We need to be always keeping Him in all our thoughts.
And even when we're in those periods where things are going good,
we don't want to get complacent and start getting prideful and thinking,
oh, things are going good because I'm so smart.
And it sounds stupid to even say that,
but I've had people say stuff like that to me.
And don't you cringe so hard when people are like,
oh, well, the reason I'm successful is because I'm so smart.
Or, oh, I'm just so good at this, I'm just so good at my job, you know, not glorifying
God.
But no, when things are going good, we need to be thankful and be super thankful and
every day thanking God and realizing, hey, this can all change if I screw up.
I need to keep on serving the Lord with fear and rejoicing with trembling.
Because what's what's the psalm all about he says God it's so great. We're back from captivity. You've blessed us
Thank you so much for forgiving us covering our sins, and you're not mad at us anymore
But he's just like also like please don't get mad at us and please turn us and
Please revive us God. Please help us not to screw this up
Even when that see instead of praying that when things go bad pray that when things are going good
These are going good, be run and scared, thankful,
praying to God, mining your peas and cues,
taking heed lest you fall in that good time,
in that summertime of life, right?
In the springtime, you're relying on the Lord
and you're doing the works that he prescribed
and you're doing it in his strength.
In the summertime, you're enjoying God's bounty
with a thankful heart.
in the fall as the results are pouring in you give God the glory you don't think
oh this is my doing I am so good at this I am just such a great no no you
realize hey God is merciful because I don't deserve any of this but God's
using me thank you Lord for using me and then when you get in the winter and
those dark phases you know you just got to just get through it
And don't despair and don't lose hope and keep dragging yourself to church drag yourself out there and do some soul winning and
You know, maybe you only have a little light, but use that light
Use that daylight do something stay in the game and basically just wait on the Lord and wait it out because guess what spring is coming
and you'll be back.
You know, our life is never gonna be just always high,
always good, always winning every single day.
You're gonna go through cycles,
but you need to get on a good, productive cycle
of a spring, summer, fall, winter kind of a cycle,
not a cycle of 20 years down the toilet
and then drag my butt to church for five years
and then five years down the toilet and then,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And the way you get in that kind of a cycle
are complacent in the good times, not glorifying God,
not running scared and realizing,
hey, even when things are going good,
I still need to make sure that I'm living right
because I don't want to screw things up for the future.
You know, it's so dumb this preaching that came out recently.
I'm not even going to mention this person's name because he's such a bozo and he's kind
of just cooked anyway, but it's like this kind of preaching that says, oh, you know,
these new IFB churches, they're, you know, they just want their people to be scared
all the time and just everybody's just in fear and everything.
But you know, the Bible says, bless this man, the feareth all the way.
And the Bible says that we should pass in the New Testament it says we should pass the time of our sojourning here in fear
You know, and here's the thing. It's not like we're just like
Tortured by fear or something. It's just that we just always keep Psalm 85 in the back of our head
That God was mad at us in the past that we don't want to be mad again. So we're not gonna screw this up
Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
See, if fear is so bad and harmful
and it's a path to the dark side or some stupid junk
that you learned from TV or something, okay?
If that's really true,
then why does it say rejoice with trembling?
It sounds to me like you can be really happy
and really joyful and having a good time
and serving God with just a healthy dose
better not screw this up. Amen? Don't listen to these lying fools that try to teach you
that the fear of God is a bad thing. You have hundreds of scriptures telling you to fear
the Lord. Hundreds, very clear scriptures telling you, fear the Lord, fear the Lord
and His goodness, the Bible says, right? When things are going good, that's when you should
still be fearing. Why? Because it's not going to last forever, you know?
It should always be in the back of your mind that everything is temporary.
And you need to understand that the seeds that we sow today are what we're going to reap
tomorrow.
And so we want to make sure that we're always serving God so that God can give that which
is good.
Verse 12, our land shall yield her increase, righteousness shall go before him.
shall set us in the way of his steps, right? We want God to put us on that
path that he wants us on, okay? But that's something that is not automatic,
Calvinist. It's something that we pray and ask God, put me on that path, God. Put
me in those steps. Turn me and I shall be turned. You know, help me. Cleanse me.
Right created me a clean heart. Oh God and renew a right spirit within me
Restore to me the joy of thy salvation
We want God to do a work in our heart then ask him to do a work in your heart
And again, it's a back and forth.
You draw an eye to God, he draws an eye to you.
You pray for wisdom, he gives you wisdom.
You have more, then you ask for more, you get more.
You pray for God to turn you,
then you start walking in the right path.
God blesses you more.
You ask for more help.
You ask for more of a change in your life
and you wanna...
Get that positive back-and-forth going on between you and God where you're drawn night to him and he's drawn night to you
And then you can get through all the different cycles that life has for you
And when you're in that winter you can push through and know that weeping may endure for a night
But joy comes in the morning and when things are going good in the summertime of life, and it's July 23rd
Then you know what you say, you know what God? Thank you so much
For all the wonderful things you've given us and God, please help us not to screw this up and revive us and turn us
And don't get mad at us
Just show us what to do and put us on that right path so that we can continue to bask in
These blessings year round. Let's bards and have water prayer father. We thank you so much for your word
We thank you for Psalm 85 in particular Lord, please help us to understand this
cycle, Lord, that our lives can be on.
We help us to get on the right kind of a cycle,
the right kind of a pattern, Lord,
and not to fall back into old follies and patterns
and things that would incur your anger.
Lord, help us to please you, turn us, Lord, revive us.
And Lord, keep us working for you.
And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Amen, really quick.
For those of you guys that don't know,
Tomorrow is a very special day, and if you can figure it out what day it is
I'll give you a prize who wants to take a shot at it. What is it?
Huh?
No, no, no
Anybody else who you in the back
No, get on your death. It's like no, no, no and no
what is it no Sunday your books coming out no no can you tell it tomorrow what
special day it is I'll give you a clue no no you gave us a gift my anniversary is
Pastor's birthday, who cares about that?
Since when?
I don't.
It's all about me.
And it's all about my family.
If my family can ever hurry up and get that cake out here,
are you stressing out back there?
Hello?
I'm drowning.
I'm dying.
Oh, good night.
This didn't work out as good as we wanted it to work out.
But did my wife just, like, run away?
I guess I'm no longer married.
She just gave up on me like that.
19 years.
But honestly who cares about me? I don't care about that me and my wife do but this is what it's about
Yes, all of you guys were correct
Today is not pastor's birthday. It's tomorrow and he's gonna be 44
But we wanted to take a moment pastor. They said how much we love you and we wanted to show you that we appreciate you
I put up. Let's go
That's all we wrote and
Joe bring the cake up here
So that way brother Oates can just kind of give us the main shot and pass so you have to come up here and blow this thing out
You have no choice
So let's blow this sucker away
We will but you got to blow it we will it's part of it's part of the schedule, you know, it was a secret mission
All right
And so we do have a big gigantic card for you there.
So maybe you can open that up
and just show them really quickly what it is.
You don't have to read it.
What, no money?
No money fell out of it?
What did I tell ya?
That's how he opens his letters.
He don't care what's inside.
He want something to fall out of it.
But don't worry, it's inside.
All right, what do we do?
There is some money inside.
Yes!
He sees candy.
I love it.
That's how we do it.
Nuts and chews all right, so we got the balloons we got the behind-the-scenes footage that will put up sooner or later
And besides that Daniel a carry on with the mission brother a join us on the last song. Hopefully you know it
If I can get three people three volunteers to go back there and get some six-foot table that are ready stage. Can you hop out Daniel?
Isaac, well, we got the big man over here.
Just three tables.
Bring him up.
Set him up over there.
Set him up like we do for Donut Sunday.
And if I can get three ladies, Mrs. Madison,
you have no choice.
Mrs. Johnson, I don't see why not.
Come on down.
We just need you to custom cake for everybody else,
because in case you're coveting this cake, covet no more.
We have the exact same one for everyone tonight, amen.
So please don't flee, or I'm going
to have to eat all this cake this week.
so please join us as soon as you can we'll get these tables set up we'll have
three ladies to cut the cakes and give you guys some slices and so we need one
more lady any free lady any lady that wants to volunteer just chop up there
you go we got another volunteer so they're gonna set it up one lady per
table what's that setting everything up for you I gotta run and drop off my
wife at the airport so if you don't see me I'll see you guys on Sunday praise the
Lord amen