but I look forward to every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night is the most important time of the week.
When we come to the house of God, we can fellowship with others who are of like faith.
We can hear the word of God preached and sing these great praises to you.
Father, I just pray that you would please bless the sermon now.
What I believe is the most important part of the service is we hear the Bible preached.
Please help everyone to learn what they need to learn.
And in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Now in the story, let me just tell you what's going on in the story here in Ruth chapter 1.
A man named Elimelech, his wife, Naomi, and their two sons, Mahlon and Kylian, are living in the land of Judah.
They're living in the Promised Land, Israel, the land that God had told them to inhabit.
And what happens, lean times come, a famine comes, people are starving,
they're really struggling to find food, to find jobs, to make money.
And so what they did, they buckled under the pressure and they decided to leave the Promised Land,
to leave Judah, and to go into the land of Moab, where God did not want them to go into a heathen nation.
Well, when they get there, an unfortunate thing happens, of course, Elimelech dies.
Well, if you look down at your Bible in Ruth chapter 1 there,
it says in verse number, let me find the verse here, I believe it's verse number 2.
No, I'm sorry, verse number 1, the Bible says,
Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land
and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to sojourn in the country of Moab,
he and his wife and his two sons.
In other words, sojourn means just to live somewhere temporarily.
If you sojourn somewhere, you'll see this throughout the Bible,
it doesn't mean that you're moving there for good.
Basically, things got rough where they were living in Judah,
and so they said, hey, look, just for a little while,
let's go over and live in this heathen country of Moab.
People that God had told them not to spend any time with,
not to have anything to do with because of how ungodly they were,
they said, look, it's only temporary.
So they went there and they lived for a little while.
But you know what ended up happening?
If you look down in your Bible there,
it says that they ended up being there for 10 years at the end of verse 4.
It says, and they dwelled there about 10 years.
So here they are, they went to live there.
Unfortunately, her husband dies.
Now she's stuck there.
So here's Naomi, her two sons, Mala and Kylia.
They get married to two women of the land there, Moabitesses,
whose names are Orpah and Ruth.
Now, the problem here, and you'll see a contrast in this chapter,
and this is why I'm preaching out this morning,
between the attitude of Ruth and the attitude of Limilech and Naomi.
See, Limilech and Naomi thought that they had to take things into their own hands.
They had to take their own financial good in their hands.
They couldn't rely on God to take care of them in the land that he promised them,
and they couldn't trust God through a lean time.
And so the first thing that happened is they jumped the gun
and rushed off to some heathen, worldly land where God commanded them not to go,
because, come on, you just have to do what it takes, right?
I mean, you've got to take care of your family, and so they went off to this land.
Now, we get a little later in the chapter.
She's been there for 10 years. Her life has been ruined.
Her husband is dead. Her two sons are dead.
And she goes back and says, I'm finally going to go back to Judah.
I never should have been here in the first place.
And she takes her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth,
and as they're going on their way, she stops and says,
Listen, ladies, I appreciate you coming with me.
You've been so good to me. You've been so good to my sons.
But I really don't have anything to offer you.
It really doesn't make a lot of sense for you to come back with me to Judah.
I'm an old lady. I don't have any other sons.
I don't have any money. I don't have anything going for me.
Why don't you just go back home,
go back to the country that you're comfortable with,
go back to the nation that you were raised in,
and just go there, get married, be prosperous.
There's many more guys there for you.
There's much more opportunity there.
Would you just go back to that land and live there?
And, of course, one of the daughters says,
Well, that is what I should do.
And she heads back, Orpah.
But Ruth refused to go back. This is what she said.
Look down in the Bible, verse number 14.
And they lifted up their voice and wept again,
and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clave unto her.
And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone backward.
Verse 15, unto her people and unto her gods.
Return thou after thy sister-in-law.
And Ruth said, And treat me not to leave thee,
or to return from falling after thee.
For whither thou goest, I will go,
and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.
Thy people shall be my people.
And this is the key right here.
And thy God, my God,
where thou diest, will I die,
and there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me and more also,
a thought but death, part, me and thee.
Now you see two people in the story.
You see Elimelech, who decided he had to make sure
to provide everything for himself,
to take care of his own needs at the expense of his spiritual life,
at the expense of being in a place where the right church was,
at the expense of being in a place where God's blessing was.
He said, I'm willing to go to a heathen, ungodly nation
if it means me prospering financially.
Then you see Ruth a little later on in the chapter that says,
It makes no sense for me to go where God's blessing.
It makes no sense for me to go to the promised land.
It makes all the sense in the world for me to go back to Moab
where I was raised, where there's opportunity for me.
But she says, It's more important to me that your God be my God
than by the odds of me getting married
or the odds of me having financial success.
You know, it's amazing as you read the story in the book of Ruth here,
you see two people who made opposite decisions.
One of them went out full, she said, and I came back empty.
I went out full thinking that I was taking care of myself,
doing good to myself. I came back empty.
We see the other lady, Ruth, who said,
You know, I'm just going to focus on the spiritual here.
I'm going to go where God wants me to go.
I'm going to be with you because I want your God to be my God.
And you know what she ended up having?
Look down at chapter number four of Ruth.
Flip over in your Bible.
It's just the introduction into the sermon.
But look at Ruth chapter four.
Look at verse 13 and we'll see how Ruth ended up.
The Bible says in verse 13,
So Boaz took Ruth and she was his wife
and when he went in under her,
the Lord gave her conception and she bare a son.
Look at verse number 17.
And the women, her neighbors, gave it a name saying,
There is a son born to Naomi and they called his name Obed.
He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Now flip over, if you would, in the Bible to Psalm 37, if you would.
Psalm 37, right?
If you just drop your Bible open right in the middle,
you'd be in the book of Psalms.
And look for chapter number 37.
Psalm 37, verse number three.
I'll give you a moment to get there.
Psalm 37, three, the Bible reads,
Trust in the Lord and do good.
So shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Now before I get into the sermon,
I'm not talking about this prosperity preaching.
You know, these preachers, these charismatic guys that are on television
and they're wearing the white suit and they got the white shoes on.
You know, they're slick and they're smooth.
Hey, brother, how you doing? God bless you.
You know, the Joel Osteen smiling from ear to ear literally.
That giant smile and your best life now.
Unlocking your hidden spiritual financial potential.
You know, you see these books in the Christian bookstore.
The Bala Mike Christian bookstore that I go to when I have to
just to buy a Bible or something like that.
I'm always standing in the checkout line
and right next to the checkout line is the section that's called Charismatic Interest.
It gives me something to do while I'm in line.
You know, I look over at the books, Charismatic Interest.
Every single one of them, every single one of them
has a guy on the front with just gold rings.
You know, I mean, he's got the perfect suit on.
I mean, he's perfectly groomed. He's got gold rings.
He's telling you about your hidden potential
and how your financial secrets and everything.
It's a charismatic interest.
That's not what I'm talking about.
That's not the kind of prosperity that I'm talking about.
That's not the kind of success.
That's the world's kind of success.
But, you know, God told Joshua, he said,
this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.
Then shalt thou make thy way prosperous
and then shalt thou have good success.
You say, Pastor Anderson, do you believe in prosperity preaching?
Yes, I do.
I do believe that if you obey God, you'll prosper.
Not financially.
Not driving a Mercedes necessarily.
Hey, not living in a fancy house or driving a fancy car.
I'm talking about spiritual prosperity,
like John said to Gaius in 3 John.
He said, I want you to be in health and prosper
as your soul prosper is what he's talking about.
Not the financial, physical success.
Everybody wants to be successful in life.
There are things that you want in life.
Don't you think that this young lady in the story Ruth
wanted to be married?
Absolutely.
Don't you think she wanted to have children?
Of course she did.
You know, every young woman pretty much wants to get married.
They want to have children.
That's their dream in life.
Young men, they want to get married.
They want to have children.
They want to have a family.
How are you going to achieve the goals
that you want in your life?
How are you going to achieve the success
that you want in your life?
Well, the way to achieve the success in life,
look down at the Bible, what we just read.
The Bible says,
Trust in the Lord and do good.
So shalt thou dwell in the land
and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord
and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.
See, God is not trying to,
God wants you to work for him
and God wants you to suffer for him
and God wants you to pay a price
for living for God.
But God doesn't want to give you a miserable life.
Hey, God wants you to enjoy your life.
But I'm going to tell you something.
The things that God restricts you from in the Bible,
it's not because he doesn't want you to have fun.
It's because those things are no fun.
You say, oh man, I can't believe we go to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
The pastor preaches against everything.
Just when I think, I pretty much got it all straightened out.
I come to church and there's another thing that's wrong.
I guess you can't do anything, huh?
Yes, I preach against a lot of sin in this church.
Yes, I preach against the filth that's played on television.
No, I don't even own a television.
Yes, I preach against the world's filthy music.
Yes, I hear the world's filthy music.
Every time I go to the gas station,
they're pumping it at the pumps now.
Every time I go to Walmart.
Every time I go to a department store.
Every time I go to work.
Hey, my mind's being filled with the world's garbage.
You think I'm going to go home and turn it on in my own volition?
No.
These are the songs that I turn on.
Hey, I turn on the hymnal.
This is my CD player.
This is my DVD player.
I open up the hymnal and I sing the praises of God.
My hope is built on nothing less.
Hey, I'd rather sing that kind of song.
I'd rather sing the song that we sang,
Oh Say But I'm Glad,
than to listen to some song about everything that's ungodly,
everything that I'm against.
Now I'm going to tell you something.
What the world has to offer is worthless.
Go ahead and go to Moab, as Naomi and Elimelech did.
You're going to find that it's a dead-end street.
I'm a young man, and I remember when I was younger than I am now,
in my early years of 17, 18, 19.
Those years when you're just kind of coming into your own,
you're just becoming an adult.
You're thinking about which direction you're going to go in life.
You're thinking about dating and marriage and things like that.
And I remember watching some of the teenagers that I was around at the time
that didn't have any interest in spiritual things.
And I watched them gravitate.
I watched the guys who gravitated toward the worldly, flashy, sleazy girls.
And I saw the girls who gravitated toward the Mr. Cool,
you know, fun-loving, break-all-the-rules kind of a guy.
But you know what happened to those people?
They ended up dating the same guy or the same girl for years and years
and just being dropped by them.
Why?
Because that's what the world wants to do.
They just want to use you for a while and throw you aside.
And I know a lot of people who went down that road,
you know, they didn't really end up where they wanted to be in life.
Did you know that?
But then I know a couple of other of my friends at the time
who decided to focus more on the soul-winning,
focus more on the things of God,
and not really to listen to a lot of the people around them.
And here they are now, you know, they're married.
They're happy in life.
They're where they wanted to be in life.
You see, the way to get what you want in life,
the way to succeed in life,
is to seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Look, your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things,
it says in Matthew chapter 6.
God knows that you need food to survive.
God knows that you need to make money.
God knows that you want to get married and that you want to have children.
God knows that you want to have a house and a place to live,
that you want to be safe.
Hey, God knows what your physical needs are,
and God says if you'll seek ye first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness, all these things shall be added unto you.
Look, if you would, at Deuteronomy chapter 11.
Deuteronomy chapter number 11.
I'm thinking of a man that I knew a little bit later in life,
and he told me that he really wanted to get married,
he was having trouble finding a wife, he was getting a little bit older,
and so he went to his pastor and he asked his pastor,
he said, what should I do?
I want to get married, I'm having trouble finding anybody,
what should I do?
And this man was actually a black man,
and for some reason he'd been taught this whole life
that he has to marry somebody who's black.
Now personally, I don't believe that interracial marriage is wrong for one second,
and it's not in the Bible and I can prove that to you,
I've preached sermons about that and so forth,
but for some reason he had it in his head that he had to marry only a black girl,
he was just restricted to it, he must marry a black girl.
And so he was having trouble finding a black girl at this church,
and so this is what his pastor told him to do.
He said, go to this big giant black church over here,
and it was a very liberal church.
He did not believe the Gospel.
They believed you could lose your salvation.
And he said, go to this big liberal black church
and that's where you're going to find the wife.
You know that guy's not married to this day.
You're not going to be blessed by God by disobeying God.
And I'm thinking to myself, okay, yeah, that church has 10,000 black girls in it,
but how many do you really need, sir?
You're only getting married to one of them.
Do you really need 10,000 over there?
And so you find people that make decisions that are based on human reason and human logic,
but you're never going to get where you want to go in life by disobeying God.
If you'll seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
all these things shall be added unto you.
I remember on that same note, you're in Deuteronomy 11,
and we'll get there in a moment,
but I remember when I was 18 years old.
I went to a church, and the church had about 150, 175 people in it.
And in this church, there was nobody between the ages of 18 and 30 except me.
I was 18 years old.
There were a bunch of teenagers in the youth group.
There were a few teenage girls that I wasn't really interested in.
And there was just nobody.
I mean, the next person up in age, for me, I'm 18, was 30 years old,
and the guy with a couple of kids, and he's 30.
That's like my peer.
I didn't like that very much, obviously.
I'm going to this church, but I went there because I thought,
you know, this is the church that's preaching right.
This is the church where I'm learning the Bible.
This is the church that taught me how to win souls and knock doors
and do something with my life.
And so I didn't go to the big liberal church like my friends were doing.
Hey, why do you think I was the only person that was there between 18 and 30?
Because they were all making the exodus.
You know, they turned 18, and they're making the exodus down to
First Baptist Church of Elk Grove, California,
the big Southern Baptist Church down there,
and they're making their run up to this church and to Adventure Church
and to Bayside Christian Church, and they all made the exodus.
And I said, no, I'm not going to go to that church.
No, I'm not going to listen to the NIV preach.
No, I'm not going to go to a church where nobody ever gets saved or baptized.
Hey, that's the church that I came out of when I left Egypt,
when I left the liberal churches that I grew up in.
I came to a fundamental Baptist church because I believe that that's where God is working,
and if God can bring me to a good church,
and if God can teach me how to win people to Christ,
I believe that God is going to give me the desires of my heart
if I trust in the Lord, He'll bring it to pass.
And what happened?
I met my wife out soul winning,
out seeking the kingdom of God,
out doing what God wanted me to do,
out winning people to Christ,
out preaching the gospel.
I won my wife to the Lord before we're married.
Obviously, that's when we first met.
I began to give the gospel to her,
eventually got her saved.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Think about how we started this church.
We started this church in my house
a little less than a year and a half ago.
We could have went out and sought the building.
We could have went out and sought the facilities.
We could have gone out and sought financial aid.
We could have gone out and sought the material.
We could have gone out and sought help from others.
What did we do?
We came here and we sought the kingdom of God.
We got out of the car.
We didn't know anybody.
We didn't know anything about this area.
We unloaded the truck, the moving stuff.
Not a truck.
Did we even have a trailer?
This time, we didn't even have a trailer.
We mailed stuff to ourself.
The day that we left,
we put a bunch of stuff in the mail.
Some of it got here and some of it didn't.
Literally.
We put a bunch.
You know how the mail is.
We put a bunch of stuff in the mail.
We jammed the truck.
I don't know how my wife got the truck this full.
We stopped at one place.
She said,
Oh, honey, can you pull out such and such?
I pulled it out.
One thing is missing.
I still could not get the thing shut.
It seems like I just kept emptying it and emptying it.
It was like a light show with the meal
where it just kept coming.
I just kept unloading it.
It was like a Chinese food box
where you just keep eating it.
It just doesn't even dwindle at all.
Unloading stuff out of this truck.
That's all we had was stuff in the back of the car.
Three days later we had our first service.
We had a whole bunch of visitors on Sunday morning.
We had a whole bunch of visitors on Sunday night.
Hey, Amanda was there the next Sunday morning.
He's been here ever since.
We didn't go around focusing on the visible.
We didn't go around focusing on the material.
We didn't go around focusing on the financial.
We said we're going to focus on what God has called us to do,
which is getting people safe,
which is preaching the gospel to every creature.
You say, well, a lot of people don't like, you know,
when you're meeting in the house.
I don't care whether they like it or not.
I'm not going to spend my life
some kind of a real estate broker.
I'm a pastor.
I'm a preacher.
Hey, I came here to preach.
Oh, man, you know, I could go on and on about that.
I know a guy who just started church,
and he pays $1,100 a month for a building.
It's him and his family and two other people
in a big, giant building.
It's $1,100.
That doesn't make any sense to me.
You say, well, I don't like the fact
that you started in a church.
Well, then you don't like Priscilla, Aquila,
Nymphus, and Philemon,
four people in the Bible at church in their house.
And so we started the church in a house.
Why?
Because we're trying to emphasize the spiritual.
We're trying to seek the kingdom of God.
We're trying to build a church, an assembly,
a group of people,
rather than just building some kind of a building
or a monument or a big, fancy steeple
with a clock tower in it.
No, we're more interested in building lives.
More interested in getting people saved,
seeking the spiritual.
Look down, if you would,
at a great passage in Deuteronomy 11.
Look at verse number 10.
The Bible says in verse number 10,
For the land whither thou goest in to possess it
is not as the land of Egypt
from when she came out,
where thou sowest thy seed,
and watereth it with thy foot
as a garden of herbs.
So you see here, there's a difference.
He's talking to the children of Israel
who are leaving Egypt,
which pictures the world,
the world system, the heathens
that had nothing to do with God,
and he's saying,
Now, let me help you make this transition
from Egypt into the Promised Land.
God's explaining it.
When you get to the Promised Land,
it's not going to be like Egypt.
Things are going to operate
a little bit differently, okay?
Back when you were in Egypt,
this is how it was.
He says, You sowed your seed,
this is verse number 10,
and watereth it with thy foot
as a garden of herbs.
But the land whither you go to possess it,
he says, there's a difference here,
is a land of hills and valleys
and drinketh water of the rain of heaven,
a land which the Lord thy God careth for.
The eyes of the Lord thy God
are always upon it
from the beginning of the year,
even under the end of the year.
And it shall come to pass
if you shall hearken diligently
unto my commandments,
which I command you this day,
to love the Lord your God
and to serve him with all your heart
and with all your soul,
that I will give you
the rain of your land
in his due season,
the first rain and the latter rain,
that thou mayest gather in thy corn
and thy wine and thine oil,
and I will send grass in thy fields
for thy cattle,
that thou mayest eat and be full.
Now, you see the difference?
He says back in Egypt,
things were a little bit different
agriculturally,
and this is a symbol of something else.
He says, in Egypt,
you watered the ground,
you took care of it,
you made things happen for yourself.
You got the job done.
But he says, no, there's a difference.
The Christian life is a little bit different.
Living in the will of God
in the Promised Land
is a little bit different.
He says, I'll take care of you.
I mean, we're saved,
we're God's children, the Bible says.
The old man who loved the Father
but sowed upon us
that we should be called
the sons of God.
Therefore, the world knoweth us not
because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we the sons of God.
Now, if we're God's children,
God's going to take care of his children, right?
Our Heavenly Father knows
that we have need of all these things,
and so God is saying,
don't you worry about
where your meals are going to come from.
Don't worry so much about
where you're going to live
two years from now.
Don't worry so much about
what your future or your life
is going to turn out like.
He says,
if you will hearken diligently
to my commandments,
if you'll love the Lord your God
and serve him with all your heart
and all your soul,
he says, I'll give you
the former lamb and the latter lamb.
He says, I will
make the earth produce for you.
I will make you succeed.
I will take care of you.
You don't have to take it
into your own hands.
You don't have to worry about
where it's going to come from.
You don't have to worry about
how your life is going to turn out.
He says, the steps of a good man
are ordered by the Lord.
See, if you concern yourself more
with being the good man
or the good woman,
you'll find God ordering
your steps before you.
In all thy ways acknowledge him,
the Bible says,
and he shall direct thy paths.
People get so concerned about
knowing what the will of God is.
The will of God is written in a book.
Obey the commandments
that are in this book.
Love the Lord thy God
and serve him with all
your heart and your soul.
God will order your steps.
God will direct your paths
and you'll get to the end of it all
and you can say like the great song,
Jesus led me all the way.
I can look back at my life
and just see God led me.
I didn't know where I was going at times.
I didn't know how things
were going to turn out,
but I was being led by God
without even knowing it.
See, if you'll seek first
the kingdom of God
and his righteousness,
all these things
shall be added unto you.
Look at 1 Kings chapter 3.
Here's another example.
1 Kings chapter number 3.
1 Kings chapter number 3
and let's look at verse number 9.
1 Kings chapter number 3, verse 9,
the Bible says,
Give therefore thy servant
an understanding heart.
This is Solomon speaking.
He's just become king of Israel
and God has given him an offer.
He says,
Ask me whatever you want.
Whatever you want,
I'll give it to you.
This is what he asks for.
He says,
Give therefore thy servant
an understanding heart
to judge thy people,
that I may discern
between good and bad,
for who is able to judge
this so great a people?
And the speech pleased
the Lord that Solomon
had asked this thing
and God said unto him,
Because thou hast asked this thing
and hast not asked
for thyself long life,
neither hast asked richest
for thyself,
nor hast asked the life
of thine enemies,
but hast asked for thyself
an understanding
to discern judgment.
Behold, I have done
according to thy words,
though I have given thee
a wise and an understanding heart,
so that there was none
like thee before thee,
neither after thee
shall any arise like unto thee,
and I have also given thee
that which thou hast not asked,
both riches and honor,
so that there shall not be
any among the kings
like unto thee all thy days.
And if thou wilt walk
in my ways to keep
my statutes and my commandments,
as thy father David did walk,
then I will lengthen thy days.
Now we see here a man
who is offering anything you want.
What would you ask for
if God offered you anything you want?
A million dollars?
Money?
A big nice house?
A fancy car?
Solomon said,
I want wisdom and knowledge,
is the way he phrases it
in 1 Chronicles chapter 1.
He said,
Give me wisdom and knowledge.
Help me to discern
between what's good and bad.
Help me to know the difference
between right and wrong
so that I can live my life
right.
And God says,
Of course I'll give you that.
Absolutely.
The Bible says,
If any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God
to give it to all men
liberally and upbraid if not,
and it shall be given him.
See, God will give anyone
who asks that wisdom, knowledge.
He says,
I'd love to give you
wisdom and knowledge.
I'd love for you to live right.
I'd love for you
to open the Bible
and read its pages
and learn what's right and wrong
and good and bad
and be able to discern
between good and evil.
He said,
But not only that,
because you are emphasizing
the spiritual,
because you're seeking first
the kingdom of God,
because it means more to you
to be the right kind of a leader
than whether or not
you have riches and success
and whether everybody looks at you
and thinks that you're wonderful
or whether you win the war
and have the life of your enemies
or whether you can build yourself
great monuments
and presidential libraries.
He said,
Because you are more concerned
with doing your job right,
he says,
I'm going to give you both.
I'm going to give you
what you didn't ask for.
I'm going to give you
what you seemingly didn't even care about,
riches, honor, success, popularity.
He says,
I'll give you both,
because if you seek first
the kingdom of God,
that's where he's going to give you
the desires of your heart.
When you think about our leaders today,
I have no faith in our leaders
at all in this country.
I don't mind saying that to you.
I have no faith in our president whatsoever.
Oh, he's a Christian.
Our president is not a Christian.
He says,
Islam is a wonderful religion.
He's hired more homosexuals
than any president in the United States' history,
including Bill Clinton.
That's a fact.
Our president is not a Christian.
Our president is ungodly.
He goes to a United Methodist Church
when he's in Texas,
and when he's in Washington, D.C.,
he goes to an Episcopalian church
where the pastor is a woman
and where the deacon is an open lesbian.
That's our president in this country.
I have no faith in the Republican Party.
I have no faith in the Democrat Party.
I have no faith in these candidates at the GOP.
Don't mix religion and politics.
Hey, I'll do whatever I want.
I'm preaching the Bible.
I'm preaching the truth.
Can I tell you the truth right now?
These presidential candidates, Rudy Giuliani,
the cross-dressing pervert,
these other presidential candidates
that they put out there,
these bunch of liberals, huh,
these bunch of pro-choice murderers.
I would never vote.
You say,
will you ever vote for a pro-choice candidate?
Hey, hell will freeze over
before I vote for a murdering candidate.
And if you vote for one of these suckers,
I don't care if they're a Republican or a Democrat,
shame on you!
You say,
I didn't come to church this morning to hear that.
Then you didn't come to church this morning to hear the Bible
because the Bible says,
shouldest thou help the ungodly
or love them that hate the Lord?
No.
Laugh will be upon you from God
if you do that is what God said.
And so I'm going to tell you something.
Our leaders in this country are letting us down,
and I'll tell you why,
because this is what they don't understand.
They need to take a hard, long look at the life of Solomon.
They need to look at a man, Solomon, who said,
yes, I have power.
Yes, I've been given authority.
Oh, God, would you please help me to do what's right?
God, what's the right decision?
Not, you know, the polls, the polling data.
What's popular?
What do people want?
Oh, what's going to make people happy?
Preachers who preach what makes people happy,
not what they need to hear.
There have been things that I've preached
that made people angry,
that made people upset at me,
that made people leave this church,
just for me preaching them behind the pulpit.
I've never tried to tell anybody what to do in their personal life,
but I'm talking about just preaching the truth,
preaching the Bible from the pulpit,
and they didn't like it.
But you know, I'm going to tell you something.
One day those people are going to know that I loved them
and I was telling them the truth.
You know, I preach against the drugs.
I preach against the antidepressants.
I preach against the legalized dope dealing in this country
of pharmaceutical companies
who give out the antidepressants and the Ritalin
and all these drugs for ADHD and all this garbage,
where they dope some kid up to high heaven.
They dope up America with all their pharmaceuticals and drugs.
And I'm going to tell you something.
I'm going to preach against it.
Why?
Because I want to be like a leader like Solomon.
I want to be a pastor like Solomon.
Oh, God, what do you want me to preach, God?
And he says, Steve, why are you asking me dumb questions?
This is what I want you to preach, the whole thing, cover to cover.
I never ask God what to preach.
I open the Bible and I see what I need to preach.
This is what needs to be preached.
And I'm going to tell you something.
The leaders of our country would do well
to quit wondering what's popular,
quit wondering what's going to get them elected,
quit wondering what's going to get them re-elected,
and say, Almighty God, what is right?
You know, our country was founded upon the principles of the Bible.
Look at Deuteronomy chapter one, and I'll show you this.
Deuteronomy chapter number one,
one of the most important passages in the Bible
when it comes to human government.
And if you don't like this kind of preaching,
open the phone, but go wherever you want.
You won't hear it.
Go to any Baptist church on the list.
You won't hear this kind of preaching.
And so let's open the Bible, though,
and let's see what God says.
Look at Deuteronomy chapter number one,
and I'm going to show you a really interesting pattern here
that God sets forth.
The Bible says in verse 12,
how can I myself alone, this is Moses speaking,
how can I myself alone bear your comforts
and your burden and your strife?
Take you wise men in understanding.
And see those two things?
Those are the exact things that Solomon asked for.
Remember, he said, I want an understanding heart.
I want wisdom and knowledge.
It says, take you wise men in understanding
and known among your tribes,
and I will make them rulers over you.
Now, you notice there a pattern for government.
He says, let the people choose people from among them.
He says, I want these men to be wise men,
understanding men.
He says, and these will be your rulers.
Now, a lot of people wrongfully teach
that Israel was a theocracy.
God was directly ruling them in the times of the judges.
That's not true.
The government form is laid out in Deuteronomy chapter one
as that they were to choose from among them,
rulers who were men that were wise and understanding men.
Look what it says here.
It says, and he answered me in verse 14 and said,
the thing which thou has spoken is good for us to do.
So I took the chief of your tribes wise men
and known and made them heads over you,
captains over thousands and captains over hundreds
and captains over fifties and captains over tens
and officers among your tribes.
And I charged your judges at that time saying,
so who are the men that we just talked about?
The judges, right?
So who chose the judges?
The people.
What did they choose them based on?
Their character, their morality, their integrity,
their wisdom, their knowledge.
And it says, I charged your judges at that time
and saying, I'm sorry, I lost my place.
Saying, hear the causes between your brethren
and judge righteously between every man and his brother
and the stranger that is with him.
You should not respect persons in judgment,
but you should hear the small as well as the great.
You should not be afraid of the face of man.
It doesn't matter what people want.
It doesn't matter what people are asking you for.
He says, don't regard the face of man
for the judgment is God's.
Couldn't be any clearer, could it?
And the cause that is too hard for you,
bring it unto me and I'll hear it.
And I commanded you at that time
all the things which he should do.
Now you see, that's God's form of human government.
It's known as the Republican form of government.
It's known as the government that America was started with.
A constitutional republic,
much like God was setting up here,
where he had a written word of God
of five books of the Bible that was the law.
And he said, these are the laws I've written down.
I've told you everything that you're supposed to do.
Now I want you to choose people to judge,
to rule, to lead,
to be leaders over tens and fifties
and hundreds and thousands,
different levels of government.
You know, the city government, maybe the state government.
And then at the top would be like the president, like Moses.
He said, your judge is going to rule based on God's rules, God's words.
I've heard people say, call your congressman.
Now, you know, I probably would call the congressman
just to tell them what I think about him,
just to tell them what they need to change.
But really, I don't even like that whole philosophy
of him getting a bunch of phone calls.
Shouldn't he already know what's right and wrong
before listening to what a bunch of people call them on the phone?
Isn't that why we're supposed to pick these people?
Because they're supposed to do what God wants them to do?
Because they're supposed to do what's right and what's wrong?
I mean, it shouldn't matter how many calls they get.
It shouldn't matter if they get a hundred calls
telling them to do what's wrong.
They should say, no, I'm going to do what's right.
Don't want to elect me? Fine.
But I will do what is right.
You see, the reason that our country is in the state that it's in right now
is because our country is not seeking God.
Our country, our leaders are seeking money, prosperity, wealth.
They're like the elimination Naomi's of this world
who go to the heathen.
They go to the world, they go to the ungodly
because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
And they go there because they want to have money,
they want to have power, they want to succeed.
God says, you want real happiness in life?
You want real success in life?
You want me to provide your needs?
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness
and all things shall be added unto you.
So you see, it goes for the young single person.
It goes for the leader, the president, the senator, the congressman.
It goes for this church, it goes for the pastor,
it goes for the people in the pew.
God says this principle is universal.
He said if you go out, he that findeth his life shall lose it, the Bible says.
But he that loses his life for my sake shall find it.
You see, when you give up everything for God,
when you're willing to put it all on the line for God,
God says I'll reward you a hundred fold.
I wonder if the young people who go out and they go out to the bars,
they go out to the party life,
they go out and have all the fun.
I wonder if they're happy this morning
after they went out and partied last night
and they were too tired to even come to church this morning
because they were probably hungover somewhere
or they're probably sleeping still
because they were up until three and four in the morning doing who knows what.
I wonder if they wake up on Sunday,
I wonder if it's Sunday morning right now at 11.30 a.m.
I wonder how happy they are.
I'm going to tell you something.
The people that are in church this morning,
the people who go to bed with a clean conscience,
the people who get up and serve God,
the people who won the souls this week,
the 14 people saved that we had this week,
those people are the ones that are feeling good right now.
Those are the ones that have that feeling
that the other people wish that they could have,
of fulfillment, of success,
of doing something with their life,
of a life that has some meaning.
Hey, you think you're going to get married to one of these people,
you know, the singles?
You think you're going to get married to one of these people at the bar somewhere?
Huh?
You think you're going to get married to these people
that you find on the Internet somewhere in some chat room?
It's probably some 45-year-old man that you're talking to.
And so you think you're going to end up with the worldly party animal?
Rah, rah, rah!
No, you seek first the kingdom of God.
You want to find a good wife, sir?
Find the woman who loves the Bible.
Don't find the one that says,
oh, we just have so much fun together.
Hey, you'll have so much more fun with somebody
who loves God, who loves the Bible,
who will do and obey the things that are in this book,
who's not selfish,
who thinks about others like the Bible thinks about others.
You know, girls, you want the kind of guy
that's going to be married to you and not just use you?
The guy who's going to pay the bills for you
and buy nice things for you?
Hey, it's the guy who's a soul winner, huh?
It's the guy who loves God.
It's the guy who goes to church.
That's what you ought to be looking for.
You ought to be seeking the kingdom of God.
Instead of asking yourself,
I don't know, I can't find the right job.
I can't seem to make enough money.
I can't find the right job.
I'm not succeeding in life.
I can't find the right spouse.
I can't find a good house.
I can't find a good house to live in.
My life's going nowhere.
Hey, did you go soul winning this week?
When was the last time you personally won somebody the Lord?
When was the last time you opened your Bible
and preached the gospel to somebody?
Your problem is you're not seeking the kingdom of God.
If you would read the Bible daily,
if you'd be searching the Scriptures,
if you'd be asking God,
give me knowledge, give me understanding, give me wisdom.
Thy word is truth.
I'm going to open the Bible and learn the Bible
and see what the truth is, see what's right,
and say, oh God, maybe I won't have everything I want in life,
but God, will you give me an understanding heart?
Will you give me people that I can win to Christ in my lifetime?
Would you give me success when it comes to the things of God?
And God will say, yes, I will give you that,
and I'm also going to give you all the things
that everybody else around you wants.
I'm going to give them to you because you sought me first.
You see, we need to get our eyes off of the visible.
We need to get our eyes off of the temporal.
We need to get our eyes off of the things
that seem to make sense and they seem to be right
and they seem to be what's important
and to realize that the things that are the most important
we can't necessarily see.
They don't necessarily make sense.
They don't make sense like Ruth didn't make sense to go to Judah,
but when she got there,
she found a man that was a very wealthy man.
You know, it happened to be.
He was a man who was a very important man,
and it happened to be a man that was actually in the kingly line,
a man that was in the lineage of Jesus Christ,
and so Ruth's great-grandson was King David.
I mean, who knows?
She may have even been alive at that time.
I mean, the Bible doesn't say how long she lived.
She may have even been alive to see her son slay Goliath
and to see her great-grandson ascend the throne
as the king of Israel.
Hey, what do you want in life?
Ask yourself, what do you want tonight?
Just one more fun night, right?
One more trip to the movies.
Yeah.
One more DVD.
Wouldn't that be so great?
Oh, I want this new CD.
It's going to be so great.
That's not going to fulfill your life.
The things that you really want in life,
only God can give you the things that you really want in life.
I mean, you want to have a nice family?
Only God can give you that.
A prudent wife is from the Lord, the Bible says.
You want to have success spiritually?
You want to win somebody to the Lord in your lifetime?
Or hopefully maybe like 30, 60, or 100-fold?
Hey, only God can give you that.
Only God can give you spiritual success in life.
Only God can give you the things that you really want in life.
Now, if you just want the fun little fast food McDonald's Burger King of life
where it's just, have it your way now.
It's cooked to order it.
Hey, it's going to be ready for you in one minute and 23 seconds.
But what is it?
It's a piece of junk.
It's your eating.
Okay?
Or you can sit down at the nice restaurant.
You can sit down at the black Angus of God's table
where, you know, sometimes it might take about 30, 40 minutes to get your food.
But when you get it, you're going to be a lot happier
that you waited the 30, 40 minutes
and you're sitting in front of a T-bone steak
than that you drove through a McDonald's
and you're going to be feeling sick 30, 40 minutes later.
This is not a dig on McDonald's.
Well, yeah, I forget who's in the service.
But anyway, the point is,
the things that God can give you
are the only things that really matter in life.
I mean, the things that the world wants so badly,
you can find the most worldly, ungodly person
if you sat them down and said,
Look, what do you really want in life?
It's probably much the same things that you want in life.
But the problem is, they're not seeking it in the right direction.
They're trying to get what they want.
You know, the girls will try to dress sleazily, right, to attract some guy.
But look, what they ought to be doing is saying,
Why don't I dress how God will be pleased?
And then God will look down on me
and He'll be so pleased with my life
that He'll give me what I want.
See, ask God, pray to God for what you want in life.
This is the confidence that we have in Him
that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us,
and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask,
we know that we have the traditions that we've desired of.
God is not a mean God up in heaven
who wants to just make you suffer
and push you around
and just knock you down a notch throughout life.
God wants to give you the desires of your heart.
He wants to give you what you want in life.
But see, He wants to give it to you His way.
And He wants you to come His way to get it.
And He might have to change what you want a little
because some of the things you want might be wrong.
But God wants to give you what you want.
He wants you to bring you to a place
where you have joy in your life.
The Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy.
It's the second thing listed there.
The Holy Spirit's called the oil of gladness.
The Bible says the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Hey, God wants you to have joy in your life.
He wants you to live a life that's enjoyable, that's happy,
but you're never going to live the life that's enjoyable and happy
going out trying to find happiness.
You're going to find the life that's enjoying and happy
going out and finding the next person to get saved,
going out and finding the Bible to read,
going out and finding your needs in prayer,
going out and finding the spiritual.
And God says, I'll give you the spiritual.
He says, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
He said, if you thirst for righteousness,
if you hunger to be spiritually successful,
He says, I will give you that.
But not only that, He says,
I'm going to give you what you didn't ask for, Solomon.
I'm going to give you all the things that you didn't seek after.
I'm going to give you the things that the world is seeking after.
I'll give them to you.
I'll give you the happiness that they're craving
because you decided that it was more important to obey Me
than to seek out and find your own happiness somewhere.
Why am I preaching this sermon?
Because I want everybody in here to be happy.
I want to be happy.
I want you to understand that a life seeking the physical pleasures of this world,
you're chasing your tail in life.
And your years are just going to go by and go by and go by,
and you never find it.
But if you decide to sink your teeth into searching for the things of God,
seeking after God,
you'll find what you're looking for.
It may not be what you thought it was,
but you'll find what you're looking for.
You'll find the contentment that you once craved
when you seek after God and His righteousness.
All the rest will be added to you.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for the Bible,
and thank you for all the wonderful blessings that you've given me in my life,
how many prayers of mine that you've answered.
I can think back through my life,
and the things that I wanted when I was younger are, in many cases,
the things that I now possess.
God, thank you so much for giving us the Bible
that gives us a clear path that we can take, dear God.
Our leaders in this country have chosen to go down the wrong road.
They've chosen to go down the road of seeking popularity, seeking money.
God, help us not to make the same mistake.
Help us to decide that money, popularity, friends
is not what we need to be seeking in life.
We need to be seeking the things of God
and just trusting you to take care of us, dear God.
And Father, I just believe that you'll bless everyone in this room
who decides to seek the truth and to seek your kingdom, dear God.
Father, please bless us now as we go our separate ways.