All right, open your Bibles to the book of Psalms, will be in Psalm 27.
Psalm number 27, if you don't have a Bible, raise your hand, one of the ushers will bring
you one.
Psalm 27.
Psalm 27, the Bible reads, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life, and whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they
stumbled and fell.
Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.
Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.
One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire
in his temple.
For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion, and in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me up upon a rock.
And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me, therefore will
I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy.
I will sing, yea I will sing praises unto the Lord.
Hear O Lord, when I cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When thou said, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Hide not thy face far from me, put not thy servant away in anger.
Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.
Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in the plain path, because of mine enemies.
Cover me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me,
and such as breath at cruelty.
I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living.
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart, wait, I say,
on the Lord.
Brother Robert, will you pray for us?
Amen, all right, we're in Psalm chapter 27, and you might be thinking, well, why are you
just preaching out of Psalm 27?
Well, the reason why is because four times a year you have five Sundays in a year, or
four Sundays, yeah, five Sundays in a year, or in a month, good night, yeah, so let me
get this straight.
So basically what I'm doing is that I preached through the first 25 Psalms, and then I took
a break from it, and so the last, so this is the second quarter that I'm now preaching
Psalm 20, so I preached Psalm 26 three months ago, preaching Psalm 27, so four times a year
I'm going to preach one Psalm, and have a men's preaching night, or something along
those lines, and then I'll also feed you.
So I just figured it would be a nice thing to do, but also I was thinking about on every
Saturday on that fifth Sunday, or that fifth weekend of the year, or the month, good night,
that we would do like a movie night, so I was thinking about trying to get a contract
with the movie place that we went to, and you're like, well, there's not documentaries
coming out three times, or four times a year, I know that, but there's still some good documentaries
that have already been made, so I wouldn't mind going and seeing one of those on the
big screen, like After the Tribulation, or something like that, but anyway, that's kind
of my thought, I just wanted to do a Psalm four times a year, and obviously the Psalms
are great doctrinal books, but they're also the song book of the Lord, so, and then of
course David wrote most of the Psalms, but there are some that are written by Moses,
there's some that are written by other men, but this one is a Psalm of David, and point
number one this morning, and I'm just going to preach through the whole Psalm, but point
number one, we need to be having the right kind of fear, we need to be having the right
kind of fear, and so I'm just going to preach through this Psalm verse by verse, and I have
four points, and I'll try to speed some things up, so, because I know the pizza's supposed
to be here in exactly one hour, alright, so I can't promise I'm going to be done by
that hour, but I can't promise you there, well I'm not going to promise you, but I'm
going to tell you there's pizza coming, alright, if they mess it up and bring it every time,
then hopefully when I actually do order it, they're going to bring it when they say they're
going to, so anyway, we need to have the right kind of fear, look at verse number one, the
Bible says, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear, the Lord is the strength
of my life, of whom shall I be afraid, now David was a mighty man of God, he actually
went and fought Goliath, killed him with one shot, obviously the Lord was with him, but
it was probably something that was a scary thing, Goliath was like almost ten feet tall,
and David was a ruddy little youth, is what the Bible says, probably a real young man,
and he fought some battles, he'd been in some wars, but one thing we've got to understand
is that when we're going through battles and wars as Christians, we don't go and conquer
the promised land with weapons of war, the Old Testament, there was a lot of fighting
and wars and battles that were actually physical battles, also spiritual battles, but in the
New Testament church, we're fighting spiritual battles, and we've got to realize that we're
going to be at war, and the times when there's peace in our lives as Christians are very
few and far in between, so when things are going good for you, you should be thankful
for that, because even people that are unsaved go through wars in their lives, but theirs
are more of a carnal type thing, but as Christians, the more godly we live in Christ Jesus, then
the more we're going to get persecuted, so a lot of churches don't get persecution, they're
like, well why is your church always getting persecuted for things? I don't know, why don't
you, you can answer that yourself, probably, because we're out trying to preach, well,
number one, I'm going to preach what the Bible says regardless of what people think, so nothing
is off limits in this book, and there are some gnarly passages in the Bible, and a lot
of Christians don't want to focus on those things, and obviously, if you preach the whole
counsel of God, you're going to come to Psalms that talk about the destruction of God destroying
his enemies, and David praying imprecatory prayers within these, and imprecatory prayers
when you're praying that someone is destroyed, and you're like, well that's not very Christian
of him, you know, the Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart, so why don't
you just judge, you know, how David was treated by God, how much he loved the Lord, if he
says he's a man after God's own heart, then who are you to say something about King David
when he's praying an imprecatory prayer in a Psalm? But notice he focuses on the Lord
in this first verse, he said, the Lord is my light, so God is a path, you know, if we're
walking in the Lord, he's going to be a pathway of light for us, he's going to open up doors
for us, and he's going to teach us how to walk in his ways, and it says, and my salvation,
there's no salvation outside of the Lord God of the Bible, and David understands this,
he's saved, he says, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall
I be afraid? So if God is your strength, and God is your salvation, why would you fear
anybody else, any kind of institution of man, why would we fear? You know, we fear obviously
because we're fleshly and we're sinful, and sometimes we have these fears that come upon
us that are just, they're not really valid, they're just, people want to put us in fear,
and people want to scare us, and things like that, but we should not be fearful of anything
but the God of the Bible. Look at Proverbs chapter 9, just keep your finger or a bookmark
in Psalm chapter 27, we're going to come back to it, but Proverbs chapter 9, verse number
10 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is
understanding. So the Bible says we're supposed to fear the Lord, right, and that's going
to get us that wisdom, it's the beginning of wisdom, and I believe obviously it's talking
about, you know, you fear the Lord, why, because you think he can throw you in hell? He can,
he could, right? I got saved because I knew that I was going to hell. I mean, what other
reason would there be to want to get saved? You know, someone didn't love me into salvation
necessarily, I was afraid that God was going to cast me into hell, and I knew that he was
going to if I didn't get saved, but I just didn't know how to get saved. So I was on
this quest to try to understand, you know, what is the truth? And you know, if you ask
God for the truth, God show me what's true, God lead me and guide me, show me what is
the right salvation, show me what the right God is, God will reveal himself unto you,
he will reveal himself unto you in a very special way, and he'll make sure that you
get saved. Look, if you seek him, you'll find him. But a lot of people just want to seek
wisdom in other different ways, and they'll be like, well, this is a truth. But the Bible
is the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And nobody can come to God except
through him. It says in Proverbs 1-7, go ahead and turn to Matthew 10-27, Proverbs 1-7 says
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So a fool basically means a stupid person, right? And I know that people get upset about
the word stupid, but some people just are stupid. You know, you're a fool if you don't
believe in God. The Bible says the fool has said in his heart that there is no God. Corrupt
are they? So anybody that's out there that says that there's no God, they're just foolish.
And these atheists that want to just push all their beliefs onto us, their science,
science can't answer everything, folks. And science, you're not going to be able to put
God in a test tube and figure him out. He's not going to appear to you out of heaven,
you know, in some, you know, burning bush experience. He's already done that. He reveals
himself through the word of God. Look at it says in Matthew 10-27, it says, what I tell
you in darkness, that speak ye in light. And what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon
the housetops. Jesus is talking to his disciples here and he's saying, hey, it needs, my words
need to be proclaimed out in the open and publicly. And it says, and fear not them which
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him, which is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell. So the only person that can actually send people
to hell is God himself. And people are like, well, God's love. I agree with you, but do
you think he loves them as he casts them into the lake of fire? He loves them no more.
There comes a point when God stops loving someone. You're like, well, that's, I've never
heard that at a Christian church before. Look, what did Jesus say? Don't fear those people
that could just kill your body. See, people will threaten us. People will tell us they're
going to kill us. People will send me death threats and things like that all the time.
But you know what? God is looking out for us. And why would I fear if the Lord is my
strength? Why would I fear somebody? And you know what? I'm saved. So why would I care
whether someone killed me or not? The only thing I would care about is making sure that
my wife is taken care of and that my children and grandchildren have some sort of an inheritance.
But the main inheritance that they need is the inheritance of salvation. That's the most
important thing. Whether I can leave them some of money or not is not as important as
whether I can leave salvation to the next generation of my house and the houses of all
the people in our church. But anyway, look at Proverbs chapter 29 verse 25. See, we should
not fear those people that can hurt us physically. We should fear God. That's the only thing
that we should fear. Don't fear the things that go bump in the night. You know, God will
put a hedge of protection. Every single believer has an angel, I believe, and I believe that
God protects us and He only allows people to be hurt. Sometimes God will allow us to
go through temptations and trials. Sometimes He'll allow us to be persecuted. Sometimes
He'll allow us to be killed. But you know, we get a better resurrection for that. It's
a win-win situation. Whether we live out our life till we're old men or old ladies or whether
God takes us home early, we're still winning, right? We still get to go to heaven. That's
the ultimate goal. And in Proverbs 29 verse 25, it says, the fear of man bringeth a snare,
but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. We need to have the right kind of
fear. And when we fear what man can do to us physically, financially, or any of those
things, you know, or just, you know, we fear the wrong things. We got to fear God only.
And if we put our faith and trust in God, He is our light. He is our salvation. He is
our strength. See, David realized that he needed the strength of God to be able to win
the battles that he was in. Was he a man of war? Yes, he was. Was he skilled in combat?
Yes, he was. But without God on his side, he was just a normal man. And men can be defeated.
But see, when God is on your side, when God is your strength and your salvation, your
strength, then what reason do you have to fear? You don't have any reason to fear. So
it says, whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. Whoso putteth his trust in
the Lord shall be safe. So where do we need to get our safety from? The Lord. Who do we
need to fear? The Lord. We don't need to fear man. Now let's look at point number two in
verse number two. Point number two is God will take care of our enemies. So even though,
you know, God's telling us, you know, we have to fear the right thing, which is him, and
we don't have to worry about what God's going to do or what we're going to do to our enemies.
We need to just put that in the hands of God. Let God destroy our enemies. Let God bring
forth his judgments against them. Look at verse two. It says, when the wicked, even
mine enemies and my foes came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. So David
realized as long as, you know, and here's the thing, you got to be right with God also,
because there was times when David was punished because he was not right with God. And when
he got right with God, then God spared him and gave him mercy. Now he didn't completely
take away all punishment, but he did, you know, Absalom was not able to fully take over,
was he? Absalom ended up getting killed and then David ended up getting back to kingdom.
Because of the way David responded to the discipline. There was other things that David
did and because of the way he responded to God, when we are caught sinning, we know that
God, you know, obviously God knows everything that we do. So we need to have that self-realization
that every day we should probably confess our faults and sins to God and ask him for
mercy and grace and forgiveness. But, and you know, when we have enemies, which we will,
you'll have enemies, God will make sure that they stumble and fall. You're like, well,
I prayed and that didn't happen. Well, we have to wait. It's God's timing. You're like,
well, that doesn't make sense. Well, it does make sense because sometimes God wants us
to have the proper fear. Maybe you are fearing that persecution. Maybe you are fearing losing
your job. Maybe you are fearing losing your relatives and family members because you go
to a church like this or whatever. But those are not things that we should, those are not
healthy fears. And a lot of times when people would fear things that were unreasonable,
God would bring that fear upon them in the Bible. So sometimes our greatest fear, you
know, if your greatest fear isn't God, it's something else, then God will allow that great
fear to come upon you or he'll make the reality of what you're fearing come upon you. So look
at verse three, it says, though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.
Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. So David, he's not afraid
because he knows that God is going to take care of those enemies that are coming against
him. And even if a whole host should encamp against me. So it's like an army encamping
against you. And he said, I'm not going to be afraid of that. My heart shall not fear.
Even though a big war is going to rise, and look, as Christians, wars are going to rise
against us. We've been through some battles, we've been through some wars. And you know
what, God has always protected us. God has always made sure everything works out for
our betterment. You know what, even if he didn't, you know, we still are supposed to
fear God above all things. So it says in this will I be confident and look, I've gone to
some things that maybe I should have been more fearful. I was looking at an old photo
last week with Pastor Jones of me, Brother CJ, and we're walking through this crowd
of sodomites. They're sodomites on the right, sodomites on the left, and they're yelling
and screaming and just shaking their fists at us and saying all kinds of nasty things.
And we just walked through like, with our sunglasses on, had some good pictures taken
of us, they were really high caliber quality ones. But we weren't afraid. Why? Because
we knew that God was going to protect us. And we went to that Verity Baptist protest,
I wasn't afraid to go down there. I mean, could I have lost everything? Could I have
lost my job and all that stuff? Yeah, I could have lost all that stuff. But you know what,
I didn't care because I fear God. And I fear God more than I feared those sodomites. So,
and I've told you guys before, I get death threats all the time. I get verbal threats.
I get apartment managers that, you know, when you guys go sowing, they call me. So you don't
feel all the calls that I feel, but I have, we have all these different churches and they
all call the same number. And so sometimes there'll be this threatening message or call
that I get during sowing times. I'm like, I don't answer, I mean, I answer it, but then
I realize it's picked up through the Google voice. And I just, I just look at the transcribe
of what's being said. And usually it's like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Like Google actually
beeps out the transcription of bad words. So, um, but these things happen and they're
like, just so you know, there's no soliciting. And that includes religious people at this
property. And then I was just, I try to be nice as long as they're being nice. I try
to be nice and just say, well, Hey, you know, you're just misinformed. You know, these people
that live here, they pay the rent, you don't pay their rent for them. They pay the rent.
So they have a right to refuse our service. Basically. All we do is just knock on people's
doors, ask them if they want to come to church and ask them if they are 100% sure if they
died today that they'd go to heaven. And if they say, Hey, I'm not interested, then you
just go onto the next door. It's not like we're there to badger people or make them
do something that they don't want to do. So, but we get, I get a lot of these types of
calls and a lot of times they'll threaten me and stuff like that. But you know, we shouldn't
be afraid of our enemies. They just think that like, if they say, well, we're going
to take away your tax ID, we're going to take away this, we're going to take away that.
Take it away. I don't care. We're still going to serve God no matter what happens. And you
know what? We know that God is ultimately going to take care of our enemies for us.
We don't have to get revenge on our own. We don't. Venge is his mind, sayeth the Lord.
You know? So why would be afraid of people? And, and, and obviously we know that sometimes
people do, do bad and they think that they're winning these great victories against us.
They think that they're winning these great victories against our friends. And you know,
they have a lot of tactics that they use. There's a lot of, you know, basically predators,
predatory like packs of animals, like wolves, they circle around people. And the Bible talks
about that a lot. And it even says, you know, in verse, verse three, it says, though in
host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. So, and, and usually if it's a predator,
they will circle round about, they'll go around the house. Like in Genesis chapter 19, they
surrounded the house, didn't they? In Judges chapter 19, they surrounded the house so that
nobody can escape. And this is what they, their tactics are, these enemies is they like
to just hit us from all different sides and they'll, so they'll, they'll stalk us literal,
literal stalking, you know, which is against the law, by the way. Did you know that it's
against a lot of stock people? And did you know cyber stalking is also against the law?
Cyber stalking is against the law, but yet it's done to me all the time. And who's doing
anything about it? Nobody's doing anything about it. There's nothing I can do. We've
had literal people on Facebook threatened to kill every person in our church before.
And when I called the police about it, when I, when I reported to Facebook, they said
that doesn't go against our harassment policy. But if you accidentally say the F word, then
they're all over you. That word fag, you know, they, they, they get all freaked, you know,
they ban you for, you know, they put you in Facebook jail or whatever for that stuff.
But isn't it funny how they never have to like, when it's against Christians, they're
just allowed to just persecute us at will. There's like a Facebook whistleblower that
I watched an interview of and, and I was interested in it because they said that they were part
of a, of an eight person crew. And this eight person crew got all the incest videos, all
the child porn, all the, you know, hurting animals, bestiality, all these different vile
things. They had to watch the videos and say whether it was allowed on Facebook or not.
I mean, imagine that being your job, disgusting. I mean, I would just flat out refuse to do
that. But then they're also, they're also in charge of hate speech. So we're lumped
in what we preach at this pulpit sometimes is considered hate speech to Facebook and
YouTube and all these different, you know, organizations. But you know, there's no law
about hate speech in the United States. People just think that there is because in a lot
of other countries where they're way more liberal than we are, they have passed hate
speech laws, but there is no hate speech laws. But it's not really interesting. They only
have eight people monitoring hate speech and all those other things that I don't want
to mention again. So I was just thinking about, about all the times that we would post videos
on Facebook or we would say things on Facebook and the monitors are there, right there to
just nail us on every single thing. But then Facebook is allowing some of the stuff on
that shouldn't be on that's totally disgusting and filthy, but they're blocking us and saying
we can't even exist on it. Like Pastor Shelley's literally banned from Facebook. Like he cannot
use it. His name is like, shall not henceforth be mentioned on there or whatever. Pastor
Anderson is not allowed to be on YouTube. If you've ever subscribed to his channel,
you'll notice that it's not there anymore, usually on Monday morning. So you kind of
have to follow his next YouTube page or whatever. But why is this being allowed to happen? Well,
the devil is the one that actually runs this world and he's going to allow and he's going
to shoot darts and things at us. But what we need to understand is that God will eventually
take care of our enemies. It's not up to us. We fight the battle by preaching the sermons.
We fight the battle by going out and preaching the gospel to the lost. And we fight the battle
by standing steadfast and being strong in our faith and being strong in our churches
and being God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians. And you know what? God's going to take care
of the harassment. He's going to take care of the stalkers. He's going to take care of
the people that try to get us fired at our jobs, the people that try to get our banking
counseled, the people that are getting churches evicted and so on and so forth. And look,
our enemies will shout with glee, just like Satan probably thought. Yeah, we killed the
son of God. We win. But in reality, in three days, he lost. He didn't realize that he lost,
but he knows it now. So what is it? What is his, what is his big goal to stop people from
being saved by bringing up all these fake religions and false religions around the world
and that sends people to hell. But then also he also wants to attack God's people and accuse
them before God night and day, day and night, every single day. Look at what that Christian
is doing. Look at what he's doing. Look, he says he loves you, but look what he's doing.
And he's called the accuser of the brethren. And look, the devil has his own agents out
there infiltrating churches, stalking churches, raising people up that, you know, are attacking
and trying to destroy us and our lives. But the Bible says, and go ahead and turn to Psalm
chapter 58, but Proverbs chapter 26 says, in verse 27, it says, whoso diggeth a pit shall
fall therein. So someone's trying to set a trap. Guess what? They're going to fall in their own
trap. You know, you try, that's how they kill, they used to hunt bears and, and different types
of animals. They dig a pit and put these spikes in there so that when the, they would, they would go
over the enclosure, they'd fall in and get killed. And then they could just go drag them out or
whatever. But that's what enemies try to do. They try to set us up and they dig all these pits,
trying to stop us, trying to make us stumble, trying to make us break ankles and get hurt. But
it says, and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. So another thing that people
would try to do maybe in warfare or to try to catch, catch people in a trap is to roll a big
stone and when, and then it says that he, he that rolled a stone, it will return upon him. You know,
you're, you think of someone trying to push a rock uphill and then they get to a certain point
and then the rock rolls back over on top of them. But it's just God's way of saying that these
people that are trying to come at us, these enemies, they're going to get what's coming to
them. You can't just reap or you can't just reap good things when all you sow is bad things. Psalm
chapter 58, look at verse number six. Here's one of the imprecatory Psalms of David. And you know,
the Bible, every word of God is pure, isn't it? So these, but these verses that David wrote under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it's not just him. The Holy Spirit inspired David to write these
things. They're in our Bible today for a reason. It's not just something that some man added to
the Bible. God said that he has preserved his words from this day and forever. So God has
preserved his words. So this is a preserved, inspired, Holy Spirit-breathed scripture. Look
at verse six. It says, break their teeth, O God, in their mouth. Break out the great teeth of the
young lions, O Lord. So see how he, and he's not talking about literal lions here. He's talking
about these people that just are coming at him, these predators. And he's saying, why don't you
break their teeth out, God? Well, that's not very loving of David to say that. Well, you know,
sometimes we have to pray things against our enemies. And that's what David's doing to man
after God's own heart. Look at what it says in verse seven. Let them melt away as waters which
run continually. When he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. As a
snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that
they may not see the sun. Sounds, that's pretty harsh. It's a pretty harsh language. And it says,
before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with the whirlwind, both living
and in his wrath. The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in
the blood of the wicked. That does sound really gross, doesn't it? But that's what the Bible says,
folks. David said some pretty harsh things. This isn't the only imprecatory psalm. This isn't the
only, you know, I mean, people are like, you know, as a man of God, you're supposed to only preach
love, only preach the gospel from the pulpit. That's not true, folks. The whole counsel of God.
Paul said, you know, I shun not to preach, you know, to teach the whole counsel of God unto you.
You know, so Paul knew that it was important, and what did it say? That I, you know, weeping,
day and night, he's preaching that these false prophets, these wolves were gonna come into the
church. And it's like, people say, well, you preach about this stuff too much. Well, it's a
big theme in the Bible. Almost every psalm is David talking about how he would want God to
destroy his enemies. Protect me from my enemies. And so when people say, well, you just need to
preach love and that's it, you know, well, what about Elisha the prophet? Forty-two children were
torn to pieces by bear, by bears because they just mocked the man of God. They said, go up thou bald
head. Go up. You say that about me. Take a good look. Better be careful. But I'm not the one that's
gonna pray that someone gets destroyed for that. I don't really care, like, if someone calls me a
bald head, but apparently that was a touchy subject with Elisha. So, but what I'm saying is
it like, you know, there are some gnarly things in the Bible. There's some things that people just,
you know, it makes you squeamish. It makes you unsettled when you would read verses like this,
but look what it says in verse 11. So that a man shall say, verily there's a reward for the
righteous. What's the reward? Well, we get to go to heaven and we also get to see the judgment that
God passes upon the people that wanted to destroy us. Who knows just how deep some of this stuff
really goes? You know, because, you know, people would say, well, you're a conspiracy theorist
and whatever. I'm pretty moderate in my conspiracy theories, but there is a big conspiracy against
mankind and it's run by the devil. And so there's multiple conspiracies. The Bible talks about
conspiracies in the Bible. So that's what we have to understand is that there are conspiracies that
are going on. So you're like, well, you're just, you know, when the police don't show up while
there's a bunch of sodomites holding rifles at a church telling them they're gonna turn their
church into Qubq, that's a direct threat of violence. And for the police to just not show
up, are you telling me there's no conspiracy? Or when these freaks are following around my
son-in-law and the people in his church at steadfast, they're literally writing down all
the license plate numbers, keeping an inventory of their cars and who drives them, and the police say,
well, that's not stalking. How is that not stalking? You know, you can't, you used to be
able to look people's license plate up at the DMV and they pass a law where you can't do that anymore.
But yet it's okay for this freak that's protesting steadfast all the time to go around, ride
everybody's vehicle numbers down, yell obscenities and things in front of children, be naked in
front of them, put screws in the driveway of his house before he goes to church. You know,
all this stuff is going on and there is a conspiracy. There's a conspiracy against that
church. How do you not see that? Because let me tell you something, I've said this before,
and I'm gonna say it again. If anybody followed a cop home and threatened their lives and said
they were gonna shoot him in the back of the head, that person will be killed by the police
probably that day, or at least arrested. But yet those flatfoots down there in Texas refuse to do
their job. Those flatfoots in Boise refuse to do their job. They're worthless. You're like, well,
I don't like the way you're talking about police officers. I like good police officers, but I've
also made this point. You know, they caught that Idaho killer or whatever. How'd they do it? By
tracing his cell phone and looking at every single place where his cell phone was going because they
had his number, they were able to trace every place he's been. But yet Pastor Mejia's building
gets blown up by these terrorist sodomites and yet nothing's done about that. Oh, we just couldn't
happen to find them. But if that was a black church or some gay and lesbian queer station,
they'd be all over it and finding out who the person was. There is a conspiracy. There are
enemies that are being allowed to just do whatever they want to God's people. But you know what? God
is going to pay them back. In Hosea chapter 8 verse 7, it says, for they have sown the wind
and they shall reap the whirlwind. It hath no stock. The bud shall yield no meal. If so be,
it yield the stranger shall swallow it up. So again, these enemies like to stock our church,
stock our lives, do all this weird stuff. You know, file lawsuits, frivolous lawsuits,
over and over again. They just get to skate by. But again, God is not going to just continue to
put up with it. It's not going to happen. You're like, well, when is it going to happen? You'll see.
And then we'll be able to look back on the times when these certain people were persecuting our
church or trying to destroy us in some way and see their destruction. And even if it is in heaven,
we'll still get to see it. Because God, you know, barely there's a reward for the righteous. The
righteous shall rejoice when they see it the vengeance. You're like, well, you're saying
that Christians are going to rejoice when they wash their feet in the blood of the wicked? That's
what it says. Don't get mad at me. That's what the Bible actually says. He shall wash his feet in
the blood of the wicked. I mean, you're not in that verse right now. Well, maybe you still are
there. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 3. We have to
understand that the war that we fight, though, is not a physical war. And this is where people
get messed up. We have this alliance of churches after they saw what happened to our church in,
what, a couple years ago when those Sodomites were protesting in front of our church. That was
like one of the things that enacted them to do this thing where they train fellow Christians.
And when someone comes and tries to protest, these people come with batons to try to protect
your church. And they were training us. Who went to the training with that? That was my first and
only time going to it because I just thought, like, these people are delusional if they think
that they're gonna be able to stand in front of our building with batons and ram people with them
and back them off and do all these police tactics. It's not good. You know, they're not gonna allow
that to happen. The police will intervene on something like that. You know, they'll let them
breathe all the fire they want and just harass people, but they're not gonna let us do anything
back. But, you know, God doesn't want us to do anything back. That's the thing. He doesn't want
us to physically fight with them. And, you know, we think we get upset. We sometimes we get in the
flesh and we think we want to hurt these people. But we should, you know, the Bible says in
2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 3, it says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the
flesh. That's pretty clear, isn't it? We don't war the same way other people do. For the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Isn't that
what this this Psalm is all about, though? About how the first thing David says is that my strength
is the Lord. It's mighty through God. It's not mighty through us. It's not our might and physical
prowess that makes us somebody worthy of contention. Our contention is not carnal. It's
spiritual. It's a spiritual battle. Turn to Romans chapter 8 verse 35. Romans chapter 8 verse 35.
The Bible says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or
persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed
all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all things, we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. See, in the Old Testament, they were conquerors. Weren't
they supposed to go conquer the land of Canaan? They had physical battles, physical armies, but
we're more than conquerors. Our warfare is to go out to a lost and dying world and see them saved.
That's our war. That's our battle and to preach the Word of God without compromise. Look at Romans
chapter 8 verse 38 says, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor
principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other
creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. No
matter what happens, these enemies will never be able to stop us. They might be able to stop your
life here on this earth somehow, but you know what? They're never gonna be able to take away
the fact that your name is written in heaven and that you'll be there. Matthew 11 verse 12 says,
go ahead and turn back to Psalm chapter 27. Matthew 11 12 says, And from the days of John
the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by
force. What is their weapons of warfare? Well, violence. They want to hurt us. They want to shut
us up. They want to kill us. They don't like what's being preached. That's why people come
at us. You know, these love-only pastors, they're not being attacked because they just let them in.
They don't kick people out of their church for doing wrong. They just let them stay. So,
why would they be attacked by the devil if they're not doing anything for God? If they scaled
soul-winding back to door hangers or bus ministry only, why is God gonna persecute them? Or, I mean,
why is God gonna allow the devil to persecute him? Why would the devil even persecute him? You
can see that when there's no war going on in a church, then what are they there for? We are in
a war, folks. We are in a battle. And the sooner that we realize that, the better off we're gonna
be. And we can't take sight or take our sights off the fact that we are in one. Because sometimes,
you know, there's, in any war, there's ceasefires. You know, there's like some famous battle that
it was the Germans against, you know, I think it was World War II. It was Christmas, and they did
like some ceasefire for Christmas. Who's ever heard of that before? World War I. Was it World
War I? Okay. It was one of those big world wars. But that they did a ceasefire at Christmas or
something. There's ceasefires from time to time, but then the next day, they're all killing each
other again. It's like, yeah, we're gonna give one day for Jesus, and then now we're gonna kill you
tomorrow. It's like, but that's what the world wants to do. The world wants to break in here
and kill us. The world wants to stalk us at our work sites and try to get us fired. The world
wants to just breathe fire. They want to destroy us. If they could kill us, if they could snap
their finger right now and all of us would be dead, every single liberal and God-hater would
have us dead the next day. But they won't admit that. They won't admit that. But like, I'll say
something that's like provocative in their in their minds, but the Bible just plainly says it,
and then they'll get all mad about it, and then they'll threaten to murder me in all these
different ways. It's like, I thought you were loving. You're telling me to be loving, but yet
you're threatening to murder me. Okay, that's pretty weird. It's called hypocrisy, folks.
They're big hypocrites, but the way they shut people up is killing them. How they shut John
up? How they shut up John the Baptist? They chopped his head off. It's hard to talk with no head,
isn't it? That's what they did to John the Baptist. That's why Jesus mentions that. The
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Take what? The kingdom
of heaven. All throughout time, Christians have been persecuted and murdered and killed by people
through violence, but our weapons are not carnal. Our weapons are spiritual, and we have the strength
of the God of heaven and earth on our side. So we need to tap into that instead of trying to fight
battles in our flesh. Obviously, we get mad sometimes. Obviously, sometimes an apartment
manager follows you around, and they start saying all this stuff, and you're just like, just shut up,
you know. You just tell somebody off or whatever. It happens. We all get in the flesh sometimes,
but just we should live our lives realizing that, hey, the more we shut our mouths, the more that we
stop fighting with specific people that are trying to attack us, the more God is going to be like,
hey, you know, they put up with a lot. They're done. God can make them stop breathing in the
middle of the night. God can make them, you know, get eaten by a shark when they're in the ocean.
God can make, you know, God can make all kinds of things happen to the enemies. You know that lady,
Madame Marie O'Hare, she was a famous atheist that got prayer and the Bible taken out of school. You
know what ended up happening to her? She got kidnapped by people who were trying to to extort
money out of her, and then her kidnapper killed her, and like chopped her up or whatever. It was
pretty brutal, but you know she was just running her mouth and saying all this stuff against God.
Well, I mean, prayer used to be in school, and I'm not just saying forced prayer is a right thing,
but now the pendulum swung all the way over to here where you're just not allowed to have a
Bible. You're not allowed to talk about God. You're not allowed to pray. Ten Commandments
need to be taken off the wall. When all that stuff happened, schools, violence has increased
so much, and you know premarital, you know what, STDs, and pregnant teen pregnancy, all the stuff
has just been a bobsled. This country's been on a bobsled to hell for a long time, and you know
God's not gonna just allow those people to just get away scot-free. They're not, he's just not
gonna let it happen. Number three this morning, we're looking forward to better days. So yeah,
all that was rough, but we are looking forward to better days, and you know I think that Christians
should have a positive outlook on their life, and sometimes all this bad stuff's happened. You know
if you're a person that gets depressed by watching the news, just stop watching it. Well, think about
positive things. Do have positive things in your life because we're people that can start
complaining and murmuring about things, and like, oh it's so wicked. It's just, you know, I'm just
the only one going through all this, and we get depressed, or whatever, but you know we need to
look forward to better days. Look at Psalm 27 verse 4. It says, one thing I have desired of the Lord,
that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to
behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. Not everybody gets that opportunity,
folks. Only saved people get that, but to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. He's talking about
not just going to church, and going to, you know, at the time there was a tabernacle they could go
to, or whatever, and make their sacrifices and stuff, but he's talking about dwelling in God's
house forever. God's house. So, and it says, for in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his
pavilion. In the secret in his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock. Obviously,
when you do a study on the rock, the rock is the Lord Jesus Christ that it's talking about here,
and what does this represent? Well, it says he shall set me upon a rock, you know, and I think
about, I was just thinking about like, what is the significance of this? Well, rocks are stable,
aren't they? Rocks don't break easy, and, you know, it represents safety. That represents,
you know, if you see, if it's flooding around you, you want to get to the high ground, you know,
and so that's what most people do in floodplains and things. They tell you, get to a higher ground,
and, you know, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. That's what we should be seeking for our
safety, and David said it, he said, in the time that I'm in trouble, you know, he's gonna, he's
gonna hide me in the secret, in the tabernacle. He shall hide me and set me upon a rock. So we
need to look forward to better days, and we have a rock that we can go to for safety, and one of
these days, we're gonna be able to to dwell in the house of the Lord forever too, and while we're
here on this earth, we should be dwelling with God's people in God's house on a regular basis,
and, you know, in our in our time of trouble, you know, it just amazes me when people, you know,
they get out of church because something wrong is going on in their life. Let me tell you something,
that is the time when you should go to church. That is the time when you should cling to God
more. Be set upon the rock. Be set upon the rock, and don't go, well God just, you know,
he's mad at me, so he's letting all this stuff happen. You don't know that. I mean, obviously,
sometimes we know when we're being persecuted, first things that we've done, but we need to
understand that that our safety is on the rock, not away from the rock. You don't climb down off
the rock when things are hard in your life. You climb on the rock. You go to him for safety when
the floods of life are beating against you, when the the terrors of the waves, you know,
because look, it's freaky to be on in water when it's when it's really tempestuous, isn't it?
Who's ever been on a boat, and all of a sudden like a storm came, and you know, you just got
scared, freaked out. Sometimes the Columbia River will get like when the wind starts blowing really
hard, you know, you'll see the white caps, and it's just really rough out there. I've had that
happen before where I'm just out on a lake, and all of a sudden it starts storming or whatever,
and it freaks you out, but you know what? If you have a rock to cling to, you know, a lot of people
would be like, hey, there's a rock over there. Let's go get on that little island over there or
whatever and be higher than the water and the floods that you're on, and you know what? It's
stability. It's safety that we can look to. Look at Matthew chapter 7 verse 24. In our bulletin,
we have this verse on here about Matthew 7 24. I thought, well, Ryland didn't even know
I was preaching some verses out here, but here we go. Matthew 7 24, look what it says. Therefore
whosoever hear these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which
built his house upon a rock. So when we follow God's Word, when we listen to his voice, the voice
of the Shepherd, he says, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. The
figure that we're looking at is what? That when you build your house upon the solid rock of Jesus
Christ, then you're building it upon a good foundation, aren't you? Look at verse 25. And
the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell
not. Why? For it was founded upon a rock. When your strength is from the Lord Jesus Christ,
when your safety is in his presence and clinging to him, clinging to that rock,
having him be your crutch, I'm not ashamed to say that Jesus Christ is my crutch because you know
what? People are like, oh, you just need religion for your crutch. No, I need Jesus for my crutch,
actually. Because he's the one that's always going to be stable. If your legs, you know,
one of your legs are bad, your hips bad, you know, you got problems, you got infirmities in your life,
well, Jesus doesn't have any. And he can keep you solid. Look what it says in verse 26. And
everyone that hearth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish
man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds
blew and beat upon that house and it fell and great was the fall of it. So look, when people
just try out Christianity, they're not really placing their faith on the rock, are they?
Their safety is not in the rock. They want what they can get out of it, just like the
people that were fed, the 5,000 were fed or whatever, and they followed Jesus to the next
place hoping to get a free meal. Because some people just want to try on Christianity to
help their marriage, or they want to try on Christianity to help their children, or they
want to try on Christianity to help themselves, but they're not really putting themselves upon
the rock. They're putting themselves on, well, Jesus is going to fix all my problems as soon
as I go to church. That's not true. You're still going to have problems. Everything you dragged
through your life or all the issues that you had before are still going to be issues that you have,
but God is just going to help you chip away at those things. He's going to help you to get out
of that sin that so easily besets you. He's going to help us, but you know what? We have to base
our life upon the hearings, or the sayings, excuse me, we have to hear the sayings of Jesus and do
them, and then it's like our house is built upon a rock, but if we're building it upon anything else,
the sand, it says the great was the fall of it, and I've seen a lot of people greatly fall,
and because their foundation was not the rock, it was themselves. Look at Matthew chapter 21
verse 44. I think it's really interesting how Jesus puts this, because both things seem to be
negative, but the first thing is not negative. Matthew 21 verse 44 says, and whosoever shall
fall upon this stone shall be broken. So when we fall upon that stone, when we fall upon that rock,
when we cling to that rock, you know, the things that are going to be broken, what are bonds,
the problems that we have, the fears that we have, those things will be broken, but look what it says,
but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. So those things both look negative,
but in reality, the part about being broken, you know, we need to be broken sometimes. We need to
be broken hearted about the things that we say, the things that we do, the life that we live
sometimes, we need to be broken, and when we go to Jesus for our comfort and our strength,
then he's going to make sure that we're broken and that we fix what we need to fix,
because he's the one that can fix us when we're broken, right? God is the one that fixes us when
we're broken, when you're, before you were saved. I know sometimes it's hard to think back to the
time when you weren't saved, but we had to come to the rock broken and realize that we're broken.
Like I said, I realized I was going to go to hell. I'm broken, and that's what we need to help people
to understand. They're broken too, and you know what? The rock is the one that's going to fix it.
You place your life, you place everything that you have in the rock, and he's going to fix you,
but if he has to fall upon you, see what David said that he was placed upon the rock,
right? But when the rock falls upon you, then you're ground into powder. So he's talking to
the Pharisees here. That's the context, right? So we need to be looking forward to better days,
and we need to make sure that our foundation is the right foundation. Look at Psalm 27 verse 6.
It says, and now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will
I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.
God is going to lift us up above our enemies. He's, and look how it says lifted up above my
enemies round about me. If you're a Christian, you've got enemies all around you, and like what
do sheep have to help protect them? They have a shepherd, don't they? Jesus Christ is our shepherd.
He's going to keep the wolves away, but you know, and you know, obviously we should be thankful for
those things, and God wants us to sing praises to him. He wants us to sing, and David says I'll sing
with joy. I'll sing the sacrifices of joy. I will sing. I will sing praises unto the Lord,
but I just want to say this. At our church, we don't just sing songs to fill time slots.
We don't just sing songs for the heck of it. We sing songs because this is our, that's our
worship to the Lord. So sometimes I think we lose track of that. We'll sing low so nobody can hear
our crackled voices, or maybe you are out of tune, or whatever, but God doesn't care about that. You
know what he cares about? He cares about the fact that you are singing to him, and that you're
singing to him because you love him, and you want to praise him. So you know, if you've noticed,
we don't have like canned music where someone comes up, and some music is playing in the
background, and this person's up here singing. You know, I've been blessed by by solo singing,
and things like that where people sing, but a lot of times it turns into like a karaoke contest,
or whatever. I've been to churches where, you know, specials are a big part of the services,
but I've always shied away from that just because I see the fruit of it. I've been to churches
where they don't care, they don't give a rip about soul winning. They don't give a rip about people
that are coming and visiting their church that aren't saved. They give a rip about choir practice,
and I never want our church to become like that. I want us to be in a position where we can all
sing together. We can drown out the bad voices, but you know, the other night, last Thursday night,
our church really sang out. It was noticeable, but sometimes I think we're just distracted.
You know, our kids or whatever, or our heart just isn't into it. We need to have our heart into our
worship. We need to remember who we're singing praises to. It says,
I will sing praises unto the Lord. You're not singing so that your neighbor is impressed
by how well you're singing. We're not, I mean, obviously we want to sound good,
and congregational singing will make you a better singer, but I still am, you know, I'm tone deaf.
My wife said, did you ever hear yourself singing happy birthday? I was like,
I don't know if I want to,
but I don't care. You know, when I'm singing songs here,
I want the Lord to be pleased with the fact that I'm singing those songs to Him.
So we don't sing to fill time. You know, we sing to the Lord to worship Him.
Ephesians chapter 5 18 says, and be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess,
but be filled with the Spirit. So you see how it's the opposite of being drunk with wine,
filled with the Spirit. And how do we get filled with the Spirit? Well, it says, speaking to
yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the,
to who? The Lord. So our songs and our singing should be to the Lord.
And you know, there's places out there that have a better music program than us,
but you know what I care about is I care about us singing out to the Lord.
It's not a competition, folks. We're not having a singing karaoke contest, right? You know,
and those things can get dangerous. The pastor of a church we used to go to, he listened to every
single special music thing that, you know, if they were going to sing a song in the church,
it couldn't have too much of a beat, couldn't have, you know, certain, there were certain
elements. But like he spent more time vetting the music for the canned songs that people were
singing than he did going soloing because he never went soloing. Priorities need to be right.
And we're supposed to be singing to the Lord. I'm glad I don't have to sit here and listen to every
single tape that someone brings or, you know, tape. You guys don't even know what that is,
but suddenly you do. But like this, these blank CDs or whatever, so that we can,
we can all just clap for someone after they just do this great thing. I mean,
it gets weird. It really does. And when you've been to a church where it's slanted more towards
music than it is for everything else, it's really annoying. And so that's why like every once in a
while, we'll have a kids choir. We had a men's group sing. I don't have a problem with that
kind of stuff, but it's when one person gets up here to showboat and show just how great
of a singer they are so that they can, you know, get some kind of accolades for that.
Oh, that was so beautiful. And that's what it turns into. I'm not saying that everybody that
does that doesn't have a right motivation for why they're doing it, but that's what it turns into.
It turns into a flesh fest. And, you know, our singing and our praises should not be
just something that's just totally fleshly. Look at Psalm 27 verse 7. It says,
Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me and answer me.
So God, David is saying to God, you know, he wants him to have mercy on him. He wants him to answer
him when he prays. And you know what? That comes from a heart of being in the Spirit. You know,
what did David say in verse 6? That he'll sing praises to God. He wants to pray to
God and get his favor also. And when you're filled with the Spirit, God is going to be
favorable to you. Because it's a command to be filled with the Spirit. It's not just something
that we're automatically filled with the Spirit. We all have the Spirit if we're saved,
but being filled with the Spirit is something different. You ask to be filled with the Spirit.
You sing to be filled with the Spirit. And so when we come to church, we sing unto the Lord
his praises. Those psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, you know, those things fill us with the
Spirit. And then we listen to the preaching and we receive it with open ears and open hearts.
Verse 8, When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord will I seek.
So God wants us to seek his face. He wants us to seek his face. And David said, My heart said unto
thee, Thy face, Lord will I seek. So who are we supposed to be pleasing? We're supposed to be
pleasing the Lord. How do we please the Lord? Well, we seek his face. We seek his favor.
And how do we do that? Well, we pray. We sing psalms. We apply the preaching. We read the
Bible. We go soul-willing. I mean, these things will put us in the Spirit. And that is what is
important is that we are right with God. David was right with God, not because he was a perfect man.
It was because his heart was perfect toward God. And we're not, we're never going to be sinless
perfection here, folks. It's not going to happen. Last point here, the Lord will never forsake his
people. Look at verse number 9. It says, Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away
in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not. Neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.
Everybody in this world can leave you. Everybody in this world can forsake you. But you know who
never will? God will never forsake you. God will never leave you for any reason. As long as you're
a Christian, you might not feel it. You might not be able to see the blessings in your life,
so to speak. But the Bible says he won't forsake you. You know, Paul, when he was going through
all the problems that he was, he was being, you know, his own people that he loved, that he would
have gave his own salvation so that they could be saved. They were trying to murder him. And God
stood by his side and said, I'm not going to let anybody harm you.
God will never forsake his people. But you can feel alone sometimes in the Christian life.
And God doesn't want us to feel alone. And he gives us these promises that he's never
going to forsake us. Look real quickly at Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 6.
Because, you know, even if you're just a terrible Christian,
you're a terrible example of a Christian. Say you commit a sin that's worthy unto death and
God kills you early in this life, which is possible. He still hasn't forsaken you.
Because where did he take King Saul after he allowed him to be killed? Straight to heaven.
So even if he's really mad at you and you're a bad example as a Christian in this life,
he's still never going to leave you or forsake you. He just might say, well, no, you're done.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired of the way you're acting. You're done. And he might allow you to
die like Ananias and Sapphira. They lied unto the Holy Ghost and he let them both die as an example.
So, you know, and maybe you're one of those kids that's a bad kid. You're always getting in
trouble and your brothers and sisters don't get in as much trouble as you. But see, we're God's
children. And so the example that we have is God the Father loving us, but he also chastens us
when we need it. But some people get beaten more than others. Isn't there kids, like you people
with big families in here, aren't there kids that you have to spank more than others? Just be honest.
We want it to all be equal, but in reality it's not. And usually the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
So a lot of times you're dealing with that hard child and you're always having to grease that
wheel, so to speak, right? And then that makes the other kids feel like, well, why aren't they
spending as much time with me? Maybe I'll start acting bad so I'll get that attention. You
shouldn't be seeking bad attention. That's not a good thing. But my point is that even if God
punishes you more than he punishes everybody else, he still will never forsake you. And a good parent
will never forsake their children, right? If they're truly their children, they're not going
to forsake them. And so maybe you're the person at school that was always in the most trouble.
Who was the troublemaker here? I was in a group, my whole eighth grade year,
I was in a group off to the side called the Dirty Half Dozen. That's what the teacher called us.
Because there's a show called the Dirty Dozen where these, anyway, it's an old movie, but he
called us the Dirty Half Dozen because there were six of us. So, and I really don't even know what
I did to deserve to get thrown into the Dirty Dozen, but the Dirty Half Dozen, but like he just
left us there the whole year and that's what he always called us. Like the whole year. And we're
always getting in trouble and I was always getting referrals. I don't even really think
I was that bad, but maybe I was. I mean, I did get a lot of detention, but you know, I mean,
maybe you're getting a lot of detention as a Christian, but again, God's never going to
leave you. He's never going to forsake you no matter how much he has to beat you, no matter how
much trouble you get in, even if he kills you, you're still at home with him in heaven the moment
you die. So I'm not encouraging you to be bad because look, this life's hard enough without
having God beat you all the time too. So the best thing we can do is keep God's commandments,
live a righteous and holy life, do what God says to do, build our life upon the rock,
and we're going to have a better life here, but you know, at least a more rewarding life.
But even if you don't, God still loves you and he's still going to never leave you or forsake you.
Look at Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 6, it says, be strong and of a good courage, fear not,
neither be nor be afraid, excuse me, for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee,
he will not fail thee nor forsake thee. That's a promise of God in Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 6.
Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5 says, let your conversation be without covetousness and be
content with such things as you have, for he has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,
so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
Not interesting how it just kind of rolls it back into the first point, but
let's go back to Psalm chapter 27 verse 11. I know I gotta hurry up and be done here.
Psalm 27 verse 11 says, teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because
of my enemies. See, if you truly want to be taught by God, he will teach you,
and then he's gonna lead you in a plain path, and he's gonna vanquish your enemies.
And verse 12, I'm gonna read Proverbs chapter 3 verse 5, I'm gonna have you turn there because
I need to be done, but Proverbs 3 5 says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart,
and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy
paths. Very powerful scriptures there. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't fear what
man can do unto you. Lean not to your own understanding. There's just things that we
don't understand. Why don't we just lean to God's understanding, the thing that God makes clear to
us, and even if we don't understand it, we still need to believe it, because if it's in the Bible,
then it's truth, period. So we need to not lean on our own understanding, and if we acknowledge
him in all of our ways, he's going to direct our paths. See, we want to have the favor of God.
This is what David just continuously wrote in the Psalms. You know, my enemies are coming against me.
Please destroy them. I want to serve and worship you, Lord. Please let me know you. Please let me
get closer to you, and protect me, and give me knowledge. Show me where I need to walk,
because if you talk about the old path, wherein is the good way, that path that's good is the path
that God has already cut out for us. It's already carved in the Bible for us. We just have to apply
it to ourselves, and apply it to our lives. Let's finish up with the verse 12 through 14. It says,
deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me,
and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted, unless I had believed,
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage,
and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. And that word wait obviously
means to be in readiness for some kind of purpose. We need to be ready for what God has for us,
and sometimes we have to wait for the answers, don't we? We have to wait to see the destruction.
We have to wait for the redemption of our body. There's a lot of things. We have to wait for
heaven, but we need to wait on the Lord, and have that positive attitude that in the end,
no matter what happens to us, God's never going to leave us, nor forsake us, and all things work
together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose.
Amen. So things might be going sideways in your life, but you know what? God has your back.
Amen. And we need to acknowledge him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord so
much for this great Psalm. Pray that you just bless the food that we're about to receive,
and Lord, we thank you for all the faithful people that came to church this morning.
Pray that you just bless all things that are in your house today, and the men's preaching,
and the sowing. And Lord, Lord, we just love you, and I pray that you'd help us to
remember to sing unto you, and to be filled with the Spirit, and Lord, that we would sing Psalms,
hymns, spiritual songs, and Lord, that we would look to you to be placed upon you,
Lord, the Rock. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.