Let's go ahead and get started with our service tonight here at um Wednesday night service.
Please take your hymnals and turn to hymn number 183.
Hymn number 183, Oh How I Love Jesus was singing out right on that first verse. There is a name I
love to hear in number 183.
Oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus,
oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus, because he first loved me.
Who tells me that my father then is born for every day, and though I dread the dark so bad,
he'll sunshine all the way. Oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus,
because he first loved me. Who tells me that my father then is born for every day, and though I
dread the dark so bad, he'll sunshine all the way. Oh how I love Jesus, oh how I love Jesus,
oh how I love Jesus, because he first loved me.
Lord thank you for this opportunity to be here tonight and I pray that you would fill
Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit and please help him to preach a great sermon
and please help us all to be edified. It's in Christ's name I pray, amen.
Amen over to hymn number 288.
I Am Resolved, hymn number 288. We'll sing it on that first verse, number 288.
I am resolved no longer to linger, charmed by the world's delight.
Things that are dire, things that are noble, please have aboard my side.
I will listen to him, peace is so flat and free. Jesus' greatest highest, I will come to thee.
I am resolved to go to the Savior, leading my sin and strife. He is the true one,
he is the just one, he hath the words of life. I will listen to him, peace is so flat and free.
Jesus' greatest highest, I will come to thee. I am resolved to follow the Savior,
faithful and true each day. Feed what he saith, do what he will, and he is the living way.
I will listen to him, peace is so flat and free. Jesus' greatest highest, I will come to thee.
Alright, this time we'll go over our announcements together. If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand nice and high, we'll get to you with one. On the inside, we have our service time,
Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at six o'clock,
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study. Tonight we're in Psalm 67. We've got the soul
winning times listed there below, as well as salvations and baptisms. Across the page are
all the birthdays and anniversaries for October. We're just wrapping up the Bible memory passage,
Isaiah 20, or excuse me, Isaiah 40, 21 through 31, and that is due this Sunday. So the deadline
to quote that to somebody is this Sunday. Don't forget the Spanish night on the back,
Spanish nights tomorrow night, and then we've got the big field trip to the Wildlife World Zoo
coming up on October 26. Make sure you RSVP and that you show up on time. Get there early,
and then the annual chili cook-off will be October 31st from 4 30 to 7 30 right here.
If you want to enter a chili into the contest, it's got to be here by five o'clock,
and that's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning
from the past few days going back to Monday the 5th. Anything from Monday, October 5th? All right.
Anything else from Monday? And then what about Tuesday? What do we got for Tuesday?
Is that a three? Okay. Anything else from Tuesday? All right. And then
what about today? We didn't ever quite get a van total, so let's just get them all individual from
today. So you got one for you and Raymond, right? Okay. So we got that one. We got two more right
here. We got three here. Another three. Okay. Anything else from today? All right. Very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning. With that, let's sing our next song. Come lead us.
All right. We're going to sing holy, holy, holy. You should find that incident in your hymnals.
If you don't have one, you can raise your hand. You'll be given one by the ushers.
Let's sing it out on that first verse. Holy, holy, holy.
Holy, holy, holy. Lord God almighty. Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy. Merciful almighty. God in three verses, blessed Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy. All the saints adored thee, casting down their golden crowns around the
glassy sea. Cherubim and seraphim, falling down before thee, which word and art and evermore
shall be. Holy, holy, holy. Though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sin,
omen thy glory may not see. Holy, thou art holy. There is none beside me.
Perfect and power with love and mercy. Holy, holy, holy. Lord God almighty.
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy. Merciful almighty. God in three verses, blessed Trinity.
Amen. Your new song is 172. Love divine, all loves excelling, number 172.
We'll sing it out on that first verse, number 172.
Visit us thy humble family, all thy faithful mercies crowned.
Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure and bound with love thou art.
Visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.
We know that thy love is hearing into every troubled rest.
Let us all in be inherent, let us find that second rest.
Take away our pain to sleep, now come and obey the deed.
End of faith as it's beginning, with our hearts and liberty.
I do to deliver, let us all thy life be seen.
Suddenly return and ever, ever more thy temples be.
It would be all his blessing, serve he as thy host above.
Pray and praise him without ceasing, glory in thy perfect love.
Finish them thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see thy great salvation, perfectly restored in me.
Change from glory into glory, till in him we take our place.
Till we pass our crowds before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 67.
Psalm 67, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with brother Nick as he reads.
Psalm 67, starting in verse number one.
Psalm 67, God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us.
That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.
O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously
and govern the nations upon earth, sila.
Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.
Then shall the earth yield her increase and God, even our God, even our own God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Father in heaven, thank you for the church and thank you for the Bible
and the blood of your son, Jesus Christ, that has washed away the sins of the believers forever.
I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson as he preaches your word
and help us, your children, get edified tonight.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Amen.
Psalm 67, the Bible reads in verse number one.
God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us, sila.
That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.
The first thing I want to point out there is in verse two where it says
that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
That's not really a complete thought right there.
That's not a complete sentence when it just says that thy way may be known upon earth,
thy saving health among all nations.
So that has to be either connected to that which is right before it or right after it
because right before it, it says God be merciful unto us and bless us
and cause his face to shine upon us that thy way may be known upon earth.
Well, the problem with that is that first of all, the sila is there kind of breaking those two things apart.
The sila is probably like a pause, but it's usually some kind of a punctuation
because when we've been going through the book of Psalms,
we've noticed that the sila is typically like a gear change, right, in the psalm.
So it wouldn't really make sense to connect verse two with verse one because of that
and also because of the fact that it's talking about God in the third person in verse one, right?
God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us.
Whereas verse two says that thy way may be known upon earth,
thy saving health among all nations, let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee. Do you see that?
So basically the right way to read this would be to connect verses two and three together
because that subordinate clause in verse two, it can't stand on its own, all right?
It needs to connect to something else.
So here's what the Bible is saying.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee that thy way may be known upon earth,
thy saving health among all nations.
That actually makes sense, doesn't it?
So the Bible is telling us that in order for God's way to be known upon earth,
in order for his saving health to be known among all nations,
the people of God need to praise God.
All the people of God praising God will cause people to learn about God, right?
So when we sing praises to God, when we sing hymns to God,
we are hopefully teaching people about God.
That's one of the purposes of hymns.
And of course if we look at the book of Psalms itself,
it teaches a lot about God's actions, God's attributes.
And so the songs that we sing should teach good doctrine about who God is.
And if we lift up our voices and sing and praise God,
then that will help the heathen to learn about God and understand who God is.
And obviously praise isn't necessarily always singing.
You could also be praising God just by talking about how great God is.
I could just tell people some of the great things that God has done.
I could just talk about the Lord and people are going to learn from that.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, the Bible says.
We need to open our mouth boldly and make known the mystery of the gospel
so that the knowledge of the Lord can cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Now another thing I want to point out in verse 2, it says,
that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.
I want to stop and focus on that part, saving health.
What does that mean, saving health?
Well, in the Bible, there's a big connection made between salvation and health.
And in fact, in many languages, these are the same word, salvation and health.
Like for example, Spanish.
Who in here speaks Spanish somewhat or you speak a little bit of Spanish, lots of Spanish.
So in Spanish, this is a word that you'd know even if you don't know any Spanish, salud.
Salud means health.
And the reason I say you'd know that, because isn't that what you say when somebody sneezes in Spanish, salud?
It's sort of like Gesundheit.
That's the one German word besides Farfignugen that everybody knows is Gesundheit.
Gesundheit means the same thing as salud.
Gesundheit means health, salud means health.
But what's interesting is that if you read the Bible that was translated into Spanish back in the 16th century, back in the 17th century,
around the time of the King James, whether it's the 1569 Casiadora de Reina or whether it's the 1602 Reina Valera,
for salvation, it doesn't say salvación, it says salud as salvation.
And a lot of modern Spanish readers have looked at that like, salud, what's going on here?
They don't understand that back then, salud also meant salvation.
Now stop and think about this, okay?
Take the first four letters of salud, S-A-L-U, right?
Now take the first four letters of salvation, S-A-L-V.
And you know that Vs and Us in old words have been interchangeable.
You look at the King James replica, you'll find Us and Vs interchanged.
And so, like Roman writing where the Us are all Vs, rather.
And even our letter in English doesn't make any sense, W.
W, it's two Vs next to each other, right?
What kind of a name is that?
It should be called Doblebe.
But anyway, the point is that the word salud and the word salvation come from a common root
because there's a connection between healing and salvation.
Because the healing has to do with the body.
Our health has to do with the body.
And then the salvation has to do with our spirit and our soul.
And there's a connection there.
You know, the Bible says also in 3 John, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper
and be in good health, even as thy soul prospereth.
So he's saying, man, I hope that your body is as healthy as your soul is.
He's just, you know, wishing him good health and well-being.
And so there's a connection also in the Gospels where you'll see Jesus heal someone
and he says to a woman, you know, thy faith hath made thee whole.
But then elsewhere he says, thy faith hath saved thee.
And it's often when he's healing someone, it's a picture of them getting saved.
It's basically not the same as salvation, but it's a picture
because one of them is a physical salvation of your body
and then another one is a spiritual salvation of your spirit being made whole.
Okay.
And even that word, think about the word whole.
In the Bible, to be whole means to be healthy.
And you can even see the connection between whole and healthy, heal, whole.
And then you can look at the word holy.
So these words are all connected and they share a common etymology.
And so when we're reading here in Psalm 67 and we see God's saving health,
what we need to understand is that, you know, God saving our soul
has a connection with being physically healed.
Now, here's where people go off track with this.
They go off the rails with this.
It's like, well, that means if you get saved, you're going to be totally healthy.
Now, that's not necessarily going to happen.
That's why John had to wish that upon the beloved Gaius and say,
I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in good health,
even as thy soul prospered.
So the fact that his soul is prospering is not a guarantee that his health is going to prosper.
Okay.
So we don't want to mix up something being a picture of something
and something being that actual thing.
So physical healing, physical wellness, physical health is a picture of salvation,
but it isn't salvation.
It's not the same thing.
It's just a picture, right?
Jesus is the lamb of God, but it doesn't mean he's an actual four-footed beast, right?
We have to understand the difference between the picture of the thing and the literal thing itself.
And so God's saving health among all nations, he's basically the great physician
and he heals the soul and he will, the disease is sin, you know,
and he's the great physician that can heal us of that disease.
So this is a parable or a picture that's used throughout the Bible,
which is why the Bible words things that way here,
that God's way may be known upon earth, his saving health among all nations.
It says in verse three, let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.
O let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
And once again, we see the nations, the Gentiles.
We're not just interested in the Jews or the nation of Israel.
Even in the Old Testament, there's constantly this foreshadowing
about the whole world's going to know about salvation.
The whole world is going to believe on the Lord.
The whole world is going to know about the word of God and everything.
And of course, we're seeing fulfillment of that now
and there'll be a greater fulfillment of that in what's known as the millennium
when Jesus Christ rules and reigns over all nations, literally.
It says, O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, because, right?
That's what for means.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously
and govern the nations upon earth.
See law.
And this is something for the nations to look forward to.
Let all nations rejoice and be glad.
Not just Israel, but let all nations rejoice and be glad
because God is going to judge the people righteously
and govern the nations upon earth.
Isn't that something great to look forward to?
I can't wait until Jesus is in charge of government.
The government shall be upon his shoulder.
You know, right now that literal whore, Kamala Harris, is debating,
what's his name, Mike Pence, because I got a little notification on my phone about it.
But you know what?
I can't wait until the stupid campaign is over, the stupid election,
so I can go back to watching YouTube videos in peace without all these campaign ads
and all the junk all over the street corners advertising all these bozos.
I'm so sick of it.
I can't wait until the government is upon his shoulder.
And Jesus Christ will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
And we ought to be glad and rejoice and praise God that that day is coming.
He will judge the people righteously.
He will govern the nations upon earth, and he will set things as they should be.
It's going to be a blessed time.
And then it repeats again in verse 5.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Now I want to focus on that part where it says, then shall the earth yield her increase.
Go, if you would, to a very famous passage, Isaiah chapter 2.
The big, long books toward the end of the Old Testament are Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.
Go to Isaiah chapter 2.
The earth shall yield her increase.
Why is it that during the time when Jesus Christ reigns over the earth, the earth will yield her increase?
Because, again, this psalm is foreshadowing the millennial reign of Christ,
when the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,
when the Lord Jesus Christ will rule over all the nations with a rod of iron,
and the government will be upon his shoulder, and he will be a literal king on this earth,
ruling and reigning for a thousand years.
During that millennial period, it says, then shall the earth yield her increase.
What does that literally mean?
Well, it's talking about farming, right?
When it says the earth shall yield her increase, it's basically talking about the earth producing fruit.
You know, you plant seeds and water them, and then good things come up from the earth, food for us to eat.
That's what the Bible's referring to when it talks about the earth yielding her increase.
Now, some people have the idea that the earth right now is cursed to not bring forth food, making things difficult.
But in reality, that curse was already lifted when Noah got off the ark because of the fact that,
if you remember, when Adam and Eve are thrown out of the Garden of Eden,
you know, he has to till the land by the sweat of his face, and it's going to bring forth thorns,
and, you know, he's given this curse.
And I've heard a lot of people, I've heard preachers talk about it as if we're still there.
But in reality, when Noah gets off the ark, God says, I will no longer curse the ground for man's sake.
So he understands the fact that man is sinful, man's imaginations from his youth up are evil, and he's just sinful,
but I'm not going to curse the ground anymore for man's sake.
So whatever the difficulties are with gardening right now, and, you know, for a city slicker as myself,
gardening is almost impossible to make it work for someone like me.
I don't have a green thumb, all right?
But you have to understand that between Adam and Noah, that's when the gardening was actually difficult.
So right now, you're not dealing with the worst gardening in history, okay?
It was the worst gardening before Noah.
So who's ever heard that misconception, though, that basically where, yeah,
it seems like a lot of people miss that part where that is rolled back somewhat.
So what is the Bible saying when it's saying that during the millennium, then shall the earth yield her increase?
Now, it's possible that there's going to be a biological change and that there could be changes in the environment
that could cause things to grow better during that time.
That's possible.
Although we're not in a totally cursed situation right now, things are growing fine right now, things are growing no problem,
it's possible that there could be some kind of a biological or physical change
because we know that during the millennium, there will be some biological changes in the animals.
For example, it talks about lions being vegetarian and so forth, which right now, no feline can eat a vegetarian diet.
It's impossible.
Now, if you want to get all veganed out, you could get your dog a vegan diet, which I don't recommend that.
I don't recommend you to have a vegan diet.
But you could theoretically feed the dog a vegetarian or vegan diet, but with a cat, it's literally impossible
because felines do not have the enzymes that they need to digest plant-based food.
They have to eat meat.
That's the only thing that they can do is to eat animal products.
But the Bible talks about someday them being vegetarian, all the animals being vegetarian like they were in the Garden of Eden.
So obviously, there's a biological change there or the fact that in the early days of planet earth, people would live to be hundreds of years old.
And in the millennium, the Bible again says that as the days of a tree, so shall the days of my people be.
So people will live a long time and someone will die at 100 years old and they'll say, wow, it's such a shame that he died so young.
When he died at 100, he's just a child.
So obviously, yeah, there could be some biological changes.
But let me give you another explanation that's for sure because it's possible that nothing will change biologically about the way things grow.
And here's another explanation for why the earth is going to yield her increase during the millennium.
Look at Isaiah chapter number 2 verse 1.
It says the word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills.
Watch this.
And all nations shall flow unto it and many people shall go and say, come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob.
And he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths.
For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people.
And here's the part I want to focus on.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord.
So we see here that the Bible is saying that someday when Jesus is reigning and ruling and everybody knows about the Lord and all nations are flowing to the Lord in Jerusalem.
It says that they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
So what are they doing?
They're turning weapons, they're turning a weapon into something that's used to produce food.
Because a plowshare and a pruning hook, those are gardening devices.
And he's saying they're not going to learn war anymore.
There aren't going to be any wars between nations.
They're not going to learn war.
And so if you stop and look at our world today, think about how much money and time and energy and manpower goes into fighting.
I mean look at the budget of the United States government for military.
Look at the budget of other governments for military.
Look at the manpower.
How many people in here have ever been a farmer as your occupation?
You have been a farmer.
Put up your hand if you've been a farmer.
One person.
Okay, how many of you have ever been in the military?
Put up your hand.
Alright, now look around.
So we have one person who's been a farmer and more than ten people who've been in the military.
So ten times the people that have done the military.
So imagine taking all the money and technology and equipment and manpower and just channeling that all into something productive like producing food.
I mean the earth's going to yield some serious increase.
That's going to fix any kind of a hunger problem or any kind of a food shortage.
Because think about how much time and energy goes from people that know science developing weapons and developing technology for warfare.
If you put all that toward farming, if you beat those swords into plowshares, if you took that spear and put it into a pruning hook,
if you took all that money, time, energy, resources into producing food, you can see how the earth would yield increase.
Because if you think about it, this earth has not been maxed out on its potential to produce food.
You know, some people are just like, hey, there's just only so much land that can produce food.
Folks, there is a lot of land out there that's not being used to produce food.
And if you've ever driven the length and breadth of this country, you know this country is empty.
Now there are some parts of the world that are pretty congested.
Places in India, places in China, places in Europe.
But even in those places, there are a lot of untapped potential areas for growing food.
And here in Arizona, there are a lot of places where you could grow food that aren't being used.
Obviously this is not necessarily the best place to grow things because of the issue about water supply.
But there are lots of other places across America that just aren't being farmed because it's just not necessarily profitable.
And there's just not enough demand or just it's too taxed or something.
You know, just whatever the reason why or there's just not enough people who want to do the farming.
Whatever the reason.
But look, this earth can handle more people and you could farm a lot more and you could get the earth to yield a lot more increase.
And the Bible is prophesying in Psalm 67 that there's going to come a day when the earth is going to produce more food than it has ever produced.
And it's going to produce an unbelievable amount of food.
Not to mention all the hydroponics and other creative ways that you can grow food.
I mean nowadays people put gardens on top of buildings.
You have these rooftop gardens and there are all kinds of ideas and things.
So it's not like this earth has reached its potential.
You know, sometimes you'll hear these people saying, oh, we've got to stop having kids because the earth is overpopulated and how are we going to feed all these people?
But let me tell you something.
You can feed all these people because we have not maxed out that potential yet.
Not even close.
And when Jesus Christ is running things and managing things and things are well governed, I don't even think you're going to need any kind of a biological miracle to see an incredible amount of food produced.
But if you just start putting the greatest minds toward that task and it's managed well, then it's going to happen because of the fact that they're doing that instead of fighting wars with each other.
So back to Psalm 67.
That's a famous millennium passage there in Isaiah chapter 2.
There are lots of other passages in Isaiah that talk about the millennium and talk about, you know, the wolf lying down with the lamb and the lion eating straw like an ox and the children playing on the cockatrice's den and all those things.
So that's going to be a peaceful time.
It's going to be a time of world peace.
Nations will not learn war.
There's going to be an incredible amount of food.
There's going to be prosperity, peace.
It's going to be a time when people do not go hungry.
The earth shall yield her increase, verse 6 of Psalm 67, and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
Even our own God.
Now, what the Bible is telling us here is that the God of the Bible is not just this kind of impersonal force or something or like, you know, there's many different pathways to God.
You know, the Hindus, they love God.
You know, they're just going a different route.
They're going through their, you know, religion and through their rituals.
And then, you know, the Muslims, they go through Mohammed and, you know, the Buddhists, they're going through Buddha.
And so, you know, it's not that any one religion is right and that their God is the right God and that everybody else is wrong.
It's just one God that's manifested himself in all these different ways, right?
And you hear people talk about this like a new age type teaching.
And that's a pretty popular belief that's out there, you know, especially amongst people in government, people in the media who kind of want to just please everybody and be popular.
Because what's the goal of someone in the media?
To be popular.
They want to be popular.
That's what they want.
What's the goal of a politician?
To be popular.
And if you turn on the TV, what two kinds of people are you going to see on TV?
Media people and politicians, right?
Actors, actresses, singers.
What do actors, actresses, and singers all have in common?
With the weatherman and the weather lady and the talk host, they all want to be popular.
They all want people to like them.
They're very concerned about their image.
They don't just get up and say, hey, I don't care what anybody thinks.
Here's what the Bible says.
No, no, no.
If sometimes they'll accidentally say something true and then they have to like apologize
and go on tour apologizing and take classes about why they were wrong and everything.
And then, even then, they're still shunned.
It's like, no, you blew it.
You spoke the truth.
So, they're really careful.
I mean, they got to watch out.
They can't even tweet the wrong thing because they're really concerned about their image
and being popular.
So, here's the thing.
When you sit there and spend a bunch of time listening to the radio, watching TV, watching
all these celebrities, whether they be politicians, talk hosts, actors, actresses, these people
all care about being popular, being loved.
They want to be accepted.
Okay, that's what they want.
So, they're not going to tell you the truth.
And so, that's why when we go out soul winning, we don't really run into a lot of people out
of people out soul winning who say, oh, there are lots of different paths to God and all
these.
I don't really run into that much out soul winning.
Do you?
It seems like most people out soul winning, either they're just like, I don't believe
in God.
I'm not religious.
Or usually, they have some kind of a religion that they lean on, whether they're some kind
of a professing Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or whatever.
You typically don't run into that many people who say all religions are right.
I mean, how often do you get hit with that?
Because I don't think I get hit with that.
But here's the thing, you turn on the TV, the radio, it's all over the place.
So, it makes it seem like that's a really popular view that a lot of people have.
Because in academia, that view is going to be big.
Because again, they're like, hey, we want to have students come from all religions.
You know, here's the thing, the university, especially right now with COVID, and a lot
of students aren't showing up and their tuition isn't getting paid.
You know, the university, don't you think that they want to bring in the Muslims and
the Christians and the Hindus and the Buddhists because they want to fill those classes up
and get paid.
So, the problem is that all of these different people, because they want to please everyone,
instead of just serving a certain group of people or saying, hey, we're Christians and
so, you know, we're going to serve Christians and we're going to cater to Christians.
Because they just kind of want to serve everybody, then that's why they love this pluralistic
kind of thing of all religions are right, all roads lead to God.
That's why you hear somebody like George Bush say that.
You know, even though he's supposedly this conservative Texas Christian, he still said,
well, you know, all paths lead to God.
Are Muslims going to heaven?
Yes, they are.
You know, and there's video of him saying that.
I think it's in one of our films.
And so, that view ends up being something that we hear a lot, even though Joe Blow usually
doesn't believe it because it's kind of dumb if you think about it.
It's kind of dumb to think, oh, yeah, this religion over here that says if you don't
believe in Jesus, you're going to hell is right.
And then this other religion over here that doesn't believe in Jesus, they're right, too.
It's like, well, how does that work?
You know, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
You've got to believe on the Son of God or you are condemned already.
And the Bible says you've got to believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
So you can't just be like, oh, God out there, whoever you are, oh, Son of God, whoever you
are, oh, great grandfather.
That's not going to work.
It's got to be the name Jesus.
It says there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
And so that pluralistic view, most of your average people out there aren't dumb enough
to believe in it but it's really pushed in the media.
It's pushed by politicians.
A lot of our leaders, that's what they believe.
It's their doctrine of convenience because it allows them to have a bigger tent and bring
in everybody, you know.
I mean, here's the thing.
You know, politicians, they don't care who votes for them.
They don't care who donates to them.
They just need the donations and they need the votes to stay in power.
So therefore, they don't want to say anything that could offend Muslims or offend Hindus
or offend Buddhists or offend whoever, offend queers because that can mess up their base
of support.
And so we need to understand that, you know what, that's not us.
We're not here living our lives in a popularity contest.
Okay, you know, tonight, the Republicans and Democrats are in a popularity contest.
The universities are in a popularity contest.
Musicians are in a popularity contest.
Actors and actresses are in a popularity contest.
Even the weatherman really wants you to like him and he wants to be popular so you don't
watch the other guy, so you watch him.
Folks, do not become that kind of person.
As Christians, that's not who we are.
The apostle Paul said, do I now persuade man or God?
For if I yet please man, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Marvel not, my brother, and if the world hates you.
And so we're not of this world and so we cannot expect to be super popular, loved, accepted,
a big hero.
Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to get along with everybody.
The Bible says that we should as much as dwell within us seek to live peaceably with
all men.
So yes, we should be at peace with the Muslims and try to get along with the Muslims, try
to get along with Hindus, get along with Buddhists.
And you know what?
If you go to work or if you go to school or wherever, you need to get along with all kinds
of people because God has called us unto peace and he wants us to be peaceful as much as
is possible.
But what we're not going to do is cross the line where we're going to start compromising
what the Bible says in order to make everyone like us.
And look, I'm not saying we should just walk into work and be like, hey, you're going to
hell, you're going to hell.
Obviously, that's inappropriate.
That's not the right thing to do.
That's not what you're supposed to do.
That's not what you see people in the Bible doing.
You don't see Jesus walk up to the woman at the well and just be like, you're going to
hell.
You don't see the apostle Paul going to Mars Hill, just everyone here is going, you guys
are all damned, you're all going to hell, you bunch of idolatrous weirdos.
You know what I mean?
Obviously, it's the gospel.
We're supposed to preach Christ crucified and be kind and harmless as doves and all
that.
So we're supposed to be gentle, loving, kind and so forth.
But here's the thing.
I'm not going to sit there and compromise and sit there and say, oh, well, you know
what?
Being a Muslim, that's okay.
It's not okay.
Now, I can coexist with someone who's unsaved.
I can coexist with a Muslim.
I could get along with them.
I could work with them.
I could be a neighbor to them.
They can be my neighbor.
I'm not going to mind.
Everything's fine.
But I'm not going to condone their religion.
I'm not going to say your religion's fine or I respect Islam or I respect your faith
or something because I don't.
God looked down at Cain's offering and he didn't respect that offering.
And I don't respect Islam.
No, I can respect a Muslim person.
I can be respectful to a Hindu or a Buddhist.
But I'm not going to respect Hinduism.
I'm not going to respect Buddhism.
I'm not going to respect Islam or anything else because they are damnable religions that
are taking people to hell.
And I'm not going to say, oh, that's fine.
You're okay.
I'm okay.
No.
What I'm going to do is gently, kindly explain to people that Jesus Christ is the only way
to be saved.
And you see people like Joel Osteen, you know, when they get put on Larry King Live or Billy
Graham gets put on TV or something and they ask him, you know, oh, is Jesus the only way
to heaven?
Well, that's what I believe, Larry.
You know, to me, Jesus is the only way.
That's what I believe.
You know, it's just Jesus.
Well, what about Hindus?
What about Hindus?
Are they all going to hell then, Joel?
And Joel's like, well, my daddy, he did missions over in India.
Oh, you know, that's a hard one, Larry.
That's a hard one because, you know, oh, they love God so much.
They love a God that's got four arms.
They love Goro from Mortal Kombat.
And it's like, oh, they love God so much.
That's not God.
See, the Bible says right here in Psalm 67 verse 6, God, even our own God, shall bless
us.
And you know what?
That's the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
It's not just some God image or God, unpersonal type of a spirit.
No, no, folks.
It's a personal God, the true God.
It's the Lord.
It's the God of the Bible.
It's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And except no imitation, my friend, there's no other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved except the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
That is the name.
You know, he said Jesus of Nazareth, so you don't think it's just some dude named Jesus.
It's got to be the Jesus of Nazareth.
It's got to be the Jesus of the Bible.
It's got to be the Son of God.
And you say, well, the Muslims believe in Jesus.
They don't believe he's the Son of God.
Ask a Muslim, is Jesus the Son of God?
Now, if you ask a Muslim, do you believe in Jesus?
They'll say, yes, of course I believe in Jesus.
How could I be Muslim without believing in Jesus?
But if you say, is Jesus the Son of God?
Nope.
Well, guess what?
You got the wrong Jesus.
Because if you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father.
And so we need to understand that these people that go on TV and say things like that,
they're false prophets.
You know, that's their one chance to give the gospel to millions of people and they blow it.
They mess it up.
Okay.
Now, here's the thing, though.
I guarantee you, though, I'm not talking about some pastor or preacher that that's who he is
and he gets up and preaches these lies to millions of people on TV.
You know, it could be possible for a truly born again devout Christian in their personal life
to just get embarrassed or shy and be like Peter who denied Christ.
Remember when Peter denied Christ just because he's scared, embarrassed?
You know, you could get to a point where somebody kind of pinned you down
and you start compromising and saying that these things are fine and everything.
Don't do it.
You know, and again, be kind, be loving, be tactful.
But let it be known that Jesus is the only way to heaven and that there is no other way.
And I've had people try to pin me down and try to get me to recant that.
And you probably have too.
You know, where people will put you in an awkward position.
Well, I'm sure you're not saying that all Muslims are going to hell, though.
Surely you wouldn't believe something like that.
It's like, you got it right.
You know what I mean?
Look, if somebody, and here's the thing, if somebody's asking you point blank for your opinion,
they must want your opinion.
You know, I don't bring stuff up in an inappropriate situation,
but when people are point blank asking me a question,
hey, anything's on the table as far as I'm concerned.
Because they brought it up.
They asked.
And if they asked, they must want to know the answer.
And so I'm going to tell them the answer.
And so, you know, we need to make sure that we don't compromise on the name of Jesus,
on the fact that Jesus is the only way to heaven,
that the Bible is the only source of ultimate truth in this world.
We need to stand strong on that.
And even if we get put in a position where it makes people not like us or ostracize us,
well, you know what?
Join the club.
Because Jesus suffered without the gate and the prophets were persecuted and so forth.
And we shouldn't go out looking for persecution and creating persecution.
But let me tell you something.
All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
So you will, guaranteed, be persecuted at some point in your life if you live for Christ.
Guaranteed.
Not maybe.
All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Now, I've gone through periods in my life where I wasn't really being persecuted.
So I'm not saying you're going to be persecuted all the time.
I remember, you know, I pastored this church for a couple years with zero persecution in the early days.
And you know what?
We were getting a lot of people saved.
We were having a big impact.
You know, even before YouTube, even back in 2006 and 2007,
we just built up our website with MP3s and everything.
And in 2007, we were getting over 20,000 MP3s downloaded per month.
Before YouTube or anything.
Just from our church website.
So, you know, we were making an impact.
People were listening to the preaching from Faithful Word.
We were out knocking doors and getting hundreds of people saved.
We were baptizing people.
Things were happening.
And I remember thinking to myself, why am I not being persecuted?
The Bible said I'm supposed to expect all this persecution.
Where's it at?
Okay.
And I remember I talked to this other pastor who had been pastoring for over a decade.
Or actually, he'd been pastoring, now that I think about it, he'd been pastoring for more like 25 years or something.
And he started just telling me all the stories about the persecution.
And he's telling me about, you know, people putting a pipe bomb in his mailbox.
And a break in his windows.
You know, vandalize it.
Just all these things.
He's just going on and on about all this persecution.
And I told him, I said, I haven't been persecuted at all.
What am I doing wrong?
And he said to me, he said, well, you've only been at it for, you know, two years or something.
He said, I, you know, I hadn't been persecuted two years in either.
He said, wait until you've been there for 10 years.
You know, he said it was around the 10 year mark that I really started having serious enemies.
Because he said, you build up enemies over the years.
You accumulate enemies over the years.
Just disgruntled, bitter church members and just more people that you've rubbed the wrong way.
And he said, oh, you just wait.
And of course, he was right, you know.
Now, I still, you know, didn't experience anything as great as what he described in my opinion.
But I experienced different kinds of persecution than he did.
But I don't think anyone would argue that our church has never been persecuted or that I personally have never been persecuted.
Because it has happened.
And then, of course, you listen to that Dean Miller's life story.
Who's heard that audio of Dean Miller's life story?
If you've not heard that, you've got to listen to it immediately.
All right.
So it's on YouTube.
Go on YouTube.
I uploaded it a long time ago.
And somebody else uploaded it because all my channels are gone.
So it's up in a few places.
Go on YouTube.
Search Dean Miller's life story.
There's a part one and a part two.
Part one is all about him getting saved.
What an amazing story.
The part one will blow you away.
And then in part two he talks about persecutions and things that happened when he started his church.
So that's definitely a must listen.
But I remember hearing that and thinking, that didn't happen to me.
But then, you know, give it a few years and then bad things start happening to me too.
Because you're going to experience persecution if you live godly in Christ Jesus.
Just give it some time.
Don't go out looking for it.
Don't seek it.
Don't try to bring it upon yourself to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You know, you just keep plugging away and the persecution will find you.
And so be ready for it.
Be prepared for it.
Be ready to go through much tribulation on the way into the kingdom of God as it says in Acts 14-22.
God, even our own God, shall bless us.
That's the only God there is.
Our own God.
The God of Israel.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The Lord Jesus Christ.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
Then shall the earth yield her increase.
And God, even our own God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Now let me just kind of tie all this together for you.
So it starts out in verse 1 with this statement all by itself.
Because remember, the C laws are something that we can use to punctuate the psalm and to break it into sections.
Okay?
And so it's a nice gear change.
So that makes verse 1 stand all by itself, doesn't it?
God be merciful unto us and bless us and cause his face to shine upon us.
So that's the desire, right?
We want God to be merciful to us.
We want him to bless us.
We want his face to shine upon us.
Makes sense, right?
Then in verse number 2, it says that thy way may be known upon earth by saving health among all nations.
And again, that's not a complete thought.
That's a dependent clause depending on the next verse.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
O let the nations be glad.
And he gives some reasons why they're going to be glad, right?
Then we have another C law.
And then it says in verse 5, let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
Then shall the earth yield her increase.
And God even our own God shall bless us.
God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
So what we could look at if we want to take the complete psalm and understand it,
because so far we've just been kind of breaking it into parts and understanding different doctrines that are taught here.
The big picture is we want God to be merciful to us.
We want God to bless us.
We want him to make his face to shine upon us.
And the way that we get that blessing according to this psalm is by praising God.
If we praise God, if all the people praise God, then the earth will yield her increase.
If all the people praise God, God shall bless us.
If all the people praise God.
So basically verse 1 is the desire.
And then verses 3 and verses 5 tell us how to get there, you know, by praising God.
If we want God to bless us, we need to thank God for what he's already done for us.
We need to lift up our voice and praise God.
And not just praise God to ourselves, which obviously is important that we praise God alone by ourselves just between him and us.
But we also need to praise him in the midst of the congregation.
Come to church and praise God, right?
The Bible says in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto thee.
But also we need to praise God unto the heathen.
And of course that's not always going to be music.
Like I said, that could just be us telling people about God.
I mean when we go out soul winning and we tell people what a wonderful savior Jesus is and how he has done everything for their salvation.
And when we talk about the goodness of God and the greatness of God, you know what?
God's going to bless us when we do that is another thing that we could get from the whole psalm, taking the whole psalm together.
It's like, okay, you want God to bless us?
Well, did you thank him the last time that he blessed you?
And have you been telling other people about Jesus?
And have you been praising God and praying to God even in your own private life in the prayer closet?
Because this is part of the pathway to God's blessing.
That's kind of the big picture of this psalm.
You can dig in and get the doctrines about the millennium, the prophetic stuff about everyone in the world knowing about the Lord.
And people from all over the world believing in him.
Everybody in the earth fearing and trembling before his name.
That's all great stuff.
And then there's the macro. That's kind of the micro.
Then there's the macro looking at the whole psalm saying the path to getting God's blessing and his face to shine down on us is to praise him.
And let me tell you something.
If God is for you, if God's face is shining toward you, if God's hand of blessing is upon you, it's like everything you touch just prospers, right?
I mean the Bible says whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
You know, you look at Isaac in Genesis.
He sowed and he reaped a hundredfold.
It was just like, wow.
And the Philistines are just looking at him like, whoa, how do you do that gardening?
But the earth was bringing forth its increase because God's blessing him.
Okay.
And so we see that throughout the Bible, God blesses those who love him and seek him and praise him.
And if God blesses you, things are going to go right.
Things are going to go well.
And if God's working against you, you can't succeed at anything.
I mean if God just decides to ruin your career, he'll do it.
Do you think it's out of his reach?
No, he can do it.
He can ruin your career.
Or he can give you a new career.
He can change your career.
But here's the thing.
I would hate to go through life not praising God, not singing praise in the midst of the congregation,
not praying to the Lord and thanking him, not telling people about Jesus,
and then just wondering whether God is causing his face to shine on me or whether God's giving me the cold shoulder
where there's just this big dark cloud coming over the sunshine of God's blessing.
And I'm like that cartoon character or something where there's just like a cloud over me raining on me,
striking me with lightning, and everyone else is experiencing a sunny day.
Isn't there some comic like that?
Is that a Charlie Brown thing?
Where am I getting this?
It's from some deep recesses of my juvenile mind.
But anyway, you just picture someone with a dark cloud hanging over them.
How would you like to go through your workday with a dark cloud of God's not helping me surrounding you?
You know what?
I'd rather go knowing, okay, you know what?
I've been serving God this week.
I read my Bible.
I prayed.
I went to church.
I went soul winning.
You know what?
At that point, I would expect God to bless me.
And then even if bad stuff happened that week, I would just say, well, this is just trials and tribulations.
But when I'm tried, I'm going to come forth as gold.
In the end, I'm going to be blessed.
This is going to be great.
You have that assurance when you're praising and thanking God and singing praise to God in the midst of the congregation,
whereas when you're just trying to do it on your own, it's a jungle out there.
And not only that, if you're saved and you're trying to do it on your own, God might even be working against you.
Not even neutral.
He could even be working against you.
And man, I would hate to live life with God working against me.
Talk about trying to swim upstream.
Or you could have the wind at your back with God blessing you and you're just cruising.
You're just sailing.
Right?
So what's the most important thing about our lives?
Making sure that God's happy with us.
That's more important than, well, I've got to make sure my finances are right.
I've got to make sure that my, you know, hey, make sure God's happy.
Because if God's happy and God's blessing you, hey, everything else is going to be okay.
Just make sure to keep the Lord.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for all the wonderful blessings that you've given our church over the years, Lord.
All the blessings that you've given me personally.
And you've done so much more for me than I ever could have asked or thought, Lord.
Even if you never blessed me again, you've already blessed me such an incredible amount, Lord.
And I thank you so much for all the wonderful blessings that you've given to me and my family and our church, Lord.
I pray that you would just continue to cause your face to shine on us, Lord.
And that you would bless us and keep us and just cause us to prosper, Lord.
Help us to prosper and be in good health even as our soul prospers.
And Lord, help us to do our part praising you both in the church, both among the heathen, and also just privately, Lord.
Help us to be thankful for what you've already done. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Amen. Please take your hymnals. We'll be the semester singing 384 in the service of the king, number 384.
Lift up on that verse, number 384.
I am happy in the service of the king. I am happy, O soul, happy.
I am peace, and health, and health, and grief. In the service of the king.
In the service of the king. Every talent I will bring.
I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the king.
I am happy in the service of the king. I am happy, O soul, happy.
In the service of the king. In the service of the king.
In the service of the king. Every talent I will bring.
I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the king.
I am happy in the service of the king. I am happy, O soul, happy.
All that I possess to give my gladly bring. In the service of the king.
In the service of the king. Every talent I will bring.
I have peace and joy and blessing in the service of the king.
Thank you for watching!