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Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Is that your take-off? Anyways, a couple announcements real quickly. I believe the water is fixed in the restrooms, right? So that's good. So you should be good to go now. You don't have to go upstairs anymore. Let's count up salvations. Did anybody have any salvations to report? Anybody? Any salvations? Alright, so we'll have... 9? Alright, amen. Anybody else? Alright, so I'm still waiting around 2.15 pm here today. And so let's see, then in the middle of our bulletin on the upcoming activities, just a couple things. We have choir practice here today. And of course next week is our three year anniversary. So obviously you want to be here for that. And so it's going to be an exciting time. It's a good time to invite people because people love free food. They love events. And you know what, honestly, we have people at our church their first service was at our two year anniversary, right? We have people that are here. They started coming at the two year anniversary and they've been with us ever since. I may have offended them 100 times, but they're still here. Not necessarily because of me. So it's a good time to invite people. It might be the sort of thing that can get them hooked in where they keep coming after that. So we're going to be having a table tennis tournament. And let's see, we're going to have a jump house for the kids. We're going to have food. We're going to have a choir perform. And as I said, there's only going to be one sermon next week so there's going to be more time for fellowship. It's going to be a great time. And so I believe that's it for announcements though. And we'll have Brother Rafi lead us in another song. And one type of mali uma with Punta Punta is a hymn number 274. Hymn number 274, come on to me. Hymn number 274, hymn number 274. Hear the blessed Savior, first sons already sing. Hear the blessed Savior, grow to be impressed. Oh, He may relate, but to be impressed. Keep higher over there, bring my every word, and bring my every prayer. Come on, come to me. Come on, come to me. Take the fire, breathe it out. I'm going to the Lord. All the rest of my life, my whole life has used me. I heard your song once again, are you disappointed? Coming here and there, where the chains are gathering For the night we're here, we'll all be free Because Jesus, we were born for us I believe your eyes take the fire We are free of the chaos I believe you are free I am the cross for all I hope you see it's me I put a smile on my face Stumbling on the mountain For the same reason we're turning I'm the cross that's in the rain I am the cross that's in the moon And I am the plan I'm the temperature of the moon And I am the place I'm entering I am the wind Failing the water We are free of the chaos I am the cross I am the cross for all I hope you see it's me I put a smile on my face I believe you are free Because Jesus, we were born for us I believe you are free I believe you will be a friend I am entering I am a friend Failing the water I am the wind I am the wind I am the cross for all I hope you see it's me I put a smile on my face I believe you are free Because Jesus, we were born for us I believe you are free Because Jesus, we were born for us I believe you are free I believe you are free I believe you are free I believe you are free I believe you are free I believe you are free As is our custom, we are going to read the whole chapter, Psalm 31 Please say Amen when you are there Psalm 31 In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust Let me never be ashamed Deliver me in Thy righteousness Go down by ear to me Deliver me speedily Be thou my strong rock For an house of defense to save me For thou are my rock and my fortress Therefore, Thy name's sake lead me And guide me Pull me out of the net That they have laid trivially for me For thou are my strength Into thine hand I commit my spirit Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth I have hated them That regard lying vanities But I trust in the Lord I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy For thou hast considered my trouble Thou hast known my soul and adversities And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy Thou hast set my feet in a large room Have mercy upon me, O Lord For I am in trouble Mine eye is consumed with grief here My soul and my belly For my life is spent with grief And my years with sighing My strength faileth because of my iniquity And my bones are consumed I was reproached among all my enemies But especially among my neighbors And a fear to mine acquaintance They that did see me without flat from me I am forgotten as that man out of mine I am like a broken vessel For I have heard the slander of many Fear was on every side While they took counsel together against me The device to take away my life But I trust in Thee, O Lord I said, Thou are my God My time so in Thy hand Deliver me from the hand of my enemies And from them that persecute me Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant Save me for Thy mercy's sake Let me not be ashamed, O Lord For I have called upon Thee Let the wicked be ashamed And let them be silent in the grave Let the lying lips be put to silence Which speak grievous things proudly And contemptuously against the righteous On how great is Thy goodness Which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee Which Thou hast wrought for them that lust in Thee Before the sons of men Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence From the pride of men Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion From the strife of tongues Blessed be the Lord For He has shewed me His marvelous kindness in a strong city For I said in my haste I am cut off from before Thine eyes Nevertheless, though here is the voice Of my supplications When I cry unto Thee O love the Lord, all your saints For the Lord preserve The faithful and plentifully rewarded The proud doer Be of good courage And He shall strengthen your heart And hear that hope in the Lord Let us pray Thank you, our Father, for this word And for the Bible Thank you for saving us And thank you also for teaching us So many times And help us who need to understand your word And to apply it also in our life To the door in wisdom And we pray also that We give you might and power Our Father who is preaching And we pray in your name Jesus Christ, Amen Alright, we're here in Psalm 31 Psalm 31 verse 1 And we will go verse by verse And finish this chapter And the name of the sermon is Let me never be ashamed Let me never be ashamed And let's start off here in verse number 1 The Bible reads In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust Let me never be ashamed Deliver me in Thy righteousness Now at this time This is someone who is already saved Okay, this is not someone who is getting saved here But he's already spiritually saved When he's saying I'm putting my trust in you He's referring to his physical salvation And he's saying let me never be ashamed And you know in our modern vernacular When you say ashamed You're thinking like embarrassed And it can mean that in the Bible What it's often meaning would be something like Being let down Basically you're trusting in something And it doesn't work out And you're let down And it doesn't work out And he's saying I'm trusting you So don't allow me to be let down And be destroyed by my enemies Okay Now it talks about I put my trust in you One thing we understand is When you get saved There's a moment when you put your trust On Jesus Christ for your spiritual salvation And it's interesting because You also see the word ashamed Kind of in reference there as well Go to Romans 10 Romans 10 Romans chapter 10 Now usually when I write sermons I usually write them in advance And this sermon was written in advance But sometimes the timing just kind of works out For various topics Because on the internet right now This is kind of like the hot button topic Over the last couple days About this issue of calling on the name of the Lord Well this is already in my notes To go to Romans 10, 9 through 13 So we're going to see what the word of God says We'll look at a few other places But let's start here at verse number 9 The Bible reads That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus And shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead Thou shalt be saved For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness And with the mouth confession is made unto salvation You know we're preaching the gospel to people We go through all the verses We explain how it's just by faith And then you get to the end And then you lead them in a prayer To call upon the name of the Lord Now a couple things to realize When we're talking to people Sometimes you're going to ask them You know well what do you have to do to get to heaven Right maybe at the beginning of the conversation You might ask that And you hear a lot of different things Right you know often hear You know maat sin ba Uma waana mabooti Bautismahana A lot of different things But sometimes people say And yesterday I was preaching the gospel And they said magdasa And it's like well I mean How often do you have to pray right It's just like pray without ceasing Pray every day Like what do you mean by that right Well when somebody says You ask them What do you have to do to be saved And they answer Well pray Right well that's the wrong answer Because obviously what they mean by that is You know you're praying all the time And you have a walk with God You're always praying to him throughout the day That's part of salvation being a process Okay So they told me that I said well you know Let me share with you what the Bible says You know I don't insult them But I just say the Bible says something A little bit different And I go through the verses Because when they're saying that What they're saying is pray every single day And sometimes people would say You know believe in Christ Or believe in God And what they mean is Just every day You're having a walk with God They don't really understand okay Well Let us look at these verses here Let's look at verse number 11 It says For the scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him Shall not be ashamed Now I've heard people say this And I think they're well intentioned Usually when they say this I would just say that this is incorrect Is Some people look at this verse and say Well if you believe on Christ You're not going to be embarrassed To call upon the name of the Lord But that's not what verse 11 Is actually saying What it's saying is If you put your trust Or belief in Jesus You won't be let down And end up in hell Right When we put our personal trust On Jesus for our salvation We don't have to worry about All of a sudden we die And we're in hell Right Because you know You don't have to turn there But in Matthew 7 When people go to hell They're saying We did these wonderful works Right And we cast out devils in thy name Right I mean we did all these things for you And then they end up being ashamed They get let down And go to hell Why Well their trust was in their works Now if you're saved You can't go to hell But theoretically speaking If all of a sudden you woke up in hell What would you say But I believed Right That's what I would say Because we know Salvation is by faith I'm like But I believed I put my trust in you It's just by faith Well in Matthew 7 We see the revealing of what's in their hearts Because once they end up in hell They're saying We did all these wonderful works And this is many of the non-denominational type of people That might even tell us Ephesians 2 8 and 9 But then their own words condemn them Well in verse 11 What it's saying is If you put your faith on Jesus You're not gonna be let down You're gonna go to heaven You don't have to worry about that Okay Verse 12 For there is no difference Between the Jew and the Greek For the same Lord over all Is rich unto all that call upon him So you see the link So you see the link Between believing and calling That's mentioned And the Bible's saying Whether you're a Jew Whether you're a Greek Whether an American Or Filipino Or European Mateus has been To a lot of countries So just You're Then It's You know by putting your trust On Jesus Christ Right It's the same for everybody It's not like You know The Jews have a special way To heaven The Muslims have a special way But if you live here You've got a different way No it's the same for everybody Right Then it says Then it says this very famous verse For whosoever shall call upon The name of the Lord Shall be saved And so what Paul is describing Is the process of As we go soul winning After this verse He's going to kind of go In backwards order And just kind of describe The events that are taking place As well But you know This is basically You know You explain the gospel And once they change What they believe Then you end it And say Would you like to call upon The Lord today Right Or call upon the Lord Right now Now One thing that will help you Understand this One thing that will help you Understand this passage Is go back to verse 8 Verse 8 And I added a lot of my notes That was already in my notes anyway But I'm going to add a lot Because it's the hot button topic And so verse number 8 Notice what it says But what saith it This is right before verses 9 through 13 Verse 8 But what saith it The word is naive Nigh or near Even in thy mouth And in thy heart That is the word of faith Which we preach And what Paul the Apostle was saying Is the word of faith And he includes both The belief And the part in the mouth So here's the thing If Paul calls it the word of faith What we're seeing is that When Paul preached the gospel He did have people call upon The Lord for salvation And we also see it's not works Because he says the word of faith Right Now I want to go to more verses To prove this more in depth But go to Matthew chapter 7 Matthew 7 And look this is probably One of the topics that people have A lot of questions about Right And many people have questions about it Obviously we want to defend salvation We want to make sure we're not adding anything Or making it difficult or whatever And another thing is Churches do soul winning So many different ways I've gone soul winning with a lot of people I've gone to a lot of churches Gone soul winning with a lot of people And you know when you're the silent partner You never know what the other person's gonna say Right I've had times where I was like Man that's great They explained it And then I've had other times Where I'm just like Oh wow Right It's like I've gone with people Where their gospel is less than Two minutes long Right When we did the soul winning marathon In Cavite Right That person showed up That was not part of our church And then all of a sudden It's like you know I'm partnering with him And he's interrupting me and everything And he's just like And when he went He spent like 30 seconds Literally 30 seconds Right And then all of a sudden He's just And then I was like What are you doing? I was like We don't do that here And he's like Well at our church what we do Is we just try to get him to come to church And then later on I was like Well that's not what we do Right So I paired him with you Right brother Marlin Yeah Marlin got stuck with him During the lunch time I'm like No I'm this guy But it's just like But what I told him was this I said Well here's the thing You can still come with us But you have to be a silent partner The rest of the day Right And it's I handled things correctly And let me just say As a lesson It's like You don't go around asking other people At church How are we gonna handle this No I handle it And I handle it by saying Hey if you're gonna stay with us You gotta be quiet And he was quiet the rest of the day Right He was a silent partner The rest of the day That's how you handle it It's called tough love Right Where it's like Well if you're gonna join our church You know what We do things differently You're gonna have to just be a silent partner Right What I'm saying is this though You go soul winning With a lot of different people And you know what Most people are gonna pray with you Without using any verses You can just say Hey can I pray with you You don't have to give them any verses If that's what you wanna do Right There's techniques where You get them to bow their heads And you haven't explained anything You put your hand on their shoulder And then you're saying things Like alright Billy Now you're gonna call upon the Lord right now Just say these words Dear Jesus You're like Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Dear Jesus Right They don't even know what's going on And then they'll count it As a salvation Right So look I understand where you have this One two three Pray after me And it causes you to basically Be kind of against it But I wanna see what the proper balance is In the Bible And one thing we saw Was that Paul the apostle When he went preaching He said it's in thy mouth And in thy heart And he said that's the word of faith Which we preach Matthew chapter 7 One thing I wanna show you is this That calling upon the Lord Is not works Right Calling upon the Lord is not works Cause notice what it says in Acts 7 Or not Acts Matthew 7 verse 7 Matthew 7 verse 7 Ask and it shall be given you Isn't a gift something that you're given Right By definition Ask and it shall be given you Seek and ye shall find Knock and it shall be opened on you For everyone that asketh receiveth And he that seeketh findeth And to him that knocketh it shall be opened Or what man is there of you What man is there of you Whom if his son ask bread Will he give him a stone Or if he ask a fish Will he give him a serpent You say brother Stuckey I think that's a bit vague How do you know that's a gift Verse 11 If ye then being evil know how to give Good gifts unto your children Do you see that? Give good gifts unto your children So basically the child asks And it's given as a gift And see what you're seeing is Asking does not negate the fact That it's a gift Right It was still paid for by the other person Okay And it says If he then being evil know how to give Good gifts unto your children How much more so your father which is in heaven Give good things to them that ask him Now I'm not saying this passage is 100% about salvation But we are seeing the words used We're asking for something that's not Negated from being a gift That's what we see in Matthew 7 We saw the same thing in Romans 10 verse 8 Now Go to 1 Samuel 1 1 Samuel 1 Now look When we're preaching the gospel The key what we're trying to do Is get people to change what they believe Okay That's what we're trying to get them to do If somebody doesn't believe what you're saying And then you try to get them to pray anyway That's wrong Because they have to believe it Right I mean it doesn't matter if you can get them To pray a prayer and say words It's just like It's not some magic formula Where the words You have to actually believe it Inside your heart Our whole goal is to try to get people To change what they believe They say that you have to live a good life We try to change their mind about that Right They say they got to repent of their sins We try to change their mind about that Right Now Let me look at a couple other passages Then I'll give kind of an explanation here One thing that was said Or that's implied Or I guess was said Is that when you ask for something With your mouth It has to be out loud It cannot be in the heart Okay Basically any time you're asking for something When the Bible says mouth It cannot reference your heart Well that's not true Notice what it says in 1 Samuel 1 Verse number 12 And it came to pass As she continued praying before the Lord That Eli marked her mouth Now Hannah She spake in her heart Only her lips moved But her voice was not heard So Hannah's obviously praying And then Eli mistakes her for being drunken And her lips are moving But nothing's coming out And she's speaking from her heart Right You know it's been said recently You cannot speak with your heart Well that's not true Because you see this right here Right We use the Bible to prove what we believe Speaking in your heart And then it says In the rest of the verse Therefore Eli thought she had been drunken So he's confused Because basically Man looketh on the outward appearance And her lips are moving And nothing's coming out And he's like she's a babbler Because drunk people babble And they're just Out of it And she's like this But she's actually just very emotional Right And so she's praying And her lips are moving But she's not saying anything There's no sound But yet it says she's speaking in her heart Okay Now turn to John 4 John 4 John 4 Why is that significant? Well it's significant Because someone can call upon the Lord in their heart Okay Someone can call upon the Lord in their heart Right Now let me give you just a physical example Because the physical helps us understand the spiritual sometimes Jesus said if I have told you of earthly things and you believe not How shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? Let's say you're drowning in water What are you going to say? Help Save me Something like that Too long Right Whatever you're going to say You're going to say something Crying out for salvation Physical salvation for help It's just natural That's what your body's naturally going to do when you're drowning You're going to be like help Right You're hanging on to something for dear life on a rope You're going to, you know And if you lose your grip You're going to fall down and die You're going to scream help Help Right That's just It's just natural It's going to come out Here's the thing If you're preaching the gospel to someone And you're explaining that they deserve help but Jesus died for them It's going to be natural to call upon the Lord Right If you believe it's going to happen These things go hand in hand The belief in calling upon the name of the Lord Here's the thing Every single person that believes will call Right Now when I say that I'm not saying everyone who believes Jesus exists Because everybody believes Jesus exists You say what are you saying brother Sucky? I'm saying John 4 verse 10 John 4 verse 10 John 4 verse 10 Jesus answered and said unto her If thou knewest the gift of God Now what is the gift of God? Eternal life Salvation Going to heaven Being born again Right However you want to call it The gift of God's eternal life And who it is that sayeth to thee give me to drink He's saying If you understand what the gift is And who's giving it Right Which is Jesus Christ Right If you believe her eternal life And who it is that sayeth to thee give me to drink Thou wouldest have asked of him And he would have given thee living water And see the Bible's saying that if you believe inside your heart About who Jesus is And what he does You will ask for that gift The Bible says it's a guarantee Right It's going to happen if somebody believes it Right So you might have a couple questions And well brother Sucky If it's a guarantee it's going to happen If they believe Why do we even try to do it Why not just do it inside their heart Well there's a couple things to think about Number one is this Paul gave us the formula And he said in Romans 10 verse 8 What he did was In thy mouth and in thy heart That's what he explained The other thing to understand is That we cannot 100% definitively see somebody's heart Right We can't When we're preaching the gospel We do not know 100% for sure if they got it or not We try to be as thorough as possible But the reality is That we're going through the gospel And many times they're answering everything correctly And then you get toward the end of the follow up questions And it's like They're completely wrong It's like you know you've explained everything It's like what do you have to do to be saved Just believe How many times do you have to get saved Or how many times do you have to believe Just one time How long is salvation Forever Then you ask them questions at the end They're like Well you've got to at least try to live a good life And it's like they still don't believe it And they understood what you were saying But they didn't actually believe that inside of their hearts Right So you don't necessarily know 100% for sure So a very thorough way is to actually go through it And try to get them to call on the Lord at the end Now here's the thing What I'm saying is this When we're preaching the gospel I do believe there's people that we talk to That during the conversation Before we even try to get them to pray They have already prayed inside their hearts Same That does happen Once again I can't see their heart Right I mean Eli looks at Hannah And it's just like He has no idea she's speaking inside her heart Right You're going through it It doesn't necessarily mean that you know whether they believe it or not The truth is You can call in your heart We already saw that with Hannah You can speak inside your heart And if somebody fully understands and believes it That's a natural reaction that's going to take place Like somebody drowning in water But you know many times we get to the end They're still thinking about it They're still thinking about it And then they really tie it up right at the end Now what percentage of people do we talk to That call upon the Lord That fully believe while we're talking to them I have no idea Right What I do know is that the way we really know for sure Or have a good idea Is we explain in depth And we try to get them at the end to call upon the Lord If they say it's just by Jesus It's forever You cannot lose it And if they say they believe that And then they pray We're going to assume that they're telling the truth Now are there people we talk to That pray but didn't actually get it I'm sure There are going to be people you talk to That either were being dishonest to you For whatever reason Or they were still confused Right But It's the most thorough way And it's the way that we see from Paul the Apostle Now it is possible for someone to call upon the Lord Before the end of the conversation I have not had this happen often But it's happened a few times Where I get to the end And I show them Romans 10 verse 13 And I explain if you believe this You can call right now Because once again I don't see their heart I've had a couple times where somebody told me I just got saved Like one minute ago When you explain that I asked Jesus to save me already And they did it inside their heart Now once again I have no way of knowing that Is that possible Well yes it is possible Now here's the thing Those same people were willing to pray out loud Right after that So I mean it's like They're not going to be embarrassed to call And say they believe in Jesus and everything So here's what I'm saying It is possible for people to get saved Before we even get to the part about Romans 10 Because inside their heart They might have already made that decision Here's the thing though We don't see their hearts And so God has a formula For us to figure out it And here's the thing We convince them to believe And if they really believe They're not in general Going to reject calling upon the Lord Every once in a while They might be embarrassed to call Because they might have friends around Maybe you know They have family around They don't want to admit it audibly Or maybe you're talking to a couple Muslims And they don't want to admit publicly Like one of them maybe is changing his mind But he's thinking Why believe this But if my friend doesn't believe it He'll tell my parents That I prayed you know To Jesus And I got saved And then I could you know Be in trouble right So I'm sure that happens sometimes In general you talk to people One on one or one on two or whatever They believe that they're generally Not shy to call upon the Lord But sometimes you might talk to someone Who does believe And maybe they just do it inside their heart And yeah you know what They'd be saved But once again We don't see the heart Okay So go back to Psalm 31 Psalm 31 But what the Bible says Is if somebody believes If you know what the gift is And who's giving it You know what You would have asked for the living water That's what the Bible says What that tells us Is that if you get to the end And then they don't want to pray Why it's probably because they don't understand Either who Jesus is Or what that gift is They probably still have questions Because when I get to the end And then they don't want to pray I usually you know And I'm just telling you What my strategy is You know what Usually what I do Is I sort of back away And I don't I don't necessarily try to get them to say the words I'll say something like You know Are you confused about anything I said Is there any part you're not sure about Because I don't want to get them to repeat the words If they're still not sure about something The fact that they didn't want to pray It probably indicates There's something they're not sure about And then many times they'll tell me Yeah you know I'm just not sure You know I see what you're saying But I've always heard You got to keep the commandments And it's like Would you want me to show you more verses And sometimes they do Usually they say Well let me just think about it They're just not ready You know what And that's okay Because I don't want somebody saying the words That doesn't quite believe They're not quite sure yet They've got to make that decision If they believe or not Okay What I'm saying is this If we want to be thorough Then we should get people to call upon the Lord At the very end That's what Paul the Apostle did Now if you never try to get people to pray You would still get people saved Because if you can get them to change their minds Then you know what They put their belief on Jesus But the reality is Many people are not sure About what they believe Until the very end And that's how you wrap up the conversation And then it's just like They're making a decision And many people Right up to Romans 10 verse 13 They're hearing all of these things And they're like Yeah you know it makes sense What you're saying But they're still deciding In their heart if they believe it Because the gospel presentation Is very convincing I mean You can't poke any holes in it It makes perfect sense Right I mean if hell is the second death If hell is death And it says right now Half everlasting life Well that indicates That you're never going to go to hell Because it's everlasting And you receive it now And people understand that When you explain it But it doesn't mean they believe that They can't argue against it They see what That's what the bible says Inside their heart though It doesn't necessarily mean They've made that decision Yet they still might be Thinking about it And so The best way to do is Go through to the very end Because you give them a chance To think about it You ask the follow up questions Do you believe this Do you believe this And many times When you're asking Those follow up questions They're still deciding On what they believe I mean people answer Everything right And then you ask them About murder And then they're like Oh you'd go to hell Right Or then you know They get murder rights And then you ask About suicide And many times Their response is Well that's a sin And I'm like Well you know There's a lot of things That are sins right It's like Lying's a sin Stealing's a sin But that's a sin It's like yeah There's a lot of sins Right We sin every single day But they just heard that So often So it still has not clicked yet So you're asking Toward the end And then you're making sure They get everything And then once they believe it And they're answering it Correctly We trust their word If there doesn't seem To be any hesitation We say Well let me show you Romans 10 Would you like to call Upon the Lord To save you right now Now as I said It is possible Some of them inside Of their heart Have already called Upon the Lord Once again I do not see Their heart though We don't see Their heart What I do know Is that if they really Believe it You know what They're gonna be willing To call upon the Lord If they believe it Because if you believe You're gonna ask For that living water Psalm 31 It's always a controversial thing When you preach this Because you know People say different things About this And people have a lot of Questions about it But you know what We focus on the belief Because that's what you see In the bible But you also cannot negate The fact that the bible Does mention Calling upon the Lord Now here's the thing If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ You're gonna be saved Because every single person Who believes Is gonna be in heaven They're not gonna be ashamed Because you put your trust On Jesus You're gonna go to heaven Right And every single person Who believes Is gonna go to heaven There's no question About that Okay If you tell me though That you believe On Jesus And you've Never asked Jesus To save you I'd be like That's strange Right That's weird Right Because when I heard The gospel I don't even know If the person who gave me The gospel It's been so long Since I heard it I don't even know If he told me I should ask Jesus To save me Because honestly I'm losing this argument Right I don't know what to And so I went home though And I don't even think He mentioned Just naturally though I just went down on my knees I believed it And I just asked Jesus To save me I don't even think He mentioned it to me Now that's not The most thorough way To preach the gospel In a normal conversation We should try to You know Compel them To call upon the Lord If they believe I'm just saying That if you really believe Then a person Is gonna call That's what the Bible says There's not gonna be But then just didn't call And ended up in hell Because anyone who believes Is gonna go to heaven Okay Now Psalm 31 verse 2 Psalm 31 verse 2 The Bible says this Bow down thine ear to me Deliver me speedily Be thou my strong rock For an house of defense To save me Okay Now a couple things He mentions here He mentions Be thou my strong rock And he says For an house of defense So he says rock And he says defense Go to Matthew 7 Matthew 7 He said strong rock And house of defense And it brings to mind The end of the Sermon on the mountain In Matthew 7 Now just to double check It is around 1215 Right now Right Because last week It was like Oh it's 1215 I still got 30 minutes left And it was already 115 Just double checking And so Matthew 7 Verse 24 This is the first Just double checking And so Matthew 7 Verse 24 This is at The conclusion of The Sermon on the mountain It says in verse 24 Therefore whosoever heareth These sayings of mine And doeth them I will liken him unto A wise man Which built his house Upon a rock Remember it said The Lord is Our house of defense Our strong rock Here it says Building your house Upon a rock And the rain descended And the floods came And the winds blew And beat upon that house And it fell not For it was founded Upon a rock And every one That heareth These sayings of mine And doeth them not Shall be liken 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 the Bible says That if you're putting Your trust in the Lord You're basically setting Your house upon a rock And the Lord is Our strong rock And our house of defense The indication is When the storm comes You're gonna last Through the storm If you don't build Your house upon the rock though You're gonna fall When the storm comes Okay Now here's the thing What it likens it to Is hearing the words of God And doing them Right Okay And when it comes to Hearing the words of God And doing them It is not good enough Just to hear the words of God You have to actually do it Right You come to a church like ours And this is a church I think everybody would agree You hear the word of God preached You hear a lot of verses You hear the explanation Right I don't have a lot of stories Maybe I'm not the funniest joke teller Whatever that's preaching But I show the word of God And I teach it Right It's not good enough Just to hear it though You can hear it all day long If you don't do it It means nothing And you know Here's the reality If you're gonna come to a church Where you hear the word of God But not do it My advice would be To quit coming to our church You say why Well God holds you accountable For what you hear Right I mean if you have two kids And you tell one of your kids Hey clean up the mess You know what You expect that child to do it If the other child does not hear Well you would like them To clean it up anyway But you know what You're more merciful Because you didn't directly Ask them to do it Right It's the same thing with God If you hear the word of God The word of God is preached Then you know what If you hear the word of God The word of God is preached Then you know what God expects you to actually do it And what the Bible is showing you Is this If you build your house Your spiritual life Upon a rock It's gonna last in the storm If you don't You're gonna fade Now go back to Psalm 31 Psalm 31 Psalm 31 Psalm 31 Psalm chapter 31 And it says in Psalm 31 verse 3 Psalm 31 verse 3 For thou art my rock and my fortress Therefore for the name sake Lead me and guide me Now what is a fortress? A fortress is a large And permanent fortification Sometimes including a town And the indication is this When you're putting your trust In the Lord He's a fortress He's unmovable Okay Now the difference between this And the things you hear in the world Is the things you hear in the world change Right Things change I mean if you're putting your trust In the Lord And doing what he says It's immovable God doesn't change Right But the world does change See you build your house upon the rock And you say these are my beliefs Because thus saith the Lord As long as you're trusting in what God says You stand still at the same place If you're putting your trust in other things though It's gonna be shifting When there's various things in this world All you have to do is look at this world today And see that it's a lot different than 20 years ago In the Philippines Right It's a lot different than when many people Were kids growing up in the Philippines Right The world is changing very quickly But you know God's word has not changed at all Hasn't changed one bit And here's the thing You say well brother Saki You know it's all relative If the world changes You have to take the Bible and change it To meet the culture Well that's not what the word of God says Right God's word and God's advice works Whether we're here in 2021 In a very wicked country Where the LGBT is running rampant Or whether it's 1991 Where it's like There is no LGBT You got Mount Pinatubo in 1991 Right It's like 1991 you got Mount Pinatubo 2021 you got a much bigger problem The LGBT Right Verse 4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid Privately for me For thou art my strength So it says in verse number 4 That people would put a net out And they laid it privately Or quietly Or privately Now Why would you put a net out Well you put a net out to catch something Right It's like you're trying to catch fish or something You know You see that in the Bible They have a large net To catch a lot of fish Or you know You might have like a mouse trap Or something like that You put a net out And if you're trying to catch a mouse You do it very quietly You try to shrink the mouse You know Move the trap around From day to day So they get confused or whatever And catch that mouse Well the Bible is saying Evil people will do this to you They will basically pull the net out To catch you But they do it privately They do it quietly Meaning you're not aware of it And the reality is That if you're serving God There can be bad people That are trying to catch you In a trap You say Well why would they do that Because they're bad people That's the reason why And here's the thing If they're doing it quietly You know what There's a good chance You're not aware of it Right You throw that net out Privately Privately It's just that Privately Privately It's just like You're doing that to an animal And you know what They're not aware of it And then you catch them Well that's what Bad people would do to us as well They'd throw out the net privately You know Doesn't the Bible talk about people That would try to catch Jesus In his words Right Catching a net Things like that This is something that actually happens It says in verse 5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit Thou ist redeem me O Lord God of truth I have hated them That regard lying vanities But I trust in the Lord I will be glad And rejoice in thy mercy For thou ist considered my trouble Thou hast known my soul In adversities And what the psalmist is describing here Is that when he was going through trials The Lord knew his soul The Lord remembered him He's saying Well what's the significance Well go to Job 42 Job 42 Right before the book of Psalms Job 42 Last chapter In your life You know what People might choose To just back away from you People that are your friends Or your family And when you go through hard times They're not there for you Right This happens I know that my wife's told me before That with you know Her family Her parents are very generous And there's been a lot of relatives They've helped out before But when their family Went into rough times It's like those relatives They helped It's just like Not there to help Right And unfortunately This is reality sometimes That you can be a very generous person But then when you need help Many people You find out Oh maybe they were just using you Right Maybe they didn't actually care What happens in this world It says here in Psalm 31 Or Job 42 verse 10 Job 42 verse 10 And I'm assuming Most of you are familiar with this story Obviously Job lost everything He lost all of his kids You know He lost his money He lost everything Just instantaneously Job 42 verse 10 And the Lord turned the captivity of Job When he prayed for his friends Also the Lord gave Job Twice as much as he had before And all his sisters And all they that had been Of his acquaintance before And did eat bread with him in his house And they bemoaned him And comforted him Over all the evil That the Lord had brought upon him Every man also gave him A piece of money And everyone an earring of gold So now all of a sudden That things are going well for Job All of a sudden The family come back All of a sudden The friends and the acquaintances Come back It's like Man I've been praying for you Job I've been thinking about you I know things have been going bad I've been really sorry for you And it's just like Well they weren't there When he needed the help The only people that were there Didn't end up turning out To be that great of friends anyway Right But unfortunately This is reality That when you go through trials Sometimes people will desert you Sometimes they'll say Well you know We're just And you know Why would they do that Well there's a couple different reasons One thing might be They're thinking Man if Job has all this bad stuff Happening to him And I'm friends with Job Then maybe God will get mad at me And the same thing will happen to me Or maybe some of them Are a little bit too superstitious And they're just like I don't want the bad luck To be passed on to me Or something like that And then others of them Maybe they were just friends with Job Because he's powerful And then when he doesn't Isn't doing well They're not The Bible says that The poor person has many friends But the poor does not Right And so Those that were his acquaintance Before they come back But see here's the thing When you're trusting in God God does not desert you Right Man may desert you Man will let you down Your friends will let you down Your families will let you down People at this church will let you down I will let you down sometimes I will mess up I will mess up The Lord will not desert you though Right And you're going to feel like You're deserted When you're like Joseph And you're going through all these trials But the reality is God is not deserting you If you're serving Him Now of course you're saved forever Once you have eternal life But if you're living for God God's blessing is upon you And even if you're going through trials God is not deserting you If you're serving God Now Turn back to Psalm 31 Psalm 31 Psalm 31 Psalm chapter 31 And it says in Psalm 31 verse 8 Psalm 31 verse 8 It says It has not shut me up into the hand of the enemy Have mercy upon me O Lord For I am in trouble Mine eye is consumed with grief Yea my soul and my belly And he mentions being in trouble here And your first reaction might be That he's talking about all the enemies That want to destroy you But I don't really think that's the context Because what he's going to talk about in the next verse And what he's going to describe here With the symbolism of his eye And his soul in his belly He talks about his iniquity And he talks about his sin And he's basically saying that he needs mercy from God Because he knows he's a sinful person He's done wrong And he needs God's mercy He needs God's blessing What he said is What he said is Mine eye is consumed with grief Yea my soul and my belly Well go to Ecclesiastes chapter 1 Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes chapter 1 And he says his eye is consumed with grief Now notice what it says In Ecclesiastes 1 verse 8 Ecclesiastes 1 verse 8 All things are full of labor Man cannot utter it The eye is not satisfied with seeing Nor the ear filled with hearing Now there's many applications for this verse But one application is this That your eyes are never going to be satisfied With the things they see You say brother Stuckey Just one last movie I want to watch I know I shouldn't be watching these movies But there's just this one last movie I mean Batman 17 It's like I saw the first 16 I can't miss Batman number 17 Or whatever is out there Indiana Jones 7 I know Harrison Ford is like 100 years old But I've got to watch this Or whatever But your eyes are never going to be satisfied We have this idea Just a little bit more we're going to be okay But it just causes you to want more It talks about your soul and your belly And the Bible is going to describe the belly as an example And it comes to mind with eating and dieting And things like that You think man I'm just going to eat one more cookie And one more cookie turns into Ten more cookies Isn't that how it works? In America the big commercial with potato chips I bet you can't eat just one And you know what they're right You have this idea I'm just going to eat one I'm just going to eat two But before you know it you've eaten the entire bag of chips Right? Or you've got a dessert and you're like I just got to round off the edges Make sure it's even and everything But then you're like oh wow I've got to just do a little bit more Before you know it you ate like 4,000 calories of sugar or whatever Right? That's the way it works Well it's the same thing with our eye Right? Your eye is never going to be satisfied You say brother Stuckey you know I just I know that listening to this music is wrong But it's just a little bit of music I listen to And I'll be satisfied with just 15 minutes No you won't Because the ear is not satisfied with hearing The ear is not filled with hearing It's going to want more and more and more and more What you have to do is starve off your flesh I mean think about somebody who is smoking cigarettes I've never smoked a cigarette I don't know what an addiction to cigarettes is like Obviously we've all had various addictions Of things that we're trying to stop Or things that we have trouble stopping or whatever But you know if you want to get rid of an addiction to cigarettes Well here's the thing If you stop smoking cigarettes over time Your desire for it is going to start to die off Because you haven't had it Right? I mean I'm somebody who goes on I go on a lot of diets I go on a lot of just different extreme diets Cutting out sugar various times during the year and stuff And you know when I start a diet And I cut off sugar It's like you really want it the first day or two Right? That cobra is always calling me Right? The cobra energy drink Right? But then after like 4 or 5 or 6 days All of a sudden your desire Just starts to die off for it And you know this is true with just Various things that you desire after But it's also true with sins What you have to do is starve off the flesh And if you're going to win in the battle of the flesh The secret is to starve off the flesh Starve off your appetite for doing wrong Now I'm not saying it's going to be perfect And you're never going to have any desire whatsoever But look Listening to bad music in your life At some point or another You threw out the bad music And here's the thing I'm sure you desire it less now Than when you first quit When I threw out all of my CDs a long time ago Whenever I heard Aerosmith on the radio Or at the gym or whatever It's just like Man my flesh desired to hear that music But I can say now if I heard Aerosmith I wouldn't feel a desire to listen to it Because it's been more than 15 years Right? It eventually just kind of dies off That's the way it works out And so Let's see where are we at in the Bible right now? We're at Ecclesiastes Well look at Ecclesiastes 2 verse 8 Ecclesiastes 2 verse 8 And it says in Ecclesiastes 2 verse 8 I gathered me also silver and gold And the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces I got me men singers and women singers And the delights of the sons of men As musical instruments and that of all sorts So I was great and increased more than all That were before me in Jerusalem Also my wisdom remained with me And whatsoever my eyes desired I kept not from them You say what's the problem with letting your eyes See whatever they want? Well then it says this I withheld not my heart from any joy See what takes place is when you allow stuff To enter into your eyes and your ears It enters into your heart You say I'm just gonna watch this for 20 minutes But the problem is it then enters into your heart And you're gonna want it even more And so the next day Your desire is gonna be a little bit stronger for it The only way to win this battle is to just starve off the flesh You gotta just make sure you just cut it out from your life Cause otherwise that desire is gonna remain there It's gonna enter into your heart Then it says in verse 11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought And on the labor that I had labored to do And behold all was vanity And vexation of spirit And there was no profit under the sun What he's gonna describe in Ecclesiastes Is the fact that he hates his life He's miserable Right? Isn't that kind of the theme of Ecclesiastes? You've got a man who has everything in life And he's not happy Right? I mean it's just like he has everything that the eye could want I mean he mentions all these things Like peacocks and all these things And today it's just like We'll just go on YouTube and see a peacock or whatever Right? But back then you know these things you didn't necessarily have access to them And he bought everything the eye could possibly want Everything the ear could want And you would think that would make you happy It doesn't make you happy though Right? Because it's gonna fill you full of grief When you're doing something that's wrong and you're not serving God Okay? Now Go to Go to Psalm 31 real quickly Psalm 31 real quickly And look it's kind of a silly example But there's a reason why the Bible mentions the belly several times But you know it's generally true with junk food too Right? It tastes real good when you eat it And then often times you regret it You know like 20 minutes later like it wasn't worth it Right? Now I don't have a perfect diet I go in a lot of extreme diets But I'm not standing up here I just talked about cobra a couple minutes ago I'm not standing up here saying I have a perfect diet Okay? I'm just stating though that that's reality That often times you know you eat something that's not good for you And here's the thing I mean eating something very healthy Is not necessarily more tasty when you eat it But then you know You end up being glad you did it most of the time Right? When I eat junk food I wake up the next day and I'm tired I'm exhausted I can't focus My mind's not Because it's not good for you We're like a machine that needs certain things to operate Right? And when you don't put in the right things that's what's gonna happen Now I'm not saying it's a sin to eat junk food Okay? So don't misquote me or anything I'm just saying you know that's an analogy the Bible gives And it's a good one because All of us probably eat junk food from time to time And then you know it's really good when you eat it But then you often times end up regretting it But it's also very hard to stop eating it Right? It's easy to stand up here and say I wanna get in shape I'm just not gonna eat In 2022 I'm just not gonna eat sugar anymore Very easy to say Very easy to say Very hard to do Extremely hard to do And once you break the diet you end up going right back into it You know when I was in college I went one time like 40 days without sugar The only sugar I had was like from an apple Or from a banana But basically no junk food for 40 days And the only sugar I had was I had basically like You know two fruits a day Other than that it was like vegetables Often times raw vegetables, lean meat I was trying to get in shape And I went to my friends you know He was having a get together kind of a party And he wanted people to come over And he had cookies there I told him I'm on this diet I really don't wanna eat one and everything And he was really you know like No no you gotta eat one And I didn't wanna be disrespectful And I do think I made the right choice Cause you don't wanna be rude you know But it's like once I ate that one cookie It's like the diet was gone the next day I intended to keep the diet I was trying to stay in shape but it was gone It's like 40 days of hard work Back to square one But that's the way it works right Now Psalm 31 verse 10 Psalm 31 verse 10 And he said mine eye is consumed with grief Yea my soul and my belly And then he says in Psalm 31 verse 10 For my life is spent with grief Grief or sadness, depression In my years with sighing My strength faileth Why? Because of mine iniquity And my bones are consumed You see you can have many enemies That wanna destroy you But that doesn't make you miserable What makes you miserable is when you sin What makes you miserable is when you do wrong Now of course we all sin We all do wrong And look I can And here's the truth If you're trying to really serve God Then when you do mess up It's really gonna feel bad Right you're getting close to God And you're doing good things And then you really mess up You feel miserable Right And the Bible says My strength faileth Because of mine iniquity Look think of like working out You know you're doing bench press And you do one rep And two reps And three reps And then you get to the fourth rep And then you're pushing You're pushing And then you got your workout partner That will kinda help lift the bar You know to get the bar up Because you've run out of strength Right You can only do it so many times Well it's the same thing spiritually You cannot just sin and sin and sin And then serve God zealously It doesn't work that way Your strength is zapped When you do wrong Look when you're committing sin You don't feel like reading the Bible Isn't that true When you're committing sin You don't feel like going to church You don't feel like you know Going soul winning Because your strength is gone When you're committing sin That's the way it works Just as somebody working out Runs out of strength And then they don't have the power To lift anymore You work out and you get tired Right You do repetitions of something You get to 19 You get to 20 And then you gotta stop You gotta take a break You're too tired to do more Right It's the same thing spiritually And it's sin that doesn't Now go to John 13 John 13 John 13 What makes a safe person miserable What makes a safe person miserable is sinning It's not that complicated It seems too simple You would think Brother Stuckey How could you be happy If you know you don't have things That other people have Well the Bible says What makes you miserable Solomon had everything And he was miserable You say why Because he gave himself The wine and wisdom That's not a good combination Right He basically gratified And look some of the things Solomon did were not sinful But many things he did were sinful And he basically said I'm gonna test everything And he's miserable And he had everything Life had to offer You say Brother Stuckey What about if you don't have anything Can you be happy Well you're in John 13 But remember Paul said that in whatsoever state he was He had learned to be content Whether he was abounding Or whether he didn't have much And what Paul was basically expressing is Hey whether I'm eating a really nice meal Somebody buys me a steak or whatever I go to a nice restaurant Or whether or not I'm eating just The most basic thing Right I can still be happy I learned to be content Now it might be something you have to learn It might not be something that comes naturally But the Bible says you can do it But see what really makes you happy Is found in John 13 verse 17 If ye know these things Happy are ye If ye do them Right If ye know these things Happy are ye If ye do them Well what if you don't do them Well you're gonna be miserable Right You're better off not knowing If you're not gonna do it Right But what makes you happy is just doing right I mean I'm sure everyone in this room could attest to this That when you're reading the Bible And you're meditating upon God And you're going soul winning You're in a good mood Things are going well in your life Now it doesn't mean you don't have trials It doesn't mean that you never have a depressing time But when you're serving God You can be happy even if things are not the best in your life Right That's reality I mean I remember sometimes I've had my life where I was really happy I remember after I had you know surgery on my knee When I tore my ACL playing soccer And you know it takes a long time to recover But I remember when I was first going soul winning again And going without soul winning for a couple months is miserable It's terrible Right and I really didn't have a choice Because I couldn't go after I tore my ACL But once I could finally do it again I was going around on crutches Going soul winning Well I would have liked my knee to be in better shape I wish I was fully recovered at that time But I was happy because I was serving God Right And when you're doing what's right You can be happy even if you have the worst circumstances That's the secret to happiness in the Christian life Now go back to Psalm 31 We'll have to quickly finish up Psalm 31 But the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak Right I mean we know this You're in this room right now And you know that's true That when you're serving God it makes you happy But unfortunately when temptations come We don't always react like Jesus does And just do right all the time Sometimes we give in Sometimes we do wrong And then you regret it Then you're miserable Right Notice what it says in Psalm 31 verse 11 I was a reproach among all mine enemies But especially among my neighbors And a fear to mine acquaintance And they that did see me without fled for me I am forgotten as a dead man out of mine I am like a broken vessel For I have heard the slander of many Fear was on every side While they took counsel together against me They devised to take away my life So here he is expressing the fact That there are people that want to destroy him And he says the slander of many And these are things that are being done quietly Like the net is being spread So what we're seeing is The psalmist is saying I'm hearing about people that want to destroy my life Because when you say things It eventually gets back to that person Right Now I don't have the exact experience of King David Because he had a lot of enemies When he was doing right I mean King Saul was trying to kill him Over and over and stuff like that But I did have one time at a job Where there was this coworker I had Who was a homosexual Okay I never said a single word to him Ever Ever I mean I've never said a single word to him in my life He never said a single word to me Right But apparently he found out The things that I believe Now When I go to work I don't go around and just tell everybody What I believe about every doctrine Because I'm being paid to work And you're going to get yourself in trouble If people know everything you believe Right But somehow he found out what I believed And I had a couple of coworkers that warned me That he said he was going to wait outside for me With a baseball bat And he was going to bash my head in Right when I came out Right And they warned me He didn't give an exact date But he just said You know that one of these times When I walk out of the store What a loving person The L in LGBT stands for love Right Love And gladness LGBT I don't know But it's just like Oh what a loving person he was And then he's telling people That he's going to bash my head in with a baseball bat I never even said a word to this guy Now apparently he knew what I believed about homosexuals But it's just like What a loving person Right He's revealing what's actually inside of his heart But what I'm saying is this If you're serving God People that hate God are going to hate you If they know what you believe Right Now I had another coworker at my job in Maryland And I don't know if this person was a reprobate You know I wouldn't say that Because I don't have any evidence about that But they really hated the fact That I read my Bible during my lunch break And I had my little cubicle that I worked at So it's closed on three sides And all I'm doing is I'd have lunch I'd eat it at my desk And I'd read my Bible And I never talked about my beliefs And I heard from people that they were talking to management Saying that Bibles should be banned from work And they were requesting That I was not allowed to read my Bible And they said that I should be fired It's like And this is also something I don't think I ever said anything to this person And it's like what in the world did I do And just other people told me about that Just because I was reading my Bible The reality is when people know what you believe Sometimes they're going to get angry Because the word of God is divisive The word of God is powerful And it makes people mad that don't like the words of God That's just the reality And as we said before You know what I'm for peace But when I speak they are for war It's like we're not even trying to get involved in battles I'm just trying to read my Bible during my lunch break It's like well that person should be fired It's like they shouldn't be allowed to read a book like that That people disagree with that's controversial But you know there are countries in this world Where it would be illegal to read a Bible Right I mean that's reality in communist countries Fortunately it's not like that right now But you never know what will happen one day Right that's the world we live in Verse 14 But I trusted in thee O Lord I said thou art my God My times are in thy hand Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies And from them that persecute me When he says my times are in thy hand What he's saying is If I'm serving you and doing right Basically my life is in your hand Where if I'm serving you and you choose to allow me to live And serve you my whole life Then I know that I'm going to be perfectly fine And what he's saying is If I'm serving you and your blessing is upon me The only way something bad would happen to me Is if God allowed it to happen for whatever reason Now of course that happens because there's martyrs in the Bible Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said We believe our God is going to deliver us But if not if he chooses not to we're still not going to sin We're still not going to bow down to a false idol Right It is possible to be martyred And look just because somebody passes away at a young age Or something tragically happens It doesn't mean they did something wrong We shouldn't try to judge other people But the reality is if something bad does happen to me Obviously God allowed it to happen if I'm serving him and doing right Our times are in the hand of God It says in verse 16 Make thy faces shine upon thy servant Save me for thy mercy's sake Let me not be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon thee Let the wicked be ashamed and let them be silent in the grave And that's a good prayer Let bad people die and go to hell Is basically what he's saying Right Now we're not just saying people that sin or do wrong Your average, unsafe person or someone you might argue with But people that are bad people It's like let them die and go to hell People that are reprobates Let them be ashamed Let the lying lips be put to silence Which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous O how great is thy goodness Which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee And so what the Bible says is God has goodness for us if we fear him If we're doing what's right The Bible says, you don't have to turn there But do not my words do good To him that walketh uprightly And if you're walking uprightly God's words do you good If you're not walking uprightly They don't do you good That's the way it works Psalm 31, the rest of verse 19 Which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues Blessed be the Lord for he hath showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city For I said in my haste I am cut off from before thine eyes Nevertheless thou hearst the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee What he's saying in verse 22 when he says I am cut off Is, you know, in his haste Which means something that's happening very quickly He basically feels like he's going to be destroyed And when you have enemies you might feel that way Maybe your faith is, you know, a little bit less It wanes from time to time And I think all of us have been like that before Where we've had times where we're really doing right And we have confidence and boldness But then sometimes our faith kind of dies a little bit We get scared, we get nervous or whatever Then it says in verse 23 O love the Lord all ye saints For the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth a proud doer Be of good courage and ye shall strengthen your heart All ye that hope in the Lord So basically the theme of this chapter is Let me never be ashamed And look if you're putting your trust in God for your life Not just to protect you but you're trusting his words And doing what he says Do not God's words do good to those that walk uprightly If we're putting our trust in him We will not be ashamed or let down Let's close in a word of prayer Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today And getting to see your word in this topic And help us to not just hear these words But actually use them and apply them to our lives, God Help us to have confidence and walk by faith We pray this in Jesus' name, amen Amen. 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