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All right, we're here in Psalm 47, the name of the sermon is submit or be subdued. Submit to God or be subdued. Now point number one is submission to God. Notice what it says in verse number one, oh clap your hands all ye people, shout unto God the voice of triumph, for the Lord most high is terrible, he is a great king over all the earth. And the Bible says the Lord is a great king over all the earth. And you know what, in the way secular society will talk about kings, they'll talk about like Cyrus the great and Alexander the great, but you'll never see a king referred to as great in the Bible except the Lord. Because a king that's over a nation is only there because God gave them that power. But the true power and the true king over all the earth is God. And the Bible says for the Lord most high is terrible, he is a great king over all the earth. Now in our modern day, if you're to say something is terrible, it's kind of like, well, you know, how was the food? You know, it's terrible, right? It's like a major insult. But when you're seeing terrible in the Bible, what it's saying that God is terrible is that he's someone that instills fear and demands respect. And yes, we do have a loving God, but it's not just love, love, love, peace, peace, peace. There is a God that is a king that rules the earth, that has rules he expects us to follow. Now turn in your Bible to Deuteronomy 11. Deuteronomy chapter 11. Deuteronomy 11. Now we understand the Bible says that Satan is the God of this world and God does give Satan some ability in this world. And we understand that Jesus Christ is going to be ruling and reigning during the millennial reign of Christ. And right now, you know what? There's a lot of wickedness that goes on and there are things that God does allow. And Satan is the God of this world. You look at the entertainment industry, the actors and actresses, Hollywood, music, and all this stuff. And you can see that it's Satan running that show and it's not God, right? And we understand it's going to be the millennial reign when he's reigning. But here's the thing about this. The world is ignorant about who is the head of various countries. As Bible-believing Christians, we're not ignorant. As Christians, we play by a different set of rules than the world. We understand the ultimate boss is God. It doesn't matter what man's rules are. It matters what God's rules are. Bible says here in Deuteronomy 11 verse 26, Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day, and a curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God. But turn aside out of the way which I command you this day to go after other gods which he have not. And a curse if you will not obey the commands of the Lord your God. But turn aside out of the way which I command you this way, this day to go after other gods which he have not known. Now before they went into the nation of Israel, this is long before they had a system of kings. And if you remember, the people demanded a king. They say we want a king to rule over us like all of the other nations. We want a king to go out and fight our battles for us. And what God says through Samuel is they already have a king. We already have a king. We already have a ruler because the Lord is the ruler. He's the one that's ultimately in charge. But the people said, no, no, we want a king. We want a king. And then all of a sudden King Saul becomes the king and he leads the nation, right? And now all of a sudden you don't just have one king above you, you have two because you have to obey this king's rules, King Saul, and you have to obey the ultimate king. But here's the thing. This is before they have a set of kings in Deuteronomy chapter 11. And what he's saying is if you don't obey what I say, I will curse you. I'm not going to bless you. You say why? Because the Lord was the king and the Lord is the king. And other nations could have been ignorant, but Israel should have known, hey, we were told before we entered the promised land, if we don't obey what this king says, we're getting booted out. We're getting the curse of God upon us. We're going to be scattered amongst the nations because our king is giving us rules he expects us to follow. Go to your Bible to Daniel chapter six, Daniel six, Daniel chapter six. And let me give you an example in the Bible where you have the laws of the land that come in contradiction with the laws of God. Because what the Bible teaches is that God is obviously the ultimate authority. At the same time, there are authorities in this world we're expected to follow. So for example, if you have parents and you're a child growing up, the children have to obey what their parents say. My son Zeph, my daughter Christabel, my son Ezra, I expect them to obey what I say. My wife expects them to obey what she says because we are the authority over them. Now let's say that there's a situation, 10 years from now, where I tell my son Zeph, Zeph, you know what? We're struggling with money. I need you to start selling drugs. And obviously this is just a foolish example. Hopefully this would not apply to anybody in this room with what your parents would tell you to do. But in that sort of situation, you say, well, brother Stuckey, should Zeph obey you because you're telling him to do something and you're his father? Well, no, because I'm asking him to sin. I'm asking him to do wrong. So authority always works this way, according to the Bible, where you obey authority unless they're asking you to do wrong. And that is the exception. And so for example, husbands are the head over their wives and wives should listen and obey their husbands. But if the husbands ask their wives to do something wrong or sin or lie or something for them, then they should disobey that. Why? Because they're asking their wives to sin, right? Or your boss at work and you ought to have many jobs. You work jobs and your head bosses will ask you to be dishonest with the stuff that you do for a particular reason. My old job, I ran into that and I never really mentioned it publicly for legality purposes. I don't even think I'd be allowed to, but it's like, you kind of change the numbers a little bit. It's like, well, 4.5% and then it's just like, add just 50,000. Just a random amount to make it look a little bit better. And that's the reality with a lot of stuff when you're looking at actuarial reports, a lot of stuff is not quite like it appears to be. And so if your company's asking you to do wrong, well, that's something you'd say, well, you know what? I can't do that. You can have somebody else do that, but I'm not going to be dishonest, right? Same thing in government. When the government tells us to do something, we should obey what they say, unless they're asking us to do wrong. Now, in all of these situations, you hope you have an authority that actually cares about you. And if it's a good authority, they'll care more about their followers than themselves. Unfortunately, that's not always the case, especially in governments and countries, right? Here's an example in Daniel 6, where the government's asking them to do something that's wrong and it goes against God. It says in Daniel 6, verse 4, then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find none occasion nor fault. For as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in them. What that's basically saying is, Daniel is not the sort of guy who showed up late to work, took long breaks, checked out early. They're trying to find anything where he's not actually respecting to the authority at the job, and they could find nothing. Because he wasn't just a person who believed the word of God and was obeying God's rules. He believed, you know what? I had to obey the rules of my country and my boss as well. So he wasn't being dishonest with anything. Verse 5, then said these men, we shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. You know what? That ought to be the way it is at your job, where if somebody has a complaint about you, it's because of your beliefs. It's like, well, that person's always reading the Bible at work. Or, you know, that person, they're always going to church. If they're upset at you, it shouldn't be because you're taking an hour break instead of 15 minutes because you're clocking in late or leaving early or being dishonest or gossiping about the boss. It ought to be because you're faithful to God would be their only complaint that they would have. Verse 6, then these presidents and princes assemble together to the king and said this unto him, King Darius lived forever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors and the princes, the counselors and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for 30 days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, we have a tendency when we're reading the Bible that when somebody says something, we assume they're telling the truth. And you know, obviously we do that in our world today. And in general, that's what you probably should do. You assume people are telling you the truth, but the reality is that people lie. And in the Bible, people lie. This is a lie. They say, well, all the presidents of the kingdom. Now, wait a minute. I mean, Daniel is one of them. Daniel wasn't involved in that. And look, I am very confident that it wasn't all of the rest either. You cannot tell me that every single person that worked was just a wicked reprobate that wanted to kill Daniel because of his beliefs. I don't think it was just Daniel they're lying about. I think there are others that, you know, they weren't faithful to God like Daniel was, but they weren't these wicked people either. There's a group of people that go to the king and say, Hey, all of us agreed about this, but they're lying about it. They're not telling the truth. Now they're definitely lying in the fact that Daniel was not consulted, but I don't think he's the only one that was not consulted. They found a group of people they knew would agree with them. They went to the king and acted like everybody agreed on this. And everybody said this. And unfortunately the king is a bit foolish in this instance. Verse number seven, all the presidents of the kingdom, the governors and the princes, the counselors and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for 30 days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. So basically nobody can make a petition or pray to any God or ask anything of any man except from the king for 30 days. So it's basically illegal to pray. As I mentioned recently, in parts of Ireland, it's illegal to pray right now because abortion's really common and people are protesting abortion. And so as a result, they made it illegal to pray near where abortions are being committed. Right? And it's like, well, what do you do if you're a Bible believing Christian? You disobey. If you've got the house next door to the abortion clinic, you probably should be praying more, right? Because of the wickedness in your country. And here it's illegal to pray and ask anything of any God or man for 30 days. Verse number nine, wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree. Verse 10, now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem. He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did a four time. Daniel had a pattern in his life of praying three times a day. Okay. Now this does not mean that you have to pray at three set times a day. I'm not trying to, you know, you got to follow the Muslim pattern of set times during the day, but that's just what Daniel did. You know, maybe at morning, lunch and dinner, that was kind of his pattern of when he prayed. And of course they know it and they catch him doing it because they're expecting it. Right? And so Daniel had a pattern in his life of how he prayed. And on a side note for all of us, we ought to have a pattern when we pray, when we read the Bible, when we go to church, when we go soul winning. It shouldn't just be, well, you know what? I wake up and I read the Bible when I feel like it. You say, brother, second, what's the problem with just reading the Bible when you feel like it? You're never going to read the Bible because it's much easier to do what the flesh wants than what the spirit wants. I mean, let's face it. When you wake up in the morning, your first desire is get on Facebook, get on social media, watch that YouTube video. Right? It's all these things that are not the same as spending time with God. So if you just do what you feel like doing, you're never going to do anything for God. Look, there are a lot of times when I go out soul winning and I do not feel like going out soul winning. You say, why do you do it? Because you do what's right, whether you feel like it or not. Look, if you worked a job and you went to work when you felt like it, you get fired after a week. You say, why? Because you never feel like going to work, right? You don't do things just because you want to do them. You do it because it's right. Now, of course, the goal is that you're going to start to enjoy the Christian life. And if you set aside worldliness in your life, you will enjoy the Christian life. It is a joy to read the Bible. It's a joy to go soul winning. It's a joy to go to church, but it also takes work. It also takes effort. And Daniel had a pattern of how he lived his life. Go to Acts chapter five, Acts five, Acts five. Now, I hope this would never happen in our country where prayer was illegal. But if it ever was, then you keep praying. You say, what if I get arrested and get killed? It is what it is. Now, I'm not saying because Daniel's not intentionally, it's not like he's in the middle of the street, in the middle of the city going, look at me praying. He's not doing that. He's not making a show, but he's also not just going to be like, well, I'm just going to hide who I am or what I am. I mean, these men are basically just spying on Daniel. They catch him praying. It's like, it is what it is, right? And so if the government makes something illegal against what God says, what do you do? You go for what God says and go against what the government says, right? Acts chapter five, verse 28, saying, did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. And they say, hey, we commanded you not to go soul winning. You know, there's a lot of countries in the world. It's illegal to go soul winning. A lot of countries. Is it, is it technically legal in the UAE to go soul winning? It, see, there's an example, you know, visitor from who lived in the UAE for a while. And there's a group of people that go soul winning there. You say what? We ought to obey God rather than men, the Bible says. Verse 29, then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. Now look, we're blessed here in the Philippines. It's not illegal. We're able to go soul winning. We don't have to worry about it at this point in time, but look, there could come a day where it becomes illegal. And I'll tell you what, as we get closer to the end times, it's not just going to be in Muslim countries in North Korea. It's going to start being around the world where it gets more and more strict and harder to serve God. We're already seeing it in this world. Anyway, you say certain things and it's like, wow, you can get in trouble with the government because of what you preached. But you know what, if the government says it's illegal to go soul winning, what do you do? You keep going soul winning. You say why? We ought to obey God rather than men. I'm pretty sure Jesus said all power is given onto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations. Well, even the nations it's illegal, all nations. Go ye therefore and teach all nations. Now look, we are blessed to live in a country we don't really have to worry about the persecution here. And we ought to take advantage of it. Because around the world, there's a lot of places they would love to be able to do what we do. And they're not able to do that. Right? Turn your Bible to James 4. James 4. See, brother, second, why would we do that? Because the great King over all the earth is not the president or King of any country. It's Lord God Almighty. And He makes the rules. He tells us what to do. And I don't remember a part in the Bible where God said, well, you know what, don't go soul winning in areas where it's illegal. Actually, when you look at the early ones that were following the apostles and the other really zealous people like Stephen, a lot of them died for what they believed. And in the past in areas, if you got baptized, it's like the death penalty. When the Catholic country was trying to force everybody to be Catholic. And around the world today, you convert from Islam to Christianity. You live in India and convert to Christianity. You're going to get persecuted by the other religions. That's the way it works. Right? We are blessed in this country. We don't have to worry about it at this point in time. The Bible says in James 4 verse 6, But he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. As we said, point number one is submission to God. The Bible tells us, submit yourselves therefore to God. Now look, it doesn't matter if the rest of the world is not obeying it. What about you as a Bible believing Christian? We looked at Daniel, but I'm pretty sure you only have a small group of people, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that are really standing against what the government's saying. It's only a small group. Everybody else is going on board with it. Look, if you're in this room and you know what the Word of God says, you're saved, you know the right preaching, you know the doctrines, you ought to be one of those people that stand up and say, hey, I'm going to submit to God. I'm not going to submit to man when they tell me to go against what God says. Turn your Bible to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2. I mean, the nation of Israel was pretty foolish because they were told that God is your king, and he's going to be your leader, and they wanted to be like all the nations. Now what they did is they have to obey the king of the land who has different rules that are not part of the Bible, and they still have to obey God, right? And it's like, you know what, it would have been much better living in a country where your one king and one ruler with making all the rules is just God Almighty, and they rejected that. And then not only did they reject God, they eventually reject the kings and of course scattered everywhere. Bible says in 1 Peter 2 verse 11, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul, having your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works which they shall behold glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. So look, God is the ultimate authority on everything. However, when you live in a country and there's laws about don't drive over this speed limit, those are things that we are expected to follow. You say, why? Because we live underneath that country, and then the authority that's above us, the government, they make certain rules. Because it's not a sin to drive under certain speed limits. They're giving us a rule that whether you agree with it or not, it's not causing you to sin. So what do we do? Well, we should listen to it. Now look, I don't always like the rules that a government has. I didn't always like the rules in the US. I don't always like the rules here. I mean, over the last few years until recently, things were extremely strict here, especially with kids. They were not things that we particularly really agreed with, but you live under a country and you have to follow the rules to the best of your ability. But ultimately, we submit to God. And if there's any contradiction between God and a man-made authority, you submit to God and reject what man-made authority says. Go to Psalm 47. Psalm 47. So point number one is submission to God. Point number one, submission to God. And we're going to skip verse number three until later on in the sermon. So point one is submission to God. Point two is shepherding from God. Shepherding from God. Notice what it says here in verse four. He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved, Selah. The Bible says he shall choose our inheritance. You think of your inheritance and that's basically the money and the property and things such as that passed down from your parents when they pass away. It's what you inherit. But when it comes to us living for God and serving God, we have an inheritance up in heaven. And what the Bible is basically telling you is that God is shepherding us, he's guiding us, and he's making the choices for us. He's the one that's leading us. I absolutely hate the doctrine of Calvinism, this idea that God is up in heaven saying, you're damned to hell, but I'm choosing you for heaven and that we don't have free will. That's garbage. The Bible says the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Not some men, but all men. The Bible says he's not willing that any should perish. But I would say this, even though we believe that we have free will, I also don't believe that we are just living in this world randomly trying to figure out without God leading us. If you are right with God, God is going to lead you in the direction he wants you to go. He's going to lead you down the path that he wants you to go if you're following his will. The Bible says in verse number four, verse five. Verse five, God is gone up with a shout. The Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises unto our King. Sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth. Sing he praises with understanding. Go to Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs three. You say, well, Brother Stuckey, how do I know where God is leading me? How do I know what direction that he's leading me? Well, the best way to know that is, you know, I was talking to my son the other day and he asked me questions sometimes at night about the Bible and about God and stuff. And he asked me, you know, like, how do we, you know, hear from God is what he said. You know, how do we hear from God? And I said, the way you hear from God is you read the Bible. Because I said, God said this. And so when you're reading it, you're hearing what he said. And I said, also via sermons that are preached, God is speaking to you. And so if you want to hear from God, you pray, I told him, you pray to God about things that you want and things you aren't sure of. Pray to God. But I said, you're not going to hear a voice from God. You're not going to have God appear to you. Right? Because of course, you know, when you have young kids, you're telling them the exciting stories in the Bible and people are talking to God and Old Testament stories. I was like, it's not going to be that way today. God is not going to appear to you. You're not going to hear a voice, you know, like Samuel heard. It's not going to be like that. I say, you pray to God. And the way you get your answers is by reading the Bible and through sermons, through the Word of God, because God is the one who spoke these words. And so when you are reading the Bible, you are hearing from God. You're hearing what God said. I said, that is how you hear from God. And so when it comes to trying to figure out what directions am I going in life? What am I going to do? Look, we can't figure it out on our own. We might, for example, let's say you have two job offers and you're like, okay, I've got two opportunities. And you're trying to figure out which one to take. Well, you're going to look at the one that pays more money, better schedule, basic things like that. But what you don't know is what about a couple of years down the road? You don't know what's going to take place. And it could be that this looks like a better opportunity, but in reality, God says, you know what? This is actually the one that I want you to take. And see, the thing is, if you are allowing God to guide you, if you're allowing God to lead you, He will direct you in the right path. He will allow Vince to take place in your life that's going to put you down the right path. Why? Because you're trying to follow what God says. Look, I would have never guessed when I first got saved that I would be living in the Philippines and be a missionary. Quite honestly, I knew very little about the Philippines when I first got saved. Very, very little. And I do believe this is where that God has me for my life for a reason. But it's like, quite honestly, if you had asked me at the age of 18, what are you going to do the rest of your life? I'm not quite sure what I would have said, but it would be very different than what I'm doing. You say, why? Because it was my own human thoughts. But see, if you allow God to guide you, He's going to guide you in the path that He wants you to go. Right? The Bible says in Proverbs 3, verse 5, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not onto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Now, these are very famous verses, and they're great verses. Right? Very famous verses. And what is the Bible actually saying here? The Bible is saying, you know, trust in the Lord. And this is not referring to believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, like magti wala lon ka hazukri. So it's saying to just trust in Him after you're saved, with your life, the direction you're headed. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not onto thine own understanding. The Bible is saying that we have our own understanding that seems to make sense to us. But look, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death, the Bible says. What seems right to us is not necessarily correct. And I'll tell you what, when I first got saved and started reading the Bible, I read things that didn't really make sense to me at the time. But here's the thing, you can't lean on your own understanding. What seems right to you is not necessarily correct. I mean, if God says it, that's the case. You follow what God says. The Bible says, in all thy ways acknowledge Him. What does that mean, in all thy ways acknowledge Him? Well, I would say that means, you know, pray to God every day, thank God for all the blessings He's given you. And if you acknowledge Him, what does the Bible say? And He shall direct thy paths. He's going to put you down the right path, right? When I lived in the U.S., I liked to do a lot of hiking near my parents' house. And you'd go hiking on a trail, and there's like a lot of side routes that come up. And sometimes you're going and you're curious, saying, maybe I should head down this path, or maybe I should head down this path. You know, that's kind of the way it is in life. You're kind of going on the path of life, and there's a lot of opportunities down different roads. Here's the problem, you don't know what's at the end of that path. You see 10 feet ahead. You see 20 feet ahead. I've gone off path before hiking, and then all of a sudden it's like, okay, I'm going to turn around now because now the path is dead. It's a bad choice, right? In life, it's the same way. If you are going off what seems right to you, you're going to be hitting a lot of dead ends, and you're going to have to turn around and start right back at square one. What you could do is just pray to God, put God first, thank Him for all of His blessings, spend time reading the Bible, and then He's going to help save you a lot of trouble and time because He's going to lead you down the right paths in life. Go to Proverbs 4. Proverbs chapter 4. Proverbs 4, verse 10. Here, O my son, and receive my sayings, in the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom, I have led thee in right paths. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straight, and when thou runest, thou shalt not stumble. Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life. Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. Now, why would anybody go into the path of the wicked? What would even make you want to do that? But see, here's the thing. A path might seem tempting, but the reason why is because you don't see what's at the end of it. If at the end of it, it's like I'm a drunk, I'm a drug addict, I'm in prison. You'd be like, I'm not going down that path. But see, you don't see that at the beginning. You start hanging out with the wrong crowd. It just seems like fun and entertainment, no big deal, because you don't know what the end result is. And the Bible's saying, if you're seeing a little bit of sin and a little bit of worldliness at the beginning, don't even head down that path. I'll tell you what, at a church like ours, you have plenty of people to be friends with. People that love God, are serving God, are reading the Bible, they're trying to follow God, just like you are, right? Look, when my kids get older, I don't want them to become close friends with people that are not trying to serve God. You say, why? I don't want them to start going down a path that could end up harming them or hurting them, right? And the Bible says here, enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away. For they sleep not, except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. Now, verse 16 is a verse in the Bible that if you stop to think about what it's saying, it's pretty shocking. Now, the word mischief in the Bible is a little bit different than the way we know mischief today. Mischief is always linked with death in the Bible. The Bible talks about a woman, you know, and mischief happens, referring to losing the baby. Mischief is referring to death and destruction throughout the Bible. So you say, well, someone's a bit of a mischievous person. Well, in our modern day, that's not a big thing, but what you're actually saying is they're like filled full of murder, right, biblically speaking. And what it's saying is there are people, they do not sleep, except they have done mischief, except they have caused harm, except they have destroyed something. They're literally wicked people out there, and they have trouble sleeping at night unless they've harmed someone. That's kind of interesting because when you're a Bible-believing Christian, you know what makes it hard to sleep at night? A guilty conscience. Is that not true? When you've done something wrong, you can't sleep because you feel horrible, and you're praying to God and asking for forgiveness, and yet there's people that are the opposite. If they don't cause harm, they can't sleep. And I'm not trying to go into too big of a tangent, but what the Bible's referring to is the fact that there are people that are children of God that are saved forever. There are people that are just normal people, children of men, and then there are people that are children of the devil whose conscience is seared with the hot iron. They have no conscience anymore, and they literally want to cause destruction. They hate God, and the Bible says at the end of Romans 1 that they love it when other people do those same things. They take pleasure in them that do them. They want to cause destruction and harm, and there are literally people that are like that in this world. Bible says here in verse 17, for they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence, but the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more onto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not at what they stumble. And what the Bible is saying is you've got two paths. You've got the dark path, and you've got the light path. The light path shines more and more with each passing day. So if you're on the right path, more and more you see this is obviously the right direction to go. So for example, you know what the Bible teaches? We ought to be in church. We ought to be reading the Bible. We ought to be going soul winning, and you start heading down that path, you don't realize why it's so important. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but as you start reading the Bible every day, you start realizing, yeah, you know, the path is getting light, and this is so much better for my life. You realize this is definitely the way to go. The path of the wicked, it also doesn't start off that bad. The paths look pretty similar, but you know this one's wrong. You just don't realize the end result. And the Bible is saying start down the right path, trust in God, ask Him to direct you, and you know what? It's going to be brighter day by day. It's going to help improve your life. The Bible talks about how He's going to bless you if you're obeying His will and following His will. Turn in your Bible to Psalm 23. Psalm 23. Psalm 23. I mean, when people start going down the wrong path in life, I mean, it doesn't really seem like that big of a deal. It's just something small. But the problem is that path gets worse and worse and worse and worse, right? And God forbid if this ever happened, but what if my son grows up one day and then I catch him smoking a cigarette? Well, it's just one cigarette. Is that the worst thing in the world? Well, if he's heading down that path, I mean, it's only going to get worse from there. At the end of the day, one cigarette in and of itself, by itself, really actually isn't that big of a deal. One cigarette would not destroy your life, but what's the problem? Well, it's going to go from one cigarette to a pack of cigarettes a day, to drinking, to drugs. It's going to get worse and worse and worse and worse, and that's the problem, right? Bible says in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest the table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest mine head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And this famous chapter in the Bible, Psalm 23, is about God shepherding us. And what that means is we are basically the sheep. And look, sheep really just don't know what they're doing. They need a shepherd to tell them, hey, you know what, you come here, you do this. And us as people, if we try to guide ourselves, we are going to get into trouble, right? And what we need to do is allow God to be our guide and shepherd us down the right paths in life. Turn to Psalm 47. Psalm 47. Anyways, some examples of things that could apply. It's like sometimes you have to make sacrifices to serve God. And of course, nobody wants to make sacrifices. I mean, when we talk to people and people get saved, if you ask those people after they get saved, do you want to live and serve God? They're going to say yes. Why is it most people don't serve God? Because it takes sacrifice. It takes work. It takes effort. I mean, what takes place when you start serving God? All your old friends reject you, right? I mean, I remember when I first got saved, I really didn't reject any of my friends, but they all rejected me because I started talking about the Bible all the time. And it's like, you know what, it happens with family also. You get saved, you start serving God, and a lot of family just doesn't want to have anything to do with you. Anyway, it's interesting because I've heard many people say these stories before when I'm at church, and they'll tell me about how their friends rejected them and their family rejected them. And often the way people tell it, they say it in a way where they don't really understand that everybody goes through that. I remember a case in Sacramento. Somebody came to me and told me about this. Like, man, I'm really struggling right now. My family's rejected me. My friends have rejected me. And look, that's a very difficult thing. I'm not making light of it. What I'm saying is, literally everybody goes through that, right? And what always takes place, because people are always surprised, like, man, everybody is rejecting me. And they get this mindset that all of their friends have just changed. No, their friends didn't change. They're the same. You say, who changed? You changed. And when you changed, your friends don't have anything to do with you. It's like when Moses spends his time up there with God, and all of a sudden he comes back, and he lists not the skin of his face to him, and everybody's afraid to come nigh him. You say, what took place? Moses changed. And then they're like, whoa, wait a minute. We don't know who this new person is, right? And you start serving God, you cannot help but speak the things you have seen and heard. You start reading the Bible. You start listening to sermons. You start singing the praises of God. You just can't help but talk about God. And a lot of people don't want to hear about God, right? They're just like, no, I don't want to hear about that, right? The Bible says in point number one, submission to God, point two, shepherding from God, and point three, subduing of enemies by God. God will subdue or put his enemies under his power. The Bible says in Psalm 47 verse three, he shall subdue the people under us and the nations under our feet. Now, look, that hasn't taken place yet. Obviously, all the nations are not under our feet right now. But the Bible says this is going to take place where he's going to subdue all of the enemies underneath him. And eventually during the millennial reign of Christ, there's no doubt who's going to be ruling and reigning and taking authority of this world, right? The Bible says in verse number eight, God reigneth over the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness. The princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong unto God, he is greatly exalted. Go to Malachi chapter one. Malachi one. And look, you know what, there's a lot of wicked countries in this world today, and a lot of times, you know, they seem like they get away with all this stuff. Anyway, it's true, there's going to be wicked and corrupt nations until the very end. But on an individual level, let me just say this, you know what, the last thing I would want to do is have God become my enemy, right? You say, well, Brother Stuckey, is that possible? Actually, you know what, turn to James four. We'll go back to Malachi one in a second. James four. Yeah, I'd rather just submit to God and have God on my side, rather than becoming God's enemy and being forced to be subdued underneath him. The Bible says in James four, verse four, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Now, why does the Bible say ye adulterers and adulteresses? Now, look, obviously, this is just symbolism. You know, don't go too far with this. But there's a symbolism in the Bible of being married on to Christ, okay? And, you know, you think of like, you know, the bride of Christ and things like that. And obviously, this is just symbolism. People can go too far with it. But the Bible is saying that, you know what, you have your king, you have your God that you put here. And if you were to start worshipping another God, you're basically committing an adulterer and adulteress against the God you should be worshipping by putting another God above God Almighty. And the Bible says here, ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? The Bible says when you become friends with the world, you are now at enmity with God. And the Bible says, whosoever therefore be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. And, you know, I talked about this on Saturday where I talked about worldliness. And when you side against what God says and you side with the world, you say, well, I'm just in between. You are now the enemy of God. Right? Look, you've got to make a decision in this life. Am I going to serve God or am I going to go with what the world says? And if you try to go in between what's taking place is you are at enmity with God and you are now the enemy of God, the Bible says. You say why? Because God is the Lord and head king in this world. He is the only great king in this world. We submit to God. Now we submit to presidents and kings in this world because they are our authority in this life unless they go against what God says. But here's the thing. There are rules in this country that we should follow because they don't go against what God says. There's also a lot of rules in this book that the country mentions nothing about. Things like read therein all the days of thy life. And if you don't read the Bible every day, you're not submitting to what God says. I mean, the Bible says go ye therefore and preach the gospel to every creature. And if you're not being a soul winner, you're not submitting to what God says. Right? And look, there's hundreds and hundreds of commandments that God has. We ought to put God first and submit to what He says. Go to Malachi 1. Malachi 1. Malachi 1. Malachi 1 verse 11. For from the rising of the sun even onto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. And in every place incense shall be offered unto my name in a pure offering. For my name shall be great among the heathen, sayeth the Lord of hosts. But he hath profaned it, and they say the table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even as meat, is contemptible. He said also, behold, what a weariness is it. And he hath snuffed at it, sayeth the Lord of hosts. And he brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick. Thus he brought an offering. Should I accept this of your hands, sayeth the Lord? And when he says here verse 13, he said also, behold, what a weariness is it. You know, to grow weary is to grow tired. And, you know, some of God's people are saying, it's such a weariness. It's so difficult to do what God says. I mean, I got to read the Bible every day. I got to bring all these offerings. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. Right? I mean, the Bible says we ought to be a living sacrifice. I mean, look, God created you. He gave you life. I mean, if you're in this room, you're saved, you've heard the gospel, you know, you're better than 99% of this world. And it's like, you know, we are expected to obey what God says. And yeah, it can be difficult sometimes. It can be tiring. But there's no excuses. We are told to submit to what God says. And there's people like, it's such a weariness to serve God. It's so hard to serve God. Yeah, I'm so shocked that Israel got rejected when that was their attitude. When they didn't want to obey anything that God says. Because here's the thing, when you have a man-made authority, you obey out of fear. Right? Isn't this the reason why a lot of people obey what the government will say? And that's the reason why we do. And we do it because God tells us that we should. But also a lot of rules, we don't necessarily agree with it. But it's like, you know what, I'm just going to do what they say because I don't want to risk getting in trouble. Why do people drive the speed limit? They don't want a ticket. That's why. It's not because they don't literally want to drive above the speed limit. They just don't want to get a ticket. And look, I don't really drive that much here, but I drove all the time in the U.S. I understand how that feels. Right? It's like you stayed at a certain amount because you don't want to get a ticket. But here's the thing, if you're going to fear man, shouldn't you fear God? But yet people see the rules in the Bible and they just blow them off. They don't think anything of it and think nothing's going to happen to them. The Bible says in verse 14, But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male, and voweth and sacrificed unto the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. And if you're not wanting to obey what God says, then God's name is dreadful. It instills fear inside of you because you're not obedient. Now He says, I am a great king. As I mentioned earlier, you've got people will say, well, King Cyrus the Great, or Alexander the Great. And I'll tell you what, those are titles that they give to certain people, Darius the Great, various people. But really, when you're looking in the Bible at man-made kings that are really powerful, the name that comes to my mind is Nebuchadnezzar. Isn't that who you'd say? Someone who was powerful and had everything? I mean, the man who made this massive idol and forced people to bow down and worship it, right? And Nebuchadnezzar started to think that he was pretty special. He thought of himself as a great king. And he's like, look at this great kingdom that I have built. Look at what I've done. And then God just brought him to nothing instantaneously and made him act like an animal. Now, I believe Nebuchadnezzar got saved. I think it's pretty clear in Daniel, which praise the Lord for that. But it's like Nebuchadnezzar thought of himself as a great king, but was he really a great king or was he just a man that God put in that position? Because look, there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none great. I mean, the Bible says there's none good, but one that is God. None of us are good. Well, then we're definitely not great because great is a step above good, right? So no king is a great king. It's like only God Almighty is a great king that's worthy of being worshiped. Turn in your Bible to Psalm 81. Psalm 81. And look, I understand that there are some politicians that do a good job and they're trying to do what's right. I don't believe that every politician that's out there is like a wicked reprobate. Now, there's definitely a lot that are, but there are some politicians that are just trying to do a good job and you can be happy someone gets elected. I mean, the last presidential election, I don't think anyone in our church is obsessed with politics, but I think that all of us were happy that Lenny didn't get elected, right? And so it's like, yeah, there's certain people that maybe we didn't want to get elected and certain people that we did want to get elected. But at the end of the day, don't put your trust in politicians. Don't put your trust in man. I mean, people get so obsessed with who's in the office, who's in power, and it's just like, you know what, no politician is going to be your Savior. They're just a normal man. And the reality is the reason why God will appoint certain people as leaders is the people get what they deserve. And so if people are wicked, what are you going to have? You're going to have a wicked person ruling over you. That's just the way it works. The reason why in today's world there's a lot of wicked politicians ruling is because we live in a very wicked world. And so the people get what they deserve. Right now in the days of King Saul, the first king, he actually started off as a pretty good king. Now, obviously he goes bad, but he starts off pretty good. Eventually though later on, you have kings that are just completely bad. You say why? They got what they deserved. They didn't deserve a King David. They didn't deserve a King Hezekiah. They didn't deserve a King Josiah anymore. They deserve wicked kings because they're wicked. And at the end of the day, they get what they deserve. It's the same thing in this country or any country. Psalm 81. Psalm 81, the Bible says in verse 8, Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee. O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me, there shall no strange God be in thee. Neither shalt thou worship any strange God. I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not harken to my voice, and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own heart's lust, and they walked in their own counsels. You know what he's saying there in verses 11 and 12? God's people didn't want to hear from God, and God gave them what they wanted. He says, I gave them up unto their own heart's lust. Sometimes God gives you what you want in life. I mean, if you're wanting to reject what God says, God's like, okay, do whatever you want. He's not going to force us. He's like, just do whatever you want. If that's what you want, go for it. If you want to reject me, then do whatever you want. He gives them up to their own heart's lust, and they walked in their own counsels. O that my people had harkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways. And once again, we talked earlier about paths, and a path or a way is a synonym. It's basically the same thing. And he's saying, why didn't they just do what I said? Why didn't they just read the Bible every day? Why didn't they just pray without ceasing? Why didn't they just obey the basic commandments and do what I said? Because at the end of the day, people say, there's so many rules to follow, but you can really boil it down to this. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. And I'll tell you what, if you live in a country, they have a lot more rules than God has. You see, Israel, if they had accepted God as their king, they wouldn't have had that many rules to follow compared to what you're going to get in a country. Right? There's so many rules in a country. We don't even know all the rules. Just in driving alone, there's probably hundreds of different rules that you have to follow. And it's like, God doesn't really have that many rules. Now it's not easy to follow because of the fact we have a sinful flesh, but it's like, God is not actually asking too much from us. But they rejected the ways of God and went after their own counsels. I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries. And once again, we're talking about subduing the enemies, which that's point number three, subduing the enemies of God underneath him. Verse five, verse 15, the haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves onto him, but their time should have endured forever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee. And so what ended up happening though is that God's people, they went down the same path as the wicked nations. And look, if God judges wicked nations, same thing with the nation of Israel. When they got wicked, they got judged and eventually got rejected also. So this is a pretty short chapter, but our three points here, point number one was submission to God. Point two, shepherding from God. And so if you submit to God and put God first and trust in him and let him lead you, then he is going to shepherd you or guide you down the right directions. And on the contrary, if you choose not to realize, well, he's going to subdue his enemies underneath him and it is possible for a safe person to become the enemy of God. If there's one person I don't want angry with me and to be my enemy, it's God. I mean, think about King Saul and King David. King David had the most powerful man in the country as his enemy that wanted to kill him. But you know why it didn't really matter? Because there was a king that was far more powerful than King Saul. And the fact is that king had a great relationship with David. The last person you want angry with you is God Almighty. Let's close in word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today and ask you to help us to apply this chapter to our lives, God. Help us to submit to you and do your will and not consider it weariness to follow you, but just be willing to obey you and let us let you to guide us in our lives. God, we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.