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and who are here faithfully, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Now, in Psalm 16, the Bible reads, Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust. O my soul, Thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, my goodness extended not to Thee. Preserve me, is the first thing it says there. Now, this reminds me of Jude, where it says, Preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Preserved in God the Father. We are preserved as Christians. Of course, the Bible is preserved. We got that from Psalm 12, that God's word would always be preserved. But we as Christians are preserved. A lot of people say, Oh, you believe in eternal security of the believer? That's perseverance of the saints. No, I don't believe in perseverance of the saints. I believe in perseverance of the Savior. I believe in the preservation of the saints. I don't believe that I have to persevere and that I'm going to persevere and that's why I'm going to Heaven. No, I'm not going to persevere. I'm going to fail. I'm going to commit sin. I'm going to come short of the glory of God. But thank God, because I'm a believer, because I'm saved, I'm preserved. Okay? The Holy Spirit lives inside of me, which is called the earnest of my salvation. An earnest is like a down payment. Like when you buy a house and you put down earnest money, a thousand bucks when you make your offer. That's the earnest of our salvation. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit and we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us preserving us. Preserving us, that's what keeps us saved. The blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit living inside. Not our own perseverance. And many men in the Bible did not persevere a lot. Did not persevere to the end. Samson did not persevere to the end. You know, you look at these men in the Bible. They were human beings. They were sinful and yet they were born again children of God and that's why they went to Heaven. And so he says, preserve me, O God. Why? For indeed do I put my trust. Now, there's a literal meaning there and then there's a figurative. We put our trust in Christ, he preserves us. Physically here, David is relying upon him to get him out of a certain struggle. He relies upon him. God preserved him physically. Look at verse 2. O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my Lord. My goodness extendeth not to thee. Now, many people would say that, you know, in order to be saved you have to make Jesus the Lord of your life. And they call this lordship salvation. And many of the new Bibles have changed Romans 10, 9. In fact, almost all of them. In the King James Version it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. So you're confessing the name of a person. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. So we're saved by that name, Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ, believing in the person who has the name of Jesus, okay? But they changed it in these modern versions to say that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord. Or confess with thy mouth that Jesus is the Lord. And then they'll turn it around on you and say, well, you know, he's got to be your Lord in order for you to be saved. Now that's not true because, and what they mean by that is that he tells you what to do and you obey him. That's basically what he means. See, the problem with that is that, you know, when Jesus talked to his disciples and he said, you know, you're my disciples. You're my servants, okay? He said that in order to be his servant, in order to serve him and be his disciple, you know, you had to turn your back on everything, he said. He said you have to deny yourself every day and take up the cross and follow me if you want to come after me. Now, this is not a one-time thing, okay? Because to say, well, Jesus has to be your Lord or else you're not saved basically that would be saying you'd lose your salvation because when does he have to be your Lord? You know, and when is he telling you what to do and you're obeying him? The moment that you trust Christ as Savior? That doesn't even make sense. I mean, well, okay, I'm believing right now. Well, that's enough according to the Bible. But they'll try to say, well, he's got to be your Lord. Well, what happens if you get going through life and all of a sudden you start disobeying him? And then what are they going to say? Well, you're not really saved, which is basically a doctrine of losing your salvation. And so it doesn't make any sense, this lordship salvation, when he said, oh, my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my Lord. Now, notice the first Lord is in all capitals. Do you see that? That's a name of a person. Do you see that in verse 2? Oh, my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, okay? That's in all capital letters, L-O-R-D. That's a person's name. That's Jehovah. That's the Lord. But then he says, thou art my Lord. Notice that that is not in capitals. Do you see that? So basically, yes, we are to say to God, you are my Lord. You are my boss. You are in charge. I am your servant. I am your disciple. You are my master. But that's something that takes place daily because Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up the cross daily and follow him. So following Jesus Christ is a daily decision. It's not a one-time decision. It's not, I came down an aisle one time and said, I'm going to follow Christ. I'm going to be his disciple. And then for the rest of my life, I never did anything wrong again. I was always in church. And then I've heard so many preachers preach like this and say, I never even wanted another cigarette. Once I trusted Christ to say, I never even wanted one. Never even wanted another beer. Never even wanted to do this and that. And what they're doing is they're glorifying himself. And they're lying. And they're trying to say that basically they've just eradicated the flesh the moment that they got saved. This is not true. You see, the Lord has to become your Lord, OK? And I've heard other people say this lately. And I want to park it on this because it's so important. A lot of independent fundamental Baptists, you know, they're against the Lordship of Salvation. Or at least they don't want to be grouped into that crowd. This may be more accurate, OK. But there's still these repent of your sins kind of doctrine and trying to somehow creep in with a little bit of works, a little bit that you have to do to be saved besides just belief. You know, they're trying to creep in with a little bit of work. So here's what they say. Well, you know, making Jesus the Lord of your life, I've seen this so many times. It's like the cool thing to preach. It's the fad. It's like, well, you know, you don't make Jesus Lord. He's already Lord. So that doesn't make sense. But, you know, you just have to, you know, repent of your sins and whatever. And they're basically preaching Lordship Salvation. But they don't want to be labeled as Lordship Salvation. So they say, well, you can't make Jesus Lord. You know, he's already Lord. Well, yes, you can make Jesus Lord because it's right there. It's Psalm 16 verse 2. When you say in your heart, you are my Lord. Okay, that's something that does take place. But guess what? It's not salvation. It's a daily thing. And so they're both wrong. You know, these Lordship people are wrong and then the people who are creeping in with their phony quasi-halfway Lordship repent of your sins, be willing to turn or whatever garbage they come up with, you know, oh, you can't make Jesus Lord. You better make him Lord today. And then tomorrow when you wake up, you better make him Lord again. And your soul needs to say to God, according to Psalm 16 verse 2, thou art my Lord. You are the boss, okay? That's something that you have to do every day when you yield basically your will to God's. And you yield yourself as his servant and say, okay, God, it's Thursday morning. I'm here to serve you. What should I do with my day? Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? What should I be reading? That is when Jesus is your Lord, but that's not salvation. If you had to do that to be saved, then none of us would be saved because who of us is that perfect all the time, you know? That's not what saves us. What saves us is putting our trust in the Lord. Believe I'm the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So understand that, yes, you ought to make Jesus your Lord, but that has nothing to do with salvation. And if anybody tells you that in order to be saved, you have to make Jesus the Lord of your life, they're preaching another gospel. They're preaching another gospel which is not another, but there'll be some which would pervert the gospel of Christ, as he said in Galatians 1. And so don't get fooled by that. Look at verse 3. Well, let's look at the end of verse 2. He said, Thou art my Lord. My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth. You see, the Lord needs to become your personal Lord. And what I mean by that is not just, well, this is where my parents bring me to church. Okay, I believe in the Lord because I was brought to church or because, well, that's what Pastor Anderson has preached or taught. It should be between you and God. Your soul should say to God, thou art my Lord, not just my parents. And I remember when I was growing up, you know, why did I originally go to church? Because my parents took me to church. Why did I believe the Bible? Because my parents told me that the Bible was true. But then there came a time when I made my own personal decision where Jesus is my Lord, where the Bible is my religion. Okay, and that's a point that everybody has to come to. But he says, my goodness extendeth not to thee. He said, look, I'm not even close to being as good as God is. I like what Jesus said. He said, there's none good but one, and that's God. And he's saying here, David is saying, my goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth. He said, you know, that's who I'm trying to be like. That's who I'm trying to be around. He says, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight. You see, our delight should not be in worldly people, ungodly people. Our delight should be in people that are excelling. That's what the word excellent, they are excelling in their walk with God, excelling in soul-winning, excelling in Bible reading, excelling in living a pure and clean life. That's the kind of people that we want to get around. That's the kind of people that we want to look up to and use as a role model. Not wicked people, not ungodly people, those who are excellent, those who are the saints. And by the way, the saints are people who are saved. So those who are saved and those who excel in their walk with God should be those who we want to hang around with. Look what he says in verse four. Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. Now, when I read this verse, you know what I immediately thought? The Roman Catholic Church. The drink offering of blood. Now, of course, when Jesus Christ, at the Last Supper, took bread and broke it, he said, you know, this is my body, which is broken for you. This is due in remembrance of me. Likewise, also the cup after supper, saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for me. Now, that's symbolic. It's a picture. It represents the blood of Christ. It represents the broken body of Christ. It was not literal flesh and blood that they were eating. In fact, in the Old Testament, the Bible tells us very clearly in the book of Leviticus, turn to Acts 15, though. In Leviticus, it makes it very clear that no one should eat blood. Never eat blood. And he said that that law was forever, he said. That will be a law. Never to eat blood. And yet, if you go to the Catholic Church, they literally tell you that when you eat the wafer, that it literally becomes the body of Jesus Christ in your stomach. Whenever the priest does a little hocus-pocus on it, what does he do? What does he do? Somebody? Some Catholic? She doesn't even remember it's been so long. You know, he says something or... He rings a bell. He rings a bell. Yeah, yeah, I knew it was something like that. He rings a bell, and then when the bell rings, it turns into, you know, human flesh. Now, I remember when I first got married, my wife's family on her mom's side, they all thought she'd been inducted into some kind of cult. They literally thought that she was in a cult and that I was this cult leader and that I brainwashed her and kidnapped her and whatever. That's what they thought of me when we first got married. And I remember sitting down with my wife, and I said, you know what, honey? I said, it's funny, because if you took the Baptist religion, okay, and then you took the Catholic religion, and if you took those labels off of them, and you just went up to a totally objective third party and just said, okay, here's a religion where there's a man on this earth who wears a funny hat, and he wears all these funny clothes, and I'll show you, you know, show some pictures of what the pope looks like, and say, like, whatever this guy says, you know, is God's word. Like, whatever he says. He can actually supersede the Bible, okay? And let's say they've never heard of Catholicism, right? And then I said, and also, the religion consists of going there. You're really good. You'll go there every day to church, and you'll eat this cracker, which becomes human flesh. Then you'll drink a little cup of juice, which becomes blood, and you start drinking blood, okay? And then, you know, and then throughout the week, to be spiritual, you're gonna talk to dead people, okay? You're gonna talk to all kinds of people who've died, and you're gonna call upon them, and then you're gonna chant things over and over. And you have these magical beads. There's gonna be some magic holy water. You got a magic crucifix. You got a magic plastic Mary. You got a magic everything. And there's holy water, holy ashes, and, you know, you go to church, and they're just gonna rub ashes on your forehead and all this stuff. And you'd think it was weird. You'd think this is a cult, because a cult that by very definition of the word cult means you're following a man. It means mindlessly following a human being. That's what a cult is. I mean, think about the cults throughout the year. You know, you think of David Koresh, or you think of who else was a big cult leader? Jim Jones, right? Did you have one? Charles Manson, definitely. Definitely. Definitely a cult-like following. And then, you know, of course, in Russia, they called Joseph Stalin the personality cult, because people worshiped him as their leader. That is a cult, okay? So here we are, excuse me, Bible-believing Christians who say, no man is our authority. Only the Bible is our only authority. And Pastor Anderson can say things that we don't agree with because we have the Bible as the final authority. Whereas the Pope, when he speaks ex cathedra, can do no wrong according to them. That is a cult. So the Catholic Church is a cult. You say, well, but it's so huge, there's a billion people. It's a billion-man cult. You know, and you can sit there and say, well, it's too big to be a cult. Well, when are the Mormons going to get that big to where we don't call them a cult anymore? How big do you have to be? How many members do you have to hit before you're not considered a cult? When you're mindlessly following Joseph Smith or, you know, Brigham Young or, that was for you, Brother Sosie, or whether you're following, you know, Charles Manson or whatever, you're in a cult when God's word is not your authority. You're in a cult. You see, the Bible warned about this in the book of Deuteronomy. He said, look, if somebody comes and has some kind of a vision or some kind of a prophecy, and even if their vision comes true, he said if it doesn't line up with the rest of God's word, he said, you know, God's just testing you. That's all. He said if somebody has a dream or a vision and it violates Scripture, it has something to do with worshiping other gods or whatever, he said that person is a false prophet. And so any prophet in the Bible had to line up with Scripture. And even Jesus Christ himself, when he came on the earth, he didn't contradict Scripture. He didn't say, well, you know, the Bible says one thing, but let me go ahead and change that. He said, think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets. I came not to destroy but to fulfill. And when he said, ye have heard that it has been said, but I say unto you, he wasn't changing the law. He was outmanning. He wasn't saying, you know, you've heard that it has been said, thou shalt not kill, but hell, kill. That's not what he said. He said, you've heard that it has been said, thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you, you know, and then he added to it even more stricter rules about, you know, not walking up to somebody and saying reika, you know, which I don't know what that means, but or walking up to somebody and saying to them, you know, thou fool or getting angry at people without a cause. He added to it, but you see, Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, they all fulfilled Scripture. They did not come in and say, well, actually it's different. If there's a contradiction, go with me, because I'm the Pope, because I'm Joseph Smith, because I'm Charles Manson, you know, or whatever. And so, you know, Catholicism is a cult by every definition, I'd say, because they're following man, they're drinking blood, and the Bible says right here, their drink offerings of blood will I not offer in Psalm 16.4. Why? Because they're offered to another God. That's why. He said, their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer. And so that right there tells me that people who are offering blood drink offerings are worshiping another God. And the Catholic Church is not worshiping the Jesus of the Bible, is what I'm saying. They're worshiping another God. The Mormons are worshiping another God. And you say, well, but he's got the same name. Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses can call their God Jehovah, but that doesn't make him God. The Muslims call their God Allah, which Allah is just Arabic for God. But that doesn't make the God of the Muslims the God of the Bible. It's a different God. It's another Jesus. There are all kinds of people named Jesus. They can't save you. Only the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible can save you. What I wanted to show you in Acts 15, I forgot to show you this. It says in verse 19, Wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God, but that we write unto them that they abstain from idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day. So right there, even in the New Testament, this is reiterated, not to eat blood. And yet the Catholic Church has this ritual, which is basically the ongoing sacrifice, is what they say. Like as if Jesus Christ's sacrifice is not already complete, but they literally chant in the service, basically like they're asking to be saved every week. I don't have the chance to memorize. I've never been to a Catholic Church. I've been exposed to some of their services. I was working on a fire alarm at a school one time, and they were doing a Catholic service. I've been exposed to it a little bit. My wife has told me about it because she was raised Catholic. But they basically are asking God to save them every Sunday. Every Sunday, he's supposedly being sacrificed, and they're eating his flesh, drinking his blood, and asking to be saved. I've already been saved. I don't need Mass. I don't need this continual sacrifice. But he says in verse number 5, The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my law. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage. Now what does that mean? The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Basically, in the old days, a person's wealth was partially determined by the land that they owned. And even today, of course, land is expensive, depending upon what area you're in, if it's a quality land, if things can grow there, if it has a lot of amenities or if it's near a city. Land is a major source of wealth, and land will be passed down from father to son. In fact, the children of Israel were not even supposed to sell their land. If you remember, a Naboth would not sell his vineyard to the king, Ahab, because he was trying to follow that commandment, because it came to him from his fathers. Well, obviously, some people's land was better than others. Let's face it. So basically, if you inherited good land, he's saying, basically, you have a goodly heritage. Basically, a good inheritance. That's what the word heritage means. It's something that you inherit. A heritage is something that is inherited. And so he's basically saying here, the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest thought. The lions are fallen unto me in pleasant places. The lions being like the lions delineating your property. Because around your property there'd be a property line where the fence would be or whatever. Now, in Job, the Bible talks about people removing the landmark, because what they would do in the old days is that they would delineate the land by a landmark. And even today, if we went down to the city, who's ever read these descriptions of property that are really, really detailed? And they say, like, you know, the tree here. And they basically describe the land. And they tell you from 100 feet from this rock and this hill. And basically, it's like a physical description of the land. Even today, on file at the county, there are descriptions like that. Well, in those days, they used landmarks. Not everybody had a fence all the way around their property. And so there'd be a landmark. Well, what some people would do is they would move the landmark. And they would do it slowly. Not overnight, but just, you know, they wanted their field to get a little bigger. So they'd just kind of scoot it over maybe one foot every week or every month. Just keep sliding it over, sliding it over, until their property's getting bigger and the neighborhood gets smaller. So the lions that he's referring to are the property lions. So he's using a metaphor here. He's not talking about the land that he inherited. He's saying, the Lord is my inheritance. Therefore, I have a goodly heritage. Boy, the lions have fallen under me in pleasant places. Because obviously, some people's inheritance is better than others. Now, we all wish that, you know, we'd get some check in the mail, some distant uncle. You know, this never happens to anybody that we know, but some distant cousin, some distant uncle, some great-grandparent that you barely knew had all this money stuffed in the mattress, and here's your cut, you know. Here's your part of the money. Here's your inheritance. But you know what? We ought to be rejoicing more if we inherited Christianity from our parents. And kids that are growing up in a Christian home, you ought to be able to take this verse and say, hey, I have a good inheritance. Maybe my parents aren't rich, but thank God that I, Stephen Anderson, was brought as a child to independent fundamental Baptist churches where I heard the gospel praise from a King James Bible, where I was taught the fear of the Lord from a very young age. I can truly say, like Timothy, that from a child I've known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make me wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. But how did I know that? Because from a child I knew the Scriptures. And thank God for growing up in a Christian home and learning the Scriptures and being saved at a young age. I remember one time I sat in a liberal church, in a liberal, denominational-type Baptist church, and I was in the teenage youth group. And instead of preaching the Bible, there was always these discussions and just blah, blah, blah. So we're sitting in a class, and this was the discussion of the day. This is our Sunday school class. You're not learning the Bible, no preaching. It's just, would you rather be brought up in a Christian home, saved at a young age and brought up in a Christian home, or would you rather have lived like a really worldly, sinful, wicked life and then get saved? That way you could have this testimony. Okay? I mean, it sounds stupid to even say this in our church. But the sad thing was, I was the only person who said, it's better to grow up in a Christian home. Like, everybody else is saying, you know, well, yeah, because then God could use your testimony. The power of God as a salvation is not your testimony. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, I'm not ashamed of my testimony. I'm not ashamed of my drinking because it's the power of God unto salvation. You know, hey, I'm not ashamed of the fact that I was a murderer because it's the power of God unto salvation. No, he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. And people think like, oh, you know, and people were even saying like, well, you're not going to be as effective at giving the gospel if you don't have this testimony. That's because they got another gospel anyway, which is all about turning over a new leaf. Like, that's salvation. And you say, well, Paul, he always referred to the wicked life that he lived. You know, if you look at Paul's life, he wasn't living the kind of wicked life that you're thinking of. He wasn't a drunk. He wasn't out fornicating. He wasn't out committing adultery. He wasn't on drugs. He wasn't doing anything like that. He was a religious person. He was just... He said, I'm the chief of sinners because he was a humble person, okay? And because he knew that what he did in the Jews' religion was wrong because he persecuted the Church of Christ. He said, how be it I obtain mercy, he said, because I did it ignorantly and unbelief. It wasn't that he was just some evil, horrible person who lived a wicked and sinful life. He was a man who thought that he was doing the right thing. He was just deceived and in a false religion, and because he persecuted believers, that came back around to him. He got persecuted more than anybody else in the Bible, okay? But he also did great things for God and served God. That's different. You say, well, he went around and told... He told people about his days in the Jews' religion because he's talking to Jews pretty much. Tell them, hey, I was a Jew like you and I've turned from this, okay? But he wasn't bragging about all his drinking days and his fornicating. And a lot of people want to just get up and have their big powerful testimony. It might get emotion out of people, but it's not the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is what we ought to emphasize, not ourself. You say, well, Paul did it. Paul did it. Is that why Paul said this? For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He said, I don't preach myself. I preach Jesus Christ. I determined not to know anything among you. He said when I first got there, I said Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It was just, let me tell you, buddy, you know, the stuff I used to be into. And here's what I said. I had this teenager in this class, and I basically said, I'd rather grow up in a Christian home. I said, thank God. And they said, well, why? You know, and they wanted to know why. I said, because all those years in a Christian home, I was reading my Bible. So now I have all this knowledge of the Bible that I can use to get people saved and to serve God and not to make mistakes in life because I know the Bible, because I've learned it from a child. And I said, you know, also I saved myself from all the baggage of living a wicked sinful life and all these other things. And everyone just contradicted me. Everybody was just basically saying, it's not about knowledge. It's not about how much you know. You know, knowledge puffeth up. And, you know, it's about having the testimony, you know, to get people saved. Yeah, that's what it is. But literally, I mean, nobody was with me on this one, saying I'd rather grow up. But I say like David, I have a goodly heritage. I thank God, because I did grow up in a Christian home, that I did save myself from some of the heartache that people go through when they go out and fornicate and when they get drunk and do drugs or whatever they've done. I'm glad that I didn't go that route. And I can say, hey, I have a goodly heritage because my parents taught me the scripture from a child. I mean, when I was five years old, six years old, seven years old, I was being taught in memory verse out of the King James Bible. Those verses are still with me today. They're a light unto my feet and a... They're a light unto my... Where is it? A lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, okay? And so I wouldn't trade that for anything. I'd rather have a goodly... And if you're here today and you didn't grow up like that, be sure that you give your children a goodly heritage. Amen. Get them in church. So many people have quit the church. Why don't they think about their children when they quit the church? Amen. They say, oh, yeah, well, we're just backslidden or whatever. Yeah, what about your children? Amen. Now they're not growing up in church. Or you take them to namby-pamby Baptist church down the street and then you expect them to grow up and live for God. You know, if I were... If I had children and I were looking for a church, I'd want to go to the most fire-breathing church, even if it offended me sometimes. I'd still want my kids under that hot preaching, under that King James version, around the soul winning. That's the heritage that they need. But let's hurry up and get through this. Verse 7. I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel. My reigns also instruct me in the night seasons. Now, today, people look to the pastor as a counselor. And I don't think there's anything wrong with getting advice, because counsel is basically advice. I don't think that there's anything wrong with getting advice from someone. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone asking me for advice. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking another believer for advice. But wait a minute. God is the one whose name is counselor. So that ought to be the first place we go. Instead of just running to man for counsel and advice, let's go first to the one who says in Isaiah, and I think, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, the government shall be upon us, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor. His name is Counselor. And the Bible says, the Lord has given me counsel. That's the one that we need to go to for advice. And you know what a lot of times people are doing when they go to the pastor for advice or someone else for advice? They're looking for them to contradict the Lord, is what they're trying to do. It's true. Now, I'm not saying, you know, if you need advice, ask somebody, ask me, ask for the day to ask somebody. But all I'm saying is that some people have come to me and asked me for advice before, and I knew they just wanted to contradict what God says, because then they have an excuse. Well, you know, I'm just following the pastor's advice. I've literally heard people say, well, I'm just following what the pastor told me. Like, I tried to show them, like, look, what you're doing is wrong. Here's what's in the Bible. Well, I'm just doing what the pastor told me, and so it's his fault. If what I'm doing is wrong, it's his problem, because God gave me that pastor, and this is the advice that he gave me, and I'm just following the pastor's advice. And so, you know, it's on him if I'm doing the wrong thing. Now, that's one reason why I don't like giving advice, because I don't want it to be on me. You know what I mean? When you do stuff that's wrong. But people will go to the pastor, and, you know, you can find a pastor that'll condone just about anything that you want to do. I mean, you can find an independent fundamental Baptist that'll condone all kinds. They'll condone you getting divorced and everything. It's funny, because I remember, I mean, there's nothing funny about it, but this pastor, he would say things like this to people, you know, because they're trying to find the loopholes to get you out of your marriage that you don't want to be in, and basically he'd say, well, you know, he's departed from you emotionally, because they'd say, like, if the unbeliever depart, let him depart, which they're totally twisting that scripture. That's not even what it's saying. But in their mind, if you're abandoned, it's okay. You know, I saw this on a fundamental Baptist church in Phoenix on their statement of faith. You know, we believe divorce is wrong, except in cases of adultery or abandonment. Well, they take that abandonment, which is not even scriptural concept for divorce. They take that abandonment, and here's what they say. Well, you know, he's abandoned you emotionally, because he's not spending time with you, or he doesn't love you, or he's already left the marriage, you know, emotionally. He's already left, you know, in spirit. You know, this garbage. But you know what it comes down to is this. If you say divorce is permissible in cases of adultery or abandonment, they're going to find a way to make their situation fit one of those two things, okay? And I've seen this, too. One person will just be waiting to try to get the other person to commit adultery, okay? It sounds weird, but it's true. This church that I went to, okay, independent fundamental Baptist church that I went to for years, I could list for you probably, like, ten couples who've been divorced under this pastor's ministry, basically through his counsel, helped them along the road to divorce. I always say to people this way, he presided over them getting divorced, because that's pretty much what he did. And anybody who went to this church can verify that he presided over a lot of divorces. And the way it was was, this is what he would tell people over and over. And he'd get up on the pulpit and pontificate and say, I've never counseled anybody to get a divorce. But he's a liar, because here's what he would tell people to do. Get separated, okay? So he'd never tell anybody to get a divorce, but he would tell them to get separated. And he had all these people in his church, I mean, just over the course of ten years, all kinds of people that we knew, that he would tell them to get separated like actually the guy would move out and go get in his own apartment. Okay, this is his counsel. And separate. Well, then guess what? They're apart for months and months. The situation just gets worse. And it gets worse, it gets worse, until one of them becomes unfaithful. They've been separated for months. He's giving them bad advice, all this garbage, and then eventually they end up, one of them either gets remarried, divorced, remarried, or one of them commits adultery or whatever. And then the other one has like a free pass. Like, oh, good, now you've gotten adultery? Well, now I can clear conscience, do what I want to do. It's garbage. It's wicked. Because I can literally tell you people who've been divorced, they say, well, I'm not going to get remarried. And then they wait for the other one to get remarried. And they say, okay, well, he committed adultery, now I can get married and everything's fine and move on to my new husband and wife. No, this is the man's wicked sinful heart who wants to try to find a loophole like the Pharisees trying to find a way around God's clear command that when you get married, you've got to be married for life. And it's for better or for worse. It's till death do us part, okay? And people, man's wisdom will try to find all these ways around, just like the Pharisees did. Jesus said what God had thrown together, let not man put asunder. It's that simple. And so God hates divorce, the Bible says in Malachi chapter 2. He does not condone divorce under any circumstances. And if someone does get a divorce and their wife gets remarried, the Bible says that he caused her to commit adultery. So I don't see how this waiting until the other person commits adultery so that that lets you off the hook. No, he says you're the cause of their adultery, okay? And so this kind of false doctrine has come across the counseling desk for years. You say, well, you blame that pastor for all those divorces? Well, he is partially to blame, but the bottom line is those people should have been getting their counsel from the Lord anyway. You know, they're responsible for their own actions because people at that church said, I'm just following Pastor so-and-so's advice and it's on him. Well, he's got a lot on him if that's the case because I can name a ton of people, and then I can name a ton of other people who almost got divorced, following his stupid advice until I went to them or some other godly Christian went to them and said he's wrong. Getting separated is wrong because the Bible says let not the wife depart from her husband. That doesn't say anything about divorce. It's saying don't let her depart, and if she does depart, let her be reconciled with them. You should not be separated from your spouse. You're supposed to be together with your spouse till death, and you need to work things out. You say, well, we're not compatible. Are you a man? You see a woman, you're compatible, okay? Make it work out, all right? Find a way to make it work. That's all there is to it, and otherwise it's your fault that you married that person, and you have to live with the consequences. It's a hard saying, but it's the truth, and so the bottom line is you can go find counsel that will tell you what you want to hear in violation of the Scripture. It'll tell you it's fine to drink. It's fine to get divorced. This is all fine and dandy, and there are pastors who will tell you that, but the Bible is saying here God gave me counsel, and also my own reigns will instruct me in the night seasons. You know, we most of the time know the answer to our own problem from studying the Bible, from reading the Scripture, from the Holy Ghost. We don't always need to run to some counselor, okay, and not even Pastor Anderson. Pastor Anderson will not condone sin to you, hopefully. You know, God forbid that I would do so, but even if I'm a great counselor, I'm not the counselor up in heaven. That's who you really need to be talking to, but he says in verse number 8, I've set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Now, I'm going to spend the last part of the lesson on this part of the chapter. Keep your finger there, and let's look at Acts chapter 2, because the New Testament is going to help us interpret the Old Testament today, as often is the case. Acts chapter 2, this psalm is quoted, and it says in verse number 25 of Acts 2, For David speaketh concerning him, speaking of Jesus Christ, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus of God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. And so we all are witnesses. So basically what he's saying there is that David was not talking about himself. He was talking about Jesus Christ. Remember when Isaiah was being read by the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8 as they went down the road? What did the eunuch ask? He said, tell me, I pray thee, he said, is the prophet here speaking of himself or of some other man? And it was Isaiah 53. What was the answer? Some other man who was speaking of Jesus Christ. Was Jonah speaking of himself in Jonah chapter 2, when he said, out of the belly of hell, cry, die, and thou heardest my voice. No, because he did not go to hell. He did not go down to the bottoms of the mountains. He did not have the earth with her bars about him forever, as it says in Jonah 2. He spake of Christ. Now let's go back to Psalm 16 with that in mind. This is about Jesus Christ. And it's not about both David and Jesus, it's just about Jesus, because David, it said, was buried. He's dead and buried, and his sepulcher was with him to that day. So it's not talking about the resurrection of David, because that still hasn't happened yet. Okay? And it said that he was talking about the fact that his flesh will rest in hope, because he was only going to be there for three days and three nights before the resurrection. Now let's look at this. It says in verse number 10, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Now the first word of the sentence is for. For means because, right? He's saying, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. So what is because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell? Well, look at the verse before it. He said, therefore my heart is glad. So basically he's saying, my heart is glad for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Have you got that? He's basically saying, my glory rejoiceth, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. He's basically saying, my flesh also shall rest in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Now here's what we can learn from this. Number one, Jesus' soul was in hell. Now I know this is really complicated, but in order for this sentence to even make sense, Jesus' soul would have to have been in hell. In order for him to say, well, I'm just glad that I'm not going to be left there. That means he had to go there. Ephesians 4 says, he that ascended up in heaven first descended into the lower parts of the earth. Now, to say that Jesus Christ did not go to hell, which is what Baptists today are teaching, most independent fundamental Baptists teach that Jesus did not go to hell, is number one, a direct contradiction of this passage, because it says right here that this spake, Acts 2 31, of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell. Why was his soul not left in hell? Because of the resurrection. This spake, he of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell. Neither his flesh did see corruption. And so the resurrection is Jesus' soul coming out of hell. Okay, number one. Number two, in order for this scripture to make sense, hell has to be a bad place. Now, again, I know this is really complicated, but there are people today teaching that he was in the good part of hell. You know, it reminds me of when I used to live in Hammond. Everybody we met that was from Gary, Indiana, would always say, oh, I live in the good part of Gary. Gary doesn't have a good part. It's true. Who's been to Gary, Indiana? Okay, can I get a witness? There is no good part. And people would say, like, oh, he lives over in the good part. There is no good part, okay? And that's the way hell is. Now, hell's worse. But basically, hell and Gary have one thing in common. There's no good part, okay? And to sit there and say, Jesus was on the good side of hell, what they're really saying is that hell doesn't really mean hell. Hell is actually Hades or Sheol or the grave or the place of the dead or the underworld. They make up all these different meanings for what it could be. But wait a minute. If we're believing that the King James Bible is the word of God, we have to believe that hell is hell because hell only means one thing. And you cannot find any place in the Bible where hell is a good place that people want to go, okay? Where it's a happy place, where it's a positive place, going to hell. You know, I guess next time I'm in the drive-thru, instead of saying like, have a nice day, it'll just be like, hey, go to hell. You know, but hey, I'm talking about the good part. I'm talking about the good side. It doesn't make any sense. Everybody knows that hell's a bad place. And you can't find anywhere, everywhere you read about hell. You know, in hell, he lifted up his eyes in torment and flames. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. It's always a bad place. But let's look at our modern versions here where they twist this and change it. We've got some modern Bibles here, the NIV and so forth. They basically change this because they're attacking this doctrine. I'm going to explain to you in a moment why this doctrine of Jesus going to hell is under attack. Let me read to you from the NIV, verse 10 of Psalm 16. You're reading the King James Bible, the real Bible. Because you will not abandon me to the grave. Okay? You see, they've taken away the spirits. First of all, no mention of the soul. Okay? Now it's just, you will not leave me to the grave instead of my soul. Okay? Let's look at these other versions. I'm going to show you how all these different versions are attacking this doctrine. Here's the New American Standard. People try to tell you if you want to get it, you know, the closest thing to the original Greek and Hebrew, it's the New American Standard. Psalm 16, it says, For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol. Now, boy, that's getting really close to the Hebrew. In fact, they didn't even translate it into English. They just left it as a Hebrew word, Sheol. Wow, that's, that's, man, this thing is close to the Hebrew. But I was hoping to read the Bible in English. Okay? You know? But anyway, it says, Thou will not abandon my soul to Sheol. Neither wilt thou allow. What? Why is the New American Standard saying thou? I thought the whole thing about this was like getting rid of the these and the thou. Did you hear that? What in the world? They, they alternate. This isn't, this isn't, I just learned something new. I just realized this. Did you know this? Half the time it's saying you, but then half the time it's saying thou. That is really weird. I've never even noticed that. They can't even make up their mind. Like, because this thing is filled with you, this, you, that, because when I get rid of all the these and the thou's, they're hard to understand. And then here it says, Thou will not abandon my soul to Sheol. Neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to undergo decay. This is so much easier to understand. See, corruption, undergo decay. But then, but then if you get in the, if you get in other places in Psalms, it's using you. This is really weird. How, how can the Bible even be grammatically correct when they're switching from 17th century English to 20th century English? Unbelievable. In the same Bible. I didn't even know that. I learned something new. Let's see what the New King James says. You know, we're like one of those liberal Bible states where everybody has a different version. Here's the New King James. This is the one where they dug up King James and signed it off with his dead hand. It says, For you will not leave my soul in Sheol. Well, they at least got rid of the these and the that. Nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Okay, so basically again, it's gone from everything except the King James, even the New King James. And by the way, a lot of people think that the New King James is based upon the same manuscripts as the King James. And in many places, they do go with the received manuscript. But in the Old Testament, they rely heavily on a different Hebrew manuscript. That's why you'll find major, major differences. That's a translation difference. But other places in the Bible, you'll find them going with the NIV and the New American Standard in the Old Testament because of adherence to the Ben Yaqim or whatever different Hebrew manuscript than the King James Version is based upon. So we see all these versions. You say, why is it under attack? Well, let me tell you this. I believe that this is a blasphemous doctrine to teach that Jesus Christ's soul did not go to hell. Number one, you're contradicting the Bible because the Bible makes it clear that he went to hell, number one. And number two, it must have been a bad place because the only thing that made him glad was that he was getting out of there. That was the only thing that made his heart rejoice was that he wasn't going to be left there. And if it was so great, why is he in such a hurry to get out of there? Okay, it doesn't make any sense. Hell's a bad place. Hell's a horrible place. It's a place of fire and brimstone and torment and weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. All throughout the Old Testament, you have the birth sacrifice. Every animal sacrifice was a birth sacrifice in the Old Testament, every single one. The Passover itself, which Christ has called our Passover, was to be roast with fire. And he made it clear, do not boil the Passover. Do not eat it raw. It must be roast with fire. Jesus went through all the different phases of the Passover. His blood was shed, he was killed, and the blood was sprinkled. And he was roast with fire because he was the birth sacrifice for our sins. Now you say, well, I don't believe that. Let me explain something to you. I know Garrett, whenever I've been out solely with Garrett, he always talks to people about the fact that there's a place that the Bible refers to as death. Right? I've heard you mention that. And that's true. Many times the Bible uses the word death to describe a place, and that place is hell. Okay? Because that's where dead people go, to hell. Now, Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. When we breathe our last breath, the body dies and we go to heaven. But dead souls reside in hell. Okay? That's where they are. They're in death. Remember, death and hell delivered up the dead, which were in them, the Bible says. And so death is a concept that applies to those who are burning in hell. But those who are in heaven, though their body is dead, their soul and their spirit is alive because the Bible says, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Okay? So according to the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive right now. They're alive in heaven. Their body is dead. Their body is in the grave. Their flesh sleepeth, but their mind and soul and spirit is awake and alive in heaven as we speak. Therefore, for someone to teach that Jesus Christ's soul did not go to hell for three days and three nights, but that rather he went to heaven or Paradiso, which does not exist, by the way, which never existed, a happy place in the middle of the earth, never existed. It's from fables, Jewish fables. False prophets and so forth in the Catholic Church originated this teaching of paradise in the center of the earth. It's not taught in Scripture. But wait a minute. Let's say Jesus went to Abraham's bosom, as they affectionately refer to it as. Well, what did Jesus say about Abraham? Alive or dead? So basically what you're saying, if Jesus' soul went to either heaven or so-called paradise, then what you're saying is that he wasn't really dead, is what you're saying. You're basically teaching that he was alive because if he's with and in the same condition as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then that would make him alive. Basically, this is an attack on the core of what we believe, which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And when the Bible refers to his death, it's not just referring to the moment that he died upon the cross. And here's how I can prove that. In Revelation chapter 1, he said, I am he that liveth and was dead. It's not just that he died, he experienced death in an instant, and then boom, he's in heaven or in paradise. No, he said, I was dead. We don't have to go back to the Greek or go back to Hebrew to know that I was dead is talking about an extended period of time, just by that grammatical. Otherwise, he would have just said, I died, if he was referring to an event. I died. No, he said, I was dead. He's referring to an ongoing period where he was dead. That period lasted for three days and three nights. And after three days and three nights, he rose again. From where, according to the Bible? From hell. Because it says, this spakey of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell. So Jesus Christ rose again, his spirit rose again, his soul from hell, after being there dead for three days and three nights. Jesus was not sleeping. Lazarus was sleeping. That's the difference between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of Lazarus. Have you ever wondered that? I know a lot of people wonder, what's the difference between Christ's resurrection and, say, when Elisha resurrected a dead body, or when Jesus resurrected a dead body of the boy that was in a funeral, or the 12-year-old girl that he resurrected? What's the difference? The difference is that they were just asleep, and he even said that. He said, Lazarus sleepeth, but I'll go to wait. He was in the grave for four days, longer than Jesus. But the difference was that Jesus was dead and Lazarus was alive. That's the difference. His body, don't get me wrong, Lazarus' body was definitely dead. Because first he said he sleepeth, but then he said Lazarus is dead because he wanted to explain to them in a way that they would understand. The body was dead, but Lazarus' soul was not in hell. Lazarus' soul was in heaven, and so he was not in hell. He did not die. Jesus is the only one who was resurrected from literal death. I mean, he was dead, period. Okay, and so that's an important doctrine. And none of these things would even make sense if he went to heaven. Because number one, why would we have to die and pay for our sins in hell if we were an unbeliever? Why would we have to go to hell for all eternity and Jesus could just pay for it by a beating? No, he took upon him the sins of the world, and then he went down to hell and paid for those sins. Okay, that's how. Number one, but number two, what are all these burnt sacrifices? Somebody said, oh, that just represents the fact that he gave it all on the cross. You know, that it's burnt up. He didn't hold it back. So hundreds of times, and if you want to go to the reality of how many times it took place, millions of times, an animal died and was roasted with fire and burnt upon an altar, and the smoke of that altar rose up of a burnt offering. Millions and millions and millions of times, blood was shed. The flesh was burnt. Why? It pictured Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. The body was buried. His soul went down into hell. Anyone who does not believe that Jesus' soul went down into hell is basically a textual critic. They're basically saying the King James Version is wrong here, because if somebody came up to me and said, I believe the King James Version is wrong in that chapter, I wouldn't agree with them, but at least it would make sense what they're saying. But to say, well, I believe the King James Bible, every word of it, and then to say that Jesus didn't go to hell, that doesn't make any sense, because that's what it says. So take your pick. Join the textual critic and call Joseph Jesus' father and go digging in some hole somewhere to see if you can find some old Catholic manuscript, or else decide that you believe the King James is the Word of God. That's really what it comes down to. The King James is the Word of God. Hell's hell. All means all. Heaven means heaven. Believe means believe. And, you know, we basically, instead of you being the authority, judging the Bible, you know, I'd rather have the Bible be my authority and judge me. Okay, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for our church there, God, and thank you for your gift of eternal life and thank you for your incarnation when the Word became flesh to God, which is what...