(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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Hear the sign my friends have taken Those who leave and follow me Blessed to this life forsaken Thou from hence my all shall be Perish every fond ambition All are sad and hope and done As our riches lies condition God and heaven are still my own And the world despises believe me We have left my Savior too Human hearts and lungs deceive me Thou art not like man untrue And while thou shalt smile upon me God of wisdom, love, and mind Goals may fade and friends may shun me Show thy face and all is bright And may trouble and distress me Will but drive me to thy breast Life with trials hard may press me And they'll freely meet sweeter rest Hope does not impede to harm me While that love is blest in me Hope's were not in joy too charming Were that joy unmixed with thee Praise be on from grace to glory Arm my faith and lead my prayer As eternal days before thee God's own hand shall guide me there Soon shall close thy earthly nation Swift shall pass thy pilgrim days Hope shall change to glad provision Faith to sign and prayer to praise Amen. Pastor Anderson's preaching as well with the fullness and the power of the Holy Ghost. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Alright, let's turn in our song books to song number four. The Way of the Cross Leads Home. Song number four. Song number four. The Way of the Cross Leads Home. I must meet no one by the way of the cross There's no other way but this I shall never sign up the gates of life In the way of the cross I miss The way of the cross leads home The way of the cross leads home It is seen to know as I undergo The way of the cross leads home I must meet no one in the blood-strinkled way The path that the Savior trod If I ever climb to the heights of life Where the soul is at home with God The way of the cross leads home The way of the cross leads home It is seen to know as I undergo The way of the cross leads home Then I give farewell to the way of the world To walk in it evermore Oh my Lord says come and I seek my home Where He waits at the open door The way of the cross leads home The way of the cross leads home It is seen to know as I undergo The way of the cross leads home All right this time we'll go through our announcements If you don't have a bulletin slip up your hand nice and high We'll get to you with one On the inside we have our service time Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service Don't forget our new Sunday night time It's permanently been changed to six o'clock So that's a half hour earlier It's kind of hard to get used to after all these years But six o'clock on Sunday nights Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study Tonight we're in Psalm 53 We've got the soul running times listed there below As well as salvations and baptisms Of course the ladies tea party's already over And then below that be cautious with the coronavirus going around And the governor from what I saw in the news over the last few days The governor has closed down a whole bunch of businesses again But you know I'm for all the bars and the movie theaters being shut down And what else did they shut down? Hopefully the casinos Did they shut down the casinos? Shut down the gym? Well do you even lift? So basically we are technically okay Because you know churches are exempt But they're saying no gatherings of more than 50 people period But churches can't get away with it So that's where we're at So we do want to be cautious And just wash our hands And do the fist bumps instead of the hand shaking and everything like that Because this thing is spreading so much So that's what we're going to do for now So just be sure to be careful with that And practice good sanitation On the back we've got the Bible memory passage Romans chapter 15 verses 1 through 6 We're on week 4 And so you've still got a few weeks to go to finish that Keep praying for our ladies That are expecting that they would have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery And especially pray for brother AJ He's already been through a few surgeries And he's got a long road ahead of him So far everything's gone really well But just pray for him Because he's a young guy And he's got to get through this horrible treatment It's obviously miserable And so just pray for him Yes I'll ask about that I'm not sure what the visitor situation is But I'll check in Because you know what I would say no Because I think because of the coronavirus I think no hospitals are allowed In fact now that I remember That question was already asked Because I already talked to him about that Or his dad on texting And we can't do visitors unfortunately So if that changes we'll get that information But this is kind of a bummer time to be in the hospital You know no visitors or anything So it's pretty rough But below that Also pray for brother Joe Rodriguez Who's recovering from major surgery And then the weekly events The singing practice is on hold for now We might fire it up again In the near future But for now it's on hold We've got the preaching class every Tuesday night at 7 We've got the shuttle to Tucson on Thursdays If you ever have a Thursday off And you want to just roll With brother Corbin Russell Down to Tucson He'll even get you dinner right? Yeah he'll get you dinner At Smokey Mo's maybe even So he'll take you to dinner Soul winning church Make an evening out of it You do get back kind of late though What time do you get back? Between 10 and 11 They don't get back till like 10 or 11 at night But if you ever want to go You're more than welcome And then the Spanish night Is the second Thursday of every month And that will be July 9th This time around That's about it for announcements Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning For the past few days Going back to Monday Anything from Monday Alright Anything else from Monday How about Tuesday Anything from Tuesday Tuesday What about Wednesday Anything from Wednesday Alright Gotcha Anything else from Wednesday Alright Very good Keep up the great work on soul winning And with that Let's go ahead and sing our next song Come lead us Does everybody have songs 81? Is that what you have in your seats? Or 96? 81 Yeah Are you ready for it or do you want me to do it? Um Yeah he kind of got We got a little switch up there I'll take care of this one Alright Psalm 81 Let's go ahead and sing it out If you don't have a sheet Put up your hand nice and high There was a last minute Psalm change Psalm 81 Psalm 81 Let's sing it out in that first verse Sing aloud unto God our strength Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob Take a song and bring him her love Temporal love, pleasant heart with the psaltery Blow up the trumpet in the new moon In the time appointed on our solemn feast day For this was a statue for Israel And the love of the God of Jacob This he ordained in Joseph For a testimony when he went out Through the land of Egypt where I heard A language that I understood not I removed his shoulder from the burden His hands were delivered from the pots Thou caused some trouble and I delivered thee I answered thee in the secret place of thunder I threw thee at the waters of Meribah See, La, hear, O my people And I will testify unto thee O Israel, thou will bark in unto me There shall no strange God believe Neither shall thou worship any strange God I am the Lord my God which brought me Out of the land of Egypt Hope and I now will fight and I will fill in But my people would not bark unto my voice And Israel would not appeal So I gave them up unto their own hearts lost And they walked in their own counsels O that my people had hearkened unto me And Israel had walked in my ways I should soon have subdued their enemies And turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submitted Should have submitted themselves unto him Hope and I should endure forever He should have fed them also With the finest of the wheat and with money Out of the rock should I have satisfied thee Out of the rock should I have satisfied thee All right, brother Matt Adams, come lead us in our next song. Song number three. All right, song number three, Jesus Paid It All. Song number three. I hear the Savior say Thy strength in me is small Child of weakness, watch and pray Find in me thine all in all Jesus paid it all All to him I owe Sin had left the crimson saint He washed him white as snow For now indeed I find Thy power and thy law Can change the leper's thoughts And build the heart of snow Jesus paid it all All to him I owe Sin had left the crimson saint He washed him white as snow For nothing good have I Whereby thy grace to claim I'll wash thy garments white In the blood of Calvary's lamb Jesus paid it all All to him I owe Sin had left the crimson saint He washed him white as snow And then before the throne I stand in him complete Jesus died, my soul to save My lives shall still repeat Jesus paid it all All to him I owe Sin had left the crimson saint He washed him white as snow Psalm 53. The Bible reads, The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done Abominable iniquity. There is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven Upon the children of men, To see if there were any That did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back. They are altogether become filthy. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up my people as they eat bread? They have not called upon God. There were they in great fear, Where no fear was. For God hath scattered the bones of him That encampeth against thee. Thou hast put them to shame, Because God hath despised them. O that the salvation of Israel Were come out of Zion, When God bringeth back The captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, And Israel shall be glad. Dear Lord, we just thank you for bringing us together tonight, Lord, and we thank you for your mercy and your truth, and Lord, we would just ask that you bless this sermon tonight, Lord, and fill Pastor Anderson with your spirit as he preaches your word. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Man, this psalm starts with very famous words, The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Now, one of the really interesting things about this psalm is that there's another psalm that's almost exactly just like it in Psalm 14, and it's pretty interesting when you have two psalms like this that are almost exactly the same, and you put them side by side, it gives you a deeper understanding, sort of like comparing Matthew, Mark, and Luke or something like that. Having these parallel passages allows you to learn more and get a deeper picture here. The way I look at it also is that if God is repeating this psalm just with a slight variation, he's including it twice, then to me that's giving it special significance or importance. By repeating it twice, it must be important. Now, one of the features that I've talked about a lot when I'm preaching through psalms or preaching through other poetic books of the Bible is that one of the main features of Hebrew poetry is this thing of parallelism, saying things twice. You know, it's really easy to see this when you're reading books like Job or Proverbs, where it'll just say something and then say the same thing in different words. Say it, say it slightly differently. And there's parallelism between statements like that, but also sometimes the whole structure of the psalm is in a parallel, and if you look at this psalm, the first three verses form one thought, and then verses four through six form another thought that's parallel with the first thought, because the first part starts out by saying, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. So we're talking about a fool, and we're talking about what makes him a fool, and it's the fact that he says in his heart that there's no God. And if you look at the second part of the psalm, starting at verse number four, it says, have the workers of iniquity no knowledge. Now, think about what no knowledge means. It means you're a fool. It's pretty much the same thing as being foolish, having no knowledge. And in the second part of the psalm, this person's a fool because they're attacking God's people. So on the one hand, we have the fool who says in his heart, there is no God, and then we have the fool who assaults and attacks God's people in the second half. But let's start out with the first half of the psalm. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. Now, I think there are a lot of people who've said with their mouth there is no God, but in their heart, they knew that there's a God. And I remember I talked to a guy who was a good friend of mine, and he started out as an atheist, and then later he got saved. And I remember him saying that even when I was an atheist, when I would be by myself, I would pray to God. When I was all alone and nobody was around, I would look up and say, God, if you're out there, you know, reveal yourself. And he would actually pray, and that's probably why he eventually ended up getting saved, because it's not that he hated God, it's not that he rejected God, he was just, you know, taught that, brought up that way, and he went along with that atheistic point of view, and publicly around other people, that's what he said, but in his heart, he knew that there's a God. You have to be an idiot to actually in your heart believe that there's no God, like to actually say that, not just blowing off your mouth, but to actually believe that in your heart, that's pretty dumb, because of the fact that we see obviously God's marvelous creation that testifies of who he is, and it would be foolish to think that it all came from nothing, and that there's no designer to it. So the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now, what is the motive to say that there is no God? And I want to make this really clear, this is an important point, people believe what they want to believe. Don't miss that. People believe what they want to believe, okay? That's why God condemns people for not believing, and he saves those who do believe. Some people just say, well, I can't control that, what I believe, or what I don't believe. Have you ever had somebody tell you that? I don't solve any. I can't just make myself believe. Yeah, actually you can. You actually can believe on Christ, okay? You're choosing not to, and the Bible says that they all might be damned who receive not the love of the truth. Excuse me, I think I messed that one up. He said that they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, that they all might be damned. Good night. I've quoted that so many times. Let's go to 2 Thessalonians 2. I don't want to butcher this. It's such a great passage. You try standing up here in front of people and quoting it. It's funny how you can quote something a million times and then just get a little frozen up here. So 2 Thessalonians 2, it says in verse number 10, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. So people who love the truth get saved. Look, if you're a truth seeker, if you're a lover of truth, well, then of course you're going to get saved, because Jesus Christ is the truth. He said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. So he says they didn't receive the love of the truth that they might be saved, and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Why didn't they believe the truth? Because they didn't love the truth. They had pleasure in that which is not right, instead of loving and seeking and embracing what is right. And what you have to understand is that people believe what they want. That's why God said, whosoever will. You know what whosoever will means? Whosoever wants to. Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely, you have to want it. You have to want to believe on Jesus Christ. People believe what they want. So when you see someone who is willfully ignorant, there must be a motive. There must be a reason why they want to believe that, right? Why would someone want to believe that there is no God? There has to be a reason for them to desire to believe that outrageous thing. And if you look down at your Bible there back in Psalm 53, the Bible gives us the reason why the fool would say in his heart there is no God. It says, corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity. There's none that doeth good. So it is this person's sins that they have committed that are preventing them from believing in the Lord and from wanting to believe that God even exists, that there even is a God. Why? Because they are corrupt. And because they've done abominable iniquity, there's none that doeth good. Now, keep your finger in Psalm 53. Go to 2 Peter chapter 3. Now here's the thing. The fact that someone has a sinful past does not prevent them from getting saved from God's perspective. Because God's ready to forgive all that. God is ready to receive the sinner just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. God is ready. I mean, what did they say about Jesus? This man receiveth sinners. So Christ is ready to receive the sinful people, or the people with a very sinful past, but the issue is that they don't want to come to him because of their sins. Now why is this? Pride. Pride. See, the ones who've done wickedness, often they don't want to come to the light because they don't want their deeds to be reproved, the Bible says. They don't even want to admit that they've done anything wrong. So if someone is corrupt and has done abominable works, or has done abominable iniquity, one way around this is just to say, there is no God. And if there is no God, then there's no such thing as abominable iniquity. And they can pretty much look at all the filthy things that they've done in the past and say, well, you know what? I'm just an animal anyway. I'm just homo sapiens. And so I'm just doing whatever, and just, if it feels good, do it. Survival of the fittest, whatever. Now look at 2 Peter, chapter number 3, and the Bible teaches something very similar here to what we saw in Psalm 53. It says, in verse number 3, Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water. And let me just break down a few things here. Number 1, it says they're willingly ignorant. What does willing mean? That you want to. They want to be ignorant. It's like I said, people believe what they want to believe. They are willfully ignorant. And at the end of verse 3, it says that these people are scoffers because they walk after their own lusts. And you know what that means? They do what they want. These people do what they want, and they willingly are ignorant to what God has created, and also the fact that the earth was flooded. They're willfully ignorant of those things. And it's because they want to, and the reason they want to is because they're corrupt, because they walk after lust, because they've done abominable iniquity. Now, look, the creation of this world and the global flood, these are things that clearly actually happened as the Bible says that they happened. You know, a lot of people today are getting away from that, and they're trying to somehow make the Bible jive with things like evolution, or they're trying to make the Bible jive with, you know, the fact that there was no flood or something. There was just a local flood. Like somebody's going to spend 100 years building a boat for a local flood instead of just maybe just moving, right? Just maybe just going over the mountain, getting out of that little valley that you're in. But obviously, there's a lot of evidence for the biblical account. Now, here's the thing. You cannot prove the biblical account with science, because if you could, then there'd be no faith required. And, you know, we don't go around evangelizing with fossils and test tubes and setting up science experiments on people's front porch, you know, to prove to them that the Bible's actually true. But here's the thing. That doesn't mean that there's no evidence for the things that the Bible tells us, okay? We can look around, and we can see evidence of those things. And when it comes to the scientists of this world who are just dead set on rejecting the Word of God, you know, a lot of times they will really jump through hoops and even put the square peg into a round hole if what they're seeing doesn't jive with their narrative, you know, of promoting evolution, no flood, whatever. You know, it's interesting, if you ever visit the Grand Canyon and look at all the things that they say about the Grand Canyon, just that there's so many contradictions, and they can't get their story straight. I watched a documentary about the Grand Canyon a couple of weeks ago, and I was just like, it was just bizarre to me. The thing, well maybe this happened, maybe this, what about this, and all, you know. And they had just all these wild theories, and they're just like, it's a big mystery, we don't know, you know. And where did all these seashells come from and all this stuff? So then they're saying, well it turns out, you know, half of North America was underwater back then. And they're showing this map of, you know, North America, and I think they said it was supposed to be like 35 million years ago, this is what we think it looked like. And literally more than half of it was underwater. Literally more than half of it. And I'm just thinking to myself, hey, just go a little further. You know, you're so close, it's like you've got half the thing submerged, just dunk the whole thing. You're right there. Okay, so, you know, but here's the thing, they don't want to believe that. They don't want to even, and here's the thing. Again, I'm not saying that it can be proven scientifically. I'm not saying that you could, I can prove to you that the Flood, I can prove to you that God created the world in six of those days. But I will say this, the Bible is compatible with science. The Bible is compatible with science. See, here's the thing, science can't prove either way because of the fact that it was thousands of years ago, nobody was there, there are so many variables. And so we don't know, we believe what the Bible says, okay? And what the Bible says that God created the heaven and the earth is way easier to believe than this idea of everything came from nothing. I mean, you really have to be dumb to say that there is no God. When you understand how complicated life is, when you understand how complicated the universe is, to say that these things came about of their own accord would be like saying that a computer or a robot just came up, you know, it just came about. Because there were just so many cells and molecules and it just happened, you know. It makes no sense, all right? It's crazy. And so our faith in the word of God is not contradicted by science. And that's what a lot of people will try to say, well, don't you believe in science? You know, and they want to get you to believe that the Bible contradicts science when in fact the Bible is very scientifically accurate. Obviously, parts of the Bible are poetic and so they're not to be taken literally. But there is a lot of great science in the Bible that's way ahead of its time, way ahead of what man has discovered. And that's never acknowledged by the atheists of this world. You know, you'd think that if they would be honest and have any integrity, they'd say, well, you know, it turns out that the ancient Hebrews actually had a really advanced understanding of some things scientifically. Because isn't it funny, when you read the Bible, everything jives with what we know about our world and our reality. You know, you read the Bible and it says that God hangs the earth on nothing. That's true. That's the way it is. It talks about the circle of the earth and here we are on a sphere. And then, of course, people will say, well, a circle's not a sphere. Yeah, and did you know that a circle doesn't exist in reality either? Any geometry geeks out there? You know why a circle doesn't exist in the real world? Because a circle is two-dimensional and we don't live in a two-dimensional world. So there is no such thing in this world as a two-dimensional object. It can't exist. Any circle, quote, unquote, you say, well, what about like a CD? That's, you know, technically that's not a circle. That's actually a cylinder. All right, because it has thickness. If you were to measure the volume of that CD, and I'm not talking about cranking up the stereo now. If you were to measure the volume of that CD, you know, you'd have to do the pi r squared to get the area of the surface. But then you'd have to multiply by the height. And it would be a small number, obviously, a few millimeters or whatever, but that height is there. So here's the thing. There's no such thing as an object in this world that's a circle. A circle is a theoretical, made-up idea. But real world contains spheres or disks or cylinders or cones or things of that nature. They don't contain actual circles. Okay, now what's the definition of a circle? A circle is when you have every point on that shape equidistant from the center. Right, so any point on that circle is the same distance from the center. Now what if we were to apply that definition three dimensionally? What shape would we get if we took a thing where everything on the surface is the same distance? That would be a sphere. Okay, and here's the thing. A sphere is every bit as much of a circle as a disk is or a cylinder. Disk, cylinder, cone, sphere, they're all circles if you look at them two dimensionally. And in fact, if I had to pick one of them to be the best representative of a circle, I'm going with the sphere. The sphere is the three-dimensional equivalent of a circle. And by the way, that's why many foreign language Bibles, like when you read the Bible in Spanish, they'll translate this with something like el globo or something like that, which I think in Spanish today is a balloon. But they talk about the globe of the earth or the sphere of the earth or the circle of the earth. And obviously the circle of the earth is a great translation of that, but you have to actually have the knowledge to understand that circles in two dimensions don't exist in the real world. So the Bible is correct about that. The Bible is correct about germ theory, saying, hey, if the leper touches anything, it's unclean. You know, the leper has got to go and be quarantined. And, you know, if someone gets spat upon, then they're unclean. The chair that they sat on is unclean. The bed's unclean. Wash your hands in running water. These are things that we take for granted in 2020. We think everybody knows that. But throughout history, people did not know these things. People did not understand these things. The Bible was right. And so whether we're talking about zoology in the Bible, whether we're talking about sanitation, whether we're talking about cosmology, hey, the Bible is correct over and over again. And so we need to stop having this attitude where it's like science versus the Bible. No, what you have is you have some science people that have gotten out of their lane and they're trying to philosophize about where the universe came from. That's not science. If they were into that, they should have switched their major to philosophy or religion, okay? If they're going to sit there and tell us where the universe came from, that's not science, okay? And then you also have people on the Christian side getting out of their lane and claiming, science proves everything in the Bible is true. Folks, you cannot scientifically prove that Jesus rose from the dead. You can't scientifically prove the virgin birth. You're not going to scientifically prove that God created this world from nothing 6,300 some years ago because it has to be believed by faith. It's not science, it's faith. Now if you would go to Hebrews, I want to get to the rest of the Psalm, but this is a key point that's important about people saying that there's no God because that's a big thing in our country today. The trend today is a rise in atheism in our country. You know, you look at the past of our country and atheism wasn't a big thing. But as we approach the future of our country or the end times, our country in particular, if not necessarily all other places in the world, our country has an increase in atheism at this time. And so this is an issue that needs to be addressed. Look at Hebrews chapter number 11. The Bible says in verse number 3, it says, through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Now what does that mean? So that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. So the things which are seen, we all know what that is. That's just talking about the physical world. The things that are seen are like the sun, the moon, the stars, earth, trees, mountains, just everything that we see. Where did this stuff come from? The Bible says through faith we understand that it was by the word of God that the worlds were framed. So in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. God said let there be light and there was light. So we know that God's word, his spoken commands are what created this world. But the Bible says not only that, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that, or in order that, things which were made, or I'm sorry, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. So there are a few different ways that you could read that, but if you break that down, he's saying that the things that we see were not made of things which do appear. Now I can think of two ways to interpret this, and I'm going to tell you which one I think is the best way to interpret this. There's two ways to interpret this. If you say things which are seen are not made of things which do appear, he's saying that the stuff you see right now is not made of anything that's visible right now. And what we would call that is creation from nothing. Creation from nothing. Sometimes you'll hear this called ex nihilo, which is just Latin for from nothing or out of nothing. So the creation is from nothing. It's an ex nihilo creation. The things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. The things that we see now, they weren't just reconfigured into the heaven and the earth. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? When God created the heaven and the earth, he didn't reconfigure things that we see right now like, hey, the same stuff we're looking at right now is the stuff that was before the creation, is he took the stuff that appears here in front of us and he made no wrong. He created it from nothing. That which does not appear is what he used to create it. It's a creation from nothing. The other way that you could interpret this possibly, which the way I just explained it I think is the best way, but another way you could interpret this, things which are seen were not made of things which do appear is like, hey, you know, they weren't made of things that just appear out of nowhere. You know, it's another way that you could read this, which is basically what the science department is teaching right now in a lot of places, that basically there was nothing. You know, that basically, you know, the mass of the universe was down pretty close to zero. And, you know, it exploded. And here, you know, here we are. And, you know, again, when they talk about how, and by the way, you know, the big bang theory is a relatively new theory. You know, evolution came out in the 1800s. By the way, before they had discovered DNA. So they thought that the simplest organisms were just these little simple single-celled organisms. They didn't realize that a single-celled organism has billions of base pairs of DNA and sometimes even complicated DNA that's more complicated even than our DNA. You know, they didn't understand that. But here's the thing. The big bang theory is from the 20th century. Okay. And really, it didn't become a big thing until the middle of the 20th century. So this is not a super old theory. And what's interesting about it is that before the big bang theory came out, a lot of scientists just believed that the universe had always been here. So they had this idea that it had just always been here. But then, basically, they started looking into it and saying, no, no, it's the big bang. And basically they're saying, no, no, it was just that, you know, it had an origin and, you know, all the mass in the universe was just down to like almost zero. And again, sort of like I said with the flooding a little bit earlier, you know, let's just go all the way to zero. You're so close to zero, why don't we go all the way to zero because guess what it is? A creation from nothing. Creation from nothing. Of course, God did not create it billions of years ago. God did create this universe from nothing. He didn't make it of things that appear, okay. And you say, well, how do you know that? Well, through faith I understand that, you know. And without faith, the Bible says in verse 6, it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. When it says believe that he is, it's saying you must believe that he exists. He that cometh to God must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Or you can be the fool that says in his heart there is no God. Now I got to get off that for sake of time. Go back to Psalm 53 if you would. So the fool has said in his heart there is no God. All that that I just went through was just showing a bunch of scripture to show that people believe what they want, people are willingly ignorant, they believe in no God and no flood because that's what they want to believe because they don't want to be accountable for their actions. They don't want to have Jesus Christ to rule over them. And so that's the decision that they've made and it's a stupid decision and it's foolish if they actually believe that in their heart because you really have to be an imbecile to say that there's absolutely no God and that everything just came from nothing. I mean that's absurd. That doesn't make any sense. That's not scientific. And here's the thing. Don't misunderstand and think that every scientist is an atheist or every scientist believes that there's no God. It's just those are sometimes the loudest voices among scientists or the famous people that are on TV telling us that, you know, oh, isn't it fascinating? This is all just a big accident, you know, and we're here by accident. Isn't that so profound? No, actually that just means that there's no reason for our existence. So that's not cool at all. Why do you want to believe? You want to believe that because you're pointless. So you're just like, well, if I'm going to be pointless, I want this whole universe to be pointless. No, you're pointless, okay? Speak for yourself, buddy. You big cosmic accident, you. You know, I'm here for a reason. So the fool has said in his heart there is no God. Why? Because corrupt are they and have done abominable iniquity. There's none that do it good. Now look, this is not saying that these people were just incapable of getting saved because they're too sinful. And here's the proof. Where is this scripture quoted in the New Testament? You know where it's quoted? Romans 3. And what's Romans 3 about? Romans 3 is about the universal guild of all mankind. Romans chapter 3 is about how everybody's a sinner. It starts out that passage in chapter 3 verse 10 saying, as it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. Then it culminates in verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And guess what's right in the middle of those two verses? This passage where it quotes this in Romans 3. So this scripture is being used just to talk about the sinfulness of everybody, okay? So it's not saying, well, these people can't be saved because they're just too sinful. They can't get saved. No, it's that because they're sinful, they don't want to get saved. And again, this goes back to John chapter 3 where he that doeth evil hateth the light and he doesn't come to the light. So it's not that they can't get saved. It's that they don't want to get saved. It's because they don't want to be accountable. It's that they don't... Look, what do we do when we're out sowing? What's the first step that we get people to do? Admit you're a sinner. Isn't that step one of our plan of salvation, Romans Road? Romans 3, admit you're a sinner. Okay, that's what these people don't want to do, okay? It says right here, there's none that doeth good. I remember one time I'm out sowing in a, just a fancy neighborhood just filled with Mormons. You know, you get in that neighborhood in Mesa, you're right near the temple or whatever. And so it was just total Mormon neighborhood. I knock on this lady's door. She was probably like in her 30s. She's a young mother. She comes to the door and a lot of times, you know, the Mormons will listen to the gospel, but I use the word listen very loosely because they'll agree to listen, but they just kind of smile and nod. And it's so frustrating because you go through the whole gospel and it's just in one ear and out the other sometimes. It can be frustrating. So, you know, this woman agrees to listen to gospel and I open the Bible and I just get to literally the first point. I'm like, okay, Romans chapter three because I'd asked her how she knows she's going to heaven and she said, because I'm a good person. So, you know, I opened the Bible. I take her to Romans chapter three and I showed her where it said, there's none that doeth good. No, not one, you know, because I read those couple verses to her as is written. There's none right, no one. And when I showed her that part that said, and it's the same part that's quoted right here at the end of verse one. There's none that doeth good. I showed this part. There's none that doeth good. No, not one in Romans three. And she was just like, well, that's stupid. That is literally, I kid you not. She just looked at the Bible just with, like as I was reading it, she just looked at it with disgust and just said, well, that's stupid. You know, so I guess she goes home and reads, you know, Moroni 10, 13 and gets the burning and the bosom. But when she reads the actual word of God, it's like, well, that's stupid. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, what? I was just like, what are you? That's stupid. Just none good? What's, that's stupid. Because she's good. You know what that is? Pride. And that's the number one thing keeping people out of heaven is that they don't think they need a savior. They don't think that they need Jesus Christ because they're already good. They're good to go. How many times have people told us that? Hey, I'm good. Thanks. You know, and a lot of times they meant that literally. And you know what? There's none good. There's none good but one and that's God. That's what the Bible says. God looked down from heaven, verse two, upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back. They all together become filthy. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. And look, again, this is quoted in the New Testament just talking about the universal guilt of mankind. Obviously there's a specific application talking about the people who say that there's no God and they're really sinful people. But in reality, though, everybody is a sinner and that's borne out by the quote in Romans 3. So keep your finger here and let's quickly compare to Psalm 14. I got to hurry for sake of time but keep your finger in Psalm 53. Go back to Psalm 14 and let's compare. So the fool had said in his heart, there is no God. Corrupt are they. They have done abominable works. It says in verse 1 of chapter 14 if you're there. They've done abominable works. Psalm 53 said they've done abominable iniquity. There's none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. We're in Psalm 14 three. They're all gone aside. They're all together become filthy. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. Now look at this next part. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord. So here we have again the second group of fools because the first fool is the one who says there's no God. The second fool is the one who has no knowledge because he eats up God's people as he eats bread and calls not upon the Lord. Now I want you to notice how in verse 4 at the end there it says and call not upon the Lord. Compare that to Psalm 53 where it says in Psalm 53 verse 4 have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they eat bread? They have not called upon God. So the thing I want to point out is that in verse 14 it said they call not upon the Lord, like a present tense. They call not upon the Lord. And then in verse 4 of chapter 53 it says they have not called upon God. Now this is referring to these people's salvation. They have not called upon the Lord as in they've never done it. Now the reason I point that out is because there's something similar in John chapter 3 where the Bible says he that believeth on him is not condemned. That's present tense he believes. He that believeth on him, he that believes on him, present tense, is not condemned. But he that believeth not, again present tense, is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So notice how God makes it equivalent believe not and have not believed. Notice how that's the same group of people. Why are the people who believe not condemned? Because they have not believed. And here the people who call not upon the Lord have not called upon the Lord. Now why am I making a big deal about that? It's because of the fact that once you're saved you're always saved. And here's the thing, a lot of people think that, well, you know, you could believe on Christ and be saved and then you could stop believing and then you're not saved anymore. First of all, let's say theoretically a person could do that. They'd still be saved because of the fact that when you're saved you have eternal life, you're passed from death to life, you shall not come into condemnation, you're sealed by the Holy Ghost under the day of redemption. God promised I will never leave you nor forsake you and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But I don't believe that it's possible for a person who has believed on Jesus Christ to stop believing in him. I don't believe that for one second. I don't think that's what the Bible teaches. I think the Bible is crystal clear that once you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ you will continue to believe on Jesus Christ. And that doesn't mean that you're not going to ever have doubts. I think everyone has had doubts. I've had doubts. I'm sure you'd admit that you've had doubts. And there are always, there are people, great people in the Bible that had doubts. I mean John the Baptist, behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And then just months later, art thou he that should come or do we look for another? I mean this, he knew that Jesus was the Lamb of God but then later he wondered about that. He doubted that. Does that mean that John wasn't saved or something or lost himself? It's ridiculous. Of course he was saved. He doubted because he's human. And faith is the fruit of the Spirit. So if we're walking in the flesh, doubts are going to enter. If we're walking in the Spirit, we're going to have great faith. That's going to increase our faith because faith is the fruit of the Spirit. And so we can have doubts, yes. But when you see someone just outright stop believing in Jesus, they were never saved in the first place. Now people have tried to accuse me of being a Calvinist for saying that because you're usually perseverance of the saints. Look, obviously the saints will persevere in believing in Christ. But the saints will not necessarily persevere in living the Christian life. And where a lot of the Calvinists end up getting it wrong is you'll have a lot of Calvinists saying, and it seems like the majority of the Calvinists will interpret that as, well, you know, you have to continue living for God. You know, you're going to continue walking with God. So if they see somebody get out of church or just, you know, fall back into their old sinful ways, they're going to declare that person unsaved. I would not. Because I would just say this person's backslid. You know, this person has gone back into sin. This person's not right with God. The person that I would declare unsaved is when somebody just says, oh, I don't even believe in that stuff anymore. I don't even believe the Bible. I don't even believe in Jesus. I mean, I would say that person was never saved in the first place. Or if that person went out and joined the Mormon Church or joined the Roman Catholic Church or went out and joined some other, and I'm not just saying somebody that's a little off. I'm saying like just joining another religion, became a Hindu or a Buddhist or whatever. Hey, that person was never saved in the first place. And what does the Bible say? They went out from us because they were not all of us. If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. And when we talk about them going out and going from, we're not talking about physically or geographically. We're talking about departing from the faith. We're talking about leaving the doctrine, leaving the belief. There are a lot of people in the Bible who physically departed from this church or that man of God, but we're talking about departing from the faith. They were never saved to begin with. Because once you have believed in the name of the only begotten son of God, you are saved. Look, anybody who goes to hell, it's because they have not called upon the Lord. They have not believed on the name of the only begotten son of God. Because if they ever had done that, then they would be saved. Because the one who believes not is the one who hath not believed. And so it's important to understand that once you're saved, you're always saved. And it's also important to understand the fact that once a person is saved, they will continue to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit moves in when we get saved. And the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And you say, well, you know, you're the Calvinist. You know what? You just don't believe what the Bible's saying, clearly, where Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, a stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers. Okay, when I see somebody just going into some damnable heresy, I say that they were never saved in the first place. Because the Bible says, whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. When you see someone depart from the doctrine of Christ, it's because they're not saved. It's because they have not God. And there's so many verses on that. And the people who don't believe what I just expressed, they just have this bizarre, over-the-top, weird view that basically you just believe in Christ, quote-unquote, pray a prayer, and then just completely stop believing in him later, and you were still saved. That's dumb. That's not what the Bible teaches. People who believe in Christ are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and it's not like they just believe for one second and then just, oh, I don't believe anymore, but I'm still saved. No, you can never lose your salvation, but you know what? A Christian will also not stop believing in Christ, and so this is what you need to understand, and not get on that weird bandwagon where you have just people saying that an atheist is saved, because he used to believe in Christ. That's ludicrous. That's bizarre. And somebody, this bozo, a few years ago, he said, you know, this false doctrine is creeping into the new IFB. It's like, this is what we've always taught since day one, when the church was established, 2005. We've always taught that if you believe on Jesus Christ, you're not going to go join a cult or a false religion, and if you do, we'll know that you were never saved in the first place. That's what I was brought up with, that's what the Bible says, that's what I've always taught, and this other idea is crazy. It's not what the Bible says. So those who believe on Christ will continue to believe in Christ. Again, they may have doubts, but anyone who outright, and I know people who just swear up and down that they used to believe in Christ, but now they've lost their faith and don't believe in him at all, I have no doubt that these people are unsaved. You know, if you want to know who's saved right now, right now, who's going to heaven? People who believe in Jesus Christ right now are going to heaven, and people who don't believe are not going to heaven. Okay, period. And if someone believes in Jesus Christ right now, that is the evidence that they have been saved in the past. And if a person doesn't believe in Jesus Christ right now, that is the evidence that they have not been saved in the past. I don't think this is complicated. I think it's pretty simple. But that's why I wanted to point out how God's using this interchangeably in John 3.18, and he's using it interchangeably between Psalm 53 and Psalm 14. He uses it interchangeably whether they call upon God or they haven't called upon God, or whether they don't call upon God. And it says here that they eat up God's people as they eat bread. Now in verse 5 it says, go to Psalm 53 if you're not there. There were they in great fear where no fear was, for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. So again, this is a slight difference between the two Psalms. One of them says, there were they in great fear, for God is in the congregation of the righteous. And then this one says, there were they in great fear where no fear was, for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. So on one hand he's emphasizing that God's on his people's side, and then on the other hand he's emphasizing he wiped out the enemy. He's for his people in Psalm 14, and he's wiping out the enemy in Psalm 53. So it's kind of just giving you two angles of the same story. It says in verse 5 there, for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee. Thou has put them to shame because God hath despised them. Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion. When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. Now here's the best part about this Psalm, is that we are God's people. So this is about us. Now some people would try to say, no, you got to rightly divide, this is Jacob, this is Israel. You know what, in the New Testament though, we're the chosen people. The Bible says, we as Isaac was, are the children of promise. The blessings of Abraham have come on the Gentiles, the Bible says. And so the promises that God made to Abraham were to Abraham and his seed, singular, and that seed is Christ, Galatians 3, and if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. And heir means what? Heir means you inherit. And heir means the will is read and you get to inherit. Who typically inherits things? Who is the most common person to inherit something? Your son, right? I mean that's the first thing, it'd be like, okay, your son. Well guess what, we're God's sons. And not only that, we're Abraham's sons. Because the Bible says if you be Christ, you're Abraham's seed. So we are the children of Abraham, we inherit the promises of Abraham, and so this talk of God defeating our enemies, and God's in our camp, and God's going to wipe out the enemy, and God's going to bring back the captivity of his people, that's talking about us. And what we have to understand is that when the Bible says to Abraham, I'll bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, you know what the application of that is in 2020? The literal application of that today is, God will bless those who bless Israel. That's what the politicians want you to believe. But in reality, God will bless those who are a blessing to Christians. And God will curse those who harm Christians. If somebody harms one of God's children, if they harm a Christian, God's going to punish them severely. They're going to be taken to task. And here's the thing, this is why we don't have to take revenge ourselves. It's tempting to want to avenge ourselves. But you know what the Bible says, avenge not yourselves. He said vengeance belongeth unto me, saith the Lord, I will repay. Now the sad thing is, today we have churches teaching that God's not a God of vengeance. And they think they're being more loving by teaching that God is not this vengeful God. He's just a God of love. And they make it sound like what they're teaching is good, but actually what they're teaching is going to lead to more violence. And let me tell you why. Because the person who understands that God is a God of vengeance doesn't need to resort to violence. Because he knows that God is going to do it for him. Now look, God brings peace by saying, I will repay. Vengeance belongeth unto me. See, they don't want to teach that. Here's what they want to teach, vengeance belongeth unto no one. Vengeance belongs to no one. Well guess what, people are going to get frustrated and they're going to start taking some vengeance. People want vengeance to happen. But you know what, when we feel like, oh we want to just take revenge and take vengeance and settle the score and right every wrong in this world, you know what actually just talks us off the ledge there is when we think, you know what, God's going to punish these people. God's going to punish these people. Hell is going to be hot for these people. And even let's say a saved person wrongs us. Well guess what, we know God's going to judge his people. He'll chasten them. He'll judge his people. And so we don't have to go through life trying to right every wrong in this world. And by the way, trying to right every wrong in this world, good luck with that. Because there's just too much to do. This world is a wicked, horrible, unjust place. That's life. Okay? And here's the thing, you don't have to settle every score. You don't have to take vengeance. You don't have to right every wrong in this world because God will do it for you. And when people lie about you and slander you and say all men are of evil against you falsely for Christ's sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad because great is your reward in heaven. And so God's going to take vengeance and that's why we never need to resort to violence. This is why we're peaceful people. And you say, wow, you're preaching so hard, you're praying for people to die. That's like nonviolent. You know, isn't that what the liberals always say? Like, I don't use a gun, I'm going to use my words. I saw somebody posted something from some liberal today that said, like, if somebody breaks into my house, I'm not going to pull a gun on them. I'm going to just calm them down and make coffee and sit down with them and figure out what's wrong with their family life. You know, I hope that works out for you with the East Area Rapist. You know, sit down with them and have a cup of coffee with the, you know, the Golden State Killer or the Strangler. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like the what? The Hillside Strangler. You know, come on. Look, man. Hey, let's have a cup of coffee. All right. We could talk about this, OK? But they say, hey, you know, we're not going to use guns. He said, I don't use weapons. I use my words. And I'm thinking to myself, so do I. So do I. I fight with words right here. The word of God. And so here's the thing. Look, I'd rather pray an imprecatory prayer straight out of the book of Psalms where you've got 19 to choose from. You've got 19 imprecatory prayers in the book of Psalms. Imprecatory means is a curse. 19 prayers where David or whatever the author is praying for his enemies to be destroyed, defeated, crushed. Let them just die and go to hell immediately. You know, he's he's praying. Here's the thing. I'd rather pray an imprecatory prayer against a wicked reprobate from the book of Psalms than to become an angry or violent person. I'd rather just pray that imprecatory prayer and then it's just like, huh? Now I can enjoy my life. I can enjoy my day. Hey, it actually brings peace when you realize that God is going to take vengeance. You know, when you realize that God has scattered the bones of him that campeth against thee. I mean, he didn't just kill the enemies. He mutilated their corpses and scattered their bones everywhere. He didn't even give them a proper burial. Are you listening? He's going to defeat them and scatter their bones. I mean, God's saying, look, I'm going to wipe these people out. So then guess what? Then you don't have to worry about it because you know that God's got it taken care of. And you know that God camps with the righteous. He camps with his people. And so this is a great psalm. It's about two kinds of fools. You know, the first kind of fool is the one who says that there's no God. Just because he doesn't want to admit that he's a sinner. Just because he doesn't want to be taken to account for the sins that he's done. He says in his heart there's no God that makes him a fool. And then there's the other no knowledge guy who basically just tears up God's people. Eats up God's people like he eats bread. Like he doesn't even care. Like he doesn't even think about it. Not realizing the world of hurt that he's headed for. Not realizing that what does the Bible say? Hey, the Bible says that God reproved kings for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's sake. He went to kings in the middle of the night even when they were doing some sketchy stuff. You know, he said touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm to the ones who mess with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And here's the thing about that. The Bible teaches that we as Christians are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So if God protected Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from people who wanted to harm them, guess what he's going to do for each and every one of us? He's going to protect us because we are Abraham's seed and the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but out of them all the Lord delivers him. And so anyone who would take on God's people, attack God's people, assault God's people is a complete idiot. And you know what's interesting about that? These two halves of the psalm, a lot of them are the same idiot. A lot of times the same idiot that says there's no God who spends his life fighting against the people of God. Look, if I believe that there was no God, you know, I'd do something else with my life than fighting Christianity. It's like if I thought this life is it, I mean, and that's what these people say, this is it. Because people have asked atheists like Richard Dawkins, you know, well, you know, why do you want to teach people not to believe in God? Why are you evangelical about your atheism? And here's what he said, well, because people aren't living their life to the fullest. Because they think there's something else out there so they're not living it to the fullest now. Okay, but yet, look what atheists, this is how atheists live their life to the fullest, fighting Christianity online. Trolling Christians online, trolling comments, just making all these videos about, just telling everybody the good news that there's no God. You know, sharing the good news of the gospel of atheism. It makes no sense. But you know what? It's because they're an idiot. You know, the fool says in his heart there's no God. And then that same fool dedicates himself to assaulting God's people, fighting against God's people. And you know what he's doing? Just heaping up more damnation, just treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. And his hell is just getting hotter and hotter and hotter the more that he does. And so don't be the fool who says there's no God and don't be the fool who attacks God's people because God has their back. Amen. Let's bow our heads in every word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great psalm and we just pray that these words will sink down into our ears, Lord. Help us not to be vengeful, vindictive people. Help us not to be angry or violent people, Lord. Help us to trust in you, have absolute faith that not only did you create this world, not only did you destroy the old world with a flood, not only did you send Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins and rise again, but Lord, you've also promised to never leave us or forsake us and that you've given your angels charge concerning us and that they are ministering spirits to protect us, Lord. Help us to have that faith and to realize that the wicked people that might seem like they're getting away with things actually will get away with nothing. Lord, help us to believe that and practice that in our lives. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen. Let's turn in our song books to song number two. Song number two, Glory to His Name. Song number two. Song number three, Glory to His Name. Down at the cross where my Savior died, Down there from cleansing from sin I cried, There to my heart was the blood of God, Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. There to my heart was the blood of God, Glory to His Name. I am so wondrously saved from sin, Jesus to speak we abide within, There at the cross where He took me in, Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. There to my heart was the blood of God, Glory to His Name. For precious times did that stage drop still, I am so glad I have been turning, There Jesus saves me and leads me free, Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. There to my heart was the blood of God, Glory to His Name. Down in this mountain so rich and sweet, Rest like the soul and the Savior sweet, Climb to day and be made complete, Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name. There to my heart was the blood of God, Glory to His Name. Glory to His Name.