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

Men, the Bible reads in Psalm 56, Be merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He fighting daily oppresseth me. Now there's a contrast here in verse number one between how David wants God to treat him and how other people are treating him. He wants God to be merciful to him. In contrast to that, man is daily swallowing him up. And as we read through this, we see that he talks about his enemies. They're just lying in wait for him. They're just ready to catch any little thing that they can use against him. They want to twist everything that he says and does. But he's saying, God, be merciful unto me. Now obviously we know from studying the scripture that David is a man after God's own heart. Obviously David is on the right side here and his enemies are on the wrong side. Otherwise the Holy Ghost would not be inspiring this scripture from his perspective where he is on the righteous side calling out to God and his enemies are on the receiving end of all these curses and destruction and everything like that. So we know that David is the good guy in the story here, but yet even the good guy is not perfect because guess what, there's only one that's good and that's God. Only one person is without sin and that was the Lord Jesus Christ when he walked on this earth. So that's why even a godly man like David who's in the right still requires mercy from God. I don't care how good of a Christian you are. I don't care how mature of a believer you are. I don't care how much sin you've gotten out of your life. You still need God's mercy because if God were to come down on you with the full force of every mistake that you make, you would be in a world of hurt and I would be in a world of hurt if every time we made a mistake, God just gave us the full penalty. You know if you think about it, when you go to court, sentences are offered in a range, you know, two to ten years and the judge has some discernment of whether he's going to hit you with two years or is he going to throw the book at you and put you away for ten years. And that could have to do with a lot of things. The circumstances of the crime, it could have to do with how repentant you are, what your attitude is, how strong the evidence against you is and so there's that human element that decides am I going to give him two years or ten years? You know he's guilty, he's going to be punished, it's got to be at least two, it could be up to ten and the choice is made. Well it's the same thing with God where God is going to chasten and chastise us when we make a mistake, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. But is God going to come down on us with the maximum sentence when we make a mistake or is he going to be merciful to us and go easy on us and you know that depends on us. What can we do for God to lighten the sentence in our lives? Well the Bible says blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. If we are merciful unto others, God will be merciful unto us because with what measure we meet, it shall be measured to us again. And the more we show mercy, the more mercy is going to be shown unto us. The more we give grace, the more God's going to give grace unto us. And so that's why the Bible says forgive and you shall be forgiven but he said if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. So if we are forgiving, if we are merciful, if we are gracious, then God will be merciful unto us. David wants God to be merciful unto him because although he's in the right, although he's a godly man, he still knows that he's made mistakes and he wants God to take it easy on him and he doesn't want to feel the full brunt of God's chastening. So he says be merciful unto me, O God, for man would swallow me up. He fighting daily oppresseth me, mine enemies would daily swallow me up. For they be many that fight against me, O thou most high. What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. And so he's talking about how he has a lot of enemies and just daily these people are after him. Let's jump down to verse five for now. It says every day they rest my words. Now rest, think of the word wrestling, right? Because this is spelled just like wrestling. And rest means to twist, that would be the modern term that we would use here. He would basically say every day they twist my words. If you think about people in a wrestling match, they're kind of twisting and turning and so they rest my words every single day and then look, the end of verse five is startling. All their thoughts are against me for evil. It's like this is all these people think about. All they think about is just how can I hurt him? How can I twist what he says? How can I oppress him? How can I cause him problems? It's bizarre when people just live to harm someone else. They just exist just to be a pain in somebody else's neck. There are a lot of people out there like that. The psycho stalkers are out there, evil people, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. The Bible says all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Why? Why will the godly suffer persecution? Because there are so many people like this that are just ready to attack them. Now the one person on this earth that was perfect and totally without sin was the Lord Jesus Christ and when Jesus Christ walked on this earth he had people who hated his guts and they were always trying to catch him the Bible says in his words. It says that they might catch something out of his mouth. There were people that would go to hear Jesus preach just so that they could just find one thing that he said that they could use against him and of course they would take the things that he said and they would twist them and if you look at the trial of Jesus in Matthew Mark Luke and John when false witnesses come forth they take stuff that he actually said and they twist it a little bit. You know for example Jesus said destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up and he spoke of the temple of his body. He's talking about the resurrection and they say you know well we heard Jesus saying that he's going to come and destroy this temple. Now Jesus didn't say hey I'm going to destroy this temple. What Jesus said if you destroy this temple in three days I'll raise it up. He didn't say I'm going to destroy this temple or they said that you know or Jesus Christ also talked about how you know hey one stone's not going to be left upon another that's not going to be thrown out. He prophesied the destruction of the temple but he didn't say I'm going to do it but they twisted that he said. So they asked him about paying taxes. Is it lawful to pay tribute unto Caesar? Of course he said render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are God. And then at his trial what do they say. Well he's forbidding us to pay tribute to Caesar. Exact opposite of what he actually said. So they're always trying to tempt him and twist what he said and find something wrong with him. Look at Daniel. You know Daniel was a godly man a righteous man. Obviously he was a human being so he was not without sin. But Daniel was hated by some of the people around him because they were envious. They saw that he was succeeding that he was excelling that Nebuchadnezzar liked him or I'm sorry that Darius liked him of course Nebuchadnezzar liked him too. But anyway they saw that Darius liked him and out of all the 120 provinces with the leadership over them and there were the three presidents and you know he was the best of those three presidents and Darius thought hey I'm just going to put this guy over the whole realm. I don't want this guy over a third of that. I want him to have everything. I want him to just be the second in command. And so we see that Daniel's peers said you know we can't find anything wrong with this guy. So that shows they're looking for something. They're just waiting for him to slip up. They're trying to mess up. They're auditing his books and they're spying on him and finally they just said well you know we're just going to have to find something concerning his God because this guy doesn't make mistakes on the job. So you know we're going to have to attack him on his religion. And so basically they go after him by creating this decree where no one can pray for 30 days and Daniel keeps on praying. And you know the story. He goes to the lion's den. God delivers him etc. I'm just bringing those stories up to show you that there's a pattern in the Bible of wicked people conspiring against the just and literally making it a full time job in some cases where literally daily the Bible says daily they want to swallow me up. They rest my words verse 5 says every day all their thoughts are against me for evil. This is what they sit around thinking about. They just sit around thinking about how can we take him down. How can we hurt him. How can we persecute him. How can we punish him. Jesus went through it. Daniel went through it. David went through it. And guess what. All that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. That's what the Bible says. And these people whose lives revolve around just hurting other people and they just live to take down some man of God or to take down some Christian lady. You know what. They are trash. They are scum people. They're bad people. OK. That's not normal. OK. Normal people don't act that way. You know even preachers and people that I know about that are wicked and evil. I don't spend my life listening to every sermon ain't nobody got time for that. Like I'm just going to sit and listen to every single sermon and let it hang on everything and try to find anything that I can twist and just folks is that really what our life is about. That's really why we're here. It's bizarre. And especially when you see people that are atheists do this. They think that this life is all they've got. And they talk so much about how they want to live it to the fullest. How is trolling Christians living your life to the fullest is what I'd like to know. Seems like a waste of your worthless meaningless accident of an existence to do that. You know eat drink and be merry because tomorrow you're going to die. Now it says in Psalm 56 here. Let's back up a little bit because we kind of skipped ahead for that. He said in verse 2 mine enemies would daily swallow me up for they that be for they be many that fight against me. Oh thou most high and he says in verse 3 what time I am afraid I will trust in the what time I am afraid I will trust in the now of course the Bible tells us God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We should only fear God and when we fear someone other than God it isn't right. God doesn't want us to fear man. God doesn't want us to fear the devil. God doesn't want us to fear suffering. He wants to be the object of our fear. Let him be your fear the Bible says. Let him be your dread. So God wants us to fear him alone but David is a human being. And so of course David is human and so he says there are times that I'm afraid and what time I am afraid I will trust in the even though we preach against fear even though if we walk in the spirit we're not going to experience fear because of our sinful flesh we are going to fear in our lives. I don't think there's anyone who is 100 percent fearless just like I don't think there's anybody who is 100 percent sinless because we all have the flesh. We all deal with those feelings and so when we are afraid that's when we need to run to the Lord and trust in him go to the promises of God and you know I can remember times that I've been afraid in my life and I quoted scriptures like yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me and those kind of scriptures can give comfort when you're in fear and when we do fear we should trust in the Lord and run to him and go to his word and look for courage and walk in the spirit so that we will not have fear. But obviously because we're human there are going to be times that we are afraid. Now the Bible says in verse 4 in God I will praise his word in God I have put my trust I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. So he starts out verse 4 saying 3 saying you know what time I'm afraid I will trust in thee and then he goes to the word of God he praises the word of God he trusts in God and then he says okay I'm not going to fear what flesh shall do unto me so it worked right so look at verse 5 every day they rest my words all their thoughts are against me for evil they gather themselves together they hide themselves they mark my steps when they wait for my soul. Notice how the Bible says they hide themselves you know the Bible says again that the wicked bend their bow that they may privately shoot at the upright and hard secretly privately isn't amazing how many threatening letters how many attack YouTube channels are anonymous isn't interesting how many just trashcan YouTube channels that just exist to just attack and to harm isn't it funny how they have to use like a voice changing software on their voice and hide their identity and they hide behind these little anonymous usernames why because they are the wicked that privately shoot at the upright and hard see good works are done out in the daylight and people have to hide who they are because their works are evil and they don't want to be seen for what they're doing and who they are they're cowards and they are wicked so they hide themselves they gather together they conspire with other people and they mark my steps when they wait for my soul. Look there are people that are just waiting for you to slip up they're waiting for you to make a mistake now even if you don't make a mistake they'll just lie about you and make things up but man they love it when you make a mistake because then they're just ready to jump all over you and I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to be around people who are just constantly waiting for me to screw up so that they can just make a big deal out of it just waiting for me to make any little mistake I mean how would you like to have friends like that they're just waiting for any little thing you know can you imagine working with someone like that at your job being paired up with somebody on a job and they're just waiting for you to slip up so they can just immediately report you and just get you in trouble and make a big deal out of it and blame everything on you but that's what these wicked people do you know they mark my steps when they wait for my soul and here's the thing inevitably you're going to make a mistake everyone is going to make a mistake but there are people out there that are ready to just jump all over it and then there are people that are ready to be merciful and say hey I understand it's okay let me help you instead of just gotcha sucker and that's how a lot of people are they're just ready to nail you and you know what's going to happen to those people every time they mess up God's going to be ready to nail them that's how it works you reap what you sow what goes around comes around blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy the one who's just watching and waiting and just ready for the righteous to make a mistake guess what God's doing up in heaven he's just ready and waiting and guess what he sees everything he sees everything you can't put anything past him so the last person if I could pick one person that I don't want just watching everything I do waiting for me to mess up it's God that's the last person I want just ready to come down on me you know I want him to be merciful with me and so it's important that I be merciful to other people now flip over if you would to Romans chapter 1 keep your finger there in Psalm 56 because we'll come back to it but over in Romans chapter 1 we have a description of the worst kind of people reprobates right and look people who creep in privately people who just lie and wait for the upright of heart are often reprobates not necessarily always but they're often reprobates and when we think of people privately creeping in you know the Bible describes these people as reprobates in second Peter chapter 2 and in the book of Jude when it talks about these people who will privately bring in damnable heresies or they will come in and beguile unstable souls or whatever the the reason that they infiltrate they are often reprobates and when the Bible goes through this list of the sins of the reprobates starting verse 29 it says being filled with all unrighteousness you know he's talking about the worst kind of people and he's saying look they're full of all these sins unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness and that's what we're reading about maliciousness right back in Psalm 56 full of envy I'm sure that these people that are after David are envious of him murder debate deceit malignity whisperers again they do think secretly backbiters right they do it behind your back haters of God despiteful proud boasters inventors of evil things disobedient to parents without understanding covenant breakers without natural affection and here's the thing whenever there's a list in the Bible a lot of times it culminates with the big one at the end you know what I mean like that's the coup de gras at the end and so it culminates in implacable unmerciful you know he's listing all these sins and just to kind of round it out just to finish it off just the finishing touch to this list of just the worst people what are they like you know what they're like they're implacable implacable means there's nothing you can do to please these people what does it mean to placate and that's not a word that maybe every single person knows but to placate someone is to just give them what they want to get them off your back you know you just kind of want to get somebody off your back so you just placate them even if you don't really want to give them what they want you just kind of give them what they want so that they will leave you alone that's how we use that word to placate them so implacable means it's impossible to placate these people you can't placate them because no matter what you do you try to compromise or come their way a little bit give them a little bit what they want they just want more and in fact they will never stop now look what's the context of the passage obviously in the context of the passage we read about homos in Romans chapter 1 right I mean that's a big subject in Romans chapter 1 men with men and women with women it explains that a few verses earlier in verses 26 and 27 okay well have you noticed that whenever our society tries to throw the homos a bone it's never enough for them I mean look how much they have right now as far as they have all their rights to walk up and down the street and to be open about their abomination they even have the rights to get married to one another they even have the right to adopt children may they all rot in hell these wicked people that would adopt children these filthy perverts but anyway the point is you know when you see our society just giving them all their LGBT rights do you notice that it's not enough it's never going to be enough that you know if you teach it in school in high school they'll say teach it in junior high and if you teach it in junior high they'll say teach it in elementary school and if you teach it in elementary school they'll say nope needs to be taught in kindergarten right no it's not enough to get married they want to get married and have kids no it's not enough for them to practice their filthy abominations but they have to rub everybody's nose in it they want to be on TV and look even if they totally controlled Hollywood even if they have the politicians in their back pocket even if they have all the laws on their side even if they have the public fool system just totally doing their back and call that's not going to be enough because you know what they want after that they'll say we want the church the place that they belong the least the house of God the one place that you would expect to be the bastion against this filth you know what they'll say no no we want to be behind the pulpit and so what do you have today sodomites being ordained into the ministry in wicked denominations like the United Methodist Episcopalian and other mainline Protestant denominations where they will actually infiltrate all the way to the level of teaching in the seminary they want to be on the committee for a Bible translation they want to be behind the pulpit teaching and preaching they want to be the deacon they want to be the Sunday school teacher they will never stop okay they will surround the house and find the only people that are left that are still normal and say bring those normal people out that's what they'll say they'll get down to the last normal person and want to drag them out of the house and be violent unto them that's what they want to do and then even when God struck them with blindness you know what they do they weary themselves to find the door they weary themselves to find the door right they they're not trying to go figure out what's wrong with their eyes they're trying to find the door so they can get a lot so they can get to the two angels and so that's what these people are like and it I don't think it's a coincidence the final word on the list what's the last word there unmerciful implacable unmerciful you can't please them there's no reasoning with them and so here's why I say don't even try why even try to compromise with these people when you can't placate them so why are you trying to placate them and that's why I make no effort whatsoever to please sodomites I make no effort whatsoever to please my enemies to please the haters to please the Judases you know what nuts to them I'm not going to throw them a bone I'm not going to reach them in olive branch they're wicked and implacable they're doomed and so why would I try to placate the implacable and they're not going to show any mercy don't expect them to they're unmerciful and so go back if you would to Psalm 56 the people that we see here in Psalm 56 are unmerciful he's saying God be merciful to me because man wants to swallow me up and these people are just every single day trying to twist my words every single day they want to swallow me up but be thou merciful unto me Oh God they're implacable they're unmerciful they're wicked what does it say in verse number seven he kind of changes gears a little bit here in verse eight but look at verse seven shall they escape by iniquity I mean are they going to get away with this God I mean look what they're doing and then he prays an imprecatory prayer we've pretty much had one every Psalm for the last several weeks right it was in Psalm 55 Psalm 54 I mean a lot of imprecatory prayers here's the imprecatory prayer or the cursing prayer in this Psalm he says in thine anger cast down the people Oh God God just give these people the full force of your anger and you know what that's what they deserve you know what did David pray to God he says Oh Lord you know chasing me not in thy hot displeasure rebuke me not in thy anger you know if God's gonna discipline me I don't want him to do it while he's mad it's one thing to get a spanking it's another thing to get a spanking when your dad's mad you know you'd rather get spanking when he's not mad and so David says rebuke me not in thine anger chasing me not in thy hot displeasure be merciful to me but them be sure you're mad when you punish them get good and mad before you punish these bunch of wicked people he says in thine anger cast down the people Oh God verse eight he kind of changes gears thou tellest my wanderings now the word tell often in the Bible means counting okay like the Bible talks about the tail of the bricks shall not diminish that's talking about the number of the bricks or if you go to the bank it's a bank teller why is it called the bank teller or the automated teller machine the ATM is the automatic teller machine because what does it do it counts out those twenties when you put in your card the banker counts out the money so that banker is a teller and what does she count the money on what does she count the money on no the counter the counter you know why is it called the kitchen counter because of the fact that it's like the thing at the bank where they count or the thing at the store you know you go up and you buy something and they're counting so it's called a counter right the teller stands behind the counter or you could say the counter stands behind the counter so basically the Bible is saying here thou tellest my wanderings it's saying that basically God counts his wanderings basically he keeps track of them and also when we tell a story another word for telling a story is what to recount our tale all right so you can see how all these words are connected or we could we could give the account an account is what a story so you can see how the word tell and count are both very much connected and they go back and forth and and it become interchangeable in many ways so the Bible says thou tellest my wanderings so basically God is paying attention to every twist and turn of David's life God is paying attention you know the Bible says the hairs of our head are numbered so God knows everything David's going through he tells all his wanderings and then he says put thou my tears into thy bottle are they not in thy book so basically God not only does God keep track of the twists and turns of David's life but he gathers up the tears of David in a bottle right so the Christian that prays unto the Lord you know the Bible talks about the prayer of saints being like an incense in the nostrils of God and he basically collects that and savers that and you know I think the best way to illustrate this about telling his wanderings and putting his tears in a bottle this is how parents are with their with their children think about how your mom collects all the memorabilia of your life right I remember my mom had a drawer and basically all of our report cards would go in there all of our little drawings and things that we would do and they get stuffed in there and you know when you have a baby sometimes when you give it its first haircut you cut off that little lock of its head and you put it in a little ziplock bag right or maybe mom collect you know you do that with like your first kid or maybe the second one yeah I sorry I don't have 11 11 clippings of hair 11 sets of baby teeth you know 11 it'd be a you know be like a warehouse at this point you have to get a storage unit just for all the memorabilia but you know you know you save your kids teeth and and you you take their little foot and you dip their foot in ink and put their foot on a paper and you put their handprints and you know I'm this many pounds and I'm this many days old and this how many inches long I am and here's my first haircut and this is the first tooth that I lost and here's the picture that they drew and the hand turkey that they made everything I got and here's the thing that stuff will be totally meaningless to other people but to a parent they save that stuff you know I remember at one point many years later my mom gave me some of that stuff it was kind of cool she gave me all this funny stuff from my childhood and I got to look at it and and we got to reminisce about some of that in fact I was talking to my aunt the other day and she was telling me hey when you come out and see us in South Carolina she said I've got this letter that you wrote you know when you were like seven years old or something it was like something I wrote like 30 some years ago she said it's so funny and when you get here we're gonna read it together so you know people that love you what do they do you know they save stuff about you they they save things and especially parents will do that with their children they take a lot of pictures boy these children that are growing up today are the most photographed generation ever they're the most documented generation in the history of mankind you can watch them grow up day by day again it's like it's like it used to be there you're lucky to have a picture of you like every year you know when we were kids it's like okay one picture every year or two you know or every every few months at least now these kids are getting a thousand photos a year and they're just and with the because it's so easy now but basically that's the picture that we get of God is that he is got like a scrapbook going on if you could think of it that way you know God loves us he loves his children and so he's basically up in heaven scrapbooking all of your trials and tribulations gathering all your tears in a bottle sort of like a parent would collect baby teeth or a little bit of hair he's got your tears in a bottle so don't ever think that God doesn't care about you or that God doesn't know what's going on or that God is distant God is very nigh unto you and so he is collecting his tears he's putting them in a bottle he's writing everything in a book if you would quickly flip over to Malachi chapter 3 and he says something similar over there in Malachi chapter 3 Malachi chapter 3 verse number 16 it says then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name so this is that same idea of a book of remembrance for the godly and they shall be mine sayeth the Lord of hosts in that day when I make up my jewels so they are like a treasure unto him like jewels that he would collect and keep in a jewelry box and keep them safe just like mom has a jewelry box with jewels in it but then she's also got few teeth in it few chunks of hair things that in on their own are worthless except they mean something because they represent the person and that's the picture that we get of God's love for us that he cares he's paying attention and so he says in verse 8 of chapter 56 in Psalms thou tellest my wanderings put down my tears into thy bottle are they not in thy book when I cry unto thee then shall my enemies turn back this I know and how does he know that for God is for me hey if God be for us who can be against us right God be for us who can be against us God plus us makes a majority it doesn't matter who else is on our side if God's with us no one can stand against us in God will I praise his word in the Lord will I praise his word in God if I put my trust I will not be afraid what man can do unto me sound familiar that's basically the same chorus from earlier so remember the book of Psalms is a song book so he starts out talking about all these wicked people that want to swallow him up and then he jumps into the chorus in verse 4 and the chorus is you know in God I'll praise his word and God I put my trust I will not fear what flesh can do unto me and then we get the course again down in verse 10 and God will I praise his word and the Lord will I praise his word and God if I put my trust I will not be afraid what man can do unto me so it's a repetition of that portion only slightly different because it's the chorus of the song it says in verse 12 thy vows are upon me O God I will render praises unto thee and what he's saying there is that he has made vows that he is going to praise the Lord and he's going to fulfill what he has promised to do now of course in the New Testament we are not to make vows but in the Old Testament vows are a thing that's one of the things in the New Testament that Jesus kind of backs us off on that because of the fact that vows and swearing and oaths have often been abused and so he says better just swear not at all so Jesus talks with the book of James Todd but he says thy vows are upon me O God I will render praises unto thee now render the term render often has to do with paying something that you owe okay so render means to give but it doesn't just mean to give it means to give something that you owe to give someone something that is due unto them so this could be because of the fact that he vowed to praise God but not only that we owe it to God to praise him anyway a lot of people have this attitude that says well you know I didn't ask to be created I didn't ask to be born into this world have you heard people say that so where do I go God I didn't tell God to make me why should I be thankful that he created me or put me here I didn't even want to be here in the first place that's not the way things work it's not the way life works okay you are here you've been created by God for the glory of God and yes you owe him something I owe him something you that's my life my body my choice wrong we all owe God something we owe him our existence well I didn't want to exist well you know what I'm sorry that you live such a miserable stupid life but if you start praising God maybe you'll start want to exist again maybe you don't want to exist because you're so selfish and you don't love the Lord because you know what if you love the Lord and serve the Lord you'll find meaning in your life and then you won't have I didn't ask to be here well start wanting to be here fast because here you are you better like it like it or lump it amen and if you would start praising God you'll probably start liking it a little bit more because you'll actually have meaning and purpose to your life living for yourself is a miserable worthless existence living for the Lord and other people is how you have joy in your life I will render praises unto thee for thou has delivered my soul from death wilt thou deliver my will not deliver my feet from falling that I may walk before God in the light of living here's what he's saying in verse 13 this is the last verse so this is kind of the final thought where he sums things up here and he's saying look you've delivered my soul from death but are you not going to deliver my feet from falling that I may walk before God in the light of the living you know the way I would interpret this as a New Testament Christian I would say you know what okay you saved me from going to hell you gave me eternal life well how about saving me out of the situation I'm in right now that's basically what David said how about me being able to not fall right now how about me walking before God in the light of the living you know I'm glad I'm going to heaven I mean that's the big thing I'd rather live the worst ever life and go to heaven and and and live a life of misery and sorrow and go to heaven than to live a great and happy life and go to hell so obviously going to heaven is the big one but I don't know about you I'm not just satisfied to be on my way to heaven that's not enough for me I'm not just like you know what I'm going to heaven so that's all I want no I want more than that I don't want just the basic package you know basically I don't want kind of the stripped down economy class ticket to heaven where I'm in a jump seat or whatever to heaven you know I'm basically you know Spirit Airlines on my way to heaven no carry on no back you know tiny backpack or whatever you know I want the first class ticket you know because here's the thing it doesn't matter whether you take Spirit Airlines with none of the bells and whistles or whether you take Southwest this message was brought to you in part by Southwest or you know whether you're in first class or business class you know you all end up at the same airport don't you no matter which option whether your economy whether you're standby business first or whatever you know once you get on the plane and strap in everybody's going to the same place everybody gets there at the same time and you know that's how it is with Christians if once we're saved we're all on that gospel airplane but you know what I want to get some upgrades I want to get some some coupons I want to get some vouchers I want to get first class business class okay and here's what I mean by that I want to enjoy the trip see you if you're asked you know you could be on Spirit Airlines especially if you're a tall guy and you're going to get there you're going to get to heaven but guess what it's not going to be a fun trip you're going to be just counting down till it's over you're going to be all cramped in there and whatever you know I want to go to heaven but I also want to enjoy the trip I want to enjoy the ride okay I want to have all the blessings now as well you know that that are available you know I you know obviously a lot of it we got to wait until we get there but you know what there are some blessings that we can have right now if God sees us serving him loving him obeying him he blesses us right now the Bible says that in Proverbs eleven thirty if you want to flip over there we'll close on this Proverbs chapter eleven thirty is a famous verse in regard to soul winning it's where it's where we derive that term soul winning he that winneth souls is wise and it says in Proverbs eleven thirty the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth souls and is wise behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth much more the wicked and the sinner and so there is a recompense that we even receive in this life on this earth you know Jesus talked about us receiving in this life you know lands and houses and sisters and brothers and and and they and he said and in the life to come you know everlasting life and and all these things and so you know there are blessings and I'm not preaching a health and wealth prosperity gospel I don't believe that it's God's will for ninety nine point nine percent percent of us to be rich you know most of us couldn't handle that he doesn't want us to have that he wants us to live a basic humble life but I will say this you know God has all kinds of blessings that we can have access to right now where God will provide our needs God will give us the desires of our heart God will help us out and you know we've all experienced that where we we live for God and we get blessed by God and good things happen and and and there's all kinds of joy that we get to experience and not only does that come in a positive way of all the joys we get to experience you know that's like the stewardess coming and just putting out all the candy bars and she gives you a little warm towel would you like a warm towel sir you know you get to like rub yourself with a warm towel and then you get the little nuts that have been heated up I mean when else do you eat mixed nuts that have been heated I mean I've got a dish of nuts in my office but they're not heated oh that's how you leave them in the car in Phoenix in the summer that's how you do that you know I just never I don't know about you at home I just never got a dish of nuts and just let's heat this up before we eat this you know you gotta fly you gotta pay thousands of dollars and fly first class folks is the only way to experience and when was the last time your wife was just like warm towel sir at dinner there's certain things that you just have to fly first class to get you know and and and when you're on an airplane even if the meal is not that cool just being served a hot meal on a plane it's pretty awesome you know I because and the reason I know these things it's not because I'm some kind of a high roller or something but it's because I used to fly every single week for business when I was back in the fire alarm business and so I get all the upgrades and platinum frequent flyer sets so I got to a level because I bought so many airline tickets I got to a level that if there was ever room in first class it was automatic upgrade for me so I got to experience you know the other side of life up there and and and understand you know what it's like I know both how to be a base and I know how to abound and so you know there's the positive side where you know what if we live for God if we serve God you know if you're a frequent soul winner status frequent church member status and you've been you know doing all the things that God wants you to do you start getting these upgrades in your life you know you start getting upgraded into the business class of life and it's not just the positives of you know the warm towel the warm nuts the the ice cream cone the warm dinner the candy bars whatever they do it's also the negatives that you avoid because part of the nice thing about being first class you're not jammed up against people and you got more leg room and whatever well here's the thing part of the blessing of serving God it's not just that God daily loads us with benefits but it's also that God will also deliver us protect us save us out of all of our troubles so David saying look you've saved me from hell that's a done deal okay now save me out of this mess now save me from what I'm going through on earth in this life and so yes it's great that we're saved but here's the thing that's already a done deal so now let's get the upgrades now let's earn the rewards right now let's get the frequent flyer benefits and so forth because of the fact that we want to enjoy the journey as well and you know what it's not just that we want to enjoy the journey is that we don't want to waste the journey because of the fact that you know we want to win other people to Christ we want to serve the Lord and and do something with our lives that's actually going to matter in eternity and so we need to not only be saved but we also want to serve God and a lot of people are just like well if you're just saved by grace the faith what's even the point of serving God I mean if we're all if we're all going to the same airport I mean what's the point of being in business class oh you'll find out on that 10-hour flight on that 12-hour flight you'll find out what the point is and I'm not saying it's worth it to spend the money because it's crazy how expensive it is to fly first class sometimes it can be crazy expensive if you actually just pay for it but let me tell you one good thing about coronavirus is that we're all kind of flying first class now you can kinda now that there's social distancing you can sprawl out and it's been nice uh they're not bringing any treats though they've cut back on the treats so you gotta bring your own treats if you fly but at least you can spread out a little bit amen look on the bright side but the bible is telling us look there's wicked people they're out to get you they're out to burn you but God loves you God sees it every person that's breathing out hatred and threatenings against you God knows exactly what's going on every tear that you shed God collects that in his bottle every adventure that you have every misadventure you have God writes that in his book he tells all your wanderings you know he scrapbooks all that stuff God cares God's looking out for you and just as sure as God saved our souls from hell God can save you from whatever you're going through right now you know whatever trial and tribulation you're going through whatever difficulty in your family your marriage your child rearing your church whatever difficulty in your job your health whatever you know what God can save you from that too let's borrow a word of prayer by the way thank you so much for this encouraging psalm Lord and Lord thank you for all the psalms it's such a powerful book of the bible and Lord I just pray that we meditate in these things and and trust in you what time we're afraid Lord help us to trust in you and help us to praise you and run to your word in times of distress Lord and Lord our nation's going through a very weird time right now a lot of people are going through a difficult time a lot of people are just mentally losing it right now and just ready to snap because of all the stress or anxiety or problems that that are happening whether real or imagined people are really struggling Lord I just pray that they would run to the psalms and run to you at this time in Jesus name we pray amen.