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

Amen. Amen. Psalm 74 is a psalm by Asaph, and one of the things that jumped out at me as I read this psalm is just how many times the word congregation comes up over and over again. And what you have to understand is that in the Old Testament, when the Bible used the word congregation, that's the same as when the New Testament uses the word church, okay? And the proof for that is in Psalm 22, verse 22, when it says, in the midst of the congregation will I sing praise unto thee, in Psalm 22. Then you go to Hebrews 2, 12, it quotes that verse, and it says, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee, as a quote of that verse. So basically, when it says congregation in the Old Testament, that's quoted in the New Testament as church, because a church is simply an assembly or a congregation. To congregate means to come together into one place, and that's exactly what the church is. It's an assembly of born again baptized believers that are organized together and so forth. So when we read this passage that has to do with Old Testament situations about the congregation, about the house of God in the Old Testament, we can apply this in the New Testament. We can take a spiritual application and apply it to the church being under attack today. Now in the Old Testament, God's house was a physical building, right? You have the tabernacle and then you have the temple. But in the New Testament, the Bible says that the church is the house of God and it is the pillar and ground of the truth. So the house of God in the New Testament is not a building, it's rather the local church as an institution. Now there's an attack today on the house of God, just as these houses of worship and congregations and the temple itself were under attack in the Old Testament. So let's read this beginning in verse number one. O God, why hast thou cast us off forever? Why did thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Now obviously when he says, why have you cast us off forever, he's exaggerating a little bit. That's what it feels like. You know, God, are you ever going to defend us? Are you ever going to step in and defend us against the enemy? Now when he says thine anger doth smoke against the sheep of thy pasture, what we need to understand is that God can and does become angry with his own people and with his own children. Now you love your children, don't you? But have you ever gotten angry at your children? Sure you have. Does that mean that you didn't love them or that they're not your children anymore? No. And we even see a godly man like Moses on the receiving end of God's anger where the Bible says that God's anger was kindled against Moses. Well, if God's anger was kindled against Moses, it could be kindled against you and me from time to time as well. And so it says, why does thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old. And again, this has a New Testament parallel because if you remember in Acts 20 verse 28, it says that the church was purchased by his own blood. So he talked about in Acts 20, purchasing the church with his blood on the cross. And then here we see that Asaph says, remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased of old. The rod of thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed, this Mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelled. And Mount Zion is a reference to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built on Mount Zion. It's called Mount Zion. That's a spiritual name for that area, the city of David. Lift up thy feet under the perpetual desolations. Again, perpetual means something that goes on forever. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations, even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. And again, the sanctuary is another reference to the house of God. The sanctuary simply means the holy place. We think of a saint, a saint means a person who's holy. If we think of being sanctified, it means to be made holy. And so the sanctuary is the holy place. And so the holy place is referring to in the temple at Zion, at Jerusalem. You've got the house of God, the temple, Old Testament building. And it says that the enemy has done wickedly in the sanctuary. So here's what's interesting here. First he's talking about the congregation. Remember the congregation. And then he says, look what they've done wickedly in the sanctuary. Now in the Old Testament, these are two different things. Because in the Old Testament, you know, you've got the physical building, the sanctuary, and then you've got congregations of God's people coming together. But in the New Testament, they're both the same thing. Because in the New Testament, God's house is the congregation. In the New Testament, God's house is the church. So basically, this psalm is talking about a couple different things, but all of it applies in the New Testament to the local church. We can apply all of it. And don't ever get this attitude when you're reading the Old Testament of, oh, well, this is something back then, this has no relevance. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Even today, we can be instructed in how to be righteous today from anything in the Old Testament. Okay. All of the scripture is profitable for us, and it has a spiritual significance in the New Testament, even if it doesn't have a physical significance, even if it doesn't have a literal significance of, hey, you know, we're going to go fight the Philistines or something. All of that stuff means something in the New Testament, and it means something spiritual. And in fact, I'll go even further than that and say that it is more relevant to us today than it was to them back then. I think we get more out of the Book of Leviticus than the generation that received the Book of Leviticus. I believe that the Book of Deuteronomy means more to us today than it even meant in the generation that received it, because the Bible even tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, all these things are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. And he is referring to stories in the Book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers, and he says those things are written for us upon whom the ends of the world are come. We understand more about Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Book of Psalms than the Old Testament saints did, because we know so much more about Jesus, and the whole Bible is about Jesus. So if we know Jesus through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that's going to open up the Old Testament to a much deeper understanding. Okay. We never get this attitude of, oh, that's for back then. No, it's more for today than it even was for them. I mean, it is of paramount importance right now. So when he talks about the enemy in verse 3, doing wickedly in the sanctuary, the application today would be wicked people coming into the church and doing wickedness in the church. That's the application. Look if you would at verse number 4, thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations. Again, this is more prophetic of the New Testament than it even was relevant back then. I'm telling you, the Bible is timeless. And so today we have congregations, right, all over America, all over the world, congregations. And remember, that's the same word as church, churches. And he says, the enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations. Listen to me. There are today Christian churches, Baptist churches, churches that on the statement of faith say that they believe in salvation by faith and that the Bible is God's word, and they believe in the Trinity, and they believe in these things. And we have enemies coming into these churches, and they're not whispering about it. They're actually just roaring their garbage. People are coming in and loudly proclaiming heresy, false doctrine, just socially liberal garbage where they just want to push feminism and the Sodomite agenda, and they're just doing this openly from the pulpit today, even in churches where there are saved people in those churches and where the doctrine is a salvation by faith alone doctrine. Now look, if you're going to attack God's house, you can either do it from the outside or you could do it from the inside. And you know what? The devil's doing both. But when the devil attacks from the inside, that's his most effective attack. Okay. And let me show you what I mean. Look at the next verse in, well, let's finish verse four. Thy enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations. They set up their ensigns for a sign. The ensign is a banner that would be taken into battle to show which side you're on. Okay. So the two armies are coming at each other, and they've got the colors of their flag, and they've got their banner or ensign that they hold up representing what side they're on. And he's saying basically, the enemy's not even making a secret about this. I mean, the enemy just comes into the congregation and just roars and just sets up their flag and just plants the flag of, hey, we're here to teach whatever is contrary to God's word. Okay. Or we're here to bring in sin and iniquity and garbage. You say, well, does that go on? Look, folks, today, if we see the things that are going on in churches, it's bizarre. Okay. And let me give you an example. You know, look at the Southern Baptist. Okay. The biggest Baptist denomination in America is the Southern Baptist, right? I mean, the Southern Baptists are huge. What do they have, like 18,000 churches or something like that? So the Southern Baptist Convention is huge. And today, the Southern Baptist Convention is filled with garbage. The Southern Baptist churches are filled with garbage. Now, look, I'm sure the devil loves to be able to get ahold of a great number of Baptist churches and turn them over to his agenda. I mean, what do you think the devil would rather do, take over a Baptist church or take over a Methodist church that he's already owned for years, you know? You see what I'm saying? So basically, like, you know, he wants to get into God's house amongst God's people and he wants to go in amongst the Baptists and set up his incident, his banner. And you know, it seems like there's a big fight right now in the Southern Baptist Convention over women preachers. Now what kind of a stupid and ridiculous fight is that when the Bible says, as plain as day, I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. Adam was not deceived, the woman being deceived was in the transgression. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Does that sound like we need a female pastor? Is that what the Bible says? No. And then of course you have 1 Corinthians 14, if you would turn there to 1 Corinthians 14. And of course people will do all kinds of mental gymnastics and twist scripture to try to get out of these verses. But folks, the 1 Timothy chapter 2 scripture that I just quoted to you is clear, it's conclusive. And then we have 1 Corinthians 14, Into the Bargain, where it says in verse 34, Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. Now look, does that look like women are supposed to be in authority in the church and running the church and they should be the overseer of the church? That's what the bishop means. Bishop literally means overseer. Okay they're not meant to be the bishop, they're not meant to be the elder, they're not meant to be the shepherd of the sheep, the pastor. No, they're commanded to be under obedience, they're to keep silence in the church, they're not to teach or to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. That's what the scripture says. Now you say, oh well this is just anti-woman, wrong. You're anti-Bible if you disagree with it. You're anti-Jesus, you're anti-Paul, you're anti-New Testament, because that's what the Holy Ghost inspired. And if you don't like it, tough. That's what the Bible says. What kind of a stupid fight is this? Oh it's a big fight in the southern back. What kind of a denomination has to fight about this? How apostate are you when you have these dykes in the pulpit, you need to get a man behind the pulpit. And you know women who want to be a pastor frequently are probably dykes, if not all of them. Why? Because they're wicked. They're not called to preach behind the pulpit. It's not God that put them there. It's their own desire that put them there. Why are they so rebellious against God? And why do they just want to be men so bad and get up and do a man's job? A bunch of reprobates is what they are, these female pastors. You say, well that's a little harsh. Hey, you know what? The Bible teaches clearly that they shouldn't be a pastor and they want to be a pastor. No, what could be their agenda? It can't be a godly agenda. No you know what they want to do? They want to roar in the congregation. They want to set up their feminist junk emblem and ensign in the congregation and they want to use the house of God as a place to promote their social justice agenda. Folks, if you study Martin Luther King Jr., you will see that the reason that he went into the ministry was simply because he wanted to use the church as a place to launch his political agenda and launch his social justice agenda and to launch the agenda that he had with the Communist Party USA and everybody else that he was hanging around with. Watch the documentary on Marxist Lucifer King. Listen to the quotes out of his own mouth. That's what he was doing. He was using the church. And by the way, that's the same exact thing that Jim Jones did. Jim Jones was an atheist. Jim Jones said the Bible was a paper idol. He said there's no god in the sky that's going to save you. You have to save yourself. He was an atheist. He was a communist and he literally sang the Soviet Union's national anthem at the end of his evening services. No joke. Look it up. Jim Jones became a preacher and a pastor because he wanted to further his political agenda of bringing communism into the United States and that didn't work out. So then he set up a communist society down in Guyana out in the middle of the jungle and he tried to reach out to the Soviet Union and get recognized by them. You know, he wanted to set up a communist paradise. And how did that end up? It ended up the way communism always ends up, where everybody dies, right? It ends up with just mass murder of men, women, and children. That's how it ended up in the People's Republic of China. That's how it ended up in the Soviet Union. That's how it ended up in Cambodia and North Korea and everywhere else, okay? But my point is people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jim Jones are not the only people who are using church not as a place to worship the Lord or glorify Jesus. It's a place to glorify their own ambitions for their own social change or social justice warriors and all the things that they believe that are contrary to the Word of God. And that's what these female preachers are and that's what a lot of male preachers are when they just want to get up and preach all this liberal garbage. And look, the Southern Baptist is filled with literal homos behind the pulpit. You got all these churches where you got the...they get up and they...if they're not a homo, they look exactly like one. You know, let me name some of the names if I can think of them. Steven Furtick is one of them. Perry Noble was one of them. I know he got fired for being drunk but he's probably back...I'm sure he's back by now. These guys, you know, they restore these guys right back to the pulpit after they have these little personal failures in their life. But who else? Somebody help me out. Yeah, but he...I don't think he's one of the really super effeminate ones, is he? I'm talking about these guys that are just super queer like Steven Furtick, Perry Noble, well, Pastor Polkadot but he's not even a Southern Baptist. I mean, he's an independent Baptist. This Pastor John Guy in here...right here in Tempe, this guy that Paul Chappell sent out here. I mean, what a queer little sissy. You know, he called me on the phone a couple of weeks ago. He left us a voicemail saying, you know, oh, hey, you know, I want to get together and have coffee with Pastor Anderson. You know, have Pastor Anderson call me back, you know, I'd love to sit down with him and have coffee. It's just like...I'm just like, hell no. I can't even pray but, you know, oh, he's so godly, he's reaching out to me. Like I want...yeah, I really...yeah, let's...maybe we can go to Starbucks and we can, you know, we can sit around and you can split your britches trying to sit on a bar stool or something. I mean, the guy is just so faggoty and queer, you know, and you say, you shouldn't say that. I just did. And you know what, I'm telling you, it's an abomination in the sight of God for a man to get up and say, all right, you know, I'm the bishop, I'm the man of God, I'm the pastor and to dress like a complete homosexual. You know, it's not just wrong to be one, folks. It's wrong to look like one. How about we abstain from all appearance of evil? The Bible also says to send to be effeminate. So you got all these Southern Baptist trendies, they've taken Baptist off the name of the church so they want to see them all non-denom. They got the skinny jeans, the pink and lavender shirts and they just act like total sodomites. I mean, you know, I'd love to expose the perversion of Steven Furtick. I don't even want to say what he said because it was just so bad. You know, I don't even want to expose you to this garbage. Why don't you just take my word for it or just look at these people and see how wicked they are. And it's all under the name of Baptist. It's all under the name of Jesus Christ. It's wicked. Look, Psalm 74 is what we see happening today where they come into the sanctuary, they come into God's house, they just roar, they plant their flag, they set up their wickedness in the name of being a Baptist. Jimmy Carter is a Baptist today. Bill Clinton is a Baptist. These are famous Baptists of America. Boy, you don't just think the devil loves to infiltrate like that and basically hijack what it means to be a Baptist. And it's not just the Southern Baptist. The independent Baptists in many cases are going the same way. And look, when you have effeminate men seeking the pulpit, just mark it down. They're Judas Iscariots. They're reprobates. They are literal sodomites. Look, why would they act completely like a sodomite if they aren't one? And then seek out the pulpit. And then actually preach sermons in a flamboyant manner. It's an abomination. This is really interesting how this is wordier. Look down at verse 5. It says, a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. I really want you to understand this psalm because it's very deep. Let me break it down to you the best I can. I'm going to use kind of a silly illustration here, but this is what always popped into my mind when I read this verse. A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. I always think of a cartoon I saw as a kid of Paul Bunyan. Who knows what I'm talking about? Hey Paul, Paul Bunyan. So there was this Paul Bunyan cartoon and he had a big axe and he had a blue ox or something and he would chop down trees and then the ox would haul him up. And then this little professor comes along and he's got a chainsaw. He's got this invention and he's got some other machines and stuff. So he's going to have a contest with Paul Bunyan whether his chainsaw and machines are going to be able to outdo Paul Bunyan just with an axe and with the ox. And at the end they stack up all the wood and it's like a quarter inch different and Paul Bunyan lost by like this much and then it gets real sad like, hey Paul, Paul Bunyan. I'm probably remembering it wrong because it was about 30 years ago, but it was something like that. I got it? All right. I got the plot. Nailed. All right. So anyway, but when it says here a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. I thought of Paul Bunyan. He's famous for cutting down so many trees. So what he's talking about here is a woodsman. He's using an illustration or a parable about a woodsman who's well known for being able to just go into the woods and really chop down a lot of trees like Paul Bunyan. But look what it says next. But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. They've cast fire into thy sanctuary and have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. So get the picture here. He's saying they used to be well known for going out in the woods and hewing down lumber. Now they're coming into the sanctuary or God's house with that ax and they are basically using that ax to tear down God's house, to break down the carved work thereof which would be like, you can picture like ornate crown molding and just decorative engraving, okay. We're not talking about here idolatry or graven images but just the carved work of God's house where, you know, there were carvings of palm trees and things like that. And he says they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. Verse 7, they've cast fire into thy sanctuary. They've defiled by casting down the dwelling places of thy name to the ground. Now if we take a spiritual application here, when I first read about how they go into the woods and cut down trees, I'm thinking of all these other prophetic scriptures where the Bible talks about the wicked going out into the woods and cutting down a tree and what do they make out of it? They make idols. There are a lot of passages like that in the Old Testament about how they go out in the wood, they take the ax, they chop down the tree and they carve it, okay, notice the word, they carve it into an idol. You know, they make a graven image, they make some false god and then they deck it over with gold and silver plating and then they bow down to it and it's a common theme, right. You have scriptures like that throughout the Old Testament. Jeremiah comes to mind, other places. What he's saying is now what they're doing is they're going into God's house and tearing down the carved work thereof and they're throwing fire into the sanctuary, they're defiling it, they're tearing it down. So here's what the Bible's saying, you know, the enemy, one way that the enemy attacks is by going out in the woods, carving an idol. That would represent setting up a false religion outside of Christianity. That would be like Islam or that would be like Buddhism or Hinduism or Scientology or whatever the false religion that's just kind of outside of Christianity, right. But then there's the even more destructive attack which is when they stop being out in the woods with the ax, they just bring the ax right into God's house and start tearing down what God has set up, what God has ordained, what God has built. Instead of carving their own, you know, idol, carving a false god, what are they doing? They're taking that same ax that was used to cut down the tree and carve it into a false god or a false religion and what they're doing, they're taking that ax and they're taking what God has carved or what God has commanded to be carved, what God has created, the right religion and they want to tear it down and destroy it. Why don't they just do their own thing? Because it's the devil's agenda that they come in, that they infiltrate the church, that they infiltrate Christianity, that they infiltrate even amongst Baptist because they can do more damage by coming in with their ax and just chopping things down and setting up their incident than they can by just, you know, setting up a rival carving across the street where they carve a false god or something like that. So we see the enemy within here, inside God's house, tearing things up. You know, the Bible says if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? And so the enemy comes in and they take an ax to the preservation of God's word, right, to the fact that God's word is inspired and that it's preserved unto us today and that what we have today is exactly what the apostles wrote, it's exactly what Moses wrote, it's exactly what the psalmist wrote. We have God's word because Jesus said, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away but my word shall not pass away. But you know what? In many Baptist churches, they don't believe that. They take an ax to that and they tear that down and say, no, the Bible is not preserved. What we have today is close, you know, I mean there's no major doctrines affected but, you know, it's been corrupted over the years. Wrong. Speak for yourself, Mr. ESV, you have been corrupted but the King James Bible is the perfect word of God without error. This is what God has preserved for us today. Thank God for it. And so they take an ax to key doctrines like the Trinity, the virgin birth, they take an ax to soul winning and evangelism and look, by the way, most of the Southern Baptist Convention now is just totally Calvinist now. It seems like virtually every Southern Baptist is, has this Calvinist philosophy. That's why you don't see them burning up the streets on soul winning because guess what? When you have that Calvinist doctrine of predestination, it throws a big wet blanket on soul winning is what it does. It just throws a big wet blanket on it and they say, oh, we still believe we need to evangelize, you know, because you pin down the Calvinists, oh, we still, okay, but how much are you doing? Because I don't see the Calvinists out there burning up the streets on soul winning. I don't see the Southern Baptists leading the charge on soul winning and missions. I see the independent fundamental Baptists that are not Calvinists, the ones out there knocking the doors and preaching the gospel and getting the job done. The Southern Baptist Convention and their churches are a joke on the front of evangelism. Their idea of evangelism is to just put on skinny jeans and have a rock concert and, and hope that people are going to show up, but they're not actually going out in most case. And you know, there's a rare exception where you hear about, I saw somebody sent me some article a couple of years ago about, you know, a Southern Baptist church started knocking doors and they're like, we haven't done this in 20 years and we're going to start doing it. Hey, great. But you know what? 99% of them aren't doing it. And you know, the independent fundamental Baptists are going the same direction. They're just not as far down that road because today your average independent fundamental Baptist church is canceling soul winning or cutting it down to only twice a month, once a month, or just changing it to a door hanger. Folks, I hear from people all the time because you know, I have listeners all over the world that tune in to the YouTube channel and, and download sermons from our church's website. And they're always telling me, yeah, I go to an independent Baptist church, but there's no soul winning. And I asked the pastor and he said, we used to go and they're actually rekindling the soul winning. They're firing up the soul winning, but I'm telling you, soul winning amongst a lot of independent Baptist is dying and amongst the Southern Baptist, it already died a long time ago. Okay. And so the enemy has come in and taken an ax to the great commission, an ax to evangelism, an ax to real soul winning. They've taken the ax to the inspiration and the preservation of God's word. They've taken the ax to biblical separation and they become super worldly where they'll never preach anything about the clothing that we should wear. They'll never preach anything about the music that's out there corrupting the young people's minds and the Hollywood trash. They won't preach against that stuff. Why? Because they're enemies that have come in and they want the church to become worldly. They want the church to stop soul winning. They want to get them off the King James version and get them on the Bible of the month club. Okay. Because they're infiltrators. I'm telling you, there's an agenda of the devil to come into churches and ruin them. And the reason that's important for us is because you know what, the devil would love to ruin our church and he would love to ruin the churches of our friends. He would love for the new IFB 20 years from now to be the old IFB and to slowly digress and slowly regress and again, can I explain something to you? The old IFB used to be like us. There was a time when they were fired up, they were thriving, they were soul winning and they were doing great things for God. Now they're dying, but do you think we're immune from that? Do you think that our friends are immune from that? No. All of us have that tendency as we get old to become like the old IFB because they were once like us. They were once on fire, zealous and doing great things for God. And so we need to be on guard for these enemies that want to come in and destroy from within. They're much more dangerous than the enemy outside is the enemy within. He said in verse number eight, they said in their hearts, let us destroy them together. They've burned up all the synagogues of God in the land. And again, we'd apply this to the local churches, you know, because the synagogue is just in this case, just a place of assembly for God's people. This is many hundred years before the time of Christ, but even Jesus Christ went to the synagogue, you know, when it was under the old covenant and he went there frequently. In fact, it said it was his custom to go there and read scripture in the synagogue. So he did that. Nowadays, obviously synagogues are of Satan because they reject Jesus Christ. So it's the synagogue of Satan today. But at this time, this is back when the Jews were still worshiping the God of the Bible and had not rejected and killed the Messiah. So he says, they burned up all the synagogues of God in the land. We see not our signs. There is no more any prophet, neither is there any among us that knoweth how long. There's no man of God preaching to us and telling us the truth. Nobody knows what to say and what to preach. Oh God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name forever? Why withdrawest thou thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom. For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. So now we kind of enter a new phase in the psalm. So in the beginning of the psalm, he's explaining what the problem is. He's explaining the fact that the enemy has crept in, you know, because we're spiritualizing this and giving it a New Testament application. He's saying, look, the enemy's come in and hacked away at the physical building. To us, that's, you know, the enemy has come into the churches and hacked away at the foundations of what we believe. And they've hacked away at our doctrine and our practice as Bible-believing Christians. So he's explaining the issue about how they're blasphemous. They just roar in the congregation. They're not even hiding it anymore. I mean, they just get up and they just come in dressed like a queer and just preach stupid doctrine and nobody even bats an eye. It's just openly happening. And so he's frustrated. He's crying out to God saying, God, help us. Are you going to judge these people? Are you going to punish these people? What are you going to do here? So he's crying out for God to intercede because of the bad situation. So he says in verse number 11, why wouldst thou thy hand, even thy right hand, pluck it out of thy bosom? He's like, he's saying to God, you know, I don't even feel like you're even involved here. I mean, I know you have the power to fix this, but it seems like your hand is just in your bosom. Like you're just, your hand is not outstretched to save us and help us and, you know, fix things in your house. And again, this is a physical destruction, but it's representative of a spiritual destruction in the New Testament. So now he's going to begin to talk about the great works that God has done over the years because he's basically saying, you know, where's the Lord God of Elijah? You know, God, you've done these great things in the past. Please judge now, fix this now. So he brings up these things. He says in verse 12, for God is my king of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength. And this is probably a reference to the Red Sea. You know, he parted the Red Sea is the miracle that comes up a lot in the book of Psalms. So he divided the sea. He parted the Red Sea. And then it says thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou breakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gave us him to be meet to the people inhabiting the wilderness. Now this is, this is a really interesting scripture here, Leviathan. And if you would flip over to Isaiah chapter 27, Isaiah chapter number 27 mentions a little bit about Leviathan also, uh, Isaiah chapter 27 verse one in that day, the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan, that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. And so Leviathan is a picture of Satan or a picture of the devil. So this was actually a literal animal and it's described in the book of Job in great detail. Job chapter 41 describes this great beast called Leviathan. It describes another great beast in Job chapter 40 called Behemoth. And Behemoth and Leviathan are these gigantic reptiles, okay, and it, and it describes them in such a way where, you know, you, you would definitely consider Behemoth certainly to be some kind of what we would call a dinosaur today. Okay. I don't think there's any question about that and I've gone through and, and preach that verse by verse and, and shown the ridiculousness of the theory of, oh, Leviathan's a hippopotamus or Leviathan's a crocodile or Behemoth is a hippopotamus and all this nonsense. It's clearly talking about tremendous beasts that are what we dig up today and call dinosaurs. Okay. So the Bible knew about dinosaurs before they were discovered in the 1800s by archeologists because, yes, dinosaurs and, and human beings were on the earth at the same time. Okay. So the Bible already predicted dinosaurs that were found later in the 1800s, just that they're extinct now, but they were not extinct in the early Bible times. And so Leviathan is this sea called this sea serpent or dragon of the sea. And a dragon, when we hear the word dragon, we, we automatically think of a mythical beast, but a dragon is simply a giant reptile. That's what you would just call a giant reptile, like a giant lizard, we would call a dragon. And there are even beasts today that we would call like a Komodo dragon or other things like that that, and how, how big do those Komodo dragons get? Don't they get six feet long, five feet long, you know, so it's a considerably large lizard and so it has dragon in the name. Obviously the dinosaurs are gigantic lizards, if you will, you know, that's, that's what it basically means. The word dinosaur basically is coming from Greek words, meaning a terrible or scary lizard is basically what that means. Okay. Because the dino part means that it's very dreadful, fearful, scary, terrible. So it's a terrible lizard is what a dinosaur literally means. Okay. That's what Leviathan is. I mean, he's a terrible lizard and so is Behemoth. So we see these creatures, we don't know exactly what they were like, but they were some kind of a gigantic dinosaur like creature there. This is definitely a reptile and it lives in the sea and I don't have time to describe it in Job chapter 41. You can read that on your own. It's one of the most interesting chapters in the whole Bible, it's fascinating. But what we see here in Psalm 74 is that if you go back there, it says thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou breakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gave us him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. So it seems to be that when they crossed the red sea, a little wildlife got injured in the process of parting the red sea. So when God parted the red sea and made it a wall of water on each side, he ended up cracking the heads of some sea beasts in the process and gave them to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness, meaning that basically they ate that which was washed up on the shore from this cataclysm of parting the red sea. Now the Bible doesn't give us a lot of detail about that, but that's what's being said here And obviously it's very poetic and it's more about the spiritual significance than a little bit of wildlife that got knocked around when he parted the red sea. Because these that he talks about, you know, breaking their heads and giving them to be meat to the inhabitants of the world, these are actual literal animals. These are, this is a sea animal, but it's an animal that represents the devil. For example, if we see a snake, a snake is not the devil, but a snake is something that God uses to represent the devil. Just like we see a lion, you know, a lion can represent Christ or the Bible says that the devil is like a roaring lion, you know. So animals are sometimes just used to illustrate spiritual things. And so the sea serpent or sea dragons here known as Leviathan are picturing, even though they're a literal animal that existed, it pictures the devil just like a snake pictures the devil. He's called the great dragon and he's called the great serpent both, okay. And so he says here, he break the heads of Leviathan in pieces. And I think the literal interpretation here is talking about multiple Leviathans because this is just a species of creature that were harmed in the parting of the red sea. But I think there's a spiritual meaning also of the fact that in Revelation, when it talks about the devil and the antichrist and all the things that are going to happen in the end times, the picture is a dragon with seven heads, okay. So I think this is alluding to that, even though the literal meaning is multiple creatures. But what's the point? What is he saying here? What he's saying is, look, you have the power to smash these devils, you've smashed them in the past, these bunch of devils that are creeping into your house, these bunch of devils that are creeping into the sanctuary and they're destroying the foundations of our doctrines and our beliefs and they're dragging the name of what it means to be a Baptist in the mud. He's saying, look, you have the power to crack these people's heads because you've done it in the past. You've destroyed the dragons in the past, you broke the head of Leviathan, you can do it again. He's asking God, this is basically an imprecatory Psalm here where he's praying for God to wipe these people out and punish these people for their wickedness and to intercede. He said, thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood, verse 15, thou driest up mighty rivers, the day is thine, the night also is thine, thou has prepared the light and the sun, thou has set all the borders of the earth, thou has made summer and winter. He's just praising God for his mighty power saying, God, you have the power, get your hand out of your bosom. Do something, please. Remember this, verse 18, that the enemy hath reproached, O Lord, and that foolish people have blasphemed thy name. O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked. Forget not the congregation of thy poor forever. So notice he pictures the enemy as this great giant serpent or giant dragon creature and then he pictures himself like this little bird. You know, he's like this little turtledove, just being turned over to some giant... That's what he's saying. You know, God, help me. He has a humble view of himself here and he's portraying himself as totally helpless and he needs God to intercede and fight against the enemy. He says in verse 19, O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove, that's a little tiny bird, unto the multitude of the wicked. Forget not the congregation, there it is again, of thy poor forever. Have respect unto the covenant, for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. O let not the oppressed return ashamed. Let the poor and needy praise thy name. Arise, O God, plead thine own cause. He's saying, look, God, don't do it for my sake. It's your name that's being blasphemed. It's not just me. Yeah, I don't want to be turned over to these beasts, but Lord, what about your name that's being blasphemed? Remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily? It says at the end of verse 22, plead your own cause, he's saying. You know, verse 23, forget not the voice of thine enemies, the tumult of those that rise up against thee increaseth continually. So the Psalm kind of ends on a negative note of just, he starts out the Psalm saying, look, why did you cast us off forever? Is this desolation just perpetual? I mean, these people, it seems like they just get away with everything, they ruin everything, they destroy everything, and, you know, what about all the stuff you've done in the past? Why don't you pull your hand out of your bosom? Why don't you take care of this, God? And I think one of the things that we can learn from this is that wicked people get away with things in this life, and God sits back and lets them do it. Okay. So just because people are getting away with something, it doesn't mean that God approves. God is not always in a hurry to just immediately judge sin, but his judgment always comes. And when it comes, it comes down hard. But it's not always immediate. And so don't be surprised if you see wicked people prospering, wicked people thriving, wicked churches and wicked denominations going forward, and you're just like, God, pluck your hand out of your bosom. That's how Asaph felt. And he kind of felt similar in Psalm 73. We don't have time to go through Psalm 73, but he felt the same way. You know, he's seeing the wicked prosper. Where are you, God? It's a common theme in his Psalms. So this Psalm kind of ended on a little bit of a negative note, like, the tumult of those that rise up against thee increases continually. I mean, it just ends with, man, it's just getting worse. It just keeps getting worse. That's basically the last thought in this Psalm, is it's bad, it just keeps getting worse. God, where are you? I mean, that's basically the Psalm in a nutshell, right? So I didn't want to end the sermon there, because it's a little bit of a downer, right? But I found that if you roll right into Psalm 75, then you kind of get a solution here. I like Psalm 75. He says, unto thee, O God, do we give thanks. And unto thee, do we give thanks, for that thy name is near, thy wondrous works shall declare. So this is the third Psalm in a row here by Asaph. So it's the same author. We had 72, 73, or I'm sorry, excuse me, not 72, 73 and 74. Now we're rolling it at 75. So this is kind of the third one in the trilogy here. And he says, when I shall receive, verse two, the congregation, I will judge uprightly. I really like what he says there. When I receive the congregation, I will judge uprightly. I think he's looking at somebody else in charge of the congregation that's kind of just letting the enemy in, letting the weirdos in, letting the false teachers in, letting the feminazis and the social justice warriors and the sodomites and everybody with their wicked godless agenda, the liberals, the Bible correctors, all the bad people just letting them in. You know, I think Asaph is sitting there thinking, well, when I receive the congregation, I'm going to judge uprightly. And then verse three is one of these really exaggerated statements in Psalms. The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved. I bear up the pillars of it, Selah. So obviously the Bible, especially in the book of Psalms, uses these tremendous exaggerations just as a poetic device. You don't want to go crazy with taking these type of things too literally when you're in the book of Psalms. This is where a lot of false doctrine comes from when people take things that are clearly poetic and they take them too literally, okay? Not every single person dissolved, okay? And he's certainly not actually literally bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. But basically what he's saying is that he feels like he's alone. You know, and this is how Elijah felt. If you remember when Elijah went to the mountain and he fleed and he wanted to die and he was depressed and he kept saying, you know, I'm the only one left and they're trying to kill me. You know, there's all these prophets of Baal and prophets of the grove and Jezebel and he said, I'm the only one left who's taken his dead. And then God told him, you're not the only one. There are 7,000 men that haven't bowed the knee to the image of Baal. But here we see Asaph felt the same way that Elijah felt. I'm alone. I'm the only one. Everybody else is just dissolved and I'm bearing the pillars of it. I'm holding the earth on my shoulders, which is an expression that we still use today of, you know, bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders. I said unto the fools, deal not foolishly. Now keep, keep your place there. But look back at Psalm 74 and look what it said in verse 18. Remember this, that the enemy has reproached the Lord and that the foolish people have blasphemed thy name. So the foolish people are blaspheming the name of God. He basically says, look, when I received the congregation, I'm going to judge uprightly. I said unto the fools, deal not foolishly and to the wicked, lift not up the horn. Lift not up your horn on high. Speak not with a stiff neck. So he's basically rebuking the fools. He's rebuking. Instead of just letting them come in and roar and set up their incense, he's basically taking them on. He's taking them to task. He's going to rebuke them. He's going to call them what they are, rebuke their wickedness, their stiff neck and so forth. Verse six, for promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south. Now which one is left out there? North because of the fact that north represents up, you know, up is, you know, when we talk about on a map up, it's typically north is at the top. It'd be pretty weird to have a map where south is at the top or something. You'd say it's upside down. So promotion comes from the north and what he's saying there is that God is the one. It's explained in the next verse. God is the judge. Verse seven, he put it down one and set it up another for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup and the wine is red. It is full of mixture and he poureth out of the same, but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall ring them out and drink them. And of course the cup of wine represents the wrath of God throughout the Bible. This is symbolic of God's wrath. I will declare forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. So here's what I love about putting Psalm 74 and Psalm 75 together because Psalm 74 by itself is a little bit of a downer, but I love Psalm 75. It's uplifting and I think the message of Psalm 75 is, you know what? I'm going to wipe out these wicked people. You know what I mean? In Psalm 74 it's like, God, where are you? Psalm 75, all the horns of the wicked will I cut off. You know, I think he understands in Psalm 75 that God's going to use him to throw the enemy out of the house of God. And this is another profound thing that we can learn from this. So first of all, we learned that, hey, sometimes the wicked prosper, they get away with things. Don't ever think that they're getting away with it permanently because they're not. If it feels like God has forsaken you, don't ever think he's forsaken you permanently. He hasn't. Don't think for one second that God's not going to right the wrong, that God's not going to fix things and punish the wicked and reward the godly because it's going to happen. It's just that it happens in God's time and we have to be patient. But I think another powerful thing is that we can't just sit back and complain about things. Now, there's a place to complain to the Lord about things in prayer. We shouldn't complain to each other because there's nothing more annoying than complaining and murmuring and sniveling. But we take that stuff to the Lord. We pour out our complaint unto the Lord. And I'm all for praying to the Lord. And I think the things that he prays in Psalm 74 are great things to pray. But at the end of the day, though, God uses people. God uses us. So we don't want to be these people that are just constantly praying for revival or praying for God to destroy the wicked or praying for the house of God to be restored. What we need to do is when we receive the congregation, we need to judge uprightly. We need to rebuke the wicked and we need to break off the horns of the wicked ourselves. Now again, in the New Testament, this isn't a physical fight. We're not going to physically assault anyone. But these false prophets and false teachers, they need their horns chopped off. When Kanye West lift up his horn, I spoke up to cut it off. That's what a lot of people should have been doing when we have this false teacher, this lying devil with his counterfeit Christianity. But instead, they're saying, come on in. Joel Osteen is saying, come on in. And Kanye West just comes in with an ax and just starts chopping down all the godly traditions and doctrines and telling us that Mormons are fine and Catholics are fine and just bringing in this kind of woo kind of Christianity. That's not real Christianity. This bunch of dancing around and yelling and hooting and hollering. You know what? That's not God's house. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that God's house is a house of prayer for all nations and it's a place where we come together and we hear the word of God read and we hear the word of God preached and we get organized to do the work of the Lord. We don't just get up and have three hours of just fluff. Where we don't offend anybody and we're just going to encourage everybody and have an experience or whatever. Hey, that's a fraud. It's empty. And you know, some wicked perverse blasphemous rap artist has no place being invited into the house of God just because he claims the name of Christ even though there's absolutely no evidence that he actually believes the gospel. Because when you listen to the words coming out of his mouth, he does not give a clear presentation of the gospel. He has not one time given a clear presentation of the gospel. All that comes out of his mouth is just cleaning the outside of the cup and the platter. You know, cleaning up his life in this area. Oh, look, it's down there. Folks, you don't get saved by cleaning up your life. It has nothing to do with it. You know, I'm not hearing the word of God flowing out of his mouth. I'm not hearing a presentation of the gospel. I mean, look, folks, I don't care if you've only been saved for a week. I don't care if you've been saved for three weeks or a month, okay? If I gave you a microphone and said, hey, you have a chance to give the gospel to 20,000 people, here's the microphone, give the gospel to 20,000 people, you know what you'd do? What are some things that you would do? And I know you've been saved more than a month, but you know, what would you do? What would you say? Hey, you'd say, hey, we're not saved by our works. We're saved by faith. Here's what the Bible says. Here's Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Here's John 3, 16. And look, even if you didn't know all the doctrines, even if you didn't have it all together, you'd at least get up and just explain what it means to be saved and how to be saved. Can somebody show me where he did that? Can somebody get up and show me where he explained that salvation's by faith and that it's not by our works and that you can't lose your salvation? I haven't heard anything like that. I'm hearing a bunch of meaningless fluff. And people are just eating it up. Why? Because most of the people that are eating up, they're not even saved. So they don't even know what the gospel is. So they can't even understand the absence of the gospel because they don't even know what to look for. You know, how hard is it? I don't know. He's a baby Christian. No, he's not. And even if he were a baby Christian, how hard is it to just get up and just explain how you got saved? How much do you have? Look, if you are saved, you know how to get saved. Am I right? I mean, if you're saved, you know how to get saved. So tell us how to be saved, Kanye. All I want to do is just dedicate my life to preaching the gospel, yet he can't even do it once. So his life is dedicated to doing something when he can't even do it one time. He cannot even present the gospel message one time. He cannot even get up and say, okay, everybody, let me explain to you how to be saved. And here's the Roman's road or something of that nature. Why? Because he's not saved himself. He thinks that salvation is just cleaning up his life and following Jesus. He thinks it's works. He thinks it's repenting of his sins and turning over a new leaf and cleaning up the outside. But you see these people, they come in and that's just one, there are lots of other examples. But you know what? It's the job of preaching to chop off that horn. Chop off Joel Osteen's horn when he exalts it. Chop off Rick Warren's horn when he exalts it. Chop off. And the horn here, you say, what in the world, what's the horn? You know, it's an illustration, it's again using animals as an illustration, you know, where they lift up their horn as a sign of, hey, you know, I'm tough, look at me. It's basically just a way of aggrandizing himself, sort of like, you know, a peacock will kind of show its feathers and other animals will lift up the horn and exalt their horn. And so that's the illustration that's being used here. All the horns of the wicked will I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. You know, he's ready to take on the enemy and that's where we need to be. Yes, yes, prayer, but you know, we also need to open our mouths and preach and take on the enemy. But don't get discouraged and think, oh man, you know, everything's going bad. No, because look at all the blessings in Psalm 75, verse 9, I'll declare forever I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. Verse 7, God's the judge, he put it down one and set it up another, okay. God is doing great works, it's just that it's not always in our timing, we don't always understand exactly what he's doing, but we need to also get in there and do the work ourselves. And when we get the congregation, you know, if you're ever a pastor of a church or you ever have a chance to lead, you need to decide that you are going to not just allow the weirdos in. And one of the worst things about pastors is not what they say, it's what they don't say. You know what I mean? Like a lot of pastors, it's not that they're saying anything bad, it's that they're not saying anything. And the fact that they just let in every weirdo and just put anybody behind the pulpit and just let them teach lies and teach garbage. I can't even count how many pastors are 100% right on on salvation by grace through faith and then they'll have a guest preacher get up and say, hey, you got to turn from all your sins or you're not saved or you got to stop sinning. You got to repent of all your sins. You haven't repented, you're not saved, you're still doing the same sins, you're not saved. And they get up and teach that. And then you call the pastor on the carpet, oh, I don't think that's what he meant. You know that's what he meant. And who cares what he meant, that's what he said. But how many times has that happened? Or oh, he's a really good guy, I don't know why he said that, I can't believe he said that. Hey, you know what, if anybody gets up behind this pulpit and teaches a false gospel or teaches heresy, then you know what I need to do? I need to immediately get up in the pulpit and say, hey, that's a lie. And I'm not talking about just some little disagreement or a little different view on something. There are certain things in the Bible that aren't clear. I'm talking about somebody gets up and preaches heresy behind this pulpit, then I had better have the guts to get up and say, hey, that was a workspace salvation. That's a false, and if I don't, then am I fit to pastor if I'm just going to let in the enemy, just come in with an ax and start swinging his ax and I just kind of go, I'm going to say no. And I'm going to get out my own ax, I got an ax too, buddy, and my ax is bigger than your ax. I'm going to chop off that horn. You know, you stick that horn up and I'm going to chop it off. You're going to be de-fanged. You're going to be declawed. You're going to get your head broken. And if it's not, if God's not going to break your head like he did in, in the red sea, then I'll break it. It's basically what, you know, so you see the progression with Asaph, he's kind of warming up in 73 and 74 by 75 he's ready to start chopping them down himself. And you know what? That's what we're called to do. We're called to fight the good fight and to wrestle against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great Psalm, both of these great Psalms, Lord, and help us to not be tolerant of wickedness coming into the church and just sit back and allow these broads to get behind the pulpit and these tomboy preachers and these lesbians and these queer little sissies and all these social justice warriors and left-wing liberals and Bible correctors and false teachers and just let them come in, Lord, help us to chop off those horns when they pop up and help us to always pray to you and rely on you to fight our battles, but help us also to get out the sword and fight some battles ourselves. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.