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Man Psalm 76 we're continuing through the Psalms of Asaph and in verse number one the Bible reads in Judah is God known his name is great in Israel and one of the major themes of this particular psalm is the Greatness of God the magnificence of God and I've got three points on that tonight in the first point I want to make is that God is greater than all other gods Okay, and this is something that is taught throughout the Bible But what I want to point out here in verse number one is that it starts out by saying that God that Judah Excuse me. It starts out by saying that in Judah is God known and his name is great in Israel now obviously God is tied to that geography Biblically, but the difference between God and the other gods of the heathen is that God was not just only known in Judah He did not only have a great name in Israel But there were many many prophecies in the Old Testament that God would become known throughout the entire earth and that all nations would work worship God and Really? I think this is probably one of the most remarkable prophecies of the Bible that has been fulfilled in such dramatic fashion Okay There are obviously a lot of different religions in the ancient world and different gods and what's interesting about that Is that these other gods of other geographies whether it be like Greek gods Roman gods Mesopotamian gods Egyptian gods they never even made claims like this that hey Eventually the whole world's gonna worship us Eventually the whole planet all the nations are gonna be worshipping us Those claims were never made and yet in the Old Testament this claim is made repeatedly And I'm just gonna give you just a small sampling of this just looking at a few scriptures But over and over again the prediction is made that the whole world is gonna worship the God of the Bible and that Everybody on the whole planet is gonna know who he is other gods aren't even trying to make that claim Not only did the God of Judah the God of Israel make that claim, but he actually delivered on that claim because here we are in 2025 and Everybody knows who God is Everybody knows about the Lord Jesus Christ the Bible is on every continent in every country And it's just gone around the world again and again and again Listen to some of these predictions from the Bible and you can turn to some of these if you want Maybe you could flip over if you want to Isaiah chapter 2. We'll come back to Psalms, but while you're turning I'm gonna read for you from Psalm 22 And if you know anything about Psalm 22 Psalm 22 is one of the great Messianic Psalms about the Lord Jesus Christ it starts out with that famous verse my God my God Why is thou forsaken me and it talks about Jesus's hands and feet being pierced on the cross everything So it's a it's a very good Psalm about Christ and his death on the cross and so forth But toward the end of that Psalm 22 it says in verse 27 all the ends of the earth Shall remember and turn unto the Lord and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee For the kingdom is the Lord's and he is the governor among the nations so that you know the claim is being made that all the kindreds of the nations are gonna worship before God and of course this is in the context of The Lord Jesus Christ crucifixion because let's face it. Why does everybody in the world know who God is? Why does everybody know about books like Genesis Exodus Leviticus, why do they know about Psalms and Proverbs and all these Old Testament scriptures? It's because of Christianity Okay, it's not Judaism that has spread the Word of God and spread the knowledge of God throughout the world because Judaism is a tiny Tiny minority in this world and has been hated and despised for the last 2,000 years not respected Okay Let's just look at the facts. Let's just look at some of the data. Okay? 2.3 billion people Claim the name of Christ tonight in 2025. There are 2.3 Billion people claiming to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ not saying that they're all saved But that would claim the name of Christ. How many Jews are there in this world? Well, the total number of Jews period is 15.7 million And only a couple million of those are actually even religious at all. So you have a couple million Religious Jews and you have a couple billion Religious Christians, so you have literally 1,000 times as many people Claiming to be Christians as you have that actually would say yes I believe in Judaism and I'm you know I'm believing that the Torah is the Word of God or whatever and then yet you'd have 2.3 billion Christians that would make that claim So, you know, I wonder who's driving the knowledge of the glory of the Lord here. It's obviously Christianity Psalm 86 verse 8 says among the gods there is none like unto thee O Lord neither Are there any works like unto thy works all nations whom thou hast made? Shall come and worship before thee O Lord and shall glorify thy name now if God is just another little regional God You know the Philistines have their God and the Syrians have their God and he's just the god of this little You know podunk nation in the Levant just this little country That's not really that significant in the scheme of things That'd be pretty bold claim to make for this little regional deity Which is how sometimes people will try to paint the God of the Old Testament Okay. Well if that's true, if it's just this little regional deity that's kind of interesting that he now dominates the entire planet and everybody on this planet knows about the Ten Commandments and they know who God is and Jesus Christ's name is just Everywhere. Okay. Why because that's what God said would happen and that's what happened Look at Isaiah chapter 2 verse 2 It says and it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations Shall flow unto it go if you would to chapter 11 in Isaiah chapter 11 I'm gonna start reading while you get there It says and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots Of course, this is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of David But jump down to verse 9 so in the context again of Jesus it says in verse 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters Cover the sea and in that day there shall be a root of Jesse talking about Jesus of course the Son of David which shall stand for an ensign of the people and to it shall the Gentiles seek and His rest shall be glorious go to Isaiah chapter 45 and look we're just looking at a small sampling But this is a major theme throughout the Old Testament and what you have to understand about why this is so remarkable Is that when this is being written, you know, this stuff is like, you know in the case of Isaiah What approximately like 700 years before Christ or something like that when God was more? Regional, you know when other nations sort of had their gods and then there's Israel's God the true God and obviously We know that even in the Old Testament period Prophets are going out of Israel and preaching the gospel in other nations and the Word of God went forth But let's face it in general in the Old Testament Israel was by far, you know the Concentration of where people are that are worshipping the Lord God, but there's a prediction being made That in the future and of course It's connected with prophecies about Jesus that all nations are gonna worship the Lord The whole world is gonna know who the Lord is The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea and again, it's a bold prediction in 700 BC But yet we see it fulfilled even, you know Dramatically probably beyond what the people who lived at that time could have even imagined as far as just how? ubiquitous the knowledge of the Lord is in 2025 and and obviously it's been this way for a long time. Where did I have you turn chapter 45? It says in verse 22 of Isaiah 45 look unto me and be ye saved All the ends of the earth for I'm God and there's none else I've sworn by myself The word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto me every knee shall bow every tongue shall swear and then you don't have to turn to these but Habakkuk 2 14 for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea Zechariah 14 9 and the Lord shall be king over all the earth in that day shall there be one Lord and one His name one and again, that's just a small sampling You know, we could go through and find lots of other Bible verses making this bold Proclamation that God is not just another God It's not and this is what the atheists of our day would have us to believe Oh, there's just kind of all these gods all these different religions these little regional gods and you know Yahweh as they like to call him, you know, he's just one of them. He's just one of all these different You know, why should I believe in this one particular God over all the rest of the gods well because that God predicted that he was going to dominate the entire world and that everybody in the world would know who he is and it's Connected to predictions about the Lord Jesus Christ Dying on the cross for our sins and then we can look back and see that prophecy fulfilled to a T That yes God the Lord the God of Israel the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob has taken over the world so that when people think of God, that's who they're thinking of and even False religions like Islam because you know, we already said Christianity represents 2.3 billion people Well, the second largest religion in the world is Islam with 1.6 billion people Even Islam says oh the god of the Torah is the true God The God of Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers are and it even says in the Quran Hey the God of the book of Psalms is the true God So so basically even though they've twisted and perverted the faith They're still acknowledging the God of Psalms as being the true God So just if you just combine Christianity and Islam it's only half the people on the planet not just being aware of God because there's about 8 billion people in the world and about 4 billion of them are saying hey, we believe in the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob So much for a little regional God right when half the planet is Confessing him today in 2025 and the other half of the planet knows who he is They're still aware of him. They still know so God is far superior to other gods So back to our Psalm tonight Psalm 76. I just wanted to lay that down before we get into Psalm itself. It says in verse 1 in Judah is God known His name is great in Israel, right? But now where we're standing in 2025 this gets expanded to in America is God known in the entire world. His name is great everyone in the world today Realizes that when we're talking about the one true God We're talking about the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, you know Every major monotheistic religion would confess that it's not like there's some other really big competition for God here besides that But then in verse 2 it says in Salem also is his tabernacle and his dwelling place in Zion so again I think that what the psalmist is getting at in these first couple verses is to make sure that we know Which God is the true God the true God is the God of Israel The God of Judah and in Salem is his tabernacle and his dwelling place in Zion now in John chapter 4 Jesus has a confrontation with the woman at the well and when he talks to the woman at the well she says to him our fathers worshipped in this mountain and Ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. This is John chapter 4 verse 21 Jesus saith unto her woman Believe me the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father Ye worship, you know not what we know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews Okay, so when Jesus talks to the woman at the well, she puts this sort of dilemma before him saying well you know our fathers worship God in this mountain talking about Mount Gerizim and You say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship So she's kind of saying which one is it, you know, you know, I perceive that you're a prophet You seem like you know what you're talking about. So let me ask you a Bible question, you know Do we worship God in Mount Gerizim like the Samaritans say or do we worship God in? Jerusalem like the Jews are saying and Jesus gives her a clear answer He says first of all woman believe me the hour cometh We shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father What he's saying is that in a very short time geography is not going to matter Why is geography not going to matter in a very short time? Because the earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea in a Very short time the entire world is going to know about and worship the Lord and it's not going to be associated with a certain Geography of coming to the temple or Jerusalem, whatever. It's going to be local churches It's going to be people worshipping the Lord and praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ And wherever two or three are gathered together in his name, he'll be there in the midst But he still gives her a clear answer to the question Even though he says look this is kind of a moot point since in a very short time Geography is not going to matter because the whole planet is going to be worshipping Christ But he says ye worship, you know not what we know what we worship for salvation of the Jews So what he's saying is your biggest problem as Samaritans is not that you're worshipping in the wrong geography That's not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem is that you don't even know God Who you're claiming to worship you worship, you know, not what? Right. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews And so the idea here is that the answer to this question is Jerusalem not Verizon right that is where men ought to worship and it's not because that place is So special per se it is rather because of the fact that that place is Identifying you with the true God and if you're worshipping in Jerusalem and you got the Bible of Jerusalem And you're at that house, then you're actually worshipping the correct God Whereas if you're in these other geographies worshipping and joining up with another religion You're worshipping a different God wrong God and you don't know what you're worshipping You don't know the truth and you don't have salvation because the Bible says salvation is of the Jews Okay, because this is of course back when the Jews were worshipping the true God unlike now where they are not worshipping the true God because the Bible says if you don't have the son you don't have the father and so they have a different God because they've rejected Jesus he says for the hour cometh and Now is when the true worshippers shall worship the father in spirit and in truth For the father seeketh such to worship him God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth So this is what Jesus told the woman at the well And so the important thing here in Psalm 76 verse 2 when it says in Salem also is his tabernacle and his dwelling place in Zion is that we are identifying the correct God Right because a lot of times people could just use the word God and they're not referring to the God of the Bible So we're homing in on the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob the God of Scripture the God of the Old Testament and so Jesus is looking at the Samaritans who are kind of worshipping God or worshipping the Lord But you know, they're not really worshipping the true God are they they think they are but they're not sort of like Muslims They think they are but they're not because if you don't have the son You don't have the father and Muslims are saying what that God doesn't have a son well, then you're not talking about the God of the Bible because the God of the Bible does have a son and his name is Jesus and so you can see how Geography is not special in and of itself But rather geography helps us to identify with the correct God and the correct Bible Okay, the Samaritan Scriptures are corrupt and tampered with and it's not that they were in Gerizim That was really their biggest problem it was the fact that they worshiped they know not what they knew not what and and the Jews knew what they worshiped and Salvation is of the Jews because they had the right God and the right Bible. Okay, that's what we see in this passage So that's the big difference now a lot of people today They make an idol out of that land or out of that geography even to this day When Jesus is saying in John chapter 4, hey, it's not gonna matter in a very short time He says the hour cometh and now is right When the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth He said believe me the hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father So why do we feel like we need to go to Jerusalem to go worship the Father when Jesus said hey, man The hour is coming When you're not gonna be doing it in Mount Gerizim and you're not gonna be doing it in Jerusalem So I went to Mount Gerizim and I went there and let me tell you something. There's very little going on there There's not much going on Okay, when I was there there were no other tourists there not even one We were the only people there and we drove up as far as we could drive then we got out of the car Hopped a fence and you know went all the way to the top of Mount Gerizim there was nobody there and There's a little tiny community of people living there that identify as the Samaritans And they're still following like a Samaritan religion sort of the religion of the woman at the well before she got saved Before she believed in Jesus. It's just this tiny little community a handful of people We're talking like on the order of like I don't remember the exact number, but don't quote me on this But maybe on the order of like a couple hundred people or something right Millions and billions of Christians and there's just kind of a couple hundred people that are still like stuck on Mount Gerizim or something But there's there's nothing going on there Okay, and then in Jerusalem now, there's a lot going on in Jerusalem But most of it is false religion, right because it's predominantly Judaism that's going on there, but then you also have all these misguided Christians going there Thinking somehow that they're gonna find some closer deeper connection with God by going to that place By being in that place that somehow that's gonna bring them closer to God and I do not believe that for one second Look if I thought that going to Jerusalem and going on the Temple Mount Or going to Golgotha or going to the empty tomb if I thought it was gonna bring me to closer to God then I would Have done it You know, I've traveled a lot of places in this world and I've taken a lot of trips and I could easily just right after The service night I could easily just book a flight and just hop on a plane and go there Right, it wouldn't be hard at all. It would take me just a few minutes I have the resources to do that and I could just easily, you know, I could probably book us all a trip there You know what? I mean and we could all go there and we could all get closer to God Except that's stupid and meaningless because it wouldn't bring us closer to God Okay, and and and why don't we just listen to what Jesus said when he said You're neither gonna worship God in this mountain and you're not gonna worship God in Jerusalem So why would I think I need to go worship God in Jerusalem when Jesus literally said you're not gonna worship God in Jerusalem Okay, then I'm not gonna do it Lord. Thank you. And that's why I've never been there and I never planned to go there Right, I you know, I have no desire to go there I'll go there in the millennium when Jesus is physically they're ruling and reigning then I'll go there and There's no reason to go there before that because before that it's basically just a dried-out desiccated desert place and if you want that well Just look out the window because when we even when we drove through Palestine, you know what it looked like to me it looked a lot like Arizona and Then we went up on the mountaintop where where Moses looked into the Promised Land and you know Because I've never been to Israel, but I went up on the mountaintop and I looked into Israel And you know what? It looked like a dry desert It looked a lot like just coming down the i-17 from Flagstaff and coming into Phoenix. And so what's the point? There is no point right? What is the point of that geography the point of emphasizing? Jerusalem is that it identifies the true God the knowledge of God the scriptures of God that Jesus is the son of David and Jerusalem's the city of David. That's the significance of Jerusalem Not the physical location like like people get all spooky about it Like, you know this it's it's like a portal to another dimension or something It's sort of like when you go to these vortexes You know like Sedona is sort of like a spiritual vortex, right? I mean, come on, right? Did you feel something when you went there? You know, I remember we went to this place when we were up in the redwoods my sister and I we went to this place that was called confusion Hill and it was a vortex and you know things rolled uphill and all of the laws of physics were suspended and everything and You know, it turns out it was all a hoax, you know, you're not gonna believe this there's another place like that in Santa Cruz, California the mystery spot and what it is is basically like a funhouse so They build things in such a way where it's an optical illusion and we were tripping out because we couldn't we Weren't smart enough to like figure out how the tricks worked We knew it must be a hoax but we were just we couldn't figure it out because we were literally like rolling things uphill and and you know She was taller than me and all this stuff. It was just we're just like whoa We were kind of tripping but at the end of the day we knew okay This is just physics and optics that we don't understand and We're it's a gag right and I you know, I'm kind of a sucker for roadside attractions So I you know, I stop at places like this folks So, you know, it's not like Jerusalem is some kind of a vortex or something, you know where it's like Well, this is a place that's just pointed at heaven or something This is where you know creation happened and this is where God, you know Communicates with us more like we get just a little closer to God or something like that. It's stupid and ridiculous God is everywhere and where two or three are gathered together in his name there. He is in the midst and Jesus said Verizon doesn't matter and Jerusalem doesn't matter. It matters that you're worshiping God in spirit and in truth matters that you got the right God and So when the Bible is telling us in Psalm 76 to in Salem also is his tabernacle and his dwelling place in Zion It's not saying that he literally lives there He's not confined to that because the Bible says even at the dedication of the temple that the heaven and the heaven of heavens Cannot contain God Which means that God? transcends the physical universe right, he is beyond the scope of even our universe and So therefore if God cannot even be contained by the entire universe or the heaven of heavens Then how in the world can he live in a house made with hands? That's what Solomon said But no, this house is just to offer sacrifice before him. So when the Bible says Salem is his tabernacle his dwelling places in Zion. That's because that's where he's being preached That's because that's where his servants are that's where his praises are being sung. That's where his people are That's where the Word of God is Proclaimed and so today in the New Testament that would be the local church and it doesn't matter if it's in Arizona Or the Philippines or Timbuktu it could be anywhere So number one we said God is greater than other gods because he is Universal in scope. He's worldwide He's not some little regional deity some regional God some Scandinavian pagan God or something worshiped by a few people No, he's the god of the whole earth and the entire planet knows who he is in 2025 as predicted by Scripture But number two God is greater than our enemies so God's greater than other gods But number two God's greater than than our enemies look at verse three. It says there he break the arrows of the bow The shield and the sword and the battle Selah so the enemies of God that came against Jerusalem God broke their weapons. He broke the arrows of the bow. He broke the shield He broke the sword he broke their battle, okay Now here's what the Bible says in Isaiah 54 17 no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper and Every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousnesses of me sayeth the Lord now What is a heritage a heritage is like an inheritance? It's something that you inherit So the Bible says that this promise no weapon that is formed against these shall prosper that is a promise that the servants of the Lord inherent and Their righteousness is of me sayeth the Lord so we don't have our own righteousness, which is of the law We have that which is of the faith of Christ the righteousness, which is of God by faith as born-again saved Christians Jesus Christ's righteousness has been imputed unto us Our faith is counted for righteousness It's Jesus righteousness on our account and the Bible says that those servants of God who have Christ's righteousness Imputed unto them they inherit this promise no weapon that is formed against these shall prosper so just as God broke the weapons in verse 3 of Psalm 76 the arrows of the bow the shield the sword the enemies of Jerusalem He broke those weapons any Weapons that are formed against us will not prosper and God will break them as well and Notice what it says also it says no weapon that is formed against these shall prosper and every tongue That shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn So notice that the battle is not always with actual arrows and bows and swords and shields It's a battle of words. It's a battle of information. It's a battle of Thoughts and casting down imaginations and every thought Bringing it into subjection of Christ and so forth so the battle that we fight is not a battle of flesh and blood We're fighting against spiritual wickedness in high places and so when the Bible says every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn this is talking about the fact that we as Christians as we serve God people are going to rise up against us and fight against us with their mouths and They're gonna lie They're gonna slander and look the first sermon that Jesus preaches as you're reading the New Testament Right, you started Matthew chapter 1 and your turn a few pages you get to the first sermon the Sermon on the Mount starting in Chapter 5 and what does he say blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven What does that persecution look like? You know, is it just talking about being thrown in prison or something like that? well, no, it says this in the next verse blessed are ye when men shall revile you and Persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake So blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake and then he lists three things and it's sort of like a sandwich Okay, and on one end of the sandwich you have blessed are they that revile you? What does it mean to be reviled? This is talking about people speaking against you Okay, this is like when they mocked Jesus on the cross. They reviled him okay, so they revile you and Persecute you and say all manner of evil against you so the persecution starts with reviling you and ends with saying all manner of evil against you falsely and Then in the middle, it's persecute you so I wonder what kind of persecution is predominantly going to follow Christians in the New Testament You know, and I don't see in America today. I don't see Christians being thrown in prison left and right I don't see Christians being beheaded in America and And here's the thing even throughout history You know most of the time God protects his people even throughout the biblical narrative God usually protects his people from that kind of physical violence But you want to know what God does not protect us from is people lying about us Slandering us and saying all manner of evil against us falsely for his sake now it should not surprise you when people speak evil of Men of God Christians and even you as you serve Christ that shouldn't surprise you at all Because over and over again, this is predicted. This is going to happen the first sermon preached by Jesus He's already warning people right out of the gate. You know, he's just wrapping up with the Beatitudes and boom You're gonna be persecuted and what's that gonna look like people are gonna revile you and they're gonna say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name's sake and I would submit to you if if somebody's not being Verbally attacked lied about and slandered then they're probably not even serving Christ at all Because all that will of God the in Christ Jesus helps up for persecution See, I don't know man where there's smoke. There's fire If That guy was really a man of God why would so many people be saying bad things about him if he's a good guy Why would that you know if that lady's really serving the Lord? Why are so many people saying bad things about her where there's smoke there's fire Well, how about this where there's service for God? There's persecution 100% of the time show me the church that is not getting persecuted at all and I'll show you a church that isn't serving God Every single time Unless it just started five minutes ago or something. And yeah, and I'm joking when I say that because yeah Maybe for the first couple years They won't experience a lot of persecution as they're getting off the ground But in the long run all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution Isn't it interesting every you know, everybody, you know has their feelings and opinions about the so-called new IFP whatever that means, right? Basically our church and other like-minded churches, but isn't it interesting that our churches and our friends churches You know seem to be bearing the brunt of Persecution in America today as far as just if you just look at which churches are getting their bank accounts cancelled By these evil Jew banking cartels, right which churches are getting their bank accounts cancelled Which churches are getting firebombed, you know? Which churches are getting attacked Slandered and is there just all kinds of gossip and trash talk and lying about on the internet, right? Which churches have a bunch of weird androgynous freaks out protesting? Outside their church. I mean you go down the list whatever you want to talk about Persecution go down the list, you know Which churches are being sued and dragged into court and everything and and it's it's funny how you see These churches that criticized us and pontificate and and all these things but then I don't see them suffering persecution And yet the Bible said that everybody who's serving God is going to be lied about slandered and persecuted But the good news is that no weapon that's formed against us shall prosper and that the tongues that shall rise against us in judgment We will condemn them we will someday be able to get up and say told you so and Condemn the tongues that have lashed out against us in the long run. We will prevail and Look what the Bible says in Psalm 76 verse 3 it said there break he the arrows of the bow the shield and the sword in the battle seelah verse 4 thou art more glorious and Excellent than the mountains of prey now, what does this mean? Obviously, it's speaking to God God is more glorious and God is more excellent than the mountains of prey well in the Bible mountains are often used as symbols of kingdoms or Nations, right? so, you know the ten mountains on which the horse it is even in the book of Revelation the ten mountains are ten kingdoms and so forth and That's also, you know in the book of Daniel you have you know A great mountain that fills the whole earth and it represents the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and so forth. So these mountains Could represent Kingdoms that's typically the imagery that's used throughout the Bible and if you think about prey the mountains of prey These are basically mountains or nations or kingdoms or groups that would prey upon God's people right? These are predator Nations, they're the mountains of prey meaning that they go after prey meaning that they are predators and God is more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey Here's another way of saying that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, right? The Lord is greater than the mountains of prey So point number one was that God is greater than other gods, but point number two is that God is greater than our enemies All the weapons that they verbally throw at us will eventually be broken and destroyed no weapon that's formed against us will prosper God is more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey flip over if you would to Psalm 124 we're gonna come back to Psalm 76, but go to 124 briefly And we'll probably just kind of read the whole psalm because it's pretty short but Psalm 124 starting in verse number one It says if it had not been the Lord who was on our side now may Israel say if It had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us Then they had swallowed us up quick and quick here is not talking about speed but rather it is talking about alive Right, they would have swallowed us up. They would have eaten us alive He's saying they would have swallowed us up quick when their wrath was kindled against us Then the waters had overwhelmed us the stream had gone over our soul Then the proud waters had gone over our soul Blessed be the Lord watch this who hath not given us as a Prey to their teeth right the mountains of prey Those that are out there seeking to devour God's people and swallow them up whole God is on our side. It's never gonna happen God will not give us as a prey to their teeth our soul is escaped verse 7 as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers The snare is broken and we are escaped our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth And so God is more powerful than our enemies go back to Psalm 76 verse 5 It says the stout-hearted and another way of saying stout-hearted would be valiant The stout-hearted or brave or courageous or valiant are spoiled They have slept their sleep and none of the men of might have found their hands now the idea here when it says they've Slept their sleep. It's not saying that they're taking a nap. It's saying that they're dead. They're like really asleep Okay, and so they're spoiled. What does it mean to be spoiled when enemies are vanquished in battle? Then they're stripped of their belongings, you know, they got money in their pocket. They've got expensive gear they've got expensive weapons armor, whatever they have a value they are stripped and That is the spoils of war They go to the victors and so the stout-hearted are spoiled meaning that they're laying on the ground dead and people are taking everything Of value off of them. They've slept their sleep and none of the men of might have found their hands What does it mean when it says that they haven't found their hands, you know, I thought of the expression Hey cat got your tongue, you know, basically not finding your tongue Meaning that you don't know what to say not being able to find your hands is basically not Coming up with the ability the skill the strength to win which is what the hand represents Verse six at thy rebuke Oh God of Jacob both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep, right? That's the kind of sleep. We're talking about the dead kind. Okay, and it's talking about the chariots the horses The valiant man the mighty man, you know, whether it's infantry Cavalry whether it's the chariots, right? They're all dead They're all destroyed by the Lord verse 7 thou even thou art to be feared And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry say look don't make God mad once God's mad You're done. You're cooked. It's over for you game over, right? And so once God's angry at you You should be very afraid God is to be feared When you've made him angry, it says in verse 8 that it's caused judgment to be heard from heaven the earth feared and Was still and the stillness here, you know is referring to not speaking, you know still as in Quiet as in the earth is kind of shut up because they're scared at the judgment of God It always amazes me when people don't fear God You know because I'm fearing the Lord and I'm rejoicing with trembling over here. I'm serving the Lord with fear and trembling but the transgression of the wicked tells me that there's no fear of God before their eyes and you see the wicked just raging and being confident and Having no fear of God and man their day is coming and it's gonna be ugly and it's gonna hit them hard And it's gonna be too late because they didn't fear God look fear the Lord and his goodness and The thing is when we're going through life and things are going good. We should fear to lose that right, I mean when things are going good when everything's going smooth and and and our bank account is filled and our health is good Families happy everything's going well, you know at that point We don't want to start getting puffed up and arrogant and thinking. Oh, man. I'm invincible And God can take you down God can destroy you in a second, of course, we've been talking about, you know some examples of that lately Because there have been some dramatic examples of this in the last couple weeks and you say I don't know why you bring this up Why are you bringing this up? You know, are you just doing some kind of a victory lap about this? No, my friend I'm bringing this up because I want you to fear God and I want other people to fear God because I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart I do not enjoy or take pleasure in watching our enemies suffer at all. I Do not get off on this in any way shape or form or think like oh man I hope it's worse for them. And oh, I hope they feel the pain is like Honestly, I'm an extremely empathetic person and you know seeing anyone suffer the suffering itself kind of bothers me and freaks me out and it you know It's kind of uncomfortable if anything I do not delight in or rejoice in the downfall of wicked people But I will say this though that I do So that's that's on one level on one level. I'm not enjoying it, but on another level I'm rejoicing at the fact that God is punishing the wicked Because of the fact that it shows us that God is just and that God is going to give wicked people their desserts You know and you have this scripture and if you would flip over to Psalm 58 Because a lot of people are confused by this because again, you know, we live in a day where people just cherry-pick one verse and they just have their little one little verse that they cherry-pick and they love to just beat everybody over the head with it as a bludgeon and ignore the rest of the Bible and The people that are righteous people that are serving God people that are doing right They just love to just bludgeon them with their little haha gotcha Bible verse and you know what they're full of baloney because they didn't read the whole Bible Okay, and the Bible says here in Psalm 58 verse 10 It says the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked So that a man may so that a man shall save barely there is a reward for the righteous Barely, he is a God that judges than the earth Now the other side just completely ignores these two verses these two verses don't matter These two verses don't exist for them Okay, all they want to do is just keep throwing a verse from Proverbs at us Oh rejoice not when your enemy falls rejoice not when your enemy falls or something but then what about when the Bible says the righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance and See if you're gonna have a right biblical worldview, and it's not just this issue. It's every issue my friend in every issue we must take everything that the Bible says and believe all of it and Reconcile all of it and not just cherry-pick the part that we like and ignore the other side, right? It would be wrong to just embrace Psalm 58 10 11 and to ignore the Proverbs passage. That would be just as wrong You understand what I'm saying? We need to take both we need to always Reconcile both and the idea here is that when your enemy falls you shouldn't be Gleeful and enjoying the suffering and sadistically looking on and just oh, yeah burn baby burn in that sense and also, you know what it's always Smart and it's always righteous whenever you win at anything Or whenever you are vindicated to what I say as quote control the celebration Okay, so if I'm out playing basketball and I win at basketball, you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna control the celebration because it's bad sportsmanship when you win to just go on and on and You know and and and go overboard on the celebration. It's not comely. It's not seemly to over celebrate So you win at a board game you win at sports you win at anything you control the celebration Okay, and I did a whole sermon called sportsmanship You know a biblical perspective something about sportsmanship or something I don't know. I did a Bible sermon on that one time using the Bible to demonstrate those things, but the thing is You know at the same time though Yeah, we don't we don't want to just enjoy or derive pleasure from other people's suffering and even God says I Have no pleasure in the death of the wicked God says he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but then how do we reconcile that with Psalm? 58 verse 10 saying the righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance I'll tell you why he's not rejoicing because he just really loves watching his enemy suffer He's rejoicing because in verse 11 because there's a reward for the righteous. That's why he's rejoicing Isn't that something to get excited about Wow God really is gonna reward the righteous Wow, isn't this exciting there is a God that judges in the earth, you know And when you see the wicked get punished you say you know what there is a God that judges in the earth and Look the reason why I think it's important that people acknowledge What's happening right now and not stick their heads in the sand and refuse to see? That wicked people are being punished around us as we speak that there are these crystal clear examples of people being punished by God for their open brazen wickedness you know why we need to acknowledge that is because we need to understand that there's a reward for the righteous and that there's a God that judges in the earth and So here's the thing. I would love to see all of my enemies punished dramatically and publicly Not because I enjoy them being punished. I have zero pleasure in them suffering the only Rejoicing that I get out of it is that people are seeing it Because then they know that there's a God that judges in the earth and that he really will reward the righteous That's all why because I don't want my children to grow up and see people do wicked things and get away with it and I don't want your children to grow up and see people Doing wicked things and get away with it and then have this stupid thought in their head. Well, I'm gonna get away with it, too And So the more examples that they see of the wicked being punished it tells them Hey, I better watch out. I better mind my P's and Q's Okay, why did God? Rebuke kings in the Old Testament and say touch not mine anointed and do my prophets. No harm Why did he do that? He's warning them Don't mess with the man of God don't mess with the people of God don't mess with the church of God If you do you will suffer. So why would I not be glad to see God's Word come to pass? If our church throws someone out according to what the scripture teaches in 1st Corinthians 5 and Delivers them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh Well when the flesh gets destroyed then I'm gonna say hey There is a God that judges in the earth and so in that sense I'm gonna rejoice, but I'm not gonna rejoice in the sense of just deriving like a sick pleasure from the suffering of others I mean, I don't know is this complicated because I don't feel like it's that complicated I feel like sometimes our enemies are just kind of simple-minded fools who can't think or something Like they grab on they just they're drooling and slobbering and grabbing onto one verse like love your enemies And then they just can't understand anything about praying for the enemies to be destroyed You see what I'm saying? Whereas I'm like love your enemies. Amen. Love your enemies and Pray for these enemies of the Lord to be destroyed like I can reconcile these two things because I guess I'm just thinking on a level That's a little more complex Than these bunch of toddlers Spiritually who just grab onto one proof text and want to beat us all over the head with it and they don't even read the The rest of the Bible they just ignore the rest of the Bible How do you ignore that like a huge chunk of the book of Psalms is praying curses upon other people? I don't know. I get maybe the book of Psalms just isn't in your Bible Maybe you just don't have I don't know are you know, you don't have the 19 Psalms that are just the whole thing's an imprecatory Psalm But even outside of the 19 that are just completely imprecatory cursing Psalms Even throughout the rest of the Psalms. It's just the enemies the enemies the enemies the enemy. It's like the whole book of Psalms You know, but again these simple-minded, you know spiritual babes who don't know the Bible Don't care to think complex. They just think you know in in these really black and white terms of Just everything's just on or off and they can't have any kind of a complex thought in their mind to reconcile Different things in the Bible. It's everything understand what I'm saying, because I don't think this is complicated at all To understand that on one level I'm supposed to control the celebration when my enemy falls but on the other hand I can rejoice in God's justice and Be glad that the young people are seeing examples of people getting smoked so that they can be where? Because here's the thing. You know what if we never find out about it. It might as well have not even happened as far as I'm concerned You know this this guy Ryan whose skin is rotting off of his body right now Okay, who? Slandered pastor Thompson and who attacked pastor Shelley and stole money from the church and his skin is rotting off his body But if nobody knew about it, then you know what it would be meaningless as far as I'm concerned I don't think it would be I you know, I wouldn't derive any joy from it whatsoever But the fact that everybody knows about it is a blessing from God that people can see Hey, God will avenge his people God will punish the wicked You know it's funny. I saw an article that popped up today because this is you know his his skin condition He's the only person on the planet They said it's like a one in a trillion chance that someone would be hit with all three of these skin Disorders at once is a one in a trillion chance So there's only eight billion people on the world and then I saw an article today And I know that these news articles they like to use you know really Hyperbolic language and so forth there they get a little bit exaggerated sometimes But they literally said in this article that I read today quote that he may be the healthiest man in the world That's what they said. I'm not I'm not the one saying this don't look at me like that They said that bro must be the healthiest man in the world Okay, and then to be able to have survived I guess this long being hit with just this extreme plague and affliction And you know what that tells me here's what I learned from that you can be the healthiest man in the world and when God's Anger is kindled against you you're going down You said oh, man I took my I took all my vitamins and I ate super healthy, and I'm just a regular rfk over here You know and nothing bad is gonna happen to me physically well You know what when God just snaps his fingers he can he can take you down. I Mean the new and I'm not saying the news article isn't exaggerating But they're saying well this guy was super healthy and now he's being afflicted by this mystery disease We don't know where it came from we have no idea What causes it and he got hit with one for the father one for the son and one for the Holy Ghost the triple? whammy the trifecta and They're talking about what a great guy is and they're saying how you know maybe he's like job The the author of the article says and then and then it said that that riot said I'm no job you can say that again Let's get back to the passage here It says in verse number seven thou even thou art to be feared and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry It will the healthiest man alive stand in your sight when God when God's angry is the healthiest man alive gonna be okay? Nope because he can just snap his fingers and bro gets a mystery disease That's the worst skin disease on the planet. That's you know, he prognosis I think he's supposed to be dead in like a couple weeks or something. He has like two weeks to live and You know what? Hey, I Don't care how long he lives. I'm not just enjoying his suffering I don't care if he lives two weeks or two months or two years, you know All I'm glad is that people are seeing one of the worst enemies of God's people Being destroyed before our eyes not because it's fun to watch people destroy. I mean the pictures are gross I didn't want to look at the pictures what it is though. It's more just a situation of like wow God is really taking care of business and I'm sorry But I love everything that the Lord does like when when the Lord does something good. I like it When he when he saves I like it when he dams I like it I just like what he does, you know Verse 8 That it's caused judgment to be heard from heaven the earth feared and was still you know, it's funny You know God's judgment falls and you have all these loudmouth fools praising Lionel Right Praising Lionel just oh man. You really exhibited the fruit of the Spirit with how you dealt with Pastor Anderson That's why I read someone wrote online when he lied and put me in the nuthouse for 24 hours, you know Oh, you're really exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit Lionel God's gonna reward you for what you're doing Lionel and I'm thinking like yeah this comment aged well Because Lionel's in the nuthouse right now. He's been there for two weeks and he's still there Right, I he put me he thought he was so cute putting me in there for what twenty two and a half hours or whatever He's been in there for weeks with no end in sight and Isn't it funny how all of Lionel's cheerleaders online? All the people that were cheerleading him all his little buddies from the X and I have be fellowship Facebook group Isn't it amazing how still they are their favorite song right now is be still my soul Okay, because all of a sudden they're not blowing off their mouths anymore cheerleading Lionel now all of a sudden they're awfully quiet You know, I'll bet I wonder if Ryan's co-conspirator against Pastor Thompson Chad are gone he's a little quiet too, isn't he? He better be quiet. He better shut up and he better be scared to death He should be you know He should be going to Pastor Thompson and begging forgiveness for teaming up with that evil Ryan against him Seth bookouts a little quiet Who was teamed up with Ryan against Pastor Shelley? The earth feared and was still anybody with a brain in their head should fear God even without seeing these examples just from seeing what the Word of God says if you actually believe the Bible that should be enough to make you scared and And serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling But when you see these dramatic examples that we've seen over the last few weeks, it really drives the point home, doesn't it? And then it says in verse 9 when God arose to judgment to save all the meek of the earth now There's a there are two meanings we could take from verse number 9 when God saves all the meek of the earth. Number one is That the meek are gonna be saved actually just physically like the enemies are attacking God's people and the meek are gonna be Spared God's gonna save them physically God's gonna go to bat for them. God's gonna protect them Right, but then also there's another secondary meaning talking about salvation as in going to heaven because it's the meek that are actually gonna be saved and go to heaven why because meekness has to do with humility and If you think about it Humility is a big part of why one man gets saved and another man doesn't I mean, what's the biggest reason why people don't get saved is pride because people who aren't saved What do they believe people aren't saved? This is what they believe. I'm going to heaven cuz I'm a good person You know what that is pride. Oh I'm going to heaven because of my own works. That's pride. Oh Man, you mean to tell me this guy over here with all the bad things. He's done You mean to tell me he's gonna go to heaven. You know, what they're saying is I'm better than that guy And so I deserve it and he doesn't Whereas the meek realize hey We're humble we realize we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and you know I I can't even imagine this mentality. That's mad that somebody's going to heaven like if like let's say I cut let's say I got to heaven and God turns out to be way less strict than I thought about who's going to heaven and who's not What if I got to heaven and and I just found out hey turns out pastor Anderson you know God really had a loose definition of what it meant to believe on Jesus and Just everybody who even vaguely believed on Jesus made it I would just be like sweet Great right. I wouldn't be like wait a minute. You mean to tell me these people are now I wanted them to go to hell or something. I Mean honestly like if God just forgave the whole planet, I'd just be like, okay great whatever as long as I'm not going to hell I Can't understand this mentality that's like oh man if that guy's going to heaven then I don't want to go I mean somebody just said that to me two days ago They said if people like you are gonna be in heaven then I don't want to go And I'm just thinking to myself like I don't care who's there I still want to go You know what I mean? Like I just want to go but again, it's because they don't really fear God They don't really think hell is real if they're making statements like that if they think that way And I just understand this thing that begrudges people like how could God let these super sinful people to go to heaven That's not fair Well, I'm like I'm glad he's letting super sinful people to go to heaven as long as they believe in Jesus Because that's why I'm going to heaven as long as I believe in Jesus, you know, because he the Lord Jesus receives sinners Amen I'm not thinking like oh man, I'm so much better than everybody else. I want to go to heaven I want others to be damned. I'm just like hey, I don't deserve it. They don't deserve it You know, let's all let's all just get people to believe in Jesus so that so that we can just get as many people to go To heaven as possible Not like oh man. This guy's too wicked You know So God's gonna save all the meek of the earth physically in this lifetime in the sense that he's gonna protect us from our enemies But then also God's gonna save all the meek of the earth because it's the meek of the earth who are humbling themselves and trusting Jesus Savior instead of thinking I'm going to heaven because I'm better than other people You know, they have the attitude of the Apostle Paul that said when my flesh dwells no good thing You know, I don't have my own righteousness I'm only going to heaven because the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ I got to hurry up and wrap up but it says in verse number 10 surely the wrath of man shall praise thee The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain the idea here. Is that when man? Roars against the Lord and and and has wrath and anger toward the Lord It ends up actually being turned into praise for God in the sense that when the heathen rage God destroys them and is even glorified by their destruction and Then the remainder of wrath and then the ones that are still mad at God after that he restrains meaning he keeps them in check Verse 11 vow and pay unto the Lord your God Let all that be round about him bring presence unto him that ought to be feared now obviously in the New Testament You know the Bible is clear that we shouldn't swear any oaths or anything like that But the idea with vowing and paying unto the Lord would be you know Committing to do something and then doing it is the idea here and so we are not gonna obviously swear an oath We're just gonna make a simple statement Yes or no about something but we should make decisions and then follow through with them so we should say for example I'm gonna go to church three times a week, and then we go to church three times a week I'm gonna go out soul winning every week, and then we go out soul winning every week I'm gonna read my Bible every day. We read the Bible every day. You know and then it says Vow and pay unto the Lord your God Let all that be round about him bring presence unto him that ought to be feared or to say you know what I'm gonna give 10% to the Lord I'm gonna bring my tithe to the local church Saying that you're gonna do it and then doing it following through with it bringing presence unto the Lord paying Unto the Lord your God, and then it says in verse 12. He shall cut off the spirit of princes He is terrible and again terrible. This is an old definition of terrible that means like Terrifying not terrible like like if we said something's terrible We mean it's bad in the old. You know the older language of the KJV terrible is more like terrifying Okay He shall cut off the spirit of princes. He is Terrifying is what the Bible is saying here. He's terrifying to the kings of the earth He's terrible to the kings of the earth meaning that the most powerful people in the world If they're smart should be scared to death of the Lord God Because again they could be the quote-unquote healthiest man in the world as the news article portrayed Ryan healthiest man They could be the richest man most powerful man, and and it and God could just snap his fingers, and they just die They could just fall over dead remember King Herod He got all puffed up, and he made this speech and when he made the speech the people Said this is the voice of a god not the voice of a man This is the voice of an absolute God and instead of Herod giving the glory he just sucked up that praise of being called a god and Angel the Lord smote him this is what acts chapter 13 I believe in the book of Acts the angel Lord smote him, and he's eaten up with worms He's got worms in his intestines Eating him up from the inside It doesn't matter how powerful you are how famous you are how much people love you how healthy you are how much money you have When worms are eating you up from the inside you're not you're not having a good day Right I Mean think about it And then you know we saw in the book of Chronicles recently about the guy who's bowels like fell out day by day over the course of like a couple years That's no picnic. I don't care You know I don't think that you wake up in the morning And you know another piece of your bowels falls out, but then the stock portfolio is looking good Wall Street Journal is looking good bank statements looking good. Huh hair's looking good today, huh? And it just goes to show you how God can just take you down And this is why we got to fear the Lord, but but you know what it's a positive thing because number one God's greater than other gods God's not a boogeyman God's not one of many God is the only one he is the one true God he is greater than all other gods and number two God is greater than our enemies and Then thirdly God is greater than the leaders and rulers and governments of this world He's greater than the great man of this world the King Herod's and all the powerful man of this world He can snap his fingers and bring them to their knees and so hey He's on our side. Thank God That if God be for us who could be against us. Let's borrow heads and have a word of prayer father We thank you so much for your word. Thank you for this chapter Lord. Let these truths sink down into our ears Lord This is this is one of the more Obscure Psalms Lord. I don't think I've ever heard a sermon from any part of this Psalm in my life But Lord, thank you for these powerful words and these powerful truths Help us to live by these things and help us every single day to remember that you are all Powerful and that you are in control and that we rise or fall based upon your favor Lord and Lord help us to stay humble and and when you go to bat for us and destroy our enemies Lord help us to control that Celebration and not to get overboard and get too excited or get too happy about it But also Lord help us not only to fear for ourselves But also to proclaim your justice and wrath so that other people may fear as well in Jesus name we pray. Amen