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so you can say that's great and then connect. All right, amen. We're in Psalm chapter number 26, short chapter, but I think we can get through it today. So I'll give you the title first. The title of the sermon this evening is From Thanksgiving to Thanks-taking to Thanks-lending. And basically what I mean by that is we're gonna take a look at how when this country was first founded, how most people seemed to have like a, you know, somewhat of a Christian base or were more thankful, especially when that holiday was established. And then look at how that transitioned into thanks-taking. I'll explain what that means. This is another one of those Pastor Jones-isms where I'm making up my own words here. And then thanks-lending, okay? So we're gonna get into what all that means. And I got that just from reading this Psalm here. Now the Psalm here, obviously beautifully written, highly controversial in the world today. And really what it does is it actually pictures, if you will, the world from the beginning to the very end. And I'm gonna show you how it pictures that as we go through here. So let's start this off here and let's take a look. Obviously this is a Psalm, okay? This is a Psalm written by David. So the question is, okay, we're obviously about to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. How does a man after God's own heart think? What are his mannerisms like? What was his prayer life like, okay? You know, obviously we've studied David a little bit and we read these things in the Bible. The Bible does say very clearly that David is a man after God's own heart. Sometimes I think when we read that and we learn that, we get this idea like, well, that's just David. We could never be after God's own heart. And that's simply not true, okay? I believe that we're a church full of people that are after God's own heart. In fact, if we weren't, I don't think a lot of you would keep coming back and being a part of this thing. So how does a man after God's own heart give thanks? Let's start with that first, okay? So look at verse number one, Psalm chapter 26. Look at verse number one. Look at the first thing that David says here, okay? The very first thing, what does he say? Judge me, okay? Now, obviously David had a lot of reasons to be thankful. I mean, we've studied his life. We've seen him in good times, bad times, war times, and he's always thankful, okay? But what's a man after God's own heart mentality like, okay? Is it like that that we see in the world today? Like, oh, just don't judge, don't say anything negative. Who are you to judge? No, he prays and asks God, hey, judge me, oh Lord, okay? That's how we should be. So when we have that same attitude, we read these things and we adopt them for our own, that gives us humility. That gives us a reason to really be thankful, okay? So he says, judge me, oh Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. And that's true, and I know a lot of people say, yeah, but you know, what about Bathsheba, okay? Well, let's talk about that for a second. When David was confronted by Nathan the prophet concerning that situation, what did he do? Did he try to deny it, try to hide it? No, he said, I have sinned, you know, you got me, okay? That's integrity, telling the truth. That is how David was. And he, even though doing these things, even though, I mean, he committed, definitely committed some more crimes, you know? I mean, this guy here is saying, judge me, oh Lord, for I have walked in mine integrity. Look at the next part of the verse. I have trusted also in the Lord. Now look at this next part here. Therefore, so for that reason, okay, I've trusted in the Lord, so because I have, look what he says, therefore I shall not slide. So there's your reference to eternal security, even back in the Old Testament. David said, hey, I trusted in the Lord, therefore I shall not slide. Now, does that guarantee we won't have trouble in this life? Oh, of course not, we're all gonna have trouble. We're all gonna have issues and things of that nature, but the main thing is that we're not gonna slide. When we trust in the Lord, we're in the Lord, no one can take us from him. David realized that. All the people in the Old Testament that were saved understood and realized that, and we need to understand that and be thankful for that on a daily basis, okay? Look at verse number two. Look at what he says next. Examine me, oh Lord, and prove me. Try my reins and my heart. Now, this is gonna be very, very important as we come back to this Psalm later on, because David's gonna make some statements that most of the people in the world today would probably say, well, that's bigoted, you know? I can't believe he would say something like that. But again, remember, when you hear something difficult that David says, like about hating people, okay? Remember, he's asking God to judge him. He's asking God to examine him, okay? And you'll see where this is gonna lead here in a moment. But look at verse number three. He says, for thy loving kindness, now don't miss this, is before mine eyes. So again, how does a man after God's own heart, how is a man who seeks to please God and to do right thing? Well, look at what he says about his eyes. He says, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes. So you know what that means? That means when David was having issues with Nabal, when David was on the run from King Saul, when King Saul was trying to kill him, you know, when his family was abducted and he had to go and fight and take them back, all the trials, all the troubles that David went through, this is what he says here, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes. So no matter what situation you put David in, he could find a reason to be thankful. He could look and see God's mercy in some way, shape or form in that situation, no matter how tough it was. That's why he says, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes. And I believe when he heard the words of Nathan, the prophet and he finally understood the parable, that it was about him, he realized, you know what? God cares enough to actually send this prophet and actually administer some judgment and chasten me. You know, he was probably thankful that God didn't just wipe him off the face of the earth, but God was merciful to him and allowed him to live, allowed him to keep reigning and ruling the nation of Israel and then look at the last part of the verse. He says, and I have walked in thy truth. So again, right, we need to be thankful for these things. We need to understand that we need to look at the situations in our lives and be able to come to a conclusion that says, I see thy loving kindness. I understand why things are happening. It all works together for good to those that love God. Okay, so we're gonna stop right there and skip to verse number seven. Okay, we'll come back and get the other verses here in a little while, but look at verse number seven. So David goes on to say this. He says that I may publish with the voice of what? Thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works. Verse number eight, Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honor dwelleth. And so, we're about to celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. I was doing some reading and stuff about the old holiday and I was on the Smithsonian's website and they've gone all full woke. They're just like, I don't know why people are still celebrating this and saying things like, look at the atrocities that we did to the Indians and how we harmed them. And it's like, there's no such thing as an ugly takeover of the land. I mean, seriously, go read through the Old Testament and go look at what the children of Israel did when they conquered the land of the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Parisites, all these people. There was bloodshed, that's just how it is. It's an ugly thing, I'm not saying I endorse that and no, I'm not saying I endorse the government throwing infected blankets over to the Indians. Nothing, I'm not endorsing any of that. But what I'm simply saying is that when this nation was founded and the pilgrims and the Indians sat down and had that first meal, which wound up becoming a tradition, I understand there were a lot of hidden things going on. There was a lot of turmoil, a lot of conspiracies, a lot of problems in that, okay? But when that caught on to American culture, back in the early days of this nation, for example, you go back to Civil War times when Abraham Lincoln made it an official holiday, okay? People were actually thankful that they weren't under communist totalitarian British rule. You say, well, they weren't commies. Pretty close, right? They wanted the iron thumb over people. That's what they wanted, okay? I mean, look, people rioted over tea back then. They rioted over taxes, okay? Now you have a president opening his mouth and saying, we have nukes, we have war jets, we have planes, we have everything. You know, why do you need guns? You can't beat us. And the people are just like, what's on TV next? You know what I mean? We've lost the capability to be thankful. We have lost the habit. We have lost the mindset as American Christians of being thankful. It's a problem. And I wanna show you why we need to get back to that. And I'm not saying anybody in the church, I'm not saying that, okay? I'm just saying Christians in general. How many people do we get saved every single year? It's usually over a hundred people, okay? How many of them are thankful every single day? Now I'm sure if you were to run into them and talk to them, say, hey, you know, are you still thankful? Of course they would be thankful, okay? But look, we ought to be able to demonstrate that thankfulness, right? And we demonstrate that thankfulness by serving God, by being in church. Look at what David says here in verse eight. Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house. Okay, well obviously God's house is not a building, but this is where we congregate. This is where we meet. Okay, so when we assemble together as God's children, as God's people, God is here and we need to have a thankfulness for that. We need to love that. And we need to be able to have this attitude because we need to remain a people after God's own heart. And look what he says next after the comma, and the place wherein thy honor dwelleth. Okay, what does that mean? Well, God's honor dwells amongst us. We stand for the truth. We use the King James Bible. We preach the gospel. We stand in the face of adversity all the time as a church. And you know what? We need to be thankful for that, okay? And so again, the title of the sermon is From Thanksgiving to Thanks-taking to Thanks-lending. And so I wanna start off by talking about this doctrine of thanksgiving. Why is it so important? Why does David bring it up so much in the Psalms? And why is it really taught so much in the Bible? So with that being said, go to Matthew chapter 15. New Testament, first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter number 15. Keep your place in Psalm 26. We're gonna come back to it in a little while, okay? So let's start talking about this now, this question here. What is the role of giving thanks in the believer's life? Is it just something that we should just, oh yeah, we should do that? Or is it more than that? Is it actually something that we're commanded to do? Are there examples in the Bible? What did Jesus demonstrate for us in regards to being thankful? Now, when you type in the word thankful or thanks in your Bible software or your dictionary, you're gonna see it comes up, well, you're gonna see it comes up in regards to Jesus two times in Matthew, Mark. The word comes up four times in Luke, but two times it applies to Christ and two times in John. Okay, so I think the reason for that is because God is trying to tell us something about being thankful, about thanksgiving. So let's see if we can pull what that means for us, okay? Now, here's the first situation here. And again, this is the same whether you read it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, okay? Matthew 15. Matthew 15. Matthew 15. And then it just kind of wears off, okay? But we ought to fight that urge from the old man. We ought to fight that urge from the flesh and remain thankful, okay? Because what does that do? Well, you can see in the story here, Jesus, he gives thanks to the Lord and he breaks the bread and he gives to his disciples and it increases, okay? So how do we apply this to our lives? Well, let's talk about church for an example, okay? I know that every single person that comes to this church, whether it's regularly or irregularly, is definitely thankful for people that get saved, right? And you know what that does? That acts inside the spiritual world somehow. And what that does is it helps us to multiply the word of God in the community, okay? But could you imagine if we just got cynical and we're like, oh man, we only got X number of people saved, well, that's not very good and we started to get bitter about that. I mean, how well of a spiritual battle do you think we could fight if we adopted that mentality? See, that's what I'm talking about here. We need to give thanks when times are good. Now let's look at the next situation here the next time. Go to Matthew chapter 26 and we'll start reading in verse number 26. So again, the first one is we need to give thanks when times are good. When resources are plentiful, when we have an abundance, we still need to give thanks. You know, and that's kind of how it was at the beginning of this nation. You know, this nation did something that no other nation had done before. Our laws were modeled basically after the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. You know, you have these three branches of government so that not one of them could get out of control, at least that's how it's supposed to be. And there were a lot of good things at the founding of this nation and people were thankful for many years. And then something happened and it wore off, okay. And we'll get there, we'll talk about that here in a moment. But Matthew chapter 26, we're gonna start reading here in verse number 26. Now this is right before the crucifixion here, right before Jesus is about to be sold out by Judas, which he obviously knows is gonna happen, okay. Remember, he is fully man, fully God. So he knows the end from the beginning. He knows that this night that we're about to read about, that his own friend, his own friend, Judas Iscariot, the one he called a friend, is going to betray him, okay. Look at this here in verse 26. It says, and as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. Verse 27, and he took the cup, and don't miss it, and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it. Verse 28, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. So not only do we need to give thanks when times are good, but we need to give thanks when we know that times are bad or we know that bad times are coming, okay. Unfortunately today, there are too many believers out there, too many Christian people out there, and even too many people that are hanging in the balances. When you tell them about end times and you look at the world and you say, you know what, the Bible has the answer for the reason why things are the way they are, they start to get scared. And look, fear is a natural human emotion. I'm not saying you're weak, everybody has fear. At least you should have some fear, okay. But the question is, can you remain thankful? Can you still thank God, right? That's the question, that's the idea. Jesus knows that he's about to be betrayed. He knows, and in fact, he even says this in the very next verse, the next passage, he says, many of you are gonna be offended in me this night. So I mean, think about Jesus being fully man, fully God, knowing what's gonna happen, understanding not only is he going to be put on the cross, nailed to it, beaten, mocked, humiliated, he knows that the people he's been training for the last three and a half years, practically, are going to be offended. And he's just like, hey, I'm still gonna give thanks to the Lord, okay. And again, why do they get offended? Because they don't understand the prophecy, they don't understand the kingdom's not coming now, it's coming later, it's a different thing, right. Again, they were like, hey, I wanna be at the right hand, I'm gonna go get mom, right. The sons of Zebedee, they went and grabbed mom. You know, like, hey, Jesus, can my son sit at your right hand? Can they be your right hand guys in the kingdom? Can they be like this right there? And Jesus has gotta be like, I love you guys. You just don't understand, it's not physical yet, okay. That's coming later, but that's a sermon for another day. So go to Colossians chapter number three. Colossians chapter number three. So obviously, Jesus gives us a very clear cut example, in my opinion, of giving thanks. He gives thanks during the miracle where he feeds thousands of people. He does it 5,000 once, feeds 4,000 another time. And then of course, we see him give thanks right before he's about to be delivered up. So we can see from the example that Jesus gave that we need to give thanks when times are good and we need to give thanks when times are bad. And that's, both of those are equally hard, okay. Both of those are very difficult, especially when we don't understand prophecy, especially when we don't understand something in the Bible, you know, and where carnal, maybe something bad happens to us and we're like, why did this happen to me, you know. Maybe God hates me, you know. That can really play mind games on believers. But let's talk about Paul here and his advice to the Colossians, which is his advice to all the churches that he started, not just them. But what would Paul say? And I would say Paul, obviously, a man after God's own heart. I mean, Paul definitely a warrior for Christ, okay. And so let's answer this question. Is being thankful even a commandment or is it just something, you know, we should do, okay. Look at verse 16, Colossians chapter three, look at verse 16. So Paul says this, he says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. Think about how much more we could change the world if we could get people to adopt this attitude, to allow the word of Christ to dwell in us richly in all wisdom and look at the rest of the verse there, teaching and admonishing one another in what? In Psalms, okay. In Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. So again, anybody comes to you and says, hey, you know that Psalm chapter 26 bit that Pastor Jones says, you know, when he talks about hating people, you know, you shouldn't read that. That's not for us to read. Really, because Paul told the Colossian church, which was, this letter is obviously meant to be written by every believer, that we have the right to teach doctrine from the Psalms. Okay, that's for us today. So what you're reading in Psalm chapter 26 today, that is for us today in 2022. Every last bit of it, 100% in hymns. You know, that's why we sing hymns at this church, because they teach us doctrine, they cement doctrine and comfort down into our hearts. And we had, what a very nice lady actually make a hymn for us and send it to us. And so we'll be practicing that and hopefully have that up soon. I'm excited about that, you know, that we actually have people that have that ability for one. I can't sing, let alone write any music, but hey. You know, everybody's got their gifts. That just missed me, that's just not one of mine. Okay, look at verse 17. He says, and whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, and here it is, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Okay, so this again, is not something that is optional for us believers, we need to be giving thanks. And hey, we do, right? That's why we have that praise list on Wednesday nights. It's so that we can give thanks to God and so that we can demonstrate his power. Now, one that I didn't get to put on there, we'll put this on next week, is we've been praying. There's a guy that watches our channel, my name of Sonic Fan, and he asked to have a prayer on the prayer list about the censorship bill. I think it's called C11, which basically would just be a huge, you know, Chinese commie type, you know, censorship thing up in Canada. And he just said in the comments before the service at that loss, that got struck down. You know, I mean, that's praiseworthy. Hey, they need to give, we all need to give thanks to that. You say, well, I don't live in Canada, doesn't matter. You know, let's be thankful that our brethren up there now have some reprieve, they have some relief. And don't think for a second that our church didn't play some part in that by praying for those things. Okay, giving thanks. Look, when we give thanks, we have this attitude of being thankful, it multiplies. It's not just doing things in the here and now. It actually extends into the world that we can't see. Go to chapter number four. Go to Colossians chapter number four. So obviously in verse 17 in chapter three, he says, whatever we do in word or deed, we need to do it with giving thanks to Jesus and to the Father and things of that nature. And that is a commandment. Look at what it says here in verse number two, Colossians four, look at verse number two. Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Verse three, with all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds. So here you have Paul literally following the example of Christ. He's not in the best of times. He's going on, I mean, he's trying to get to the Roman Emperor to appeal, you know, the charges that have been brought against him. He's in bonds, he is not exactly free at this moment. And what is he doing? He's praying for encouragement. He's praying for strength that he might still be able to preach the gospel, okay? So not only would Paul give thanks when times are good, but you see Paul give thanks when times are bad as well. Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter number five. 1 Thessalonians chapter number five. So again, I mean, we're not gonna take the time to go to every epistle to read this, but the point is giving thanks is a commandment, okay? And it's not like God's like, do this because I said so. I mean, he's clearly letting us know the benefits of giving thanks to him. And that it's, you know, it affects everybody involved, okay? Look at verse, you're in 1 Thessalonians five, look at verse 17, okay? Very, very famous verse. Pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing, okay? And some people say, well, okay, then how are you gonna eat? That's not what he's talking about. Don't give up, right? You're always supposed to be praying, you know? It's not like people say, well, how am I supposed to be on my knees in my closet? It's like, yeah, there's a time and a place for that type of prayer, but you could be praying while you're driving down the street. You can be praying all the time. Pray without ceasing. Don't give up, don't stop. Look at verse 18. Look at this, in everything give thanks. And look what it says next, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Now, I'll be honest with you, I often forget about this verse. Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but on Fairview here, I wanna say between Maple Grove and Five Mile is like, I don't know, it's like Death Alley, okay? You've got people turning out of that Maverick there, getting in lanes they shouldn't go into, and there are people driving down the wrong side of the street. Maybe it's just me, because I'm up and down here all the time for work, you know, and I'm coming to church, going to work, doing all this stuff here. But it seems like every week I like narrowly miss getting hit, you know? It's just insane. And unfortunately, sometimes when people cut me off, I'm not very thankful, okay? I mean, I've got some choice thoughts, and sometimes maybe even some choice words about these people, you know? And you know what? The voice of reason, also known as Jessica, will sit next to me, and she always wants to bring this up here, and everything give thanks, okay? And I'm like, okay, you got me. But she's right, you know? She's right, because you know, what if me having to slow down for this clown, driving down the wrong side of the road, getting in my left turn lane, what if that prevented me from something further down the road that I couldn't see, that I didn't know about, that I won't even know about until I get to heaven, right? And here I am, you know, just complaining, getting mad, getting all upset, when I should be in everything give thanks. I should just be thankful that I didn't hit the individual, instead of being like, you took my space out. Get out of the car, no, I don't do that. I used to, okay, and I think it's still, I'm being honest, but you get the point. We're supposed to be thankful in everything, okay? Hebrews, last one for this, Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter number 13. Okay, so we're told in everything give thanks. We're told, you know, it's a commandment. This is not something that's optional. This is how we optimize our Christianity, by being thankful. And not to mention, Paul told the Thessalonians, it's the will of God, right? And everybody in here who loves God, everybody in here who's saved, you wanna fulfill the will of God, right? Everybody does. Well, how do we do that? We do that by being thankful, okay? Just because the world's not thankful anymore, doesn't mean we don't have to be. Just because there's a growing number of people that aren't thankful for the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, and all the freedoms that we're supposed to have here, just because they're no longer thankful for it, doesn't mean we have to let that affect us, okay? We still should be thankful for these things. So, look at this. Hebrews 13, look at verse number 15. So, it says this. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God. So, by Jesus. So, by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. So, we still do sacrifice today, they're just not animal, okay? We give praise to God, our praiseless is a sacrifice. It's coming to church is a sacrifice. We do things, and we offer up spiritual sacrifices to God all the time. And here we see this verse, by him, therefore, let us offer sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. So, yeah, I believe it's a commandment, but it's something we should just freely want to do, okay? And how do you get people to do something they don't wanna do? Well, you gotta give them the benefit, and tell them how it prospers you, right? That's how humans are, right? And the Bible promises, hey, when times are bad, if you can find something to be thankful, if you can be like David in Psalm chapter 26, and say, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes, in any situation, it's gonna get you through the toughest of times. It's gonna get you through those mental battles, and being surrounded by all these freaks, and pedophiles in society. It's gonna help you navigate life. It's gonna keep you based, which is what we need today. So, go back to Psalm chapter number 26. So I would say, all that to say this, make the, I'm sorry, make the conscious effort to increase what you're thankful for, and just understand it's gonna improve your emotional state. If you could just, every day, remember this tomorrow, you know, remember this tonight, be thankful. Take a few minutes of your own. Just thank God for the things that you have. Thank God for your families. Thank God for the clothing you have. Thank God for the water that you have, the food you have to eat. Thank God for these chairs. Thank God for the things in your life that you really, obviously, don't deserve, because guess what? We don't deserve any of it, but God supplies all of our needs, and we need to be thankful for that. So, let's move on here. So we just got done talking about a little bit what the Bible says about being thankful. You need to be thankful when times are good. We need to be thankful when times are bad. We see what that does, okay? That improves our emotional state, that gives us humility, and it actually rubs off on other people, which is definitely what we need today. And again, for a perfect picture of this, you could look to David. He's always thanking God for things, right? Always, in trouble a lot of times, but always thanking God. And again, Paul, don't forget about him. He's in bonds, what's he doing? He's thanking God, right? He's telling other people, hey, even though I'm in bonds, I'm not quite so certain about my future. Hey, pray for me that I may be able to preach the gospel. Pray for me that the word of God would have free course. Pray for me, right? That was his attitude. He didn't just shut down. He didn't just clam up. No, he was thankful. He said, you know what? I can see God's loving kindness in this situation because the word of the Lord is prospering. It's moving on. Okay, so let's move on here. Back to Psalm 26. Look again at verse number three. For thy loving kindness is before mine eyes, and I have walked in thy truth. So again, David could recognize, he could always find something to be thankful for, right? He's literally doing what Paul said to the Thessalonians in First Thessalonians chapter five, to give thanks in everything, to give thanks always, okay? He's doing that. Now let's move on to verse number four. Look what he says. I have not sat with vain persons. Neither will I go in with dissemblers. Now that word there might throw some people off. It's found one time here in the Bible. And what that means is a dissembler is somebody who puts on a false appearance, like a pretender, okay? That's pretty much what he's saying here. You know, and if you want an example, pick a politician. You know, I mean, pick a politician. It's getting harder to pick the Democrats because they're just straight up coming out with their Satanism now, you know? So you wanna maybe look towards a Republican candidate, okay? A lot of them are dissemblers, okay? Now I've got this theory I've been working on, and this might make some people mad, okay? But I'm gonna bring it up anyways. I have a theory, and this doesn't apply to every single woman, okay? But I have a theory that short-haired women, there's something wrong spiritually with short-haired women, okay, and I can't stop thinking about Carrie Lake. Now I don't know who won that race. I think it was the Democrat, Katie Hobbs, is that? Anybody know? They don't know, we don't know. It doesn't matter, they're both, you know, who knows? He goes there, she goes there, it doesn't matter, okay? But think about this, okay? Somebody had asked me, like, oh, you know, this was a couple weeks ago, like, you know, in the midterms there's gonna be a red wave. Like, if you were in Arizona, you know, what would you think about Carrie Lake? I don't know, you know, I said that because at work I'm trying not to talk about this type of stuff, but in my heart I'm thinking I would never trust a short-haired woman. I mean, I'm dead serious. I don't know about you guys, and this is purely anecdotal. I've never met a short-haired woman I could trust. Okay, now there's older ladies that have short hair, and that's not their fault. That's a whole nother situation. I get it, there's teenage girls, or mom, maybe cut their hair short, and you say, well, what's short? You know what short is, okay? I'm talking, like, this short, okay? There's, look, there's something rebellious about a woman saying, I'm gonna cut my hair off and make that work, and you're gonna respect that, okay? I'm gonna preach a sermon about that someday if I can prove it, but in my life I have never met somebody that I trust. Now, I started, I told you guys a few weeks ago, I started digging around just a little bit on Carrie Lake because I have this theory about short-haired women. And there's, like, pictures of her, like, getting, you know, with George Soros. George Soros is an evil bastard, okay? I mean, has she come out and said, oh, I had a change of mind, or I got saved, you know? Or something like that, no. Right, no, there's nothing like that, you know? She was backed by Obama for a short period of her life, I saw, all kinds of things like that. So I would say, you know what, I have a feeling she's a dissembler. I have a feeling she's pretending to be conservative, pretending to be religious, pretending to be this mom and stuff that cares, but we know the truth, okay? Inside and underneath all of that, there's something else going on, okay? So that's just an example, just kind of a lazy example. But here's another one for you, okay? And this woman doesn't really have short hair, but Italy just elected their first female prime minister. Okay, and people are super excited about that. You know, there's YouTube video after YouTube video, get recommendations all the time, you get emails all the time about this. Not from people, but just from like these, somebody signs us up for all kinds of junk, and they're like, you know, praise God, send money here. You know, Italy just elected a God-fearing woman. So I decided to look into this, I'm like, okay. So she's a God-fearing woman, heard a couple clips of her talking. She's not even married to the person she's living with. And here she is on TV, speaking to her own country in her own native tongue, you know, talking about how she stands for families, stands for this, stands for that, I'm a Christian, okay? You start digging around, she's Catholic, and she's not married to the man that she lives with. That is a dissembler, that is somebody putting on a false appearance, somebody putting basically this front up, and then people buy it, and then what always happens? Okay, they don't deliver on their promises. And all I'm saying is that David says, hey, I haven't sat with vain persons. Neither will I go in with dissemblers, okay? So that means we, now how do we recognize a dissembler? We gotta be judgmental. Yeah. I mean, there's no other way to talk about this. There's no other way to do it. You have to be judgmental, you have to be discerning. You have to be able to look and hear things that these people are saying and say, you know what? I'm judging your appearance, I'm judging what you're saying, you know? And guess what? It ain't lining up with what you are putting on. And David says, once I recognize these people, I'm not gonna go in with them, I'm not hanging out with them, I'm not gonna give them my vote, I'm not gonna stand with these people. And he's saying this, as you all know, it's a good thing. Now, jump down to verse number nine. Hey, remember, first we talked about thanksgiving. Now we're gonna talk about thanks-taking. Look what he says here in verse nine. He says, gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men. So again, I told you that when you read this psalm, it kind of pictures, at least the way our nation's gone, and really the way the world's gone, you know? I get it, you know, when Adam and Eve fell, you know, it was bad, right? But God still provided for them, he still took care of them, he was still there for them, and they were thankful for that. I don't believe Adam was a reprobate, I don't believe he was unsaved, I mean, I believe he was saved. You know, and a lot of people, obviously up until the time of Noah and that whole era, but people were thankful, you know? And you see this pattern, people are thankful for a season, thankful for a period. And then the devil, who runs the course of the world, comes in and subtly starts taking that from you, okay? That's what's happened to this country, and it started several, several decades ago when these Bible publishers started coming on the scene and sending out the Schofield Reference Bible, and they started pushing these other translations of the Bible, and then these Christian churches started picking them up, ditching the King James, and ditching truth, and going with the doctrines taught in those modern versions. And guess what those modern versions do? They subvert, they pervert. And so when you pervert the children of God, you put a cloth over that lamp, and you take away that savor, which is of our salt that we're supposed to be in this world. You basically squash truth. And the Bible says if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The answer is nothing. So the devil has been hard at work in this country, and obviously in the world as a whole, taking away thanks, taking away reasons to be thankful. Today you go to most so-called Christian people's homes, they're not thankful for the Bible. They might agree with it, they might love it, they might even tell you I'm King James only, and they might be King James only, okay? But are you in church on Sunday? Do you love the place where God dwells like David said? You know, if you do, why aren't you acting on it? Where are you? Why aren't you here? You see what I'm saying? So the devil has done a good job at taking away thanks. Go to 2 Timothy 3, and we'll take a further look at this. So we went through this period here where the devil is working overtime to take away people's reason to be thankful. People are no longer thankful for the Bible. People want the Bible out of school. They want it out of media. They want it out of the workplace. They want it erased from humanity, okay? But before that, what happened? We're like, let's talk maybe 50s, 60s, 70s, early 80s. What was it? It was a push to the modern versions, okay? So what's the devil doing there? He's getting people to focus on the original manuscript only doctrine. And so once people got fixated on that, subtly they started basically elevating man. They're no longer thankful that we have a preserved foundational truth from God. Everybody in here is thankful that you have a King James Bible. You're thankful that you have the preserved words of God. Every single day, I know that we're thankful for that. But unfortunately, we're the minority. We are the minority today that are thankful for something which should be simple, have a Bible. You know, I mean, it should be hand in hand. Oh, I'm a Christian, I have a King James Bible. You know, it shouldn't be like, oh, you're a Christian, what Bible version do you have? Like outsole me, right? People tell us all the time, you know, oh yeah, I got a Bible, let me see it. Bring it forth, bring it over. No, that's not a Bible, that's a commentary, okay? The ESV is a commentary, the NIV is a commentary. See, that's what the devil did. He took away things and he's still doing this, obviously taking away things to be thankful for and replacing them with selfish things. 2 Timothy 3, look at verse number one. So we talk about these verses all the time, but they're so applicable. Look what he says, verse number one. He says this, Paul says, this note also that in the last days, perilous times shall come. What does that word mean, perilous? Yeah, exactly, dangerous times, troublesome times, okay? These times shall come and I would say to you, they're pretty much here, okay? Look at verse two. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, okay? What brings on dangerous times? What makes society dangerous? People loving their own selves, people putting self above other people, people putting self above God, people putting man above God. That is very dangerous. That creates weak people, by the way, which creates dangerous times, okay? That is what that does. People who love themselves, and look, just type this on Google later, okay? You know, just something like this, love yourself. You're gonna find just page after page after page of psychologists and motivational warriors telling you that you just need to love yourself more. You just need to just believe in yourself, love yourself, and just keep pushing this. But the problem is that makes weak people. But they tell you the opposite. They say, you know, it takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of strength for you to love yourself. That's not true. It's pretty easy to love ourselves, right? You know, see, I'll talk about myself all day long if you love me. I'm serious, I'll do that. Why? Because I have the old man, I have the flesh. That's why I have human tendencies, okay? The Bible teaches the opposite. The Bible says, for men shall be lovers of their own selves. And that's what creates dangerous times. That's what creates perilous times. That is what has created the dangers that you and I face every day being believers in this country, okay? So verse three, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent fears, despisers of those that are good. Talked about this on Sunday. You know, the media wanted to, at first, to blame the new IFB for, you know, the shooting that happened in Colorado. Brother Jeff said the article yesterday that highlighted the fact that it was one of their own people, just like we said, okay? And then, like, you know, what would happen now? Media's like, ooh. Ooh. Anyways, hey, back to that murder up in Idaho, or up in, you know, Moscow. You know, they wanna talk about that now, which that's a horrible tragedy as well. I'm not, you know, downplaying that. But I'm just saying, once they found out it was one of their own. And don't give me this, oh, you know, they weren't a sodomite. Look, if you reject male and female, I don't care. You're a sodomite. You're straight up a sodomite. You're a dog. You say, well, I know a man that goes by the they, them pronouns at likes. I don't care. How can you even say that if you believe in this non-binary junk anyways? Give me a break, man. You see the hypocrisy, how stupid these people are? This passage is talking about these people, okay? And it's a result of people loving their own selves. And look, people, when they love their own selves, they create dangerous times. Verse four, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God. You know, that sums up a lot of believers today. Unfortunately, it does. Verse five, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. So again, what did we read in Psalm chapter 26, verse four? David said, I have not sat with vain persons. Neither will I go in with dissemblers. I'm not gonna go in with pretenders, okay? And guess what? That's why I say we should be very careful on making sure that we don't go in with dissemblers. People say, oh, I'm a Christian. I go to create church. I go to Tree City Church of the Nazarene. I go to this church over here. I love the Lord too, brother. I go house church, right? I'm part of the house church movement. I go there, and we love God, okay? Really? Tell me this, how does a person get saved? Has God preserved his truth on this earth? You say no to those, you give me the wrong answer, guess what? Unfortunately, whether you know it or not, you are a dissembler. You are a person that has a form of godliness, but you deny the power thereof. You deny the gospel, that's the power. You deny the word of God, that's the power. They're the same thing. Jesus is the word, and the word died for us. You deny that power, I want nothing to do with you. You say, yeah, but they're nice, and they donate, and they give, I don't care. What does the Bible say? Having a form of godliness, but denying power thereof. This is a command from such turn away. Because if you don't, they will take away your reasons to be thankful. And we have got to be thankful for the word of God more now than ever, and we need to be proud about it. You wanna talk about pride? Hey, let's be proud of the fact, let's be honorable of the fact, let's respect the fact that God has preserved his word for us, and let's be bold with that truth. Go back to Psalm chapter 26. So think about this. You know, when the devil comes into churches, targeted churches, took away people's reasons to be thankful, right? We call that thanks taking. He took that, and what does he replace it with? Covetousness, self-love, all this motivational garbage. I mean, what's the very next day after Thanksgiving? Black Friday, which is all of 2 Timothy chapter three. Let's go to Walmart and fist fight people, and slam people into shelves over the last TV. You know, let's go try to snatch a PS5 out of a kid's hand. I mean, look, this Friday, probably by noon, there's gonna be all kinds of people at Walmart, you know, street fights, you know, at Target, you know, the Fred Meyer brawl. I mean, all this stuff's gonna happen. People go to these stores and they fight, they bicker, they slap each other, they kick each other. Over what? It's like you just claimed to be thankful yesterday. Now you're fighting people at Walmart over a TV, or over a ball, you know? That's the society we live in today, that's glorified. Look, it's like there's more ads out there about Black Friday and beer and football on Thursday, right, don't even get me started on that. Thanksgivings, you know, how is that marketed today at the store? Oh, get this beer and these chips, right? I mean, it's all about the football game now, right? It's not about thanking God, the one who holds your breath in his hand. It's not about that anymore for these people, and that's sick and disgusting and I hate it. So, how do we respond to this thanks-taking agenda that is going on in the world? Well, David gives us some very practical advice here. Some people will not like this, but I know you will. Look at verse number five. I have hated the congregation of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked. Let's talk about that here, okay? David says, I have hated the congregation of evildoers, you know what that means? There is a congregation, there is a gathering of people that do evil, that hate God, these are people. And David, after saying, Lord, judge me, examine me, he says, hey, and in part of that, Lord, look at the fact that I've hated the congregation of evildoers. But again, the number one thing that we get attacked on all the time is being a hate group, all right? Go look at our Google reviews. We're starting to get more one-star reviews, and we love them. Thank you for those because they brought us a lot of visitors, and people have come back because of that, and I'm thankful for that, okay? I'm thankful for that 1.6 we have on Google. Praise God for that. But David says, hey, I've hated the congregation of evildoers, so you know what that means for us? Hey, we need to learn and maintain a hatred for the congregation of evildoers, okay? That's good. Verse six, I, look at this here. Look at this, look at this here. I will wash my hands in innocency. So will I compass thine altar, O Lord. Do you know what this means here? This means that hating people, hating these wicked, filthy, vile dog reprobates makes us innocent. So when they judge us and they point the finger at us, hey, let's be thankful that by us hating them is making us innocent before God. God looks at this church and what these people are trying to accuse us of and what they're out there doing, a little dance party. Hey, God says, hey, you're innocent. You're innocent for hating them. I love it, and he loves it, and he blesses us for it. That is what this is saying here. Oh yeah, I mean, right before the service, somebody screamed out, you know, love thy neighbor. You come dance with thy neighbor or some, some junk like that. I was just laughing because I'm not gonna have you turn to all the verses. It is biblically impossible, okay? It is biblically impossible that reprobate people are your neighbor. It's biblically impossible that the unsaved, those hanging in the balances are your neighbors, okay? Think about it. This world is not our home. Okay, so again, here's an easy formula hopefully for you to remember when someone comes at you with that neighbor stuff, because that's all over my inbox right now. That's all over the church email. It's all over Facebook. Oh, what about the neighbor? It's impossible for us, for those people to be my neighbor. Look, this world is not our home. If you are a believer, if you're saved, this world ain't your home. That means the inhabitants of this world and us, because we're the inhabitants of the kingdom of God, are two different worlds, two different nations. Remember, we are here as ambassadors. We're just visiting. We're just passing through, okay? So this world is not our home. We are ambassadors. Remember Jesus said, we are in the world, meaning as ambassadors, but we are not of the world. Of denotes source. People that aren't saved and the reprobates, the evil congregation, the congregation of evildoers. Those people are in the world. They are of the world, okay? And we know who the master of the world is. It's the devil, okay? So think about this, quick recap. It is biblically impossible for us to be neighbors with them. That is not what the Bible teaches. This world is not our home. We are ambassadors. Jesus said, we are not of the world. We are in the world, okay? So you know what that means? If we aren't of the world and the unsaved are of the world, then guess what? They can't be my neighbors. In order for them to be my neighbor in the kingdom of God, you have to join my nation. You have to become a believer and a person who is a part of the evil congregation, a person who is a son or daughter of the devil, somebody who is a reprobate can never join my nation, never join our nation. Does that make sense? So it's impossible biblically that they are our neighbor. So you could take all those verses about neighbors and understand real quick just by that quick argument that they are not our neighbors, okay? In fact, we are allowed, now not the unsaved, not the people hanging in the balances, not the people that haven't made their minds up yet, but the congregation of evildoers, those who wanna push perversion on our children, those who wanna harm us and take our liberties away, take our God-given rights away, take away our right to look at male and female and call that for what it is, those types of people who want to force that garbage on us, those people are of denote source, they are of the congregation of the evil one, they are of the world. They are in a different nation than us. They're in the devil's nation. They're in the devil's nation, which is the world. So literally, like Jesus said, we're ambassadors, we're just passing through here. So it is impossible. If you want me to love my neighbor, you have to get saved. And hey, we do love the world like Jesus did, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Hey, that's soul winning right there, right? But guess what? That doesn't include those who have rejected him and who God has given over to a reprobate mind. You see, David understood this and David knew this and David said, hey, judge me, oh Lord, examine me, oh Lord, and know that I have hated the congregation of evildoers. I hate them and that's our attitude. You're not gonna take away my reasons. You're not gonna take this church's reasons to be thankful away from us. You could take it from the world. You could take it from the new evangelical, but it ain't happening here. It ain't happening to us because we know better and we as a church hate the congregation of evildoers. So look at verse number 10. So we'll move on here to the next one. So we got Thanksgiving, right? We talked about that, talked about being thankful when times are good, being thankful when times are bad, talked about what that does, how that improves our mental state. It brings humility. It gives God honor. It gives God praise. And we took a look at what the devil has been doing for years, taking away people's reasons to be thankful and he does it subtly. He creeps in and says, yay, hath God said this? Hath God said that? And in the process, man has become elevated in Christian churches and what is the result? The result is weak men, weak women, weak people and the result is perilous times, which ushers in number three, which is thanks lending. Look at Psalm 26 in verse number 10. So the Bible says this, Psalm 26 verse number 10, it says, in whose hands, okay, talking about these evil people, this congregation of evildoers, he says, in whose hands is mischief and in, now don't miss this here, and in their right hand is full of bribes. Now, when you see that in the Bible, right, who's ever heard of the phrase, this person's my right hand man. You know, maybe the boss has said, oh, so you're my right hand man, okay? Meaning you're like a figure of strength and reliability. So look at what David says here. It says, in whose hands is mischief. So the congregation of evildoers, the only thing in their hands is mischief, right? Bad things, he says, and their right hand is full of bribes. In the Bible, you'll see the right hand as a figure of authority, probably because most people predominantly are right-handed, but you'll see it pictured as authority, blessing, or basically a picture of the right direction, the correct way to go, okay? You'll often see that in the Bible when you study this out about the right hand. Say, okay, well, what is thanks lending? Okay, well, after Thanksgiving, obviously, the way the devil works, he takes away your, the things that you should be thankful for, and he replaces them with things of the world. And then now, this is the phase that we're moving into, and we're pretty much almost all the way in. And that is thanks lending, okay? And that comes from the congregation of evildoers, okay? And so what do we know about them when we know that in their hands is mischief, and in their right hand, which should be authority, which should be blessing, which should be power and correct direction, the right way to go. In the right hand, instead of those things, what's in their hand are bribes, okay? Bribes, you do this, I'll give you this. You say this, I'll give you this. You slap that person, I give you this money, okay? Or you don't, you get what I'm saying, okay? Bribes, that is what's in their hands. So thanks lending, this period that we're in now, is basically the world saying, here are the select things that you can be thankful for. And guess what? God and his word and his statutes aren't in any of it. You can be thankful for your non-binary friend. You can be thankful for these perverts. You can be thankful for CNN and the left wing media and the fake right wing media and all that garbage. You can be thankful for those things, but you can't be thankful for God's preserved words. You can't be thankful for that shield of faith Baptist church. You can't be thankful for verity. You can't be thankful for faith forward. You can't be thankful for the new IFB, but you can be thankful for the woke mob. You can be thankful that we're bringing in a new era. We're bringing in this wokeness. Yea hath God said, he hath made them both male and female. No, no, no. He just meant that as an expression. Okay. He just meant that basically as, that's kind of how it starts. But then when you grow up, then you decide because God loves you and he loves everyone. That means you get to decide what gender you are. And if anyone says anything different, well, we're gonna have to take care of them. We're gonna have to cancel them. We're gonna have to run them out. So the world now is trying to lend us things to be thankful for. And if we deviate from those things, which can be subtle, what happens? Oh, they bring what evil people bring. They bring their nasty protest. They bring trouble. They bring railing accusations. They bring lies. They bring death. They bring all kinds of issues. Okay. So again, the world is now through bribes, through lending limited things to be thankful for. Okay. That is what is going on today. Instead of being thankful that we have the constitution, instead of being thankful that we have the amendments and the bill of rights, you know, you don't even have the right to vote anymore. You know that? Because there's so much fraud going on out there because there's so many wicked people out there. You can't trust the system. You know, so it's kind of hard to even be thankful for that today. Okay. That is the world. They bring it into this final phase where they will lend you, hey, all you have to do, I'll lend you this here. Okay. All you have to do is just be quiet. Just don't say anything. Take that stuff off YouTube, take it off rumble. Okay. And everything will be well, but guess what? It won't be. There are people all the time that are pleading with us and begging us to shut up, calm down. You know, is there any way we could just sit down and work together and you could just not say those things or just, just turn the cameras off. Well, we'll even take that. Pastor Jones, could you just turn the cameras off when you have to say those things and only preach the love of Christ, only publish those things. Okay. You know what's gonna happen? They're gonna send one of the goons in here. If I were to go for that, I never would, but let's say I said, okay, I'll do that. I'll do that. You know what happened? They send one of the goons in here and hear one of my sermons about this or something else and be like, oh, okay, now I'm gonna shut you down. Right. They're never satisfied. These people are implacable. They're impossible to please. Okay. Because they are the congregation of evil doers and their God is Satan. And Satan, what does he do? He, not only does he reverse things, not only does he subtly replace things, but once he has control, he destroys everyone. He destroys the people that follow him and he destroys anything that he can. Right. I mean, the Bible says that Jesus is gonna come back to the elect's sake and that the days of the tribute or the God's wrath are gonna be shortened. The days of the tribulation, I'm sorry, are gonna be shortened. Why? Because if God doesn't intervene in the last days, there would be no flesh saved. Okay. Look, the devil, people think, oh, we worship the devil. Like these Satanists out here. Oh, we worship the devil. He loves us. He's gonna tear you apart. You're gonna be in hell right next to him. Are thou the one else? Are you thou as weak as us? You think you're as weak as me? You get what I'm saying. I mean, so this thing's lending. Okay. It can't, it's just all it is is the world saying, here are the things that you can be thankful for. And they're all blasphemy. They're all wicked. They're all wrong. You know, and what I find funny too, go to Acts chapter five, we're almost done. We're almost done. You know, it's like, God gave us in this country free course to preach the word of God. Gave us free course, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, right? And now that is under attack on just about every single level you could possibly imagine. You know, and they started doing that by saying, oh, you're a racist. You know, the white man's been in charge for too long. You ever find it funny that they're not going over to China and saying, you know, you Chinese people have been in charge of China for too long and you need to get a white boy in here. You need to get someone from Africa. You need to get a Mexican in here. Why, why isn't that going on? And because these people are freaks, they're liars. They're trying to take away. They have taken away in a large part things to be thankful for. And what they're doing is they're trying to lend us an ideology. And I say lend because they're bribers. They don't ever give anything. They can't. It's impossible for them to give you anything. They bribe, they lend. They say, well, here, you could take this. Okay, and guess what? You've got mega church pastor after mega church pastor after mega church pastor in this country and throughout the world basically preaching sermons saying, I'm sorry I'm white. I'm sorry for my white privilege. And before you make a clip and say pastor Jones is racist, whatever, you know, first of all, look in the mirror and tell yourself you're stupid. Okay, I don't like name calling, but you know what? Elijah, he mocked the children of Baal, right? He mocked the prophets of Baal. It's okay when we're talking about reprobates, okay? The Bible says, God has made all the nations of the earth of one blood, okay? So this idea of being racist is stupid, but it doesn't matter. We could have 25 black people in here and you would still have these white woke mob people out here coming in here and saying that you're all KKK members. If you are a born again Bible believing Christian, you got a King James Bible, you stand on the word of God. It don't matter what color your skin is. To them, you are a white cracker racist. You might as well don a Ku Klux Klan outfit and put the Hitler stash on because that's how they view you, okay? And look, I mean, that is thanks lending. They're trying to literally cram this, lend us this ideology. And of course, if we don't go along with it, they're gonna try to take care of us. But you know what? The apostles dealt with the same thing, okay? The apostles dealt with the same thing. Acts chapter five, we're gonna read one verse and we're gonna be very close to being done here. We're gonna finish up in Psalm 26, very close to being done here. Acts chapter five, okay? Acts chapter five, apostles are put in the common prison. They're getting beatings. They're being told, hey, don't preach in Jesus' name. I'm warning you, don't do it, okay? Look at their response, verse 29. Then Peter and the other apostles. So think about this, okay? Their ability, their free speech, if you will, is under attack. Their Christian identity is under attack. Who they are is under attack by the Judaizers. And look what it says here in verse 29. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men, okay? That, look, that's how we respond to this ideology of thanks lending. It goes from thanksgiving to thanks taking to thanks lending, okay? Because guess what? The devil took away the things that people were supposed to be thankful for and he's trying to lend us this false ideology and the world is biting off on it in large chunks. So go back and we're almost done, Psalm 26. Last two verses here, Psalm chapter 26. All right, look at verse number 11 here. Psalm chapter 26, verse number 11. So David says this, he says, but, so after this whole congregation of evildoers, after telling us about their bribes and their mischief, he says, but as for me, I will walk in mine integrity. There's the second time he says that. He says that in the beginning of the Psalm and he says it at the end. But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity. Redeem me and be merciful unto me. Okay, that is from the heart of a man who loves God and is thankful and everything. Look at verse 12, he says this, my foot standeth in an even place. In the congregations, will I bless the Lord? In the congregations, right? That is why it is, look, we oughta be thankful that there is a congregation here in this town that loves God, loves his word, loves the message of salvation, and we should never see it as a burden. Like, ah, man, I can't believe it. You know, church again, you know, you want me to come once a month? It's like, is that too much to ask? You know, I mean, you get what I'm saying though. I understand people have scheduling conflicts and things. I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying, you know the crew, you know the crowd, right? The ones we see every six months or every other year, you know, it's like, how you been? Great to see you. When did I see you last? Like a year and a half ago, you know? It's like, look, adopt this attitude. Look, my foot standeth in an even place, a level place. Okay, what is he saying there? An even place. Well, basically he's saying, hey, when I have this thankful attitude here and I walk in my integrity, I love the congregation. That's where I'm gonna bless the Lord. That even place is based. You know, that's a word that's been going around a lot lately. You know, oh, so-and-so's based. Oh, Kerry Lake's based. Oh, that Italian prime minister, she's based. She's super based. No, they're not based. They're dissemblers, okay? Look, David was based, okay? Being based is being foundational. Being based is being fundamental. Again, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? And the answer is nothing. They can't do anything. So the lesson for all of this is don't be afraid or scared to remain based, okay? Be thankful. Instead, David says, but as for me, I will walk in mine integrity. He's made that choice in his head, in his heart. I will walk in my integrity. Redeem me and be merciful unto me. My foot standeth in an even place. He's not like, oh, I think it's salvation by grace through faith, but maybe it's, no, I'm even. He's on the solid rock, the solid rock, the word of God. That is what makes us based, and that should be our goal. And you know how we stay there? We stay there, there's a lot of different ways, but the main way, the main thing that's gonna help us is by being thankful. Being thankful is such a huge thing in the Bible. We didn't even scratch the surface of all the verses, all the times where people were thankful and what God really says about it. We really just made a tiny dent, you know? But the point is, hey, we need to remain thankful. That is what keeps us level. That is what keeps us based, as the world says, okay? You wanna show, you wanna demonstrate what a based person's like? It's a person who loves God, has a King James Bible if they speak English, okay? And preaches the word of God, preaches the gospel. That is a based person. That is what we need more of today, but the way we maintain that is literally by being thankful. You can see it in David's psalm here. He's thankful at the beginning and he's thankful at the end, and you know how his life turned out. God brought him through everything, even his own mess-ups, and he never stopped thanking God, and that's how we gotta be. So again, tomorrow, be thankful, but be thankful Friday. Be thankful that we're not running down to the store and playing that mob game, but let's be thankful every day. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for the truths you give us every single week. Just pray you'd help us to remain thankful, Lord, and we thank you for all that you do for us. Pray you bless the fellowship after the service. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.