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["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] ["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Take you with your song book and turn to song number 51. Song 51, Where It Will Never Grow Old. Again, that's song number 51. We're singing song number 51, where we'll never grow old. Just giving our church lord and just giving us chance and opportunity to hear the word of God preached, Lord, and to be edified and grow the faith and thank you all the people that come together to hear the word of God preached, and I pray you bless every one of them. Let us all be filled with their spirit. And so we come out of here being better Christians today, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, the next song we're going to sing is song number 36, When Christ Arose. Again, that's song number 36, when Christ Arose. Lo, in the grave He lay, Jesus, my Savior, waiting the coming day, Jesus, my Lord, come from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o'er His lows, He arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with His eggs to reign, He arose, He arose, hallelujah, rise the rose, vainly they watched His bed, Jesus, my Savior, vainly they sealed the dead, Jesus, my Lord. Come from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o'er His lows, He arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with His eggs to reign, He arose, He arose, hallelujah, rise the rose, death cannot keep His praise, Jesus, my Savior, He tore the bars away, Jesus, my Lord. Come from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o'er His lows, He arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with His eggs to reign, He arose, He arose, hallelujah, rise the rose. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift your hand nice and high. One of the ushers can come by and get you a bulletin. On the inside we have our service times, as well as our church-wide soul winning times, and a couple regional times. If you'd please make sure any soul winning maps that you take from the bin or given to you, even if they're completed, still turn those in so we can make sure to mark the map. We want to make sure that we're really efficient with those. If you have any soul winning map, please make sure to bring that back to the church, and either put that in the completed bin, or give it to brother Dylan or me. Just make sure that you get those turned in. Also, on the right-hand side, we have the stats for the month and the year to date. We also have a list of several expecting ladies, if you'd please be in prayer for all of them. And then we have our prayer list. If you have any other prayer requests throughout the week, you can send those in, and we'll be discussing those in the mid portion of the week. But just so you can be in prayer with everybody in our church. On the back, we have some church reminders. If you'd please make sure to just look at the church reminders, and just get them ingrained in your heart, okay? No, I'm just kidding. But basically, we have a couple mother-baby areas. Please feel free to use those at your discretion. And we have basically the mother-baby room where it's birthed or pre-callers, and a mother-toddler room where it's crawlers and walkers, and no food and drink in those rooms. Also, if you'd please use the church resources as soul-winning information, not as toys for your kids. So, also please don't sit on any of those chairs stacked in the back. We just don't want to create any safety hazards or anything like that. That's just storage. Imagine there's a wall there, okay? Then you don't have to worry about it. And then that'll happen in the future. Drinks are for the soul winners also. If you need any beverages, the fridge is usually stocked up with waters, gatorades, anything like that, please make sure to grab several. And definitely do it. It's still very hot in the summer, so make sure to grab a couple waters. Don't feel like it's a time to limit your amount. If you want lots of water, grab lots of water, lots of gatorade. Make sure you're drinking it as you go out soul-winning. We don't want anybody to hurt themselves by all the heat out there. And if you ride in the van, you need water, okay? It's hot in there, all right? So, also, if you have anything that you just put in the fridge, just beware that it may leave the fridge, okay? So, don't leave stuff over there overnight. And also, we have a couple soul-winning marathons that are coming up, some really exciting things. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, if you'd like to participate in that, please email brotherfurr at steadfastbaptist.com. See, he's going to be leading the charge up there, and he's been doing a really good job. I actually was up there this Thursday, and it was really good spirit. It was really great to see them. I got to go soul-winning with them. And it was one of the first people we talked to. I think it was the first person I talked to up there. He was one of the most receptive people that I've talked to getting out soul-winning in a long time. And so, it's really encouraging. It doesn't happen all the time, but you'll meet those people out soul-winning, and it just keeps encouraging you. Man, there's other people out there. He'd been a youth pastor for a long time, and he'd just kind of fallen away from church, but he was really interested in church, and he got saved. And so, it was a great time out soul-winning with them. And they have some new people that have joined the church up there. So, if you ever get a chance, you can always check out OKC. They have a lot of great people up there, really good spirit. And they do a lot of great soul-winning too. They get tons of people saved up there. It's very receptive. It's actually a lot of Spanish-speaking too, which is kind of interesting. I never would have thought that. But Oklahoma City has a ton of Hispanic people that only speak Spanish up there, and so it's another opportunity also. But if you'd be in prayer for the Tulsa Oklahoma City marathon, even if you're not going to be able to make it, but if you are, it'd be a great time of fellowship. Also, Wichita Falls, we're going to have a soul-winning marathon in October 17th. Really excited about this. Wichita Falls, usually I just drive through it, but this time we'll stop. And I think October is going to be the perfect time to go there. It's like super humid and extremely hot throughout the summer. It might even be worse or more hot and humid than it is here or even Houston. So, it's a great time to go in October. I'm really looking forward to this. I would love to have everybody participate if that's possible. And then also we have our Ecclesiastes chapter 1, we're on week number 4. So, we'll be working on that. I don't have an exact timeline of when we're going to end up moving our church, but work has been going very well at the building. We've been making a lot of great progress. We're going to try and knock out a huge portion this week. And then hopefully next week, God willing, we might could even be finished with the major construction aspects. So, if you just be in prayer, we have to get through a few inspections and things like that. But if you just be in prayer for favor and that everything would go quickly, we still have a lot of different things to take place. But if all goes well, then basically after those two weeks, I'd have one more week to buffer and then we could possibly make that transition. But again, it'll be just kind of a soft transition just to kind of get over there. And then we'll have like a big grand opening, maybe three or four weeks after that soft transition. Just to make sure we have all the kinks worked out, we get all the invites ordered, and we can have our big family and friend day that we were hoping we were going to have back in the spring. So, if you just be in prayer for that, I'm really excited about it. Everything's going really well. With that, let's go to our next song. Psalm 126. You could use your Bible or we have those handouts that are printed out as a separate literature that has our songs in there from the Psalms. Alright, this is Psalm 126. Psalm 126. The Lord had done great things for them The Lord had done great things for us Whereof he art glad Turn again our captivity The Lord has his dreams in the South Then the sowing tears shall reap their joy Then the sowing tears shall reap their joy Then say they among the key The Lord had done great things for them The Lord had done great things for us Whereof we art glad We that goeth forth and weepeth Merry, precious, he shall doubtless come again Shall doubtless come again With rejoicing, bringing his sheeps within Then say they among the heat Then the Lord had done great things for them The Lord had done great things for us Whereof we art glad The play is being passed around. Please turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2. In Genesis chapter 2, the Bible reads Thus the heavens and the earth were finished And all the host of them And on the seventh day God ended his work Which he had made And he rested on the seventh day From all his work which he had made And God blessed the seventh day And sanctified it Because that in it he had rested from all his work Which God created and made These are the generations of the heavens And of the earth when they were created In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens And every plant of the field before it was in the earth And every herb of the field before it grew For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth And there was not a man to till the ground But there went up a mist from the earth And watered the whole face of the ground And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life And man became a living soul And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden And there he put the man whom he had formed And out of the ground made the Lord God To grow every tree that is pleasant to sight And good for food The tree of life also in the midst of the garden And the tree of knowledge of good and evil And a river went out of Eden to water the garden And from thence it was parted And became into four heads The name of the first is Pison That is it which compass the whole land of Hevilah Where there is gold And the gold of that land is good There is Bedelim and the onyx stones And the name of the second river is Gihon The same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia And the name of the third river is Hedekul That is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria And the fourth river is Euphrates And the Lord God took the man And put him into the garden of Eden To express it and to keep it And the Lord God commanded the man saying Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil Thou shalt not eat of it For in the day that thou eatest thereof Thou shalt surely die And the Lord God said It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him and help meet for him And out of the ground the Lord God formed Every beast of the field and every fowl of the air And brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them And whatsoever Adam called every living creature That was the name thereof And Adam gave names to all cattle And to the fowl of the air And to every beast of the field But for Adam there was not found and help me for him And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam And he slept And he took one of his ribs And closed up the flesh instead thereof And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man Made a woman And brought her unto the man And Adam said This is now a bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh She shall be called woman Because she was taken out of man Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother And shall cleave unto his wife And they shall be one flesh And they are naked The man and his wife And we're not ashamed Let's pray Father we thank you this time for giving us to hear the word of God preached I pray bless pastor Shelley right now For whom the Holy Ghost so that he can teach the word of God So that we can all be edified And we pray that you also help keep all distractions to a minimum And we pray this in Jesus name Amen Amen Amen Look back at verse number four where the Bible read These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens And every plant of the field before it was in the earth And every herb of the field before it grew For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth And there was not a man to till the ground But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground So we have in Genesis chapter number two More descriptions about God's creation of the world And in fact how he created it And we see that he's divinely acting on his own creation And he's causing all different things to happen But specifically I want to draw out a phrase here And then I want to expand on this point But notice what it says in verse number five It says for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth So the Bible says that God was not allowing rain to come on the earth And notice how it's worded He hadn't caused it to rain So why would it rain? Because God caused it to rain, right? Isn't that what it's implying? And obviously from the direct connection we can understand At the first, God just allowed low level irrigation, right? Just a mist to come up from the ground And it watered all the earth And that's how you have the plants and all these different things And even certain agricultural systems will use this same type of methodology Where the irrigation system is in the ground It just kind of does a little bit of a mist I know my father, he's really big into gardening And he basically does a lot of tomato plants Usually has almost a hundred or tomato plants or something like that every year And he just puts a bunch of sprinkler heads, you know, or little tiny spouts Right there by the plants And they just mist a little bit at the bottom that he does every single day And so it's a very ingenious way to water the ground But God had not caused it to rain And what I want to draw from this text Is right at the very beginning God already tells us who's in control of the weather It's him God is in control of the weather And the title of my sermon this morning Is God is Burning California God is Burning California Now I'm going to take a while to get to that point You hold that thought But my first point in this sermon is that God controls the weather God controls the weather This is a super evident point in the Bible In fact, I can't even scratch the surface On how much Bible talks about this We're going to try our best Be prepared to look at a lot of verses here in a moment But let's just race through the Bible for a moment through our mind What happens very closely after this? Genesis chapter number six, what happens? Oh yeah, God destroys the entire earth with a flood He was the direct cause of that When we talk about Joseph and the end parts of Genesis, what happened? God caused a huge famine to come on the entire earth And he changed the landscape and economy of the entire earth through famine How about with Moses, the ten plagues of Egypt God causes the thunder and the hail and darkness upon the earth We can see that God is literally covered with a cloud God the Father, you can't even see him because he just covers himself with a cloud And then you see the angel of the Lord God actually goes by cloud by day and fire by night And leads them through the wilderness We have Elijah taken up in a whirlwind We have all kinds of whirlwinds and tempest mentioned in the Bible We see when we finally get to Jesus Christ He calms the storms, doesn't he? He can literally command the storms and they obey his voice Even at the crucifixion, we notice irregular weather patterns at the timing of the crucifixion to signify certain events that God wants to elevate Also, Jesus Christ, when he ascends up, he ascends up with what? With clouds You see he's controlling the weather And then when he comes back, what is he coming with? Clouds, right? Clouds, right? And even in the book of Revelation, you have all kinds of crazy weather systems being affected by God himself Now I'm going to prove this beyond a shadow Go to Deuteronomy chapter 11 Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 11 And let me show you many other places in the Bible Where it tells us explicitly that God controls the weather And God causes different weather systems to happen on the earth Deuteronomy chapter 11, now it's not always bad In fact, it can also be good And let's look at a couple good pictures here Deuteronomy chapter number 11, verse number 14 That I will give you the rain of your land in its due season The first rain and the latter rain That thou mayest gather in thy corn and thy wine and thine oil So God's talking about blessing the children of Israel and what he wants to do for them And he says, I'll cause it to rain in order to bless your harvest, in order to bless your crops, in order to bless your agriculture, excuse me, to bless your economy Go to Deuteronomy 28, Deuteronomy chapter number 28 Let's see another time where God says he's going to bless them with weather Deuteronomy chapter 28, look at verse number 12 Now this is a very long chapter of the Bible And basically the first tiny section is all about the blessings And then the majority latter half is all about the cursings that God would pour out on people Based on their obedience to his commandments So in the first half it's saying when you follow his commandments, when you do that which is right, when you're walking in his ways He says all the blessings he's going to give them Look at verse 12 The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure The heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season And to bless all the work of thine hand And thou shalt lend unto many nations and thou shalt not borrow Tell China that, alright? No I'm just kidding But notice what the Bible is saying that God has good treasure That good treasure is where? It's in the clouds and he's going to open it up It's that rain that he pours and in his season You want rain at a very specific time in a season if you want it to bless your crops And God knows that and God's going to bless you with rain in that season If you're following his commandments, look at verse 15 But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God To observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day That all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee So God then gives a list of all these different curses that are going to come upon them Look at verse 24 The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust From heaven shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed God's saying when you break my commandments, when you're wicked There's going to be a curse upon you and it's not going to rain water It's not going to be that good treasure, rather it's going to be a drought And so it's just going to be dust, it's just going to be dirt That's the type of rain that's going to be coming upon you And it's going to destroy you Now go to Psalms 107, Psalms chapter 107, that's in the law But in fact throughout the entire Bible We see this picture of God commanding the weather Of God organizing and utilizing weather to his benefit for his will and his purposes Look at Psalms 107 verse 25 Psalms 107 verse 25, the Bible says For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind Now let me ask this question Why is it that there was a stormy wind in verse 25? Because God commanded Notice God is still giving commands God is still directing certain things And when God commands the stormy wind, what happens? It lifts up the waves thereof It says in verse 26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths Their souls melted because of trouble They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man And are at their wits end Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble And he bringeth them out of their distresses This is verse 29 He maketh the storm a calm So that the waves thereof are still Then are they glad because they be quiet So he bringeth them unto the desired haven So we see the Bible saying God can control the weather God just by his commandment can cause it to storm By his commandment he can cause it to be calm Now you know what this story makes me think of? Because it's a picture perfect example of what? Go to Matthew chapter number 8 The Bible says in Psalms 148 Fire and hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind fulfilling his word The Bible gives a whole list of all different types of weather It says the fire, the hail, the snow, the vapors, the stormy wind They're all fulfilling God's word Now we see God manifest in the flesh on this earth And what kind of power, what kind of authority does he have over his creation? Well look at Matthew chapter 8 verse 24 And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea Insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves But he was asleep talking of Jesus Christ And his disciples came to him and woke him saying Lord save us we perish And he saith unto them why are ye fearful O ye of little faith Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea And there was a great calm But the men marveled saying what manner of man is this That even the winds and the sea obey him Notice that the winds obeyed Jesus Christ while he was on this earth And that picture we had in Psalms 107 Isn't that a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ How in the stormy winds he can just speak and it goes to a calm And then they're at rest, then they're at peace And you know when you're going through the storms of life Jesus Christ wants you to say you know what don't be fearful I'm in control of the storm I'm the one that's going to guide you through the storms of life Whether that be a physical storm or a spiritual storm or a personal storm It doesn't matter Jesus Christ is there with you And at a moment's notice he can cause it to calm if he needs it to calm But he told the disciples why even little faith Saying you really think that a boat with Jesus Christ on it is just going to sink Really think the Lord Jesus Christ is just going to allow them to just Well we had this great time, Jesus was on this earth He was going to do all this great work But then they just drowned in the sea They just got lost at sea or something Bermuda Triangle right But isn't that what people, people are afraid You know people are afraid Well if I raise my family to serve God If we go to church and we have Jesus in our boat with us If Jesus is in our house with us If Jesus is in our church with us Who cares what's going on outside Who cares what storms are beating down Jesus Christ is not going to let it sink The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church Hey if you've got Jesus in the boat That's the only thing you've got to worry about Now if Jesus jumps out of the boat Now you're afraid Now you've got some problems okay But you know what Jesus Christ controls the weather And not just physically even spiritually And that's the point that he was making Go to Ezekiel 14 But we're talking carnal this morning For all you carnal Christians alright I know that's what you need Ezekiel 14 look at chapter 13 Or I'm sorry chapter 14 verse 13 The Bible says Son of man When the land sinneth against me By trespassing grievously Then will I stretch out mine hand upon it And will break the staff of the bread thereof And will sin famine upon it And will cut off man and beast from it Notice what God says He says hey when you guys sin When you guys do grievous wicked trespasses What am I going to do I'm going to bring a horrible famine upon your land And you know what a famine is It's a lack of moisture It's a lack of rain on a land Causing a drought Causing the crops not to grow Or perhaps it could be a bad storm You know perhaps you have all these great crops And it hasn't quite been harvested And God brings in hail God brings in a horrible storm to come And wipe out your crops But whatever it is It's almost always due to Some type of weather irregularity Go to Nahum chapter 1 Nahum chapter number 1 Jonah chapter 1 Let's think about Jonah Verse 4 I'll read for you But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea And there was a mighty tempest in the sea So that the ship was like to be broken We always think about the fact that God sent a whale But you know what He sent first Was a great wind He first sent a storm And that's what caused all the people on the boat to freak out And caused them to want to throw Jonah into the sea Okay And this is what happens Whenever you're godly Whenever you're righteous There's going to be the storms of life And those that are not saved freak out And they're like just kill them Just get rid of them And guess who they blame All the storms on Jonah Right And obviously it is his fault We understand that from the story But the wicked are always going to blame the righteous For everything bad that happens to them They're always going to look at Jesus It's Jesus' fault that all these bad things are happening It's Christianity If we got rid of all the Christian morals in this nation We'd be so much better off You know we just got rid of that Bible And all the hate that comes from the Bible And all these different things But what we have to understand is It's them that are causing the problems often cases And it was because of Jonah's disobedience That actually brought that type of trouble That type of evil upon them It was not from being righteous It was not from doing that which is godly It's when people turn away from God It's when people aren't serving God That the storms of life come sent from God on purpose Jonah was in rebellion to God And what did God do? He sent a storm after him didn't he? Oh but that would never happen in the New Testament That would never happen, oh it does happen And it will happen Now look at Nahum chapter 1 verse 3 The Bible says the Lord is slow to anger And I think because of that phrase right there Is why people don't get this They would expect that if you say something bad about God Immediate lightning strike And I would love that I'd love our protester out here He blasphemes God and just immediate lightning strike And he dies Now we don't have him I don't know where he went Maybe he died and went to hell hopefully But he'll probably be back That was too easy ok Anyways I'd rather see something I would like to see something more dramatic anyways You know a pitfall into hell or something But the Bible says that the Lord is slow to anger So often times people They can commit horrible sin Grievous sin for a very long period of time Before God actually ends up punishing them Before God actually ends up sending his wrath That's not to say that God's not just It's just that he's also very long suffering It's also that he's very merciful and very gracious In reality if we look at our world today We constantly want people to be burnt up We constantly want people to be destroyed And God's not doing it That should just be evident Of the fact that God's so much more long suffering than we are Hey when I look at some of the wicked people today When I look at Joe Biden's face Or Nancy Pelosi's face Or Hillary Clinton's face Or Bill Clinton's face Or Jeffrey Epstein's buddies Any of these people I mean we just want immediate justice don't we How is God allowing them to still walk this planet And breathe his air It's because he's long suffering It's because he's gracious and he's of mercy I mean you could not look at these wicked people And not say God's not merciful When he hasn't burnt them up already He hasn't destroyed them already God allows them to exist To treasure up more wrath against themselves And to fulfill his will and his purposes And just gather more trash under them But what you have to understand is God is slow to anger But that does not mean he will not judge He will bring his judge The problem is his judgments are like a hammer And it says great in power And will not at all acquit the wicked You got to couple that with the long suffering Did he say that the wicked can get away? No He'll never acquit the wicked You're not going to get away with anything No one ever gets away God is not mocked But what so ever man soweth that shall he also reap You want to get away with your sin Get saved Okay You won't go to hell But then on top of that If you don't want to get punished on this earth You better confess and forsake that sin Because God is not going to acquit wicked sin Now let's keep reading this verse The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind And in the storm And the clouds are the dust of his feet Notice how he describes how the weather works He's saying the clouds are like the dust I just run And then basically I create clouds Just with the dust of my feet He says he has his way in the whirlwind So who's in control of these things? Who's causing these things? Where are they coming from? I mean the Bible is super clear actually Is it not? Go to Job chapter 1 Go to Job chapter 1 I'll read another verse for you Ezekiel 13, 13 Therefore, thus saith the Lord God I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury And there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger And great hellstones in my fury to consume it So the Bible says that God actually will use storms as a great judgment against wickedness God will use the weather to afflict people and to torment them And to cause his judgment to be poured out on them Now in trying to think about this sermon Because really just let your Bible just fall open You can probably find some way that God's impacting the weather But I try to think of a story where maybe it's not him impacting the weather And this is the closest thing I could come to But here's the facts He's always still in control Here's the closest example I could think of Job chapter 1, look at verse 18 While he was yet speaking So talking about a servant coming to Job Talking about all the horrible things that are happening There came also another and said Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house And behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness And smote the four corners of the house And it fell upon the young men And they are dead And I only am escaped going to tell thee Now in Job chapter 1 In this context, we understand this great wind is actually coming from the devil The devil had the power The devil had the authority to cause a great wind to come upon a house And to literally wipe out his entire family Which is a horrible sad story So you say, okay, so it could be God or it could be the devil Well, let's actually check this And see if it was really the devil that was at the top of the food chain On this decision Go to chapter verse 10 If we back up, it says Thou not made an hedge about him Talking about Job And about his house And about all that he hath on every side Thou has blessed the work of his hands And his substance is increased in the land But put forth thine hand now And touch all that he hath And he will curse through thy face So the devil's asking God to do what? He's asking God to touch him He's asking God to stretch forth his hand He's asking for God to allow this evil to come upon him And God uses the devil to fulfill his will Of that storm coming upon those people So ultimately it's still God And let me prove this even more Go to Job chapter 2 Job chapter 2 Cause you say, well, the devil asked that But then the devil did it Well the devil only could do it because God allowed it And God is actually the one causing this Let me prove this Look at Job chapter 2 verse 3 And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? That there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil And still he holdeth vast his integrity Although thou moveth me against him To destroy him without a cause So notice who God says is to blame for all this evil that's coming upon Job Him He says thou moveth me So God is still the one that's causing all these things to happen Yeah, he might allow the devil to intervene He might use the ten kings to destroy Babylon But you know what, he was putting his will into their hearts to cause them to destroy Babylon He's putting his will into the devil to fulfill his purpose of doing all these evil things unto Job To test Job, to prove Job and all the other things that are related So let me say this We've already seen that God causes the weather God is in control of the weather God is the one making all these decisions and allowing these things to happen But God will also allow us to influence him about weather So while God's in control and God's the ultimate cause He allows others to influence his decisions about the weather Let me prove this Go to Psalms 83 Psalms 83 God will listen to your prayers about weather God will listen to your prayers about weather Let me prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt from the Bible Psalms 83 Look at verse number 13 Oh my God Make them like a wheel As the stubble before the wind As the fire burneth the wood And as the flame seteth the mountains on fire So persecute them with thy tempest And make them afraid with thy storm Fill their faces with shame That they may seek thy name, O Lord Let them be confounded and troubled forever Let them be put to shame and perish Why? That men may know that thou Whose name alone is Jehovah Art the most high over all the earth Not the Jehovah's false witness, the real Jehovah, okay? And notice why this guy's praying this prayer It's against the enemies of the Lord He wants God to destroy them with weather So that people would fear God And people would turn to the Lord So people would know who the real God is God is in control of the weather Which is an evident token of the fact that he's God That he's the one in control He's the one that's making these decisions And so God will affect the weather Go to James chapter number 5 James chapter number 5 So we actually have an example for you So we actually have an example prayer Of someone praying the Bible for weather Now was that a good prayer or a bad prayer? Now, obviously it's a good prayer in its nature But its essence is negative towards the enemies of the Lord He wants God to destroy his enemies with a storm With weather patterns He wants to tear them up with a tempest And make them afraid with thy storm You know what'll strike terror in your heart? A lightning bolt striking right next to you Now I've experienced this and it is terrifying I mean it doesn't matter if you're saved or unsaved It'll level the playing field real quick I remember coming out of a movie theater And I believe I was with my wife But we were going to try and come out of a movie theater There was a fire hydrant And I would say 20 to 25 feet away It was kind of an extended sidewalk for the movie theater It was kind of elongated At the edge of the sidewalk was a fire hydrant It was right in front of the exit So we're like walking out and storming And a lightning bolt literally hits that fire hydrant And lights it up And I mean it's the loudest crack and sound you'll ever hear I mean it's just terrifying Women are just instantly crying and screaming You know Like it's just like You know it's just like And they're just crying and weeping And basically you know a couple guys went to get their trucks They drove them like all the way up the sidewalk Up to the door And were trying to get women in the car Just because it was so terrifying Just that loud just spike And I mean you can even feel it If you're that close to a lightning or something like that The hair will stand up on the back of your neck You can kind of feel the electricity in the air It's a terrifying feeling Because that thing could just smoke you man And playing a lot of golf I mean lightning was a constant thread I guess Or whatever You're supposed to stay kind of away from trees And you're supposed to be careful If there's any kind of lightning they'd usually cancel the tournament Or temporary suspended or anything like that And I mean lightning can be a very terrifying thing That's what God uses to strike terror in the hearts of men He'll just bring the lightning He'll bring the thunderbolt He'll bring both of them upon you And it's terrifying Look at James 5 verse 17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain And the earth brought forth her fruit So in James chapter 5 we have the apostle James Bringing up a story from the Old Testament And he's expanding upon it He's just basically expounding what happened He's saying look you know why it didn't rain? Because Elias prayed Because Elijah prayed Elijah prayed that it wouldn't rain Didn't rain Then he prayed that it would rain And then it rained Let's go back to that story Go to 1 Kings chapter 17 1 Kings chapter 17 Notice that the man has power over the weather through praying to God By his prayers to God he can affect the weather patterns And why is it causing a drought? Well, Ahab's a wicked king They're into complete wickedness And the northern kingdom of Israel is just worshipping all kinds of false gods He married Jezebel, that wicked woman influencing him in all manner of evil And so Elijah is there to rebuke Ahab and to rebuke these different people It says in 1 Kings chapter 17 verse 1 And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand There shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word Now that's an interesting phrasing Notice what he said He said hey it's not going to rain here according to my word He says I'm going to basically make it where it's not going to rain here It says and the word of the Lord came on him saying Get the ends and turn the eastward and hide thyself by the brook Kireth That is before Jordan So, Elijah's praying that it's not going to rain And God tells him well go by this brook and just hide out for a little while Well it says in verse 7 And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up Because there had been no rain in the land And the word of the Lord came unto him saying Arise Get thee to Zarephath which belongeth to Zidane and dwell there Behold I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee So we have Elijah praying that it's not going to rain God sends him to this brook All the water is drying up in the land because there's no rain And then he has to go to Zarephath Which is a very wicked place by it's just geology It's an enemy of Israel typically So it kind of makes sense God's just wanting to hide there Because Ahab's going to think he's not Zarephath He's not Zidane He wouldn't go hide there So he hides at this poor widow woman And it says in chapter 18 verse number 1 And it came to pass after many days That the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying Go show thyself in Ahab and I will send rain upon the earth Now just as a nugget It has really nothing to do with our story But let me explain this verse for a moment Because some people would take James And they say it contradicts with this portion Atheists will try to say the Bible has contradictions Because it said three and a half years And James and this says in the third year So that doesn't sound like three and a half years Well let me explain this really quickly First of all, in the third year of what? Does it even say no? But if you read the context it's crystal clear what he's trying to say He's talking about being in Zarephath with this widow woman And then it says in the third year of what? Being in Zarephath, right? Some people attach this to Ahab raining And they'll say, oh he started at Ahab's rain And then the third year of Ahab's rain So that's not three and a half years Well look, holy men spake Or holy men spake Or holy men of God spake as they're moved by the Holy Ghost So in James chapter five it's three and a half years And guess what? This is also the third year But it's not the third year of Ahab's rain I don't believe that That doesn't make any sense Basically how you can understand the story is He probably hung out at the brook Hireth for about six months And then he was in Zarephath for what? Three years And then the prophet with the Holy Ghost teaching him how long it was Said three and a half years But it was three and a half years, okay? There's no contradictions in the Bible, okay? If you think there's a contradiction, you're wrong Every time, okay? Just wait and let someone explain it to you And there's been times where I've looked at things in the Bible And said I don't really understand that But then later you end up figuring it out Later someone teaches on it And you're like, wow, I've never seen it that way, okay? But that's how we explain the story And it's interesting here too I want to make one more point Not everything could always be discerned from the Old Testament text by itself Notice that the New Testament has to tell us it was three and a half years You can't figure that out in the Old Testament Which is another evident proof that these guys weren't just using their own information They were given information by the Holy Ghost You don't see Enoch talking in the Old Testament But then we have what he said in the New Testament Why? Because the Holy Ghost knows what they said The Holy Ghost knows what they did The Holy Ghost knows it was three and a half years So let the New Testament tell you what the Old Testament means Let the New Testament tell you what really happened in the story And it says in verse 41 And Elijah said to Ahab, get thee up, eat and drink For there is a sound of abundance of rain So Ahab went up to eat and to drink And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel And he cast himself down upon the earth And put his face between his knees So we can understand what is Elijah doing He's going up to this mountain He's praying for it to rain So he prayed that it would not rain Then he goes up to the mountain and he prays that it will rain What happens? Verse 43 And he said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea And he went up and looked and said, there is nothing And he said, go again seven times Now why is it bringing this up? What was the point of James chapter number five? Was it that you just pray and things happen? No, it was that the fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much And we see Elijah, he's not just giving Oh, it didn't happen, okay, give up Nope, then he's going to pray again And then he's just going to pray again And he's going to pray again until it happens He's just going to keep praying and keep trusting in God And notice what happens It says And he went up and looked and there is nothing And he said, go again seven times And it came to pass at the seventh time That he said, behold, there arises a little cloud out of the sea Like a man's hand And he said, go up, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot And get thee down That the rain stopped thee not And it came to pass in the meanwhile That the heaven was black with clouds and wind And there was a great rain And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel So notice what happens Elijah prays, he says, go check and see if there's any clouds None, alright, pray more Go check and see if there's any clouds Nope, alright, come back And then on the seventh time, what happens? There's this hand just coming out This hand, this cloud, you know, just coming right at them And then it just rains like crazy Why? Because men can influence God to affect the weather Men can influence God to affect the weather Now that's pretty incredible when we think about the impact that you could have Go to Psalms chapter number 19 What's the purpose then, Pastor Shelley? Why is God causing all these different weather patterns? Why can we influence God as far as the weather is concerned? Well, my third point is that God uses weather to speak to us God uses the weather to speak to us Now, look what it says in Psalms 19, verse 1 The Bible says The heavens declare the glory of God And the firmament showeth his handiwork Day unto day uttereth speech And night unto night showeth knowledge There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard Their line is gone out through all the earth And their words to the end of the world End them Had they set a tabernacle for the sun Now, we have to understand about this verse Is God uses carnal truths to expound spiritual truths The carnal truth is that we can all see the sun rising It always rises in what? The east And it sets in the west How did Jesus do that? Well, he said, He said, And it sets in the west How did Jesus Christ enter into Jerusalem from the east? Okay And what you have to understand is these are pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ doing what? Rising again from the dead We have day to day, we just see the sun rise every day Like clockwork And it's never going to not happen Until it's all destroyed But it's just not going to stop happening Why? It's just a picture of his everlasting salvation His everlasting resurrection Day to day, we can see his handiwork Day to day, we see the creation of God Hey, they're without excuse is what the Bible says The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen Being understood by the things that are made even to the eternal power And God had, so they're without excuse How can you look at this world and not understand that God exists? How can you see the clouds and the heavens and the lightnings and everything And just say, oh, it just happened How can you say that lightning striking a rock caused us? Every time lightning strikes something, it's destroyed It's smoked I mean, fire, destruction You expect me to believe that lightning Where did the lightning come from? Where did the rocks come from? Where did any of this come from? It all came from God God created it And you know what? God speaks to us through his creation every single day Hey, the fact that the sun is the exact same size And just goes in this perfect pattern over our head every single day Every single day You know what that proves? It proves that the earth is a sphere and rotating Because that's the only way that that's possible The only way that that's possible If you see something perfectly moving around you in a perfect pattern And it's the same size all the way through It's because you're spinning That's the evidence And it's easy Just go outside, just look It's just like, it goes up Read Ecclesiastes, right? Our chapter The sun ariseth Okay, and it sets and then it hastens back to its place Every single day Every single day The sun, the moon, the stars It teaches us so much about God And it's constantly uttering its voice And I don't care if you speak Mandarin I don't care what language you speak You can tell the earth's not flat You can tell that God created the heavens and the earth You can see his handiwork You can see his power You can see his might I mean, when the men of God looked in the heavens They said, what is man that thou art mindful of him? I mean, when you look at the comparison of what God has created How can he entrust everything to us? How did he give us dominion over everything? What a great honor that he's given unto us You know what? He uses his weather to speak to us too Go to Amos chapter 4, let me prove this Amos chapter number 4 God is going to use weather to try and grab your attention To try and wake you up To try and talk to you and try to instruct you Now look what it says in Amos chapter number 4 Verse number 4 It says, come to Bethel and transgress At Gilgal, multiply transgression And bring your sacrifices every morning and your tithes after three years And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven And proclaim and publish the free offerings For this liketh you, O you children of Israel, saith the Lord God Now, please understand this Verses 4 and 5, he's not telling them what to do He's mocking them He's sarcastically rebuking them And joking at them Now, I understand that your little soft, you know, weak heart Can't handle mocking and ridicule But let me explain something to you The Bible is full of mocking and rebuke It's full of constant joking and ridicule God is mocking these sinners Saying, oh yeah guys, why don't you just show up at Bethel and transgress Why don't you just go to Sin City Why don't you just go to Vegas then, buddy Why don't you just go there and go down the boardwalk With all the whores and the whoremongers And play and gamble, why don't you do it He says, and at Gilgal, multiply transgression He said, don't just go there Go into the casino, you know Go to San Francisco, multiply transgression He says, and bring your sacrifices every morning And your tithes after three years That's a little delinquent, huh Verse 5, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving Notice this, with leaven Are you supposed to offer thanksgiving with leaven? Are we supposed to bring leaven into the church and then worship God with leaven in the church? But we're so thankful We're thankful for Adam Fannin being here this morning So that he could bless us We want to thank God with leaven this morning I know he railed and lied about a ton of people And has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt for doing it But we're just so glad he's here So that he could lie to us too I don't want to Sorry, he's just a perfect analogy for everything That was not in my notes, alright But we see that he's mocking them for their transgressions He says, proclaim and publish the free offerings For this likeeth you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord Verse 6, this is what he says about them And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities Now, you would say, are they going to the dentist? Like, Pastor Shelley, that doesn't sound bad Like, we need to all go to the dentist more often Now, cleanness of teeth is saying because you don't have any food in it It's saying because you've been starving It's because you don't have anything to eat If your teeth aren't clean, it's because it's full of food It's because you've been chowing down So if you have cleanness of teeth, it's saying you're not eating That's what he's trying to tell you there It's not about brushing your teeth Now you should, but that's different He says, in want of bread and all your places Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord So notice he says, hey, even though you had nothing to eat I was trying to get that to wake you up so that maybe you'd come back to me But you didn't Look at verse 7 And also I have withholden the rain from you When there were yet three months to the harvest And I caused it to rain upon one city And caused it not to rain upon another city One peace was rained upon And the peace whereupon it rained not withered So two or three cities wandered unto one city to drink water But they were not satisfied Yet have they not returned unto me, saith the Lord So notice God's causing it not to rain on the city And instead of just getting right with God, what do they do? They have to go to another city and steal their water They all wander under another city trying to figure out how to get water Rather than just praying and asking God to forgive them Rather than just getting right Rather than realizing the reason why you're not having rain Is because God's mad at you He wanted you to do what? He wanted you to return unto him It says in verse 9 I have smitten you with blasting and mildew When your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased The Palmer worm devoured them Yet have you not returned unto me, saith the Lord Verse 10 I have sent among you the pestilence After the manner of Egypt Your young men have I slain with the sword And have taken away your horses And I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils Yet have you not returned unto me, saith the Lord I have overthrown some of you As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah And you as a firebrand plucked out of the burning Yet have you not returned unto me, saith the Lord Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel And because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel For lo, he that formeth the mountains And notice this And createth the wind And declereth unto man what is his thought That maketh the morning darkness And treadeth upon the high places of the earth The Lord, the God of hosts, is his name Look at that, Jehovah's false witness There's another name, all right? But what I want to point out He's literally burning these places like Sodom and Gomorrah And they still won't wake up All of their economy is being destroyed He's not raining upon them He's bringing wind upon them He's bringing all this destruction upon them And they're still not turning to God But God is trying to use the weather to wake them up Saying, look, you know why you're so cursed You know why there's all this destruction upon you It's because you're wicked Because you're transgressing against me And look, God is burning California today Because it is wicked It is wicked And if you don't know I'm going to give you a couple articles, okay? It is crazy what's happening in California It is crazy And you say, why are you talking about this? Well, I want to give you a good example It seems like the Bible's pretty clear Why weather happens Why people be burned up Listen to this title and article In just a week In just a week Wildfires burn 1 million acres in California The Associated Press And that's this week It says, weary firefighters in California Raised Saturday to slow the spread of wildfires That burned nearly 1 million acres statewide in a week And destroyed hundreds of homes Ahead of expected weather change That could bring more lightning strikes Like the ones that sparked many of the blazes So they're saying lightning strikes Are causing fires to start all over California And it's already burned at least a million acres This is what it says Two clusters of wildfires in the San Francisco Bay Area Grew to become the second and third largest wildfires In recent state history by size So you're saying San Francisco specifically Has had the second and largest fires At the same time Recently I'm shocked Go to Psalms chapter 9 Go to Psalms chapter number 9 This is from the Associated Press Which is basically the mouthpiece for the government, okay? It's not like a godly Christian news article station Oh, it's Fox News, well it's not godly either Associated Press, now Let me read you another title of an article that I saw It's from the Daily Mail Driving Through Hell Driving Through Hell is the title of the article from the Daily Mail I mean this thing has gotten all kinds of eyeballs on it It's been on major publications The main headline in fact of the Drudge Report It was the number one title of all the articles It says horrifying footage shown The scenes from a car driving through the raging flames Of the Hennessey fire in Napa County As heavy smoke filled the air and burning trees overhead Dangerously threatened to topple Maybe you shouldn't call it Hennessey At least six people have been killed As a staggering 560 fires Continue to spread uncontrollably Across the state of California They have 560 fires All at the same time In the whole state of California going on right now And they have these pictures, I watched the video I mean it literally does look like hell I mean it's just fire everywhere Except for the road that the guy's just driving through I don't know why I guess he's crazy or whatever But look what the Bible actually says Psalms chapter number 9 Look at verse 17 The wicked shall be turned into hell And all the nations that forget God God says if you're a wicked nation If you forget God You know what? You're gonna literally be hell on earth Hell on earth And notice we literally have articles from the ungodly saying Hey it's like hell on earth here in California Oh I think that's a coincidence No it's because they're wicked And you say well how did these things happen? They said lightning strikes right? Listen to this article This is the title Nearly 11,000 lightning strikes in 72 hours ignite more than 300 fires in California 11,000 lightning strikes in 72 hours I feel like God's mad 11,000? That's incredible It says over the past 72 hours California has experienced a historic lightning siege Said Jeremy Rahn, division chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection So even just the unsaved, the ungodly They're just like we're just getting lit up with lightning and fire And now what you have to understand about California is they also have like the Santa Ana winds So it's dry because why? No rain Then they have these great winds swirling through Then they have lightning strikes just attacking and causing all these fires And then with that wind it's just blowing all this fire everywhere on their state Huh I wonder who's in control of the wind and the rain and the lightning Oh yeah it's God It's God that's in control of those things Now all these people should basically be getting right with God Right they should get on their knees and say God please spare us God please stop striking our country and our state and our lands and just destroying everything This is what they say Wildfires and climate change Climate change primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels Is increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires Not only in California but also all over the world So you have just constant lightning strike Constant just swarming fires and just destruction And all kinds of crazy things that have never been seen at this scale And they say climate change Because you drive a truck in Texas you're destroying Because you're going to eat a steak for lunch or a burger I'm not joking You think I'm joking? That's literally what they do But go to Isaiah chapter 29 Go to Isaiah chapter 29 Let me tell you the reason why it's happening It's not climate change Because God causes climate change It's God It's God that's causing these things to happen And it's God that's bringing this destruction upon California And it's California that needs to get right with God If they don't want their entire state to be wiped off the planet Because God is showing he's angry And I can understand why But look at Isaiah 29 verse 6 Look what the Bible says Thou shalt be visitor to the Lord of hosts Notice this With thunder And with earthquake And great noise With storm and tempest And the flame of devouring fire Now what describes California better than that verse? I mean who has the most earthquakes? So yeah, California Who has the most lightning? I think I looked up maybe China has a lot too But that's a different story I mean they're giving the most lightning The most earthquakes The storms and the tempest And you know what? They literally have flames of devouring fire Just devouring all kinds of portions of their land And homes And running through their state You say, why is this happening Pastor Shelley? Well, did you know that California leads in abortions annually? It has the most abortions 132,000 annually Think about that divided by 365 How many babies are killed every single day? There needs to be more lightning strikes It has the most number of LGBTQ people 1.8 million That's a lot 1.8 million That's like all of Fort Worth or something I mean that's more than most cities that are huge 1.8 million The percentage of those people that are raising children So it says the percentage of that 1.8 million raising children is 24% A quarter I mean we're talking like three, four hundred thousand faggots raising kids I bet there's a lot of cries at night Among the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas San Francisco has the highest percentage of people who identify as freaks As disgusting filth 6.2% And that's what they're public about I've seen other statistics say it's 15% in San Francisco 15%? That's disgusting It's wicked You look at me like, why is it not already destroyed? I don't know Because God's so long suffering God's so merciful He let Sodom get to the point where it was 99.99999% And then he wiped it out You think about California, oh yeah they have Hollywood They have some of the most prolific drug users Just walk on the streets Homeless people, fornication I mean this is one of the most ungodly, wicked places on the planet Oh it's shocking to me that God's just burning it up with fire Just like Sodom and Gomorrah, right? Now it's just a coincidence Oh it's because of climate change You're a science denier, Pastor Shelley I don't deny science The reality is that God caused the weather That God is burning California In fact, you say, oh well it's always been like that Nope 1932, since 1932 they've been measuring all these wildfires In California The 10 largest So the 10 largest wildfires that have been spread in California since 1932 All of them happened after 2000 And the largest ones have been either 2018 or this one I don't know, it's basically You'd have to look up different articles that said different things One said 2018, another one said 2020 I don't know if one was behind the other in time or something But how come it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse? Climate change Right? Well here's my fourth point Don't blame weather on climate change Yeah, right Go to Jeremiah chapter 14 Now I printed out an article 22 devastating effects of climate change, alright? Now I'm not going to read all 22 And I'm not even going to read most of it I'm just going to give you the highlights of some of the things they said But they said in number 4 Western wildfires could burn up to 8 times as much land by 2100 So they're saying, oh if we don't fix this climate change issue We could burn up 8 times more of the land 8 million square feet or whatever, I don't know Number 6, they said hurricanes could become up to 11% more intense And 20% wetter by 2100 Number 7, 4 times as many New Yorkers could live in areas that flood by 2050 Now New Yorkers, they have the highest percentage of fags per like Capita or resident or maybe just in total population Because they're so much bigger than any other city But they have a lot of fags, ok? Tons So what do they say? They're floods, more hurricanes, more fires Number 10, they say global weed and maize yields are already beginning to decline Famine So they say, you know what's on the horizon for the world? Fire, bigger hurricanes, more floods, famines 14, increased droughts will make the driest regions even drier So it says even more droughts 15, 63% of major wine regions could be jeopardized So it's going to hurt the wine Maybe you're paying attention to what's... It's going to hurt the wine production That sounds like something I read in Revelation maybe 17, Atlanta and New York could see twice as many days of thunderstorms by 2100 Now this one is just weird Verse 21 a point Some animals are shrinking I'm going to read this one because it's weird It has like this horse and then this little tiny thing next to it It says an artist's rendering of the early horse Hira Cotherium alongside a modern day horse Researchers found that Hira Cotherium body size decreased 19% during a global warming event about 53 million years ago So apparently 53 million years ago they went through the same global warming crisis that we are and they noticed their animals were shrinking It said that their horses became the size of dogs With such accuracy You're such a science denier if you don't accept that And then number 22, an additional 20 million more children will go hungry by 2050 So you know what, the dialogue, let me explain this The dialogue has already been set That when God constantly pours out his wrath on this world What are they going to always say? Oh, climate change Flood's climate change Hurricane, climate change Fire's climate change And it's always the Republicans' fault It's Trump's fault Trump's basically eating all those burgers or whatever It's the Christians' fault It's the gas guzzlers in Texas We need to all live in a commune and you can't ride a Segway by Tesla Sorry, this wasn't an infomercial, alright They're going to just always blame it on climate change Aren't they? They're always going to have an excuse Even in Revelation when God's pouring out his wrath It could never be more manifest They still don't repent of their sins They still don't repent of the works of their hands They're still clinging to their idols They're still clinging to their false gods But you know what? We as God's people should not fall for this false narrative And be like, oh, it's climate change No, God causes the climate change And you know what? God's in control of the weather And God's using this to demonstrate how angry he is with the wicked He's angry at the wicked every day Look at Jeremiah 14 verse 1 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth So God's going to tell him about a dearth A dearth is an extreme famine Okay But the liberals will say, oh, climate change Look at verse 22 And this is a great chapter If you read this whole chapter, it really fits in well with our sermon But look at verse 22 Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles Notice this That can cause rain Or can the heavens give showers? Art not thou he, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon thee, for thou hast made all these things You know what we just did? We instantly proved climate change is a hoax Climate change is false The Bible says, hey, can the Gentiles do anything to cause rain? And what does God say? No You say, oh, you know, through all of our pollution And all these things we're doing in the environment We're causing all these effects to the weather Nope Zero Zero You say, well, maybe I should have less steak I just want to help out with the environment Bad idea The steak tastes great Hey, I don't want to have this gas guzzler, you know Look, the Bible tells you You can't affect the weather on your own The unsaved can't do anything to the weather The only person in control of the weather is God God is the one that causes all the weather patterns Quit blaming it on climate change Don't get sucked into their narrative Well, I studied the science and I understand that all these people And all these, you know, carbon emissions that they're having coming out Is raising the global temperature of the earth Look, you're falling for their trap God already told you it's not possible You can't, I don't care what you think Now the devil, obviously, given instruction from God Could change the weather But at the end of the day, it's not you on your own will It's only if God allows it Go to Psalms 11, Psalms 11, we're almost finished this morning Amos chapter 3, because we read Amos chapter 4 all about How God was trying to use weather to talk to these people And cause them to return to Him In the chapter right before, Amos chapter 3 says Shall a trumpet be blown in the city And the people not be afraid Shall there be evil in a city And the Lord hath not done it The Bible says, hey, if something bad's happening If there's some kind of harm in a city You know who did that? God did! You say, hey, where did all these fires come in California, Pastor Shelley? From God God is burning California as a warning To all those that reject Him As a wake up sign to say, hey, you don't like fire now You're not gonna like fire in hell either And if you forget God and you reject God God will burn you up And you know what, that's not the only natural disaster that happens in this planet Do you know who's responsible for all of them? God You say, I don't know if you should blame God Look, God told me that in the Bible I'm just believing the Bible this morning You open your Bible, you just read Just read a couple chapters, I guarantee you'll see something about that It's just like everywhere in the Bible It's on every page God's in control Psalms 11 verse 5 The Lord tried the righteous But the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hated I love this song Upon the wicked he shall rain snares Fire and brimstone And a horrible tempest This shall be the portion of their cup You know, he's not doing that in hell He's gonna do that on the earth God is gonna rain fire and have these tempest And these storms on the earth against the wicked He destroys the wicked through storms Read your Bible Just let it fall open It's called the flood, you know It's called Sodom and Gomorrah, it's a great story At least how God feels about it Exodus chapter 9, last place of return, Exodus chapter 9 Let me give you one more proof Look, God will literally burn your city If you reject it If you thumb your nose at God If you're wicked If you're transgressing exceedingly God will rain all kinds of evil And horrible, unimaginable things upon you Read about Pharaoh Read about the wicked people before the time of the flood Read anywhere in your Bible You say, well, that's Old Testament Read Revelation That hasn't even happened yet And you can already see the climate deniers You know, they'll finally kick off their climate change doctrine When the Antichrist shows up That's the only time they'll stop It'll be climate change, climate change, climate change And they'll be like, oh, Antichrist And then even when God's pouring it out They still can't figure it out They still don't understand it Look at Exodus chapter 9 verse 23 And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven And the Lord sent thunder and hail And the fire ran along upon the ground And the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt Notice that God literally caused the fire to run upon the ground Through what? Through thunder And you know what comes with thunder? Lightning He literally lit up all of Egypt with all kinds of lightning And burned it all up That's what he's doing in California And you know what? That's what he's going to do to any area that hates God That's what he's going to do to any nation And look, there's a remnant of people that love God in California And I'm not down on anybody that just happens to live there But you know what? As a whole, that state is wicked As a whole, they are rejecting and rebelling against God They are harboring some of the most evil and wicked people on this planet If you were to say, where are some of the most wicked and evil people? I mean, it's basically like New York and California And then you got Tel Aviv And then they're all fag-centrals of the world Epicenters Wherever the fags are, that's where you know it's super duper wicked So what's our recap? God controls the weather But here's the second point We want to bring it back out and think about it God listens to our prayers about weather God listens to our prayers about weather So you know what we should do? We should pray for a horrible tempest against the wicked Against our enemies And whenever we're going through difficulty, we should pray for God to calm the storm Hey, whenever you're going through difficulty, whenever you see struggle Even in a carnal sense, we could pray and ask God to be merciful unto us For God to calm that storm For God to bless us with weather Number three, God uses weather to speak to us Hey, when you get 11,000 lightning strikes in a 72-hour period, it's time to be like I need to check and make sure I'm right with God I need to make sure that, you know, He's not super mad at me And number four, we should not blame the weather on climate change Let's close in prayer Thank you, Father, so much for your word Thank you for giving us the opportunity to understand how this world works I pray that we, as we gain understanding and wisdom through the Scriptures That we would use that to give you more honor and you more glory And see the handiwork that you've created, this wonderful place for us to live and have dominion over I pray that we would not give tribute of your wonderful works to others To the wicked, to the evil, but rather we would give honor and reverence and respect unto you And as you try to speak to us through your creation That we would give you the honor and the respect and that we would turn to you I pray those that love God, those that, you know, maybe are weak or backslid in California Could hear a message like this and realize that you're angry with the wicked And that you want them to turn to you And why don't you raise up a generation of salt in California and preserve them for even longer But I pray that even us here in Texas That we would understand how this world works And that we would get on our knees and beg and pray for your mercy every day In Jesus' name we pray, amen All right, for the final song, we're going to sing song number 121 Song number 121, Like a River Glorious Again, that's song number 121 Like a River Glorious Is God's perfect peace Over all victorious In its bright increase Perfect yet it floweth Polar every day Perfect yet it groweth Deeper all the way Stayed upon Jehoah Thought so fully blessed Hiding as He promised Perfect peace and rest Hidden in the hollow Of His blessing hand Never folk and follow Never traitor's hand Not a surge of worry Not a shade of care Not a blast of hurry Not the spirit there Stayed upon Jehoah Hearts are fully blessed Hiding as He promised Perfect peace and rest Every joy or trial I'll live from above Traced upon our dial By the Son of God We may trust Him fully All for us to do They who trust Him fully Find Him wholly true Stayed upon Jehoah Hearts are fully blessed Hiding as He promised Perfect peace and rest