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Here the blessed Savior calling the oppressed Oh ye heavy laden come to me and rest Come no longer tarry I your load will bear Bring me every burden bring me every care Come unto me I will give you rest Take my oak upon you Hear me and be blessed I am meek and lonely Come and trust my might Come my oak is easy And my burden's light Are you disappointed wandering here and there Dragging chains of doubt and loaded down with care Do unholy feelings struggle in your breast Bring your case to Jesus He will give you rest Come unto me I will give you rest Take my oak upon you Hear me and be blessed I am meek and lonely Come and trust my might Come my oak is easy And my burden's light Stumbling on the mountains dark with sin and shame Stumbling toward the pit of hell's consuming flame By the powers of sin deluded and oppressed Hear the tender shepherd come to me and rest I will give you rest Take my oak upon you Hear me and be blessed I am meek and lonely Come and trust my might Come my oak is easy And my burden's light Have you by temptation often conquered Ben Has a sense of weakness brought distress within Christ will sanctify you if your claim is best In the Holy Spirit he will give you rest Come unto me I will give you rest Take my oak upon you Hear me and be blessed I am meek and lonely Come and trust my might Come my oak is easy And my burden's light Good singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful day and thank you for all the people that are gathered here this morning. I pray that you'd please bless this church service today. Bless the soul winning and fellowship and our singing unto you, Lord. I pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. For our second song, we'll go to 329. Take time to be holy. 329. Take time to be holy. 329. Take time to be holy. Take time to be holy. Speak oft with thy Lord. Abide in him always and feed on his word. Make friends of God's children. Help those who are weak. Forgetting in nothing is blessing to seek. Take time to be holy. The world rushes on. Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. By looking to Jesus like him thou shalt be. Thy friends in thy conduct, his likeness shall see. Take time to be holy. Let him be thy guide. And run not before him. Whatever be tied. In joy or in sorrow, still follow thy Lord. And looking to Jesus, still trust in his word. Take time to be holy. Be calm in thy soul. Each thought and each motive beneath his control. Thus led by his Spirit to fountains of love. Thou soon shall be fed in for service above. Thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you don't already have a bulletin, please lift up your hand nice and high and one of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin on the front. We have our Bible memory passage, Revelation 1, verse number 6. Any child that's able to quote that in the midweek service can receive a treat. Also, our service time, soul-winning times. Take note that our soul-winning times meet where we're meeting, and then the regional soul-winning times are meeting in different parts of the city, and so if you'd like to be a part of those times, please just see our respective leaders. For the ladies time, you can contact my wife, and then also we have several other different men that help lead times pretty much every single day of the week, and even sometimes multiple on certain days. We have our church stats. Please, please continue to send those in to your soul-winning captains and leaders so we can update our numbers. On the right, please be in prayer for our expecting ladies. We also have our prayer list, and just add pure words to your prayers today. I guess all of our freaks have decided to go protest them since they don't know where to go. So that's where they're at today, and they can thank us. Also, upcoming events. The Old West Wednesday party. We're intending on sending out an email this week. You should get it today if you have signed up, so please be on the lookout for that today. Also, April 1st is the Dallas, Texas soul-winning marathon, and then April 24th to the 29th is our Bahamas missions trip, so really looking forward to all of those upcoming events. We can go ahead and go to our third song for this morning, Psalm 149. It's going to be in your separate handouts, our Psalm booklets, if you want to turn to Psalm 149, or you can use your Bible. Psalm 149. Praise ye the Lord, singing to the Lord, a new song and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. Let them praise his name in the dance. Let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people. He will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen, upon the people, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written, this honor have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord. As the offering plate's being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians 5. The Bible reads, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who was an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light, and the Lord walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, where is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies, he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for Ephesians chapter number five, and I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and give him clarity of mind as he preaches the sermon you've laid on his heart. Help us to apply the message to our lives and be more complete Christians, Lord, and help us to be edified by the preaching of your word this morning. We pray for your hedge of protection over our congregation. We love you, and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Ephesians chapter five. I want to look back at verse 18. The Bible says, and be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. And this particular portion of scripture is very interesting. It references the fact that we should be regularly singing the word of God specifically. It brings up psalms, and then it also brings up hymns and spiritual songs. And, you know, as a fundamental Baptist church, we traditionally have sung a lot of hymns, and that's wonderful. There's nothing wrong with hymns. Hymns are biblical. The Lord Jesus Christ and his disciples sang a hymn when they were at the Mount of Olives, and this is towards the end of his life near the very end of him being about to be crucified. So obviously there's nothing inferior about hymns. Jesus loves hymns. I love hymns, but also psalms are very important as well. Spiritual songs is just, in my mind, kind of an overarching broad category that can probably apply to a lot of different things. And really, as Christians, we're supposed to sing a lot. That's what God really wants us to do. He gave us a giant book in the Bible called Psalms, and it has the most chapters of the Bible. It has the longest chapter of the Bible. And one of the great things about Psalms is that it really kind of covers the entire essence of Christianity. You really get all of the great doctrines from the Book of Psalms, and we should continually try and put forth effort to sing the Psalms. But to be realistic, if you think about it, apart from our church and a handful of other churches, many churches aren't even trying to sing Psalms. We've really kind of forgotten it. There's not a lot of music for large sections of the Book of Psalms. A lot of Psalms we don't really have anything to go by. And so in an effort to kind of remedy that, myself and other people that really care about this issue have tried to put Psalms to music. And I love that. I love that we sing Psalms. It's great. But in the meantime, I just have been thinking about this a lot, and I feel like God just kind of put it in my heart. He's like, I don't want to just miss, though, a lot of these sections of Psalms just because we don't get a regular diet through singing them, in the sense that we don't have access to that right now, and we're working to remedy that. But right now, we're just still missing out on a lot of this stuff. And so I thought it would be kind of an interesting series, is to preach something a little bit different, where instead of preaching as much as I normally would, introducing a little bit more Bible, and actually going through large sections of Psalms at a time, and really where we're just going to be speaking to ourselves in the book of Psalms. So I really hope you have a Bible this morning, and I hope you're going to be following along, because we're going to actually be reading a lot of Bible today. And I really feel like Psalms is a great place to read a lot of Scripture, because it flows really quickly, and they have a lot of great points to them. And in fact, you can read a lot of Psalms very quickly, because a lot of them are very short. And one thing about Psalms is they kind of seem to hit a lot of the same themes over and over and over in certain sections. So when you kind of read a lot of Psalms together, you kind of notice a lot of patterns, a lot of similarities. It's bringing up the same point. So it kind of makes sense to me to almost read a lot of Psalms together in a clumping, and to kind of get some doctrine from that. But I want to show you another place in the New Testament before we get there. Go to 1 Timothy, chapter number 4, 1 Timothy, chapter number 4, and look at verse number 13. And these are instructions from a pastor, the leader of the church, unto the church, and just kind of what he's supposed to do as far as how does he organize the church, or what kind of instructions does he have as far as what's important for the church. But notice what it says in verse 13, till I come, and this is the Apostle Paul talking about returning. He says, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. So of course, in church, reading the Bible is something that we should be doing. It's very important. We should be reading a lot of Bible. He's telling the young minister here to give attendance, meaning, you know, you need to make sure that everyone's reading. It's not like just I'm reading. It's everyone's reading. Everyone should be giving attendance, meaning what? Paying attention. And the only way for you to be paying attention to reading is for you to read. Now, look, I love listening to things, and I love listening to people that are good at reading. And, you know, that's why we try to pick people that have a good voice, and they're good at reading. And that's great. But you know what? There's nothing to really replace you actually doing the reading along with the reader. And myself included, I'm not very much of an auditory learner. I kind of am a visual learner. Who would say they feel like they're a visual learner more than by ear? Yeah, almost everybody. And honestly, I think, by and large, probably everybody is, whether you can admit it or not. You just probably just don't like reading if you didn't raise your hand. But let me tell you something. Reading is a necessary thing that we should all be doing, and we should be practiced in, and we need to read the Psalms. And I feel like some people may even neglect reading their Bible. Well, we can fix that this morning by reading a lot of Bible together, okay? And, you know, the Psalms is great. And instead of, you know, necessarily always singing it, you know, the Bible even said they're speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spirituals. Of course, there's nothing wrong with singing them. We should be singing them. But also, the Psalms are such wonderful chapters of the Bible. They can just be read, and they make perfect sense, even if you didn't know the melody or the tune. Isn't that amazing? I mean, think about doing this to just modern-day rap songs or modern-day secular music today. It would be incoherent babbling. You wouldn't even understand what's going on. Yet the Psalms, they don't even necessarily, you don't even realize it's a song. Like, it just seems like a normal chapter of the Bible, but then you realize this is also music. And that's what's really incredible about it. So go to Psalms chapter 1. And my goal this morning is to kind of read through the first 12 Psalms of the Bible. And really, you know, the goal of this sermon is a little bit different than most sermons. I'm going to just try and just read the Psalm, and then we're just going to kind of talk about it from a high level, from a big picture each Psalm. So we're kind of getting the general theme of that particular passage. And why I think this is important is many times, most preachers, most churches, they are only giving you a verse here and there. You know, they're just kind of cherry-picking verses here and there, and you're not really getting the context. You're not really getting the whole point of a passage. And it enables them to teach whatever they want. It enables them to just rip things out of context. But when you read stuff as a whole in context, it's hard to form the wrong idea about what was just communicated. Now look at Psalm 1 verse 1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But as the light is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So Psalm 1, iconic chapter of the Bible, incredible portion of scripture. And, you know, this should, you know, if you're going to ever put this to music, it needs to be epic. Because, really, this is not something that we want to be lightly done, you know. And, of course, this is my personal opinion when it comes to putting Psalms to music. Let's say someone puts a Psalm to music and it's not necessarily the best, but it's the only thing we have. Well, that's better than nothing, okay. And then when you make a better one, then we'll just replace that one with a new one, okay. And if you think about it, if you look in your hymn book, you actually have two different versions of Jesus Loves Me, but you only kind of really know one because one's just way better than the other. And that's, you know, we should do that too. If we had a hundred versions of Psalm 1, praise the Lord, right. But then we'll all gravitate to the ones that's the best one, of course. So there's no problem in everybody, you know, attempting and trying to do this. But just because you put it to melody in your mind doesn't mean everybody else is going to want to sing that. And that's okay, all right. The reason why it's good is when everybody likes it, when it's a good tune and it's pleasing and often simple. You know, Jesus Loves Me is probably one of the most simple tunes that you could ever hear. And the reason why it's so wonderful is because it's simple. And that's why people love it, gravitate towards it. Children love singing this type of a song. Children love simple songs. Children love simple tunes. And so, you know, when you're putting music or putting the Psalms of music, you know, it makes sense in some places, at least to attempt to try and make it somewhat simple and kind of a popular or pleasant tune. Some Psalms are very long and have a lot of interesting sections, so they might have to be a little more difficult music. And that's okay. But, you know, something like this, you know, we should strive to have really good music because it really is emphasizing just the importance of being righteous. And the Bible just hammers this point over and over of the person who's studying the Bible. He's delighting in the law of God. He's meditating it day and night. And notice how everything he does is just going to prosper. Everything he does is going to go well, whereas the person that's ungodly doesn't care what the Bible has to say. What happens to him? Well, just destruction. He's not going to last permanently. And a lot of things you have to understand in the Bible are looking at our lives from a perspective of eternity. From the perspective of eternity, the righteous are going to flourish, and we're going to be here forever with the Lord. And the ungodly are going to be driven away, and their memory is going to perish and rot. And essentially, when we get to the judgment day, you know, and the Bible talks a lot about judgment day. This is a very important day in the history of humanity is the day of judgment. He's saying all of the ungodly, they won't be able to stand, but the righteous are going to be able to stand. Now, why can we stand? We stand by Christ's righteousness. And of course, there's lots of great verses that talk about how the fact that we stand, but we're standing by his grace, we're standing by his mercy, and we're standing by Christ's righteousness, whereas the ungodly, they can never stand in that particular situation. Now, of course, every knee will bow at one point. Every knee will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord. But at the same time, we can actually stand in the Lord's presence, whereas the ungodly and the unrighteous will never be able to do so. They are just outcasts and just rejected, and of course, they will ultimately perish, meaning they will burn in hell for all of eternity. And the smoke of their torment ascended up forever and ever, as the Bible describes. So there's really no benefit to doing what the Bible is warning you of here in verse one, walking in the counsel of the ungodly or being in the way of sinners or sitting in the seat of the scornful. This is your ultimate demise, paying attention to all the ungodly people in the world. And all the ungodly people in the world, you know, many of them are already destined for hell. There's no escape, and they just want to draw as many people with them as possible, just like the devil. The devil cannot escape the fact that he will spend eternity in hell. It's already been established. It's already been settled. There is no other alternative to this. There's no hypothetical. The devil is going to burn in hell for all of eternity. His only goal is to drag as many people down with him. Therefore, it makes no sense to seek that kind of a wisdom, seek that kind of a counselor to be with those type of individuals, the scorners. You know, you can only scorn in this life because ultimately you'll be thrown in hell and nobody cares about your scorning then. So they scorn right now, and a lot of people want because they're short-sighted. You know, humanity is short-sighted, and the Bible is trying to give you an eternal perspective constantly to try and help remind you of the purpose of us constantly delighting in God's law and meditating in his word, and ultimately the fact that when you are righteous, there's a blessing with it. It's not like you serve God in vain, folks. It's not like being righteous or studying the Bible or being honest or, you know, doing right is just a woesome lifestyle. No, according to the Bible, it's a blessing. According to the Bible, you're going to prosper. According to the Bible, you're just going to have all kinds of good things happening to you because you're a righteous person, and because we have a short-sighted nature, it's hard for us to always realize that, but those who are righteous, those who truly strive to follow God's commandments, if you talk to these people, they'll tell you their life is great. Men that I know who have been fundamental pastors, who are serving the Lord faithfully, that are doing his commandments, when you talk to these people, their life is wonderful. It's a blessing. They're succeeding. They're thriving. Great things are happening to them even in the face of persecution, even in the face of adversity, even though they've had setbacks and problems. Ultimately, when you look at their life as a whole, it's great, and then you look at the people that have forsaken church, forsaken God, don't care what the Bible has to say, and their life is a train wreck. Their life is riddled with problems and evil and all kinds of issues. You can see this as evidence every day of our lives. For God is not much, whatsoever remains soweth, that shall they also reap, and there is a blessing to being righteous. Let's go to Psalm 2. Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord. Against his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet if I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way. When his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Notice some of the timeless aspects that are found in the book of Psalms. And one of the most incredible things about Psalm 2 is it's not really pinpointing a particular time in history. It's encompassing really a large portion of history. It's encompassing God's foreordained notion of the idea that, hey, I already know that when Jesus Christ comes, they're going to reject him. They're going to refuse him. I already know that the Lord Jesus Christ, though, is going to overcome them. I'm going to set him up as my king. I already know that afterwards, at some point, Christ is going to literally rule and reign, and Christ is going to literally dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. And I also know that there is the Father and the Son. Notice the doctrine of the Trinity being clearly articulated in the book of Psalms. Some people say, oh, that's New Testament. It's not New Testament. The Son has always existed. And why would I sing a song about putting my trust in the Son and kissing the Son when the Son doesn't even exist yet? It's because the Son was already there with the Father in heaven. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Bible is clear that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son, has always been there, and people were always putting their trust in him. Even in the book of Psalms, even in the book of Genesis, every place in Scripture, men were trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, their Messiah, their Christ. Now, this is quoted in the New Testament in this psalm in a lot of different ways. I want to go to a couple of those. Keep your finger here. Go to Acts 4. Go to Acts 4. What is Psalm 2 about? Psalm 2 is about this. Rebellion against Jesus is futile, and there's a blessing to those who trust in him, which is really just the Gospel. You say, where is salvation in the Old Testament? Right there. Blessed are they who trust. It doesn't say blessed are they who are willing to quit sinning. Blessed are they who turn from their sins. Blessed are they who do works. Blessed are they who eat the Eucharist. No, no, no. It's blessed are they who trust in him. Why? Because that's what saves you is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is a free gift by faith alone in Christ. It always has been that plan, and it always will be that plan. I get very frustrated by the notion or the idea of anybody saying, oh, well, the Gospel was different in the Old Testament. It makes me think that person is not even saved. Even when people give lip service to salvation by faith today, they say, well, that's this dispensation. There is no such thing as your stupid dispensations, folks. It's the everlasting Gospel. It's not like this dispensation's Gospel. No, there's only one Gospel. You know, I've heard people say Jesus' Gospel can't save you. You have to have the apostle Paul's Gospel. Going to a fundamental Baptist pastor or former saying Jesus' Gospel can't even save you. I don't believe that person is saved. He's calling Jesus Christ accursed. I mean, by blaspheming the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, of course, Psalms 2, showing the futility of rebellion against God, shows in Acts 4, verse 25, by, I'm sorry, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy only child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant of thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word. Think about this. He's quoting a large portion of Psalms 2, and he's trying to make it clear, hey, these people, they all gathered themselves against the Lord Jesus Christ, and they slew him. But what is God's reaction to this? According to Psalms 2, he laughs at them. He mocks them. Oh, you killed my king? That's a joke, because I'm going to set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. And you know what? I'm going to destroy all of the heathen. I'm going to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. You have no chance. You should really serve the Lord out of fear and trembling. You should kiss the Son. You should have been gracious unto the Son. And he's really, in the Psalm 2, showing how the Lord doesn't care what you do. You cannot. You cannot overthrow his will. In fact, the funny part to God is this. Them thinking that they're overthrowing God's will is actually fulfilling God's will perfectly. They think that they're somehow resisting God or doing something against God when they're doing exactly what God told them to do. Isn't that funny? I mean, it's funny to me how, you know, these atheists and these God-hating people out there, they'll constantly blaspheme the Lord, and they'll mock him. But it's exactly what God said they were going to do anyways. And they think that they're doing something unique. They think that they're so special. They think that they've come up with a new concept or a new idea or a new way to disprove God, yet they always do exactly what he said they were going to do. They worship and serve the creature more than the creator who's blessed forever. They love to worship Mother Earth, and they love to worship themselves. And of course, these same people are the ones in Romans 1 that are described as being sodomites. Why? Because the Bible is always right. God is always right. There is no resisting his will. The Bible says, for who hath resisted his will? You cannot resist his will. You will follow the Bible to a T no matter what you do. If you're wicked, you'll be doing exactly what the Bible said you were going to be doing. And if you're righteous, you'll be doing exactly what the Bible said. But guess what? You're going to do exactly what this book says regardless of what you think. So you might as well just get on his program. You might as well accept his will for your life because that's the best path for you. That's the best plan. Go to Romans, chapter number four. Go to Romans, chapter number four. Just flip to the right, just a hair. We'll see another place that I believe it kind of reminds me of Psalm, chapter number two. And you know, the Bible will often quote itself, but also I believe this, and we have to make sure that we don't become ruckmanites, is you have to realize that sometimes the Bible is not giving a verbatim quote. It's just explaining what the Bible said. When I go soul winning, I may say things like the Bible says that God's a Trinity, but am I really giving a verbatim quote of any verse in the scripture? No. Of course, it doesn't say that. You know, the Bible, I can say, um, the Bible says that the Bible be reserved for every generation. But wait a minute, the word Bible's never even found in the Bible. So am I giving another verbatim quote? No. We all often will just simply say what the Bible is saying. And of course, I believe a lot of times that when Jesus, the apostles and other men in the Bible are saying, this is what the scripture does say, the scripture, or, you know, the referencing some portion of the Bible, they're not necessarily giving a verbatim quote. And that's okay because you don't have to just always give a verbatim quote. Sometimes they use a little bit different language to convey the exact same point. They use synonyms. They may change the word order. And of course it's usually because they're fitting it into a unique sentence or a unique portion of scripture to make a completely new thought while referencing that portion of scripture. You know, I do that in my preaching. Sometimes I may be thinking of a verse in my mind and instead of just kind of giving a direct verbatim quote, I may kind of just transform it a little bit to fit the subject matter, fit the proper pronoun, grammar, application, whatever it is, so that I can kind of just use it as I speak. There's nothing wrong with that. Of course, we should totally use the Bible in those certain ways. And of course, that's not what the modern versions are doing. You know, the modern versions aren't just saying the exact same thing as the King James Bible in a little bit different way. They're just saying completely different things. You know, let's not turn the argument of King James only-ism into this nit picky, over-the-top, impossible, ruckmanite view. Let's realize that the reason why we're King James only is because we believe it's the preserved words of God and the other Bibles are saying different things. They're not saying, communicating the same message. They have a different message. You know, you could preach the Gospel to somebody using one set of verses in the Bible and then you could preach the Gospel to another person using a completely different set of verses in the Bible, but you communicated the exact same message. There's nothing wrong with when Matthew describes an event and Mark describes an event and Luke describes an event and John, they use different words, different analogies, different portions of the Old Testament. That's great. You know what would be wrong? If someone had the Gospel of Thomas. If someone had the Gospel of Bartholomew, you know, the Book of Enoch, that's wrong, okay? So don't get this weird view of Scripture and when David is quoted in the Bible or brought up in the Bible, sometimes you're not always going to find a direct quote and that's okay. I don't have a problem with that. You know, if you have a problem with that, then you just have a problem, okay? It's your fault. Romans 4, look at verse 6. Even as David, meaning specifically as David, also describeth the blessedness of the man unto God and puteth righteousness without works. Again, I do not believe Paul is giving a direct verbatim quote here. What is he saying? He's saying David explained in the Book of Psalms that salvation without works. Where? Well, how about Psalms 2 where he said, blessed are they that trust in him. That's good. Salvation without works. And of course, we see as he continues here, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also. So, he generally just stated that salvation was without works. And what is the reference that it really brings up? Verse 7, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Now, go to Psalm 32 for a second. Go to Psalm 32. Think about what Romans 4 just said. Romans 4 just said, this is what David said. Here's his exact words. It did not say though, when it was explaining, it didn't give his exact words and then just give his exact words again. It's explaining what he was saying. Hey, David also described how salvation was without works. And he said, how did he say that? Psalm 32. And look at verse 1, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and whose spirit there is no guile. So, what he's saying is that somehow God would not impute iniquity unto someone. But, you know, that's not even, that's not really the full picture. You have to also consider the fact that we have other Psalms that make it clear that it's blessed are they that trust them. There's the faith aspect. And then you look at portions like this. This is showing you how you're not going to get your sins imputed unto you. Why? Because they've been put on Jesus Christ. And you have to look at the book of Psalms as a whole. And what you'll notice consistently through the book of Psalms is how salvation is by trusting in him, putting faith in him, just over and over and over. You get to the first few Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You'll notice that people are physically healed. Why? Because they had faith in him. Thy faith hath saved thee. And God constantly uses that picture throughout Scripture to try and get us all prepped for John. When the Gospel of John is the most clear book in the Bible, making it very abundant, it's just by faith, believing, just trusting, a one time putting all of your faith in Jesus Christ, you become a child of God. That's what really saves you, spiritually speaking. Go back to Psalm 3. Go back to Psalm 3. So, Psalm 2. Rebellion's futile. Believe in Christ. I mean, hey, you're going to go to hell. If you don't believe in him, believe in Christ. And of course, beyond that, we also want to trust him in every area of our lives. But, you know, who didn't trust in Jesus to get saved? All the people that condemned him at the cross, essentially. You know, you had the Pilate. You had Herod. You had the Gentile Roman soldiers that were there. And you had the Jews saying, crucify him. They didn't believe in him. They didn't trust in him. And most of them, if not all, went to hell. You know, at that point, obviously, he had his disciples there who weren't screaming, crucify him. Obviously, he might have had a small remnant there of Gentiles that possibly even had trusted in him. But generally speaking, that whole group, you know, condemned themselves by rebelling against the Lord. Psalm 3, the Bible says, Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which save my soul. There is no help for him in God, Selah. But thou, O Lord, are to shield for me. My glory and the lift are up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy heel, Selah. I laid me down and slept. I await, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord. Save me, O my God. For thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone. Thou has broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people, Selah. What a powerful psalm. And one thing that's good about the Psalms is they're often kind of giving us a perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ from His mind while in His earthly ministry. You know, virtually all the Psalms are about Jesus in some way, but some are just talking about Him. Some are talking about trusting in Him. Some are talking about His personal experiences that He's going to go through while on this earth. And, you know, Psalm 3 kind of gives us a little bit of an insight as to how David and Jesus had some similarities in their life where they had an abundance of enemies, where they had a multitude of people that wanted to see them destroyed and were risen against Him. And, you know, David had his point where Saul is hunting him down. David had many enemies of the Philistines. And so, you know, David could say about himself truthfully that there's many that were increased that troubled him. You know, there's many that rise against him. But, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is even more true because during His earthly ministry everyone's risen against Him, virtually speaking. Everyone's trying to trouble Him. You've got the Sadducees, and you've got the Pharisees, and you've got all these different people trying to get at Him, trying to destroy Him, and mocking Him and saying, like, oh, God's not going to help you. This is something they literally said about the Lord Jesus Christ while on the cross. They were mocking the fact that, oh, He trusted in the Lord. They trusted in God to save Him. And they mock and ridicule Him. But the Lord is a shield unto Him, and the Lord is a shield unto us. And, you know, I like verse 5. It says, I laid me down and slept. I awake for the Lord to sustain me. Powerful verse. I think there's a lot of ways this can be applied. There's not one. One thing that I think is interesting is it almost to me, almost gives a reference to Jesus, death, burn, and resurrection. Because you think about it, He kind of slept in the sense that it was a short temporary period that He descended into hell. Then He comes back, and the Lord basically gives Him resurrection. But the reason why I even say that is think about how He saved Him in verse 7. And then it says He's smitten all my enemies upon the cheekbone. So it's like kind of showing how Jesus was saved, and then all of His enemies are destroyed, and He's beaten, and just kind of the mockery towards them. And, of course, they thought that they had won over Jesus, but then guess what? Jesus is in the tomb. And, boy, how much that had to hurt. Just like getting punched in the face. I mean, just every day it's like, well, where's His body? And it's like everybody's saying He risen from the dead. And they're like, I mean, those Jews must have been just cringing. I mean, the veil of the temple was rent. Jesus is not found in the tomb. Everyone that you don't like is going around preaching the resurrection of Jesus, and then they get Peter and John, and they throw them in prison, and then somehow they just get out. You're like, they can't win. They just keep losing, and they're saying like, man, you're just filling up this entire city with your doctrine. They had the great feast where people are coming on the day of Pentecost, and you have all these Jews, and then they just start preaching the gospel in foreign languages and getting all kinds of people saved. Think of how envious they were that these just fishermen. I mean, people that have never studied, they didn't go to college. They have no degree. They have no seminary training, and yet they're able to just preach the gospel to people in a foreign language they've never studied. I mean, just think about how envious all those Jews were. They had studied their whole life. They had spent all this money. They had gone to college. They had all the degrees. They had the fancy robes on. They're thinking like, how are you talking with these people? They were so mad at Jesus. How does this man know how to read having never learned letters? Like, how does this guy get up and preach a better sermon than me, and he didn't study with us. He didn't have to go through all the training and everything. And it's funny to me. It seems similar today where there's a lot of preachers out there and pastors. They're envious of some of my friends because they preach so much better than them, even though they've never been to Bible college, or they never got all the same seminary training, or they didn't go through all the things that they went through. And they'll put people down like that. Well, what seminary training did you get? I didn't get any seminary training. Sorry. I didn't go and figure out why to not believe the Bible and why you can't trust in the Lord, and which Bible is the right one, which they don't even believe any Bible is the right one. I didn't learn two semesters of Greek that no one actually speaks, because they don't actually speak Koine Greek. They speak an Erasmian pronunciation, which no one really speaks. It's a dead language. Their version of Greek is a dead language because their Erasmian pronunciation, nobody's born into that language. That's what a dead language is, where no one's born in that language, speaking that language. No one has the Erasmian Greek pronunciation as their native tongue. It's stupid. But you know, there's plenty of people that speak Greek. And I saw a comment online the other day on our preserved Bible documentary, and this person's just like, I can't believe people think that the Greek Bible is preserved. Greek is a dead language. I'm like, what in the world? What about the millions of people that live in Greece that were born speaking Greek? Do they not exist now? It's just bizarre how people just have strange ideas and strange concepts. And of course, we understand, though, that the Lord was risen again, and the Jews, they're envious of it, but they can't stop it. And no matter what this group of people do, they can't win. That's why I like verse six. I will not be afraid of 10,000s of people that have set themselves against me round about. That's an extreme statement. Hey, no matter how many people rally themselves against us, they're going to lose. You know, David is many times outnumbered in battle. It doesn't matter. The Lord's people are always outnumbered in battle, and they still win. I mean, you got Gideon with 300, they win. I mean, the Lord's people are constantly an underdog. They're constantly the David versus Goliath, but they win to give glory unto the Lord, to show that these people can be fierce and brave and courageous against the foe. And it's so funny how these modern leftists and liberals always want to try and pretend like they're the David in the Goliath story when they're the majority. It's like, oh, I'm being so oppressed. By who? The whole media is behind you. The whole government's behind you. All the celebrities, they're like, we're resisting the man by the corporate sponsorships. It's like, we got to fight against the one percent, sponsored by Pfizer, sponsored by Goldman Sachs. It's like, how are you fighting the man with their blessing? You silly you. That doesn't even make any kind of sense. But really, if you serve God and you're going to be righteous, you're usually going to be in the minority, not in the majority. The minority are going to be those who love the Lord. The minority are those going to be who want to really serve the Lord. And of course, you know what I love? Is the fact that the Bible gives us encouragement, even though we're in the minority. He helps us realize, you know, no matter how many people are rallied against us, God's going to bring us salvation. Verse eight, salvation belong to the Lord. And what you have to learn about chapter three is that physical salvation is of God. Physical salvation is of God. It's not, it doesn't say here, I have a bunch of storeable food. It doesn't say I have really big guns. It doesn't say I've learned how to fight well. It doesn't say I have an alarm system. It doesn't say that, you know, I have a dog. Please don't get a dog. It doesn't say anything about the person. Hey, yeah, the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. And at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is having God on your side. And when you have God on your side and you realize salvation, physical salvation is of God, you know what you can do? I laid me down and slept. When you're afraid of your physical safety, you can't sleep. That's just a common correlation. But you know, the Bible is saying those who have trust in the Lord, no matter how much evil befalls them, they go to sleep like a baby. And you know, there's times where I struggle with sleeping, but for the most part, I'll be honest with you, I can go to sleep like that. And I love that. I love that the Lord gives me that peace. But you know, it's a peace that passes all understanding because there's really not any reason why I should lay down and just go to sleep. I should be terrified of how many people hate me and want to destroy me, but I just don't care. I just don't care. And you shouldn't care. And it's not just the people that are directly attacking us. I mean, think about how many evil people are out there right now, the globalists, as they're called, or whatever you want to call them, Satan's minions is what I call them. How many out there are trying to destroy us and kill us every single day? You know what? I just lay down and I can just go to sleep. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, according to the Bible. And you know, we can have rest. Really, you have to ask yourself this question. If you're struggling to go to sleep for fear, are you really trusting in the Lord to sustain you? That's what we have to question. And you know, this is giving me encouragement and motivation to say, you know what? I need to trust the Lord more so that I can just simply just go to bed and just wake up in the morning and praise the Lord for his new mercies every morning, right? Psalm 4, verse 1. Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness. Thou has enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. O you sons of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing, Selah? But know that the Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself. The Lord will hear when I call unto him. Stand in awe and sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still. Selah, offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. There be many that say, who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou has put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace and sleep. For thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Sounds pretty similar in the last passage, doesn't it? Notice the same thought, the same concepts are being brought up because gladness and safety comes from the Lord even in persecution. Look at Psalm 5. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my king and my God. For unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning. O Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure and wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing. The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies. Make thy way straight before my face, for there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their inward part is very wickedness. Their throat is an open sepulcher. They flatter with their tongue. Destroy thou them, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels. Cast them out into the multitude of their transgressions, for they have rebelled against thee. But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice. Let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them. Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee, for thou, Lord, will bless the righteous with favor. Wilt thou compass him as with a shield? It's interesting, again, same concepts. What do we keep seeing as a pattern here? He's going to bless the righteous. He's going to destroy the wicked. Notice that those who put their trust in him are going to be the ones that are delivered. Those who are wicked and evil, they flatter and speak all manner of evil, but the Lord is going to destroy them. And ultimately, you have to understand that God will destroy the bloody and deceitful man. God is going to destroy the wicked. And we have to have patience and faith to believe the Lord's going to do so. But the Lord has consistently done so. If you study history, the bloody and deceitful men of history have always been destroyed. They've always come to naught. Hitler was destroyed. Mao Zedong, destroyed. You know, if we look at Joseph Stalin, destroyed. If we look at, you know, whoever it is, you want to go back in time, Nero, destroyed. Alexander the Great, destroyed. I mean, which evil, wicked man? I mean, they're going to be destroyed. They're going to come to naught. Eventually, the destruction will end. God doesn't allow these things to just last permanently. He's constantly overthrowing them, constantly destroying them. Of course, in our lifetime, it may seem very long, because we don't have God's perspective. We don't have God's idea or timeline. We have to realize, and you have to have faith in the fact that God will destroy these people. God is going to bring destruction upon them. And there's nothing wrong with even wishing for it. I mean, look at verse 10. Destroy thou them, O God. Is this guy praying for their good or for their demise? Of course, he's praying for their continual demise. What foolishness would it be to suggest the idea that you could never pray an imprecatory prayer when you read the book of Psalms? I mean, it's filled with constant prayer of bless the righteous, destroy the wicked. Bless the righteous, destroy the wicked. I mean, it's just every single verse, almost, is just constantly bringing up this concept, these ideas. It's a common theme throughout the Bible. And then people will be like, well, I have to just love everyone, hope good for everyone. It's like, no. I want the destruction of the evil and the wicked in our society. And we should pray for God to do so. Of course, what is also another common theme, praying for God to do it. You know, he's not doing anything. He's allowing the Lord to be our avenger. And that's what we should do. Look at verse 6, or chapter, I'm sorry, Psalm 6. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak. O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed. But thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul. O, save me for thy mercy's sake. For in death there is no remembrance of thee. In the grave you shall give thee thanks. I am weary with my groaning. All the night make I my bed to swim. I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief. It waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. For the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer. Let all my enemies be ashamed and sore vexed. Let them return and be ashamed suddenly. You know, Psalm 6 is interesting because we notice at the first part of this, he's kind of seeking God's grace and mercy for his sin. You know, he makes it very clear in verses one and two, he's asking for mercy. He's asking not to be rebuked in God's fierce anger. And he doesn't want to be chastened in his hot displeasure. So, what I like about this is we read so many chapters so far talking about being righteous, talking about meditating on the law of the Lord, talking about doing right. But we have to realize none of us are going to be perfect. And so, you know, we don't want to have this attitude of the idea of like, well, as long as I'm right with God and perfect with God and I haven't sinned, then God will help me. No, no, no. God will often still help us and deliver us even when we don't deserve it. We still get his grace and his mercy. And I want to keep that thought in mind. Go to Hebrews chapter 4 for a moment. Go to Hebrews chapter number 4. Because in Psalm 6, what the Psalm alludes to, it brings up, is that in the grave, no one's praising God. Meaning what? If God just destroys every person immediately when they sin, who's going to end up worshiping him? If we get destroyed, who's going to go out and do the works of God, is what he's kind of alluding to. And so, we have to realize that we need to constantly still seek the Lord despite our shortcomings, despite falling. You know, the just man falls seven times, rises up again. It doesn't say that the just man never sins. It says that he falls seven times. But you know what he doesn't do? He doesn't quit. He doesn't give up. You know what? The worst thing you can usually do if you're saved, pretty much the worst thing you can do is just quit. You know, what's the ultimate picture of quitting? Suicide. That's like the worst thing you can do as a Christian. It's the dumbest thing you can do. You know, it's a selfish thing. No one should ever do such a thing. I can understand why people get tempted to do that in a position of Saul or Samson where they feel like they're going to die either way, and they simply just want to end it. But you know what? I don't believe it's right to ever commit suicide. Even in those situations, I can see the temptation. I can see why someone would want to do that in that scenario. But often today, the devil wants to convince Christians to commit suicide when they're not about to be tortured by Philistines. They're just, they didn't get, they're not popular in the public fool system or something. They don't have all the luxuries that other Americans have. It's like, that's not a reason to kill yourself. You know, that's foolish. You know, God can give you joy. God can give you grace. And even if you screwed up a lot in your life, God can still show you grace. Look at Hebrews chapter 4 and look at verse 15. We have not an eye priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So, you know, the Bible says that Jesus Christ knows what it's like to be human. He knows what it's like to be tempted. And while he never succumbed to that temptation, while he never was going to ever sin in any way, he at least can sympathize and empathize with the human experience. He realizes what it's like to be here. He realizes what it's like to have flesh. And he wants to intercede for us when we fall short, when we don't do right. And this can even come to an extremity. Moses killed an Egyptian. I mean, that's a pretty big sin. That's a pretty big falling away. And then he just left everyone. He just went on the wilderness by himself, but then God still wanted to use him. You have different kings in the Bible that are just super wicked. I mean, King Manasseh is a very wicked guy, but God still uses him, and it seems like he humbles himself and gets saved at the end of his life. And, you know, some people, you know, sometimes I think you could take the reprobate doctrine a little too far, and in the sense that you just think someone that's done a lot of wicked stuff just for sure can't be saved. But Manasseh is pretty up there. When you look at the life and the actions of Manasseh, most people in the quote knew he'd probably say he was a reprobate. But, you know, I don't think he was, and he got saved. Now, it's interesting. I was kind of studying some individuals. Go back to Psalm. And I don't know if this is true or not, so give me grace on this. But I kind of researched it a little bit, and you can look it up yourself. But there's a guy out there who's a really prolific serial killer. His name is Son of Sam. Who's heard of this individual? So he was in New York, and essentially, you know, he's also was, I think, adopted by Jewish parents and was raised kind of in a Jewish home. Very troubled upbringing. But he ended up just committing a series or a string of murders and was even taunting the police. He killed many people with just a handgun. That's pretty much what he did. He just went around and would just kill people indiscriminately. Not like he knew them. Just random acts of violence in essence. And he eventually got caught, and he kind of mocked the cops even about it. And to me, it just seems like this is a classic psychopath or whatever. And he even admitted to being like deemed possessed many times in his life and at that point in history. But, you know, at this point, he's still alive, I believe. He's been alive very recently. Unless he died very recently, he's still alive. He's in prison. And, you know, some point in being in prison, he ended up claiming to have believed on Jesus Christ and being born again. And, you know, sometimes you hear this from people like Jeffrey Dahmer. And I don't believe Jeffrey Dahmer's testimony at all. But Jeffrey Dahmer makes it clear he had to like turn from his sins and stuff. And he got ministered to by a church of Christ. And he believed in baptismal regeneration. So he's also sodomite. So I don't think he got saved at all. All right. So I don't think that. But, you know, the Son of Sam guy, he claims that, you know, salvation is a one-time thing. You know, I listened to a little interview of his that he was kind of talking about. And he said, hey, I knew that all my sins were forgiven the moment I trusted Christ. But I did have a hard time forgiving myself. And he said, he still thinks he's worthy of death. He's still, he's been offered like parole several times and he denies it because he believes he should stay in prison and deserves punishment for the wickedness that he's done. But while he's in prison, he's been like sending out letters to people like about the gospel and how to be saved and just tries to reach people. And what I think is interesting about this is I'm like, if this guy, which I don't know if it's sincere or not, but let's say someone really did commit murder several times in their life. That doesn't mean they couldn't be saved still. And if they do get saved and God is giving them mercy to still be alive, why wouldn't they then still seek for their limited time on earth to reach people at the gospel of Jesus Christ and to try and do something for the Lord and to try and, and, and, and basically be right with God. You know, it makes sense to me that you would still seek his mercy, seek his grace. And that's what Hebrews four is about. And if the son of Sam is seeking grace and mercy, how much more us, I hope no one in here is a serial killer. Okay. I'm pretty sure your sins are probably less than that. And, you know, I really hope that no one ever even has done anything like that. And I'm not excusing that, but I believe that God can save murderers. You know, there's plenty of people that have done all kinds of crazy things. People that are young, maybe they get mixed up in a gang. And of course he was, he was demon possessed. Think about the, how many people Jesus saved that were demon possessed. In fact, the whole society hated him. They just put this crazy person out in the middle of nowhere because he just has a Legion of demons, but then he got saved. And what did Jesus want him to do? Go back into town and tell his friends about salvation that he'd received. And, you know, it's a pretty powerful testimony. If you could see someone that was crazy, done horrible atrocities, was deemed possessed, and then they got saved and be like, wow, there's something real about Jesus. There's something about the Lord Jesus Christ that can save them. Now, I don't know. You can look it up if you want about the son of Sam. And if this guy is actually saved, in your opinion, you can make your own judgment. But here's the thing, I don't think it's impossible for someone like that to have been saved. I don't think it's impossible for someone like that to have believed on Christ. And he says a lot of pretty good things. You know, you go to his website, it says stuff about calling on the name of the Lord. I think I saw something else that talked about turning from sin, but I don't even know if he wrote the website. He probably didn't in jail because they said he's not given access to a computer. But when I listened to his testimony, he wasn't bringing up turning from sin. He wasn't bringing up, he was just saying, hey, I ask forgiveness, and I got in that moment. And so, you know, and that's what the Bible literally teaches. Now, this person in Psalm 6, he doesn't want to be, you know, rebuked in God's anger. He wants some kind of a mercy, and he wants to be delivered, and he's saying there's no remembrance in the grave. And think about this. What can that son of Sam accomplish? Let's say, hypothetically, he's saved. What could he accomplish for God if he's dead? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But could he possibly get someone saved in jail while he's alive? Could he possibly still sing a praise on the Lord? Could he still do something good for God? Yeah. So, like, in our lives, no matter what you did, we're not gonna go, we're never gonna go to his extreme. But no matter what you did, if you still have breath in your lungs, God wants you to use that breath to preach the gospel. God wants you to use that breath to praise him. God wants you to do something, because when you're in the grave, your flesh will not praise him. This is your opportunity to praise him. This is your opportunity to preach the gospel. And you know what? Shame, I mean, let's just give him the bit of the doubt. Let's just say he's saved. Shame on all the Christians that are unwilling to preach the gospel today when a serial killer is willing to preach the gospel. I mean, think about that, right? I mean, this guy is willing, and you know what? God will often use those that were wicked to serve his purpose. Think about the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul was hailing Christians into prison. He persecuted the Church of God. He was consenting under the death of Stephen. I mean, this guy has a bad rap sheet, folks. But you know what? He was one of the greatest Christians to ever live, because he put all that behind him, and he said, I still have breath in my lungs. I am what I am by the grace of God. And you know what he did? He preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I don't care who you are. Preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't care who you are. Use the breath that God has given you at this point, and let's seek God's grace in our life. What a powerful Psalm, Psalm 7. Oh, Lord, my God, indeed do I put my trust, save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me, lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver. Oh, Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there be iniquity in my hands, if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me, yea, I have delivered him that without cause is my enemy. Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it, yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth and lay my honor in the dust, Selah. Arise, O Lord, in thine anger. Lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies, and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded. So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about. For their sakes, therefore, return thou on high. The Lord shall judge the people. Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to mine integrity that is in me. O, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. For the righteous God trieth the hearts and reigns. My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart. God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death. He ordained his arrows against the persecutors. Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit indignant, and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High. You know, another thing I noticed is as we read this, no one seems to have a problem understanding any of it. Oh, the King James is so hard. Now, of course, there's certain words we're not as familiar with. Verse 16 says that his violent dealings have come down upon his own pate. You know, pate's kind of a word that I'm usually not very familiar with, but pate is just synonymous for head. So, in fact, if you look at this verse, it says, his mischief shall return upon his own head. And, you know, the translators, instead of using the word head again, you know what they use? Pate, to give you the same sense of what that particular word means. And so, you know, it's very easy to understand. Verse 7 is, or I'm sorry, Psalm 7 is really just emphasizing the fact that God's going to judge the righteous and the wicked. And, you know, if we go back to my previous application of the Son of Sam, here's a guy who's willing to receive the due recompense of his actions, saying, I deserve the death penalty, saying, I deserve to be in jail. You know, let the Lord judge me according to his word. I'm not asking for something superfluous. You know, the Apostle Paul, when he was questioned by the Gentiles, he said, hey, if I've done something worthy of death, I refuse not to die. And, you know what, people get mad at me often for bringing up the capital punishments found in the Old Testament. You know what, judge me according to them, please. But, you know what, judge the world according to them, too. You know, I'm not afraid of those capital punishments because, you know what, I'm not a sodomite or a pervert or a murderer or an adulterer, so I don't have to worry about that. The people that are so worried about that, you know why, because they're a murdering, adulterous pervert is what it is. Those are the only, I mean, why would you get so offended at that being the capital punishment in our society? It's because you're worried about that applying to you. That's the only reason. Because no one wants to live about a bunch of adulterous, murdering perverts. God's people, you know what they like? They like judgment. They like, you know, when you go to the job, you don't want the boss to say, well, you know what, I know that 10 of you over here did nothing all day. You laid around and just watched videos on your phone, and one of you worked all day. I'm just going to give you all the same bonus. You'd be like, well, this sucks. Like, that's annoying. You'd be like, you're all fired. You're getting a double salary today because you worked today. And it's like, yeah, whoo! I mean, that's how you would feel. You know, that's how we all feel. We love and desire judgment. We hate it. We despise it when people are getting away with evil and wickedness and rebellion and laziness. That's why the righteous person, he loves judgment. And you know what? Judgment begins at the house of God, according to the Bible. And God is going to judge the righteous, and he's going to judge the wicked. And we should seek for his judgment. The reason why people don't like judgment is because they're wicked. That's it. When people say, oh, you're a judging. Well, why are you so afraid of that? Are you afraid of that because you're wicked? I mean, what if your boss said, hey, from now on, we're going to start judging how you all are doing at work to see if you're doing good or bad. And then a bunch of people start complaining. You know why those people started complaining? Because they're not doing good at their job. All the people that were doing good at their job were like, sweet. I mean, if they said, look, if you're doing really good, we're going to give you a big bonus. If you're doing really bad, you're going to get fired. Who would complain? The people that aren't doing very good, right? So the Christians that love the Lord and are striving to follow his commandments, they love it when judgment enters into the arena. It's those who are wicked and evil that don't like judgment. Psalm 8, the Bible says, oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Who has set thy glory above the heavens, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies? That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man? That thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him. For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou made us him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea. And whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Now, I didn't know how this was going to work, so I don't think I'm going to be able to go to all the Psalms that I wanted to this morning. We'll probably end with this one. But, you know, Psalm 8 really just emphasizes the glory of the Lord. It's really just showing how excellent the Lord is and, you know, that we as man need to constantly humble ourselves and realize when you look at the heavens, when you look at the earth, when you look at the globe, okay, when you look at the sphere of the earth, when you look at the moon, and you look at the stars, and you look at all the heavens, and you consider the universe, you consider all of the magnificent creation that God has created, it should humble us to realize we're just a microscopic little speck of dust walking around in this giant universe. Instead of having such a lofty ideal of ourselves, instead of thinking so highly of ourselves, we should rather be appreciative of the fact that God, of all of his universe, somehow cares about us. He cares about us so much. I mean, there's so many beasts of the field that are much larger than us and just sheer scale and quantity. There's so many more ants than us. There's so many more animals that have a larger mass, oxen, and horses, and elephants, and giraffes, and lions. And, I mean, arguably a lion is a much more ferocious beast than a human. But you know what? Does God care for oxen? Does God care about dogs? The answer is no. You know, he cares about us. You know what? He cares about the little babies. He cares about all the little children of the earth. And we should realize how excellent the Lord is that he cares about us. I mean, think about what he says. What is man that thou art mindful of him? You know, we're not that great. We want to think of how great we are. We're dust. We're sinners. We don't deserve any of his grace. You know, the only reason we're even righteous is because we've been saved, and by God's word, we've learned how to even live our life. Without the Bible, without God's Spirit inside of us, we would be wretched and evil just like the rest of the world. We would just be an animal like all the other animals. You know what? Man is not an animal. Man is a different creation. You know what? Man is created in God's image, and God blessed us with his spirit. God blessed us with a soul. You know, praise God that we're not an animal, that when we die, our spirit just returns in the earth and it's over. You know, even the dogs want to go to heaven. They have that movie, All Dogs Go to Heaven, but the problem is it's not true. All dogs go to hell, okay? That's really the, that's the real movie they should make, especially when Disney makes it, but what you have to realize is that the Lord cares so much about us. In fact, notice in verse five, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and has crowned him with glory and honor. In an objective reality, meaning it's not subjective here. What I'm saying is just a fact. Angels are better than us as far as just the creation aspect. They are, they have an ability to just go up into heaven and come down. They have more power. They have more might, but you know, we're an inferior creation in a sense to the angels, but yet he's going to crown us with honor and glory, and we are going to actually rule and judge over angels, according to the Bible. I mean, couldn't you have, couldn't you have made us the servants to the angels? Couldn't you have made us the slave? I mean, just like the ox is a slave unto us, the ox has to go into the field, and we get to whip it and beat it, and it just has to sit there, moo, and just eat grass, and then we get all its milk, and then we chop its head off, and we eat all of it, and you know, the ox is just here to just serve us, and it's our, it's our slave to just give us joy and satisfaction. Couldn't God have just said, you know what? Man is the beast for angels, and man is the slave unto angels, but you know what? He didn't do that. He allowed us to have dominion over the earth. He allowed us to have the gospel of Jesus Christ. He allowed us to have wives and children. You know, as a man, you get to be the king and the priest of your home. What an, what an amazing responsibility. What a glorious task that you have. Everybody says, I want to own my own business. Well, you know what? You own your own kingdom. You are the king of your castle. I mean, you have so much stuff that's given, but we often are focused on what we don't have, and what is, what is the temptation of man to want to be like the most high? Why can't you just be thankful for being a man? Why can't you just be thankful for being mankind? Why can't you be thankful for being a wife and a mother and a child or being a Texan? I mean, you're a Texan. Praise God. I mean, what an amazing thing. I mean, who am I that I get to live in Texas? I could have lived in India. I would have, I would have been starving every day of my life, folks. I would have been like, so I would have been like, this food is terrible. I would have been that skinny little kid on the commercial that you all watched and laughed. You know, I could have been in Asia. I could have been in Russia. I could have been born in Canada and I would have been like every other Canadian trying to come here. Okay. I could have been born in South America. I mean, you don't even realize the blessings that you have. We don't even realize the glory and the excellence that God is giving us from him. Who is Pastor Shelley that is mindful of me? Who are we? I mean, we often are just so prideful and we need to humble ourselves and we need to look at the Psalms and realize, you know, it's about how excellent the Lord is and we should really glory the Lord. And you know, I love verse two, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. You know, it's so great that we can have our children. You know, children, what's so great about them is they're not embarrassed to just sing with all their might in the Lord. And you know, this is the book of Psalms, right? And God loves his children singing on them. God loves us, you know, paying attention to the Bible and the doctrine. And we don't want to skip over the Psalms. We don't want to just ignore all the great doctrines that are in this timeless book. You know, we want to speak them. We want to read them. We want to sing them. We want to meditate on them. We want them to be a part of our daily life. And you know what the Bible says? Blessed is that man. Let us continue to reap the blessings of the book of Psalms. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us this opportunity to be a man, to be a woman, to be a child, to be a Christian, to live in this great state, to have a great opportunity to go out and preach the gospel, to enjoy the delicacies of this world, to have the calling to be righteous, to serve you. I pray that we wouldn't be like the wicked and rebellion whom you're going to destroy, but rather we would be the saved who also follow in good works and righteousness, who desire judgment, who desire your grace and your mercy when we fall short, who desire to be pleasing in your sight and who ultimately desire to give you honor and glory for your excellence and your excellent name. And it's in that name, Jesus, that we pray. Amen. All right. For our final song, we're going to go to 192, Ring the Bells of Heaven. 192, Ring the Bells of Heaven. Song 192, Ring the Bells of Heaven. Ring the bells of heaven, there is joy today, for a soul returning from the wild. See the Father meets him out upon the way, welcoming his weary wandering child. Glory, glory, how the angels sing. Glory, glory, how the loud harps ring. Tis the ransomed army like a mighty sea, peeling forth the anthem of the free. Ring the bells of heaven, there is joy today, for the wanderer now is reconciled. Yes, a soul is rescued from his sinful way and is born anew a ransomed child. Glory, glory, how the angels sing. Glory, glory, how the loud harps ring. Tis the ransomed army like a mighty sea, peeling forth the anthem of the free. Ring the bells of heaven, spread the feast today. Angels swell the glad triumphant strain. Tell the joyful tidings, bear it far away, for a precious soul is born again. Glory, glory, how the angels sing. Glory, glory, how the loud harps ring. Tis the ransomed army like a mighty sea, peeling forth the anthem of the free. Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed.