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Dwelling in Beulah land 449 dwelling in Beulah land Song 4 4 9 dwelling in Beulah land Song 5 4 9 dwelling in Beulah land Far away the noise of strife upon my ear is falling Then I know the sins of earth be set on every hand Doubt and fear and things of earth in vain to me are calling None of these shall move me from Beulah land I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply For I am dwelling in Beulah land Far below the storm of doubt upon the world is beating Sons of men in battle, lock the enemy with stead Safe am I within the castle of God's word retreating Nothing then can reach me to Beulah land I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply For I am dwelling in Beulah land Let the stormy breezes blow, their cry cannot alarm me I am safely sheltered here, protected by God's hand Here the sun is always shining, here there's naught can harm me I am safe forever in Beulah land I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply For I am dwelling in Beulah land Hearing here the works of God I sink in contemplation Hearing now His blessed voice I see the way He planned Dwelling in the Spirit here I learn of full salvation Gladly will I tarry in Beulah land I'm living on the mountain underneath the cloudless sky I'm drinking at the fountain that never shall run dry Oh yes, I'm feasting on the manna from a bountiful supply For I am dwelling in Beulah land Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for the opportunity to be gathered together as a church. I pray that you'd please bless this service, that you'd bless Pastor Shelley as he preaches to us and fill him with the Holy Spirit. And keep us safe, Lord. We love you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, for our second song, we'll go to 114, The Great Physician. 114, The Great Physician. Song 114, The Great Physician. The Great Physician now is near The sympathizing Jesus He speaks the drooping heart to cheer Oh hear the voice of Jesus Sweetest note in seraph song Sweetest name on mortal tongue Sweetest carol ever sung Jesus, blessed Jesus Your many sins are all forgiven Oh hear the voice of Jesus Go on your way in peace to heaven And wear a crown with Jesus Sweetest note in seraph song Sweetest name on mortal tongue Sweetest carol ever sung Jesus, blessed Jesus All glory to the dying Lamb I now believe in Jesus I love the blessed Savior's name I love the name of Jesus Sweetest note in seraph song Sweetest name on mortal tongue Sweetest carol ever sung Jesus, blessed Jesus And when to that bright world above We rise to be with Jesus We'll sing around the throne above His name, the name of Jesus Sweetest note in seraph song Sweetest name on mortal tongue Sweetest carol ever sung Jesus, blessed Jesus We're on verse number 8 and any child that's able to quote that in the midweek part of the service they can get a couple pieces of candy. We have a treat for them. Also on the inside we have our service times, our soul winning times. Please take note that the ladies' soul winning time did shift to a regional soul winning time and it's now on Thursdays at 1030. We had a good showing this last week and so if you ladies are interested you can get with my wife and she can text you where y'all will be meeting and just helping facilitate that. Also all the other regional soul winning times meet in different parts of the city. If you have any questions about soul winning you can always ask us. We also have our soul winning captains that are in charge of all the different tribes we have in our church so that way if you have any questions or you'd like to get plugged in or you'd like to know what's the most convenient way to go soul winning you can communicate with them. Also we have our church stats. Continue to keep up the good work on soul winning. Whatever you have for stats please submit that to either your captain, lieutenant or to your tribe leaders. On the right we have the list of expecting ladies if you would please be in prayer for them and also we have one to add for the Lugos in August so congratulations to them. That's really exciting, yeah. And we definitely add ladies in here just so you'll be in prayer for them and we definitely want to be in prayer with all of those that are expecting. Also we have our prayer list that has several other prayer requests. If you have any prayer requests you can always try to email those in and we'll get them added to our bulletin weekly as well as we have a communication card that you can always fill out and put in the offering. One to add, brother Randall Best was asking for prayer for his son and his salvation so if we'd be in prayer for that. That's pretty much all I have for announcements as far as the bulletin is concerned. One other thing, I do have the prizes for the baptism west competition. However, you have to come tonight to get them. So I do have them but you have to come. This is how I get you to church. Now if you're not in the west tribe you can still come to church. It's okay even though you're not getting rewarded for showing up. So when we did our kids conference, Pastor Jimenez had done some challenges and some of the kids had ended up winning a prize. But he mailed them to me and I guess our mail is slow so sorry. He did a lot better job in getting these to us than I'm delivering them to you. So don't take the delay as his fault but it's actually our fault. But we have Junior Milstead, he had gotten one of these and Haley Cardona, Reed and Parker. So if you're here, come on down. Come get your booklet real quick. I don't see any of the Cardonas this morning. We'll make sure to hang on that one for her. Alright, we'll go ahead and go to our third song, 206. 206. Song 206, Oh Say But I'm Glad. Song 206, Oh Say But I'm Glad. 206, Oh Say But I'm Glad. There is a song in my heart today, something I've never had. Jesus has taken my sins away, oh say but I'm glad. Oh say but I'm glad I'm glad, oh say but I'm glad. Jesus has come and my cup's overrun, oh say but I'm glad. Wonderful, marvelous love he brings into a heart that's sad. Through darkest tunnels the soul just sings, oh say but I'm glad. Oh say but I'm glad I'm glad, oh say but I'm glad. Jesus has come and my cup's overrun, oh say but I'm glad. We have a fellowship rich and sweet, tongues can never relay. Abiding in him the souls retreat, oh say but I'm glad. Oh say but I'm glad I'm glad, oh say but I'm glad. Jesus has come and my cup's overrun, oh say but I'm glad. Won't you come to him with all your care, weary and worn and sad. You too will sing as his love you share, oh say but I'm glad. Oh say but I'm glad I'm glad, oh say but I'm glad. Jesus has come and my cup's overrun, oh say but I'm glad. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Romans chapter number two. Romans chapter number two. Romans 2 the Bible reads, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commits such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God, or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality eternal life. But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile. But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel, behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preach'st a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that say'st a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law dishonorous thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you as it is written, for circumcision verily profited if thou keep the law. But if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge thee who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I pray that you fill, Pastor Shelley, now with the Holy Ghost. Give him the fullness of the Spirit and the power, Lord, to preach your word with boldness, and give us, Lord, the ability to listen and minimize distractions in the room so that we may apply this message and be more complete Christians and learn how we can serve you better. We love you. We thank you for our church. We thank you for the word of God. And it is in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Amen. The part of the chapter I want to focus on is here in the beginning. The Bible says, Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgeth, for wherein thou judgeth another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgeth doeth the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgeth them which do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. And so we have here in verse number four, the Bible tells us that men sometimes will despise the riches of his goodness. And of course we're talking about God. And the Bible tells us in verse four, not knowing the goodness of God. So the unsaved man a lot of times doesn't realize the goodness of God. And I would even say this, sometimes I think Christians will forget about the goodness of God. And so I think it's important this morning that we talk about the goodness of God. And we realize the goodness of God. And we're going to see a lot of places in the Bible where it talks about this. Now in this passage it kind of gives us a little bit of an outline that we can follow. It tells us three different points about the Lord. He has goodness. Number two, he has forbearance. And number three, he's longsuffering. Now of course God's goodness extends well beyond the scope of this particular verse. His goodness could extend to all kinds of other great attributes, characteristics such as grace, such as love. Yet I find that these three are very interesting for us to talk about. And they're found here clearly in the scripture as evidence of his goodness. He has goodness, he has forbearance, he has longsuffering. Now, what is goodness? If you look in the dictionary, the dictionary says, morally excellent, righteous, or of a high quality. And when we think about the Lord, he is righteous. He even tells us what righteousness is. He has the highest virtue. He is good, and really according to the scripture, there's no one good like the Lord. No one is going to ever exceed his value, his highness, his righteousness. He is in fact, according to the scripture, the only one that is good. And of course another way to word good or goodness would be to do right. That's righteousness, doing right. And the Lord is the only one who is always going to do right. He's always going to do good. Go if you would to Mark chapter number 10, if you would. Go to Mark chapter number 10. Now of course in the passage of Romans chapter 2, it's explaining that many unsaved people, they judge the world and say, well that person's much more wicked than me, so of course they're going to go to hell, and I'm going to go to heaven because I'm a better person than they are. And yet, no one's good. It's silly because many people think they're going to heaven because they think they're better than other people. Or they sin less than other people. Well, I'm not an axe murderer, so of course I'm going to go to heaven. Yet, they commit adultery. And then the person that doesn't commit adultery, they only commit fornication, they say, well of course I'm going to heaven, I don't commit adultery. But then the person who hasn't committed fornication, but they steal sometimes, they say, well I didn't commit fornication, but they steal sometimes. And then the person that's never stolen, of course they've lied. And then the person that says, well I've never lied, there's some people that say, well I've never cussed in my entire life. And you're just like, what in the world? But I don't care if that's how righteous you think you are, because even if you've never cussed in your entire life, which I don't believe, you are still a sinner. And you still are not worthy of going to heaven because you've never been perfect. No one is perfect except for the Lord. And when confronted with a stranger, the Lord Jesus Christ explains to this young man, this young rich ruler, that there's no one good except for God. Look at what it says in verse 17. And when he was gone forth in the way, there came one running and kneeled to him, and asked him, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God. So according to Jesus Christ, there's only one person that's good and that is God. Now, he's calling him good master. So there's what he's saying, why would you ever give me the title of good? Are you acknowledging that I'm God? It's really what he's kind of getting at. If you think about what the Lord Jesus Christ is trying to get at with this guy, he's saying, hey, do you think that I'm God? And notice what Jesus then follows up with, and Jesus said unto him, why callest, I'm sorry, verse 19, thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor thy father and mother. So he kind of gave him a compound rebuttal or statement. He asked him, what good thing do I have to do? Or what do I do that I may inherit eternal life? So he wants to do something, Christ gives him kind of a compound response in the sense of he asks him the question of why are you calling me good, but to answer your question, you've got to follow all of the commandments. Notice how the man answers him, and he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth up. So he's like, I haven't even cussed one single time since I was young even. I'm just perfect, I'm just the greatest guy ever, I'm just the most righteous. But notice what he also said in verse 20, Master. He first addressed him as good master, and then when Christ says, hey, there's none good but one, that's God, he just drops the good, acknowledging the fact that he doesn't believe he's God. Because if he believed he was God, then he would continue to say, good master, I have kept all of the commandments. Yet, of course, anybody that was actually sound in their logic would realize, you know what, you are God, you are the only one good. And think about this, if Jesus Christ is the only one who is good, then this guy hasn't kept every single commandment perfectly. Isn't that implied? I mean, if you say, hey, I've kept all the commandments, and then Jesus is saying, hey, there's only one that's good, it's God, this guy is either saying that Jesus is a liar or that he's God. Think about what he's trying to say about himself. Well, I must be God then because I've kept every single commandment. Or he's calling Jesus a liar by saying, well, no, that can't be true because I'm good. And isn't that what a lot of the atheists, isn't that what a lot of unbelievers will say about themselves? Well, I'm good, you know, I don't do anything wrong, and I'm moral. And it's like they don't have any real definition or standard of morality. They just believe that they're good. They just believe that they've done right. Now, what did Jesus say when he tells them that he was perfect? Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him and said to him. Now, I think that's really important to think about. Number one, the guy called Jesus Christ good master, which was obvious flattery because he did not believe that. Number two, when confronted with the fact that he's asking him, why are you calling me good or do you think I'm God? He then disrespects him by calling him master the second time by denying his deity. The third thing that the young man does is he tries to say to Jesus Christ that he's never sinned, that he's perfect, almost trying to take the deity of Jesus Christ from Jesus and give it to himself. And then notice what the Bible says, Jesus beholding him, loved him. Isn't that pretty incredible? I mean, this guy is not doing very hot so far. And yet Jesus still loved him. Jesus still was going to do good unto this man, but he said something unto him. One thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor. And thou said of treasure in heaven and come take up the cross and follow me. So Jesus Christ is saying, oh yeah, you're perfect. Okay, how about give up all of your money? Now, if you think about it, someone did do that. Who did that? Jesus. Jesus gave up all of his riches and came down here and humbled himself. So he's good. But you know what? This young man is not willing to do what Jesus did. Because think about what he's selling. Okay, so you're God then? Well, you got a couple more tasks then as the son of God. Let me tell you what your other tasks were. Give up all of your riches and then get crucified. Because isn't that exactly what Jesus had to do for us? So even if theoretically this guy had kept all the commandments. Well, you want to be Jesus. Guess what? You got to do a couple more things. Give up all of your possessions, humble yourself completely, die on the cross, go to hell and rise again. That's what you have to do. And of course this young man is not willing to do that. Because no man is capable or willing to be Lord Jesus Christ. None of us are truly as good as he is. Verse 22, and he was sad at that saying and went away grieved for he had great possessions. Now, why was it so hard for this man to give up his money? Because he had a lot of money. Because he was rich. You know, it's not that hard to give up a lot of money when you don't have any. You know, it's easy. It's easy to feel like you're such a righteous guy or giving money away when you don't have much. Then the guy that's got a lot of money and worked really hard for it to then kiss that goodbye. Says in verse 23, and Jesus looked around and saith unto his disciples, How hardly so they that have riches enter in the kingdom of God. So Jesus just point blank says that rich people, it's hard for them to get saved. And of course, that's true and evidenced by any person that's ever tried to give the gospel to a rich person. I mean, when we go into the rich neighborhoods and we just try to talk to people, they're just not interested in hearing the gospel by and large. Of course, I'm not saying that every rich person isn't willing to hear the gospel. And it's not to say that rich people won't even serve God. Because of course, there are great people in the Bible that have lots of money, lots of riches. You know, Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man. And he's one of the few people that's willing to take the Lord Jesus Christ off of the cross and bury him in a, you know, very rich tomb and kind of a wealthier burial place. Showing that it's not just because you're rich, you won't serve God or something. It's just that the reason why these are correlated is because in order to have a lot of money, unless you inherited it or something, you have to work very hard. And even people that are wicked, you know, of course there's rich people in this world that are very wicked. They still worked hard. They just worked hard deceitfully. They just worked hard and they're cunning. But, you know, it's not like lazy people are just being rich all the time or getting rich all the time. It's those who work very hard or very diligent. And it takes a lot of effort in order to acquire a lot of wealth or to have a lot of money. People that don't have a lot of money, they're usually not as hardworking as the people that have a lot of money. So if you look at people that have a lot of money or have a lot of goods, you can almost take it to the bank. These people work very hard and they work harder than most people. Of course, there's always exceptions. There's the guy that won the lottery. But isn't it interesting the guy that wins the lottery doesn't have the character to maintain that riches. Isn't it interesting the people that win the lottery, they never seem to increase their wealth. It only diminishes. Whereas there's plenty of people that have more money than those who win the lottery and yet their riches continually increase. Why? Because they have the right character and attributes to make money. Whereas most people that are winning the lottery have no character. So of course we have to understand that there's this correlation to riches and working hard. Now why would that then have a spiritual connection? Well, look what he says in the next verse, 24. And the disciples were astonished at his words, but Jesus answerth again and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God? So, of course, we're using a King James Bible this morning. And is it any coincidence that the modern versions will take out a phrase in this verse? You know the phrase they take out? Them that trust in riches. They'll just say, oh, it's hard to go to heaven. Well, that's not true. It's easy to go to heaven. All you have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ one time. All you have to do is just accept his free gift by faith. Talk about the goodness of God. He couldn't have made it any easier to go to heaven. Then why is it hard for some people? Well, it's hard for those who are trusting in riches because ultimately what are they trusting in? If you're trusting in riches, you're trusting in your works. Because most of the people that have riches had to work really hard for that. So, of course, it's symbolizing them trusting their hard work and their hard efforts and their hard labors in their lives to get them the things they need and want. And so it's very difficult for them to let go of that and accept the free gift by faith. Of course, to be saved while it's free and it's simple, you must do something. You must let go of your works. You have to decide it's not both faith and works. A lot of Catholics today they'll say, oh, if it's a gift then great because I'm serving God and doing faithful and I get the gift. And it's like, no, no, no. You're not saved because you're trusting in both your works and your faith. You have to let go of your works 100% and accept the free gift. You have to humble yourself and accept Christ's goodness and realize you don't have any goodness. It's God that has the true goodness. Now, go to Romans 12. I want to just elaborate on this story one more way. Didn't the Bible tell us that Jesus loved this guy? It told us that he loved him. Now, when we think about their interaction, what did Jesus Christ tell him? Well, he preached the divinity of Jesus Christ, number one. Number two, though, did he not tell him to keep the commandments? I mean, the guy asked him how to go to heaven. He's telling him the commandments. So is it unloving to preach the commandments to people? I mean, if you're going to say, hey, it's unloving to tell people to keep the commandments. Well, Jesus then wasn't loving even though the narration told us that he did love him. And he did tell him to keep the commandments, didn't he? Not only that, Jesus Christ challenged him to give away his riches and to live a sacrificial life. So he's putting a lot of pressure on him to serve and to follow God. Another thing is when this guy gave a stupid question, Christ kind of gave him a foolish answer in a sense, did he not? Because the guy's asking, hey, what's the good thing I got to do to go to heaven or what do I have to do to go to heaven? And he's like, keep the commandments. Now, is that really the best way for this guy to go to heaven? Is the guy ever going to go to heaven keeping the commandments? No. No, but what is he trying to do? He's trying to get this guy to humble himself and recognize, hey, you're a sinner. You're not good. You have problems. You have issues. He's trying to help this guy. And in a sense, he's rebuking him because he's saying, hey, why are you calling me good? There's only one that's good. And this guy's telling him he's kept all the commandments and even says, one thing thou lackest. Is that not even telling him, hey, you're doing something wrong here? He's explaining that to him. Yet many people will say, oh, if you're good, you would never criticize someone. You would never rebuke them. You would never tell them they're doing anything wrong. Yet we have a clear example of Jesus Christ rebuking people, correcting people out of love. Romans chapter 12 says in verse number nine, let love be without dissimulation. Now, what does dissimulation mean? It means deceit or fraud or insincerity. So if you truly love someone, you would not just flatter them. You would not just tell them what they want to hear. You would tell them what they need to hear. And that's what Jesus Christ did is he told them what they needed to hear. That's another reason why God is so good is he tells us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear. And, you know, what we all need to hear is that we're all sinners deserving of hell, that we're not good. There's none good but one that's God and that we need to accept his free gift of salvation. So if you think about it, Jesus is starting the soul winning process because what's point one of trying to get someone saved? We're all sinners. This guy couldn't even get on step one in order to be saved. So you know what's one of the most loving things you can do is try to preach someone the gospel and explain to them that they're a sinner. And a lot of people get mad at you. They'll say, how dare you come to my doorstep or try to tell me that I'm sinning or to tell me that I'm wrong. Tell me that my religion is wrong. Tell me that my church is wrong. Tell me that my Bible that I'm using is corrupted. And yet we have Jesus Christ correcting people, you know, confronting them on their beliefs, confronting them on what they, you know, well, how do we know about Jesus Christ divinity? You got to figure that one out. You know, this guy is interested in the gospel and of course once someone's interested, hey, let's lay it all on the table. Let's tell people where they're standing with God. Let's explain to people why they need a savior. And of course, it says in this verse, abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. You know, people act like God just loves people regardless of their actions, regardless of what they do in their lives. And that he somehow tolerates evil. God doesn't tolerate evil. He abhors evil. And we're supposed to abhor evil as well. And it's, you know, God's goodness is not just allowing people to just do wickedness and evil and just thinking like, oh, it's no big deal. No, he'll correct you verbally. He'll tell you what you're doing. You know, when Jesus Christ ran into sinners, he never excused their sin. He told them that they were doing wrong. You know, when he met the woman caught in adultery, he didn't soften the blows. He made it very clear, hey, you've had five husbands. I'm sorry, the woman caught in adultery said, go and sin no more. The woman that had five husbands at the well, the woman at the well, he's telling her, hey, you've had five husbands and the one you're with now, you're not even married to, chick. You know, Jesus didn't soften the blows. He certainly didn't around the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But, you know, it's arguable whether he loved those people. He did love, though, clearly the woman caught in adultery. He loved the woman at the well. He loved many of the publicans and the harlots. Jesus Christ loved people that have been possessed with devils and demons and have been tormented and afflicted. And Jesus Christ loved mankind to die on the cross for their sins. But you know what, he's never going to stop telling them what they need to hear. And a lot of people could look at our church and say, oh, this church isn't a good church. And you say, why? Because of what they say. But wait a minute, is it what you need to hear? Because if it's what you need to hear, then it's good. And you know what, it's love. It's not loving to just tell people what they want to hear. It's not loving to flatter people and give them insincere titles and say, I love you. You know, be like Kanye West and say, I love everybody. How does Kanye West love anyone? He can't even keep his marriage together. I mean, does Kanye West even love Kim Kardashian? Does Kanye West even love his children? Does Kanye West love anyone? I mean, the answer is obviously no. And the people that truly love you will explain to you why you're wrong when you're wrong. The Bible says, faithful are the wounds of a friend. But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. The kiss is from Kanye West. The kiss is from Joe Biden. Those are really creepy, okay? They are not your friend. They are deceit. They're insincere. They're insincere. You know, it's funny to me with the stupid Speaker of the House debacle that they were having recently, and it's been in a lot of the news. Every time one of these politicians gets up to speak, they have this custom where they all just stand up and clap for them. They're just like, oh, yay! And it's like, these are the scummiest people on the planet, most of them. I mean, they're all just frauds, and they're on drugs, and they're committing all kinds of rampant adultery, and they're just committing all kinds of bribery and extortion, and taking all kinds of funds. Some of them are even threatening people, and, you know, they're like hitmen, and they're willing to just kill American soldiers for money and bribes, and a lot of them, they make a $200,000 a year salary, and they're millionaires. How is it that you go from a $200,000 salary to becoming a millionaire? Well, they worked really hard in bribery, extortion, and insider trading. That's what they did. They took a lot of money from the lobbyists, yet you go to the seats of Congress, and they're just, you're such a wonderful, you honorable congressman. What does the gentle lady have to say? What does the gentleman have to say? And they use all these flattering titles, even though these are some of the vilest people on the planet, some of the most disgusting people on the planet. In fact, most of these higher-position people are sodomites, even though they won't come out and be open about it. Barney Frank, an open sodomite that got exposed, being one of our congressmen, he said that, you know, they were like investigating him for all kinds of weird, horrible things that he was doing, and he said, if they keep investigating me, then I'm going to out all the other Republicans that are sodomites. And then it was just like instantly all the investigation stopped. Because, look, there is a ton of these Republicans and Democrats that are just sodomites just pretending. They're all a bunch of pretenders, and our government is just a fake show. And you know what, I don't want to live a life where we just come to church and it's just a fake show. There's a lot of churches that are like that. I've been to church my whole life, and I've seen all kinds of different churches, and you know and I know there's plenty of churches you could go to this morning where everybody will compliment you and give you a round of applause and look how nice you are, and then as soon as you walk away, they'll talk gossip about you, they'll talk bind your back, they don't sincerely love you, they're not true, they're not good. You know, the good person will tell you things that you need to fix, the bad person will just flatter you. And of course, God is good, so he tells us exactly what we're like. You know, when you read the Bible, you don't feel flattered. I mean, if you've ever read any of the scripture, you realize flattery is non-existent. Go to Matthew chapter number five, go to Matthew chapter number five. But that's why it's so good. I would hate to read a book that's just going to flatter me. Just open it up and just, you're so wonderful, everything you do is so good, you're so tall, Pastor Shelley, you know, it's like, no I'm not. It's like, you're just the greatest at everything, no I'm not. You know, that would be silly, it would be a waste of time. You know, I'd rather read the Bible that's going to tell me all my flaws and all the issues that I have and the problems so that I can work on them, so I can become a better person, so I can be more like the Lord who truly is good. Matthew chapter number five is a pretty famous sermon, Sermon on the Mount. And we have the Beatitudes. But later in this portion of scripture, look at verse 43, the Bible says, Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for He maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the public ends the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the public ends so? Be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. So saying, hey, if you scratch the back of those who are scratching yours, how are you different than Joe Biden? How are you different than Kamala Harris? How are you different than the Jews? How are you different than any person out there? Because according to the Bible, even wicked people honor a tit-for-tat contract. Even horrible people, hey, you do me good, I'll do you good. Even the mafia boss, he's like, hey, you do me good, I do you good. It's like, you need protection, you pay me, I give you protection. That's not being good. Of course, we have to understand that being good is doing good to someone, then they don't deserve it. Doing good unto someone when they've done evil unto you. And if the Bible is explaining that God is sending rain, which is considered a blessing, prosperity, unto the just and the unjust. And we have a lot of unjust people who work hard in this world and God blesses them with favor, blesses them with riches, blesses them with promotion, allows them to still have a lot of good in this life, even though they don't deserve it, even though they're of course not worthy. And that illustrates how God is good. You know, a lot of people look at this world through a lens of, oh, this world is terrible and bad and awful. But that's because you just don't really understand the fact that we all deserve hell and we're not in hell and we're getting so much goodness that we don't deserve on a daily basis. Because of our rebellion, we're not getting all the punishments that we deserve on a regular basis. God is then rather giving you things like brisket. It's like you could literally go sin and then have brisket for dinner. And you're like, what is that about? That's God's goodness. Of course you could sin and then someone could put beans in your chili and that's where you're reconvinced, okay. But I'm saying that some of you could actually have a great meal. You could have something good happen to you. You could go have fun. You could enjoy this world even though you didn't even deserve it, even though you don't get it. You know, sometimes my children, they won't eat their dinner and they're not supposed to get dessert unless they eat their dinner. But you know, sometimes we just give them dessert anyways. Why? Because you just love them and you do good unto them even when they don't deserve it. Now don't tell them that, all right. I'm sorry. You better eat your dinner, all right. Go to Matthew 20, go to Matthew 20. But of course God is doing to do good unto people and of course that's what we're supposed to do. The Bible says love your enemies. You know, there are people that will persecute our church and they're not some like God-hating psychopath. They're just wrong. And you know what we should do to those people? Be kind. Love them. Do good unto them. Honor them. Treat them with respect. It's easy to just constantly, you know, retaliate. You do me bad, I do you bad. You know, of course, and I always try to evaluate. I say, okay, is this person, you know, a psychopath? They're not. Or I could give them the minute of the doubt, then I'll just do good to them anyways. Obviously when they're of Satan, I'm not going to, you know, recompense good unto their evil. I'll just leave them alone. But according to the scripture, most of the people out there are not that person. And so we're supposed to by and large love our enemies. And we're supposed to do good unto people. And that's why people can look at you and say, wow, this church is good. Because even though we kind of mistreated them and did horrible things to them and have been unfair to them, they were still good to me. And then they look at you, they say good. You know, I've had that situation literally happen. I've had people do us bad as a church and treat us unfairly and break their word and do all kinds of stuff. But us as a church, we treated them good. And, you know, eventually they were like, you know what, you guys are, we like you. And then they try to help me back. So someone that's like attacking me and hurting me after we do good unto them, then they come back and they realize, OK, you know, maybe they're not so bad after all. Right. And, you know, their beliefs, well, I don't want to admit them out loud. I agree in my heart. OK, Matthew, chapter 20. Hey, the law of God's written in your heart. Verse nine, the Bible says, And when they came that were hired about the 11th hour, they received every man a penny. So there's a parable. And Jesus Christ explains how there's always been going out and working. They all come at different times. Yet they end up all getting the same paycheck. Now, it says in verse number nine. And when they came that were hired about the 11th hour, they received her many penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more. And they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the good men of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and now has made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didest not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is and go thy way. I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it lawful for me to do good to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil? Notice this because I am good. And so sometimes we get mad at God because he does good things into other people. And yet these people still got good. It's like I still got all the things I wanted. I still got all the things I needed. But this person didn't work as hard as me. This person didn't deserve as much as me. And he got something good, too. Yet you shouldn't look at that situation where, well, nuts to the guy that give me good because I should have gotten even better. You know, that's an ungrateful attitude. That's a discontent attitude. And we notice that God is good, not just to those who deserve it, but to all kinds of people. And we look, there's so many people that don't deserve God's goodness, but he does them good. You know, there could be someone who's had a worse past, but then they start serving God. And they end up getting some great reward or some great treasure or some great blessing that you wanted that you haven't gotten. Or equally the same kind of blessing. And we shouldn't look down upon those people because God is good. We shouldn't look down upon the world and say, you know what? It's not fair that God is going to bless this person more than they deserve, but I get exactly what I deserve. You know, that's a weird attitude to have. And yet a lot of people will have this kind of attitude. Go to Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter number 2. But one thing that's consistent is God is good. And he's not just good to those who deserve it. God is good to those who don't deserve it. You know, of course, the ultimate goodness of God is illustrated in the gospel itself. Luke chapter number 2. Look at verse number 8. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men. So we see that God is extending good will toward men. And of course, what is that good will? It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And God is trying to get the gospel to every single person, and he's trying to do good unto them even though none of us deserve it. You know, none of us deserve that goodness. None of us deserve the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. None of us deserve salvation. God extended his good will towards us so that we could be saved. I want you to go to Psalms for a moment. Well, let's look at a couple of Psalms here. Look, the goodness of God is something that we need to be reminded of, because I think sometimes you could be saved for a little while, and you could start to get this attitude of, well, of course good things happen to me. I'm saved, and I deserve it. You don't deserve your salvation. We don't deserve the good things that happen to us. And we shouldn't be looking at the unsaved like, well, of course you deserve this horrible thing that happened to you because you're not saved and serving God. But wait a minute, I don't deserve the things that I have either. You know, we could look at people and say, well, that are going through horrible events, you know, divorce. Or their children are liberals. Or they, I mean, that's terrible. You know, their children are Democrats or something. You know, their children are committing fornication or having children out of wedlock. Or their children are addicted to drugs. Or someone that they care about is no longer their friend or lied about them or stole money from them or they lost their job. You know, things that happen to these people and we think we could get this lofty attitude of like, well, if you were as righteous as me, that wouldn't happen to you. But, you know, that's kind of a bad attitude. We should have an attitude of, you know, sympathy and empathy towards those and also realizing that a lot of the good stuff that happens to us, it wasn't because we're so much more righteous. It's just because God is good. And we should have an attitude that realizes that God is good and we don't deserve it. Another attitude that could exist around God's goodness is that God's not good. And that's kind of a frustrating thing because of the bad things that happen. Now, of course, because God is constantly not giving us what we deserve and we're getting all these blessings and grace and mercy, you kind of get this entitled attitude to where when something bad does happen, you blame God for not being good. And it's like God doesn't have to be good to you every single time. Sometimes you just reap what you sow. Sometimes you just get what you deserve. Sometimes bad things are going to happen to you and we should realize we didn't deserve anything. We deserved hell. So everything that's not hell, you should be willing to take patiently, according to the scripture, and still realize that God is good. And I think sometimes we could live in America and we could look at, well, man, I just wish it was the 50s. Not if you're a black person. Well, the 60s, not if you're a black person. Not everything was great in the 50s. What about the 40s? Do you wish we lived in the 40s so that you could be drafted for World War II? How much fun would that have been? You know, everybody kind of glorifies the past and always thinks it was so much better in years past. And ultimately a lot of times what it is is kind of an accusation against God, or they're trying to make God to not be out as good as He is or something like that. You know, you could think, well, I just wish we were back at the time of Christ. Well, you wouldn't have a car. You wouldn't have air conditioning. You wouldn't have indoor plumbing. You wouldn't have the nice clothes that you have. You probably wouldn't have brisket all the time. You'd probably be drinking dirty water. I mean, you'd probably be poor. You'd probably, you'd have to walk everywhere. Some of you couldn't even be fat because you'd have to walk everywhere. You ladies, you wouldn't even be able to be lazy. You wouldn't have TikTok. You would have, you know how you'd have to wash dishes? By hand. Every single one of them. You'd have to sweep the floor. You wouldn't have a vacuum. There was no vacuum coming for Christmas. You don't realize how good you have it. Well, I just wish we were back. You don't even understand all the goodness. You wouldn't have, you know what you wouldn't have? A King James Bible. To read every morning. You wouldn't have that coffee maker. That doesn't bother me. You wouldn't have unsweet tea. I don't care. Ranch. Some of these things is fine. This is fine. But you know, you don't realize all the blessings that you have. All the good things that you have. You know, even back then, you think it's hard to find a wife now. What about if you lived back then, where there's only like a few thousand people and to find anybody else you have to walk to a completely different town and most of the virgins are already spoken for. I mean, you live in an area where there's eight million people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and you have to find one. You have to find one to get married. And then people will complain, acting like in the past it was so much easier. You don't even know what you're talking about. Good luck. You know, it's not like in the Bible it says, you know how hard it is to find the virtuous woman in 2023. That was a period. It was always difficult. You know, they said, when they talked about finding wives for the Benjamites, they were like acting, they said, if we don't find them right now, they will die and never have a wife. They were saying, there's no option. It wasn't like, oh, there's all these options I don't like. It was like zero option. Their option was to grab a woman dancing that they had never met in their life and just make it their wife. You better pick wisely. You know, that would have been an interesting situation. I'm glad I don't have to marriage counsel those people. Well, he swept you off your feet. There you go. But God is good. Look at chapter 25 verse 8. Psalm 25 verse 8. Good and upright is the Lord, therefore will He teach sinners in the way. You know what, I love God being so good. He'll teach us stuff. And you know He teaches us that we're sinners and how to live right. You know, that's why I love this church is because we love to teach the Bible. And let me tell you something that's good. You know what's good is a church that's teaching you how to be good and teaching how to be upright. A church that ceases to teach you how to be good and upright is no longer a good church. You want to know how good a church is? Well, how much is it teaching you to be good? Look at chapter 33. Just flip over to the right. Look at chapter 33. Look at verse 5. He that loveth righteousness and judgment, the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. Look, there is so much goodness. I mean, you live in one of the greatest places to live in the world. You live in the United States, which already just makes it so much better than every other country. You live in the south, which already makes it so much better. You live in a warmer climate. You live in Texas, which already makes it so much better than so many other states. You live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is the land flowing with milk and honey. I mean, this area is just, the economy has been booming for so long. The housing here is great. I mean, have you ever lived anywhere else? I mean, if you go live in Phoenix and you're going to buy a house, it's like a 1,500 square foot house. Good luck, I mean, or a 2,200 square foot house. Good luck getting a 3,000 square foot house in Phoenix unless you have like multimillion dollar. I mean, it's like Scottsdale, Arizona, I guess, where it's like some of the richest real estate ever. Yet in Texas, it's like we all have 2,000, 3,000 square foot houses very easily. Obviously, even the apartments here are bigger. Even, everything's bigger in Texas. The stakes, the brisket, the persecution, hey, all of it. You know, the reprobates, they're bigger here. But, you know, think about how much good you have, though. I mean, there's so much good stuff here. I mean, the food here is so much better than other areas. It's crazy, it's crazy good. I mean, can you imagine living in India, literally? I would be skinny, too. I've never seen a skinny, like a fat Indian person. They're all skinny. It's like, would you want to live in North Korea? You know, you have so much goodness in this life, in this world. You know, when we look at the sky, I mean, the sky is beautiful today. There's all kinds of lakes around here where you could go out and fish. You could ride on a sea dew. We have golf courses everywhere. We have parks everywhere. We have all kinds of other sporting activities. I mean, you've got every great sporting activity here. You've got ice hockey. You've got roller hockey. You've got basketball. You've got all kinds of soccer. You have football programs. You have softball and baseball. I mean, you have like almost every kind of sport you could ever imagine, every kind of recreation, go-karts, ping-pong. There's even an Asian place where you can play ping-pong. You could get anything you want. You could have almost any kind of cuisine in the entire world at your fingertips. You could go home and you could turn on a TV or a computer and you could watch almost anything that's entertaining, just like that. You could open up the King James Bible and you could read every part of God's Word like that. You could hear it. Someone could – you could have – if you have a terrible voice, you could have Alexander Scorby read you the Bible like that. You can listen to hymns. You can listen to great music that people – I mean, if you look at our world, our world is just as saturated with music. You know, to hear good music back in the day, you had to be a king and you had to hire like your own personal choir and your own personal band just to hear good music. They didn't have just, you know, a phone or something they could just plug in and just listen to the greatest music just right off the bat. I mean, almost every generation that's ever lived has never heard the amount of music that we've heard. And just the incredible sounds. And you know, people when they record music, they'll record it 100, 200, 300 times and they will cherry pick the absolute best phrase every single time out of their vocals. Like when they record a professional album, the professional musicians, what they do is they're literally singing the song a hundred times and then they take every phrase that was like the best sounding one of all of them and put them all together and they use computers to even just like auto-tune it and to make it just so dialed in and so perfect. And they just have all the musicians are just perfect and dialed in and then you get to listen to that at your fingertips. Just the greatest orchestras, the greatest pieces of music. We have some of the greatest clothing that's ever existed, just so easy, so accessible. You don't even have to work for it. And then we just, this is what people are like, ugh, the world is just so bad. It's so awful. I mean Democrats. Yeah, Democrats suck, but that doesn't mean that the goodness of God doesn't still exist in this world. Our government's bad. Yeah, it is, but you know what government's worse? Every other government in this world. You know what government was worse? Almost every government that's ever existed. I mean, do you not, have you ever read the Bible? I mean, do you want Pharaoh, who's going to throw your baby boys in the river? Is that the government that you want? Do you want King Herod, who's going to say at a moment's notice, slaughter every baby under two years old? That's a pretty good government, isn't it? Do you want Nero, who's taking Christians and feeding them to lions for sport? I mean, what government do you want? Well, you want the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, right? That's what we all want, but it doesn't exist. And yet, we can sit here and complain. You know, there are people that have those type of governments, that have those type of situations, and they can still see the goodness of the Lord. How come we can't? Go to 100, Psalm 100. We need to realize that the Lord is good. And we get so many things that we don't deserve. My life is just full of things. My children, greatest things that have ever happened to me. I don't deserve my wife. The best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't deserve my wife. I mean, just so much joy and satisfaction and everything in my life because of my wife. And I don't deserve that. I don't deserve my church. I don't deserve my brothers and sisters in Christ. I don't deserve to be here with you guys today. This is good. You know, so many people are starving spiritually for a church. Like, they would do almost anything to have a good church. They can't even have it. And we're just so spoiled. We're just so spoiled to have such a great church with so many great people that love God, that want to serve the Lord. We have so many blessings. We should realize that the Lord is good. You know, that's why we should sing with all of our heart for all this good stuff that God's doing to us. You know, Psalm 100, the Bible says in verse 5, For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth all generations. You know what I love about salvation is it's forever. You know, we deserve hell, but because I'm saved, there'll never be a point when God's like, You know what? Just finally just go to hell. You finally deserve it. Nope, His mercy is everlasting. So the moment I got saved, His mercy was given to me, and I'll never have to worry about going to hell because His mercy is everlasting. And notice His truth endureth all generations. Sounds like He gave us a Bible that's going to last. Hey, He didn't say, My truth is only for this generation. Hey, His truth is for all generations. That's why we're King James only because we have the truth this morning, because we have God's Word this morning. And you know what? Those who have the other Bibles, they don't even know what God's truth is. And praise God that someone explained to you someday why you even use a King James Bible, so you could have the truth of God's Word. So you could have the goodness of God's Word. So you could have the mercy of God's Word. You know, how many Christians today want to hear from God and they're reading the message? They're reading the NLT, which tells them they have to repent of their sins to be saved. They're reading these false Bible versions. They're reading junk and garbage trying to hear from God's Word today, and you have it so good that you have a King James Bible in your lap. You know, this is something that we should go out and we should triumph, and we should explain to people, Hey, get a King James Bible. Get the truth. His truth is for every generation. Go to Psalms 27. Go to Psalms 27. And of course, I'm not trying to undermine difficulty. I'm not trying to undermine persecution. I'm not trying to minimize the fact that you're gonna have enemies, difficulties, and struggles despite God's goodness. But even when we go through those difficulties, we have to let God's goodness help us get through it. We have to recognize His goodness. Now, Psalm 27 is a really powerful Psalm. I kind of want to just read a lot of this, maybe the whole thing. Verse 1, the Bible says, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Notice that He's the one that gives us the strength of our life. Verse 2, When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Now, of course, you have to realize there was a point that it's got to be pretty scary when you have a bunch of people marching to kill you. I mean, according to the Bible, they were coming upon Him to eat Him. And, of course, that's just a symbol for the idea of destroying. Verse 3, Though in host should a camp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. What did God, we'd have a generation that said that. God, there's only one thing that I want. Church. Hey, I don't care about anything else. I mean, that's not the best marriage vow. But, you know, notice what He's saying. He's saying, I'm not saying to give me my wife all the days of my life. I'm not saying to give me my children all the days of my life. I'm not asking you to give me riches all the rest of my life. You know what I'm asking for? I just want one thing. I just want to be able to go to church my whole life. Verse 5, For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion, and the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock, and now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. You know, sometimes you have bad things happen in your life and there's no relationship you can count on. You can't even count on your own parents. Think about this guy. This guy's life, he's constantly being harassed by enemies. He's constantly being persecuted by enemies who want to destroy him. No one is standing with him. Even his own parents, his mom and his dad, they're not there to comfort him. They're not there to protect him. They're not there to encourage him. He says, Hey, even when they forsake me, hey, the Lord will be there for me. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in the path plain because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over under the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me and such as breathe out cruelty. You know, the wicked, they dream up some cruel ways to hurt God's people and they would love to do it. Verse 13, I had fainted unless. Notice this guy, his life is really hard. It's not an easy life full of enemies struggling to make it to church. His family is forsaken him. Everybody wants to destroy him cruelly. He said he would have fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Notice what he said. Hey, you're something that kept me going the rest of my life, the goodness of the Lord. You know what? God is so good. And I think even in the midst of difficulty, we sometimes forget about the goodness. You know, even myself, I could look at my life two ways. I could look at what's all the bad things that are happening to me. Or I could say what's all the good things that are happening to me. And if I look at all the bad things, I had fainted. But there's a way to not faint. I look at all the good things. And you know what? I have so much good in my life. My children, my wife, my church. I couldn't even number them all. Count your blessings. I can't even count them all. I have so many great things that are happening in my life. And instead of worrying about all the negative things or the issues that exist, you know what? I should just push that out of my mind and praise God for all the goodness that he's giving me. Verse 14, wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. You know, sometimes you're going to have ups and downs in life and you're in a pretty bad valley. The Bible's saying just wait on God to take care of it. Just keep being faithful. Just keep going to church. Just keep doing right. Just keep focusing on the Lord. And you know what? You'll probably come out of that eventually. Just wait. God will take care of it. Just wait. Your enemies will be destroyed. Just wait. They'll get what's coming to them. Just wait on the Lord. But you know what helps us during that waiting process? The goodness of God. Go to Ezra chapter 9. Go to Ezra chapter 9. So point one is this, God is good. Point number two, though, that we had read from our text previously was that he had forbearance. Not only does he have goodness, he has forbearance. What is forbearance? According to the dictionary, it's restraint or restraint regarding enforcement of something. Like a debt or an obligation. And this is where we get the command, hey, we need to wait. Why? Because sometimes God is forbearing on his punishment. Sometimes God is forbearing on debt that needs to be collected. Sometimes God is forbearing on something and it could cause us a lot of grief because we're thinking, man, why isn't God, you know, given this guy what he deserves? But you know what? We didn't get what we deserved. So we just have to be patient and realize that God is being good to us despite this difficulty. And if God's going to be good to other people, we need to just allow the Lord to be good. Look what it says in Ezra chapter 9, verse 10. And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken thy commandments, which thou has commanded by thy servants the prophet, saying, The land unto which ye go to possess it is an unclean land, with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness. Now, therefore, give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth forever, that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever. And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou, our God, hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve. You know, Ezra is coming from a situation where the entire city of Jerusalem had been destroyed, wiped out, they were taken into slavery for 70 years. That's pretty bad punishment. And then you know what he said? That was less than we deserved. I mean, how many bad things have happened to you like that? Probably never. Is that the attitude you have? Well, I know this bad thing happened to me, or I know I reaped this consequence in my life and I'm struggling with it, but is that really what you deserved? You probably are getting less than you even deserved. It's probably, actually, it could be even worse. And instead of having the right attitude, you know, we look at the punishments we get, often God is forbearing and he's not even giving us all the punishments we deserve, all of the recompenses that we deserve, everything that we should be receiving. Go to Revelation chapter 2, go to Revelation chapter 2, he'll even give us time to figure these things out. You know, give us space. And of course, we should take these attributes of God and apply them to other people in our lives. You know, sometimes when someone does something bad to you, you don't have to just immediately give them punishment. You don't have to always give them an immediate consequence. You can give them a little space. Look what God says in Revelation chapter 2, verse 20. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit for an occasion, and eat things sacrificed unto idols. So, they have a woman teaching, which is, according to the Bible, not legitimate within the church. He's mad at them for letting her teach and to seduce them to commit a wicked sin like fornication. I mean, in the Bible, God killed people fornication. Number two, it's church discipline issue. And think about this, God is not even dealing with the situation immediately. It's a pretty severe situation, and he's still not giving it immediately. Verse 21, and I gave her space to repent of her fornication. So, it's like she's doing something super wicked, the church is a train wreck, and God is still giving them space. Think about it this way, if steadfast Baptist churches will never happen, okay, if I let some woman get up here and preach the Bible to you for a while, God would still consider our church legitimate and would give us space to figure that out. That's how much God forebears. So, if we think about that, and this is important, if God is forbearing this church, then how much more other independent fundamental Baptist churches in our area that are a little wrong on something is God forbearing? I think often we look at churches today and we just think they're so horrible that God couldn't even use them or look at them, but it's like, if we saw a church that had a woman preacher preaching fornication, we would totally not even think it was a legit church. God is still considering this a legit church and giving them space. So, how much more space should we give to people than often we often give credit for? You know, there's a lot of churches out there that are not perfect, that have problems, but you know what? God can still use them and maybe God is giving them space to figure out some of their problems, to fix some of their issues. Now, of course, you want to fix it, because what does He say in the next verse? Verse 22, Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery, oh, it says, and she repent not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds, and I will kill her children with death. And all the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. So, think about it this way. According to the Bible, God killed people for committing fornication. And so, if you get what you deserve, and technically it's any sin, any sin God could just kill you and take you to hell. But fornication is a pretty extreme sin, and for committing fornication, God could rightly and justly just kill you and throw you into hell. But this woman committed this wicked sin, even being a Christian, and according to the Bible, He didn't immediately kill her. He gave her space. So, she could have repented, she could have gotten that right, and then she wouldn't have ever received the real punishment that she deserved. And how many of us, we do something wicked and we've gotten it right, and we haven't reaped what we've sown in that sense. God gave us mercy. God did not give us what we deserved. A punishment just to that. And we walk around and then we look down upon people who do get that punishment, or we forget about how much God has been good unto us. You know, we should realize that God is forbearing unto us, and then allow that to not cause us to get frustrated with the world when God's not punishing the world. Because what do we do? Well, God punished the world. God give them what they deserve. But it's like, do you want that? I don't want that. I don't want God to constantly give me what I deserve and immediately reward me for every bad thing that I do. And so we shouldn't expect that of the world. We shouldn't expect God to treat the world that way. God is often going to forbear punishment. Does that mean He's going to not punish? No, it's the same punishment. He just waited, He gave them a time, He gave them a chance to fix it. But He didn't lessen the punishment. God's not going to just say, you know what, you're off the hook, whatever. Go to Ephesians chapter 4. He can extend mercy, but notice it's the same punishment. And this is why God can be good and just. This is why God can be merciful and He can be righteous. God can be loving and God can be wrathful as God is the best person to have on your side and He's the worst person to have against you. But we should learn from God's forbearance and we should show forbearance one to another. Look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1. God gave a parable, Jesus Christ gave a parable of a man who owed a great debt and He asked the king, the master to forgive him and he forgave him, but then he takes his fellow servant and he grabs him by the throat and say, pay the now lowest. And that's the same as us when God's forbearance, has so much forbearance towards us. And then when we, you know, treat people with no forbearance, that's a scary day because you should expect God to come around and be like, oh, you want them to be punished what they deserve? Just wait, you'll get what you deserve then. You know, we should often remind ourselves, you know what, people don't always get what they deserve from God, so I should therefore not always give people what they deserve. You know, someone at church does you wrong, you don't have to treat them poorly. Maybe they said something mean about you or they said some cross word about you or something. You know, you don't always have to just then be like, well, I'm going to be mean to them or I'm going to say cross things about them. You know, you could just be kind to that person. You know, the Bible tells us to not take heed to all words that are spoken because you've cursed others. You know, there's been times when you ran your mouth about people, but you didn't really mean it or you didn't really feel that way about that person and you kind of feel bad about having run your mouth. You know, I think that's a hard thing for women is because a lot of times women will run their mouths about people and they don't really actually feel that bad about the person. They still like the person, they just ran their mouth about them. But then women often have a hard time forgiving or forbearing on these issues and so you can get to a point where every woman hates each other because they all just said stupid things every once in a while. You know, some ladies talking trash on you or said some gossip sometime, you could just get over it and decide not to care and just forbear. I mean, how many times have you said a cross word about the Lord or God or been upset about something that you shouldn't have? And is God always just recompensing you for everything that you said or everything that you've done? You know, God still loves us and treats us good despite all the things we've said and done to Him. And yet you can't treat other ladies or other men in the church or other people in your lives that way. You know, we should just constantly just be good to people whether they deserve it or not, whether they've been nice to us or not, whether they've been friendly to us or not. You know, just be friendly to them. Be good to them. Of course, this verse has a meaning. It's not like, you know, we come to this church and you'd like to think everybody's good. That's not true. This church is full of people that do all kinds of terrible things and weird things and gossip and lies. You know, people are like, I don't like churches full of hypocrites. Okay, show me an institution that's not full of hypocrites. The government? You know, like what organization is not full of liars and hypocrites and people that are going to let you down? That's every institution, including the church. But we can be different in the sense that we don't always hold people accountable for everything that they do. We sometimes forbear. And not only do we forbear, but we can be long-suffering with them. Go to 2 Peter 3. Actually, before we get there, I kind of want to end on that verse. Let's go to a couple more first. Let's go to 2 Timothy 4. And we're almost finished this morning, but number one, God is good. Number two, He forbears. And number three, He's long-suffering. And this is going to help remind us of the goodness of God, that He does good unto us that we don't deserve. He doesn't give us the punishments that we always deserve. And when we continue to not deserve it, He'll endure with us for a really long time. You know, I just keep getting good and keep deserving punishment, and then God just allows me to live in that state for a long time. That's the trifecta of the goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering of God. And we see the goodness of God, and that should lead people to getting saved. But not even just the saved, or the unsaved. Us that are saved, we should recognize all these patterns of God's goodness, and it should remind us to serve Him, and to treat others as God treats us. Now, 2 Timothy 4 is instructions to a preacher. Look what it says in verse 2. Preach the word, be it in season, out of season, or prove rebuke. Exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. This tells me that I could get up and preach you a sermon, and ask the congregation to fix something, and you know what's probably not going to happen? You'll all just fix it like this. And as a preacher, I'm not supposed to get mad at you, I'm supposed to be long-suffering. You know, and we should be long-suffering in all of our preaching. You know, when we're preaching to people that are at loss, sometimes it takes more than one time to hear the gospel to get saved. And we should be long-suffering with them. You know, instructing your wife, sometimes you have to be long-suffering. Instructing your children. You have to be very long-suffering with your children. Your children are not going to get everything the first time. The first step. So we have to be long-suffering with them, and we have to constantly reinforce. Praise God that he's long-suffering with us. Praise God that you'll have the same topic brought up in almost every chapter of the Bible. Because we need it. It's like, God didn't just give it to us one time, he's like, here's it again, and again, and again. But why? Because he's long-suffering. He's trying to help us understand these things. Go to 1 Timothy, just flip to the left. 1 Timothy, why does he do that? Well, obviously one of those things is to get people saved. 1 Timothy 1, verse 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtain mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern of them which should hereafter believe on him, the life everlasting. And you think, why is God allowing America to continue to be wicked? Because if he punished us the way we deserve, there would be no America to save. Why is he so long-suffering? As a pattern to show, hey, I can be really long-suffering with Paul and I can be long-suffering with the guy at the door and I can get him saved too. The guy that's been resisting and the guy that's sinful and the guy that's doing wrong, you know, God is constantly being long-suffering because he wants that guy to get saved. People say, well, why is there so much evil in the world? Because God is trying to give those evil people a chance to get saved. That's why. He wants them to go to heaven. I mean, couldn't God just snap his finger and just, all right, there is unsaved hell and all the people that are righteous, heaven and I transformed you and now you're righteous and there's no more sin ever again. God could snap his fingers and there could be no sin tomorrow if he wanted. Why is it that God allows sin? God allows sin to continue on and wickedness to continue on so that those people could have a chance to get saved. So we should hope that it continues to last so that we can get people saved. Go, if you would, to Galatians, chapter number 5. And, you know, we're supposed to emulate these attributes, just flip to the left a little bit, Galatians chapter 5 and look at verse 22. We're supposed to have the fruits of the Spirit. You know, if you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit inside of you. And, of course, he'll never leave thee, he'll never forsake thee. But you have to walk in the Spirit and you have to allow the spirits of God, you have to let the Holy Spirit, these fruits of the Spirit, to come out in your life. It's not automatic. And what are those? Verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, notice this one, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. You know, some of the fruits of the Spirit are two mentioned that we had in our sermon this morning, goodness and long suffering. We should be long suffering with the brethren, we should be long suffering with the lost, we should be able to endure, you know what is long suffering? Enduring trouble or provocation patiently. Enduring trouble or provocation patiently. Go to 2 Peter chapter 3 now, it's the last place I want to turn this morning. We should look at God's goodness towards the unsaved and realize that that's the reason we're here is to get more people saved. But then, also to just live our lives successfully, we need to learn how to be like God and to be exhibiting the attributes of goodness, exhibiting the attributes of forbearance and exhibiting the attributes of long suffering. Realizing that not everybody is going to get everything day one. You know, there's been people in my life that I tried to teach them certain things and it took them a while to come around, but now they fully come around. And it made me upset because, you know, whenever I heard about the King James only position, when someone, the first time I'd ever heard anybody explain why to use the King James Bible over the modern versions, it took me about two minutes to change my mind. I'm not, I grew up my whole life using the New King James and some of the other modern versions and I kid you not, I started watching a video explaining why the King James Bibles appear to all the other versions and I changed my mind about two minutes. And so I would take this doctrine to other Christians and they would get mad at me and yell at me and scream at me and say I'm weird and, you know, what just do you mean by this Jonathan? I'm like that's not what the King James Bible sounds like, okay. You're just being, you're being stupid, okay. Like I don't speak old English. I don't either. You know what, the King James Bible is not old English. Well, you know, Shakespeare wrote the Bible. No, he didn't write any of it. Not even a word. Well, but, you know, I don't use it because Catholic monks, Catholic monks, you know, wrote the Bible for King Henry so he could get divorced. I'm like everything you said was wrong. I've heard this. I've had people tell me this and I'm just, it just like blows my mind because I'm like I, you know, bam. And I've had other people that are, you know, not asking and saying really stupid things but just genuinely just like, well, some of these parts seem harder to understand. I don't understand why there's a problem with the other Bibles. You know, genuine, sincere questions. And it took a lot of time and there were people that were resistant for a while but then over time showing them consistently and them seeing for themselves and tasting that the Lord is good, they were like, you know, it is the King James Bible. And it would frustrate me. I'd say like, well, why? Why did this person not change like that? But then I realized, you know, there's other areas of my life that I didn't change like that. Just because I changed like that on that one idea, that one doctrine, doesn't mean there weren't a lot of other areas of my life that God's been really long suffering with me and has made me continuing to be long suffering with me on my issues. I still have problems. I still have issues. I still have things I struggle with and I praise God that God is long suffering towards me in those areas and I shouldn't have this bad attitude towards my brothers and sisters in Christ when they don't get things like that. Because none of us get things like that. We all struggle and we all have different proclivities and we have different areas that we have strengths and weaknesses in and we need to exhibit the same attributes of God and belong suffering towards our brethren. 2 Peter 3, look at verse 9. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. You know the Bible is telling us, you know, God hasn't punished this world for one reason, to get people saved. You know I drove through Dallas recently and there's this area called Dark Lawn. Do not ever go there. It is like literal Sodom and Gomorrah, just in the middle of Dallas. And you're just wondering, why has God not nuked this place? And it's like, I guess there's at least 10 righteous. Or I guess there's someone around there, you know, not necessarily that maybe hot spot but somewhere close in there that needs to get saved or needs to hear the Gospel. And it's not that God is slack. It's not that God is looking down from heaven and just saying, oh this isn't a big deal. It's saying that someone's soul going to heaven is a big enough deal to not punish Sodom and Gomorrah. That tells me that God loves people so much. For God to not punish the wickedness that's happening in our world right now shows to me how much God truly loves souls and wants them to be saved. And if God loves them that much, we should be willing to dedicate our lives to go out there and to reach the lost that God is so eager to get saved. That God is so willing to be saved. He's exercising so much self-control. So much restraint in punishing the wicked. And think about how holy God is. We get frustrated by the evil that happens. It affects him so much more than us. It grieves him so much more than us. It hurts him so much more than us. And he understands so much more about it than we do. And yet he's still willing to be long suffering just so people get saved. He's not slack though. It'll happen. The whole earth's going to burn. It will be baptized with fire. God's going to have literal locusts come out from hell that are going to sting men for six months straight and they can't die. God is going to put all kinds of horrible sores on people that get the mark of the beast. You think that the COVID shot had had repercussions. Just wait till you get that mark of the beast thing. That mark of the beast thing's got all kinds of issues with it. I mean they are going to get a sore punishment. For they are worthy. I mean the Bible says that the punishment of God is so extreme that there is literal silence in heaven for 30 minutes. I mean it's so extreme your wife was not talking for 30 minutes straight. She was speechless. That's how horrible the punishment is. He's not slack. And it's coming. Hell is unspeakable. I mean we can't even understand how bad hell is. It's coming. It's not like these people aren't going to go to the same hell. They're going to the same hell. It's super hot. It's super terrible. You know what? God is just being long suffering. He's just letting these things happen. Verse 11, Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what man or person sought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness? Looking for and hastening in the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless, and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation. Say, hey, I get it then. So I'm going to be as righteous as I can so that I'll be pleasing unto God and I realize the only reason God's being so longsuffering is for salvation. Just like He was longsuffering for me for salvation. He's longsuffering for this world for salvation. You know we like to think of this personally, well aren't you glad that God didn't nuke the world right before you got saved? So then how much more should we not feel the same way that God's not nuking the world yet until that next person gets saved? There's going to be someone this afternoon that gets saved and you know what, praise God he didn't burn the entire earth with fire yet. For that person. And for the next person. And what kind of person should you be realizing this whole world is going to burn up and all the people that aren't going to get saved now are going to go to hell for all of eternity. What kind of person should you be? You know you should be a person that goes out there and preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. The goodness of God. What was the good will towards men? The gospel of Jesus Christ. What is the forbearance of our punishment? It's hell. And we have to go out there and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the longsuffering of our God is salvation and we need to go out there and preach the goodness of God. All many people want to talk about the goodness of God. Let me tell you what it is. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what we need to go out and preach and teach and then you know what people that have a brain in their head will say hey that church is a good church because they're preaching the good news and they have the goodness of God. They're willing to tell me I was a sinner on my way to hell. They're willing to love me enough to come confront me at my door and tell me I was wrong and preach unto me the gospel and to get me saved. That is the true goodness of God. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for being so good to us. Thank you for being so longsuffering and forbearing our punishment. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to be saved in our lives. I pray that we would not be selfish with our salvation, that we would not live our lives for ourselves, but rather we would desire to be in church, we would desire to go out and preach the gospel, we would desire to see the lost saved and that we would see the great attributes you've extended toward us and that we could follow in your footsteps. We could give you honor and glory for all the goodness we have. We have so many blessings. Thank you Father so much for all the blessings and the goodness that you've given us. Thank you for not giving us the punishments that we deserve. Thank you for being longsuffering with us for salvation, for doctrine, for our sins. I pray that we would have the same heart and attitude towards our brothers and sisters in Christ and that we would want to see as many people saved and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. For our last song we go to 410, Faith is the Victory. 410, Faith is the Victory. 410, Faith is the Victory. Encamped along the hills of light Ye Christian soldiers rise And press the battle there The night shall veil the glowing skies Against the foe in veils below Let all our strength be hurled Faith is the victory we know That overcomes the world Faith is the victory Faith is the victory Oh glorious victory That overcomes the world His banner over us is love Our sword the word of God We tread the road the saints above With shouts of triumph trod By faith they like a whirlwind's breath Swept on o'er every field The faith by which they conquered death Is still our shining shield Faith is the victory Faith is the victory Oh glorious victory That overcomes the world On every hand the foe we find Drawn up in dread array Let tents of ease be left behind And onward to the fray Salvation's helmet on each head With truth all gird about The earth shall tremble neath our tread And echo with our shout Faith is the victory Faith is the victory Oh glorious victory That overcomes the world To him that overcomes the foe White raiment shall begin Before the angels he shall know His name confessed in him Then onward from the hills of light Our hearts will love aflame We'll vanquish all the hosts of night In Jesus' conquering name Faith is the victory Faith is the victory Oh glorious victory That overcomes the world Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed.