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We're going to turn to our first song, 364 in your hymnals. If you can make sure to share with those that are on the row beside you. Song 364, Standing on the Promises. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. Make sure to get in your hymnals. Song 364, Standing on the Promises. Turn to the first. Standing on the promises of Christ my King, Through eternal ages let his praises ring, Glory in the highest I will shout and sing. Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, Standing on the promises of Christ the Lord, Bound him to eternal leave by love's strong core, Overcoming daily with the Spirit's sword, Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God, Standing on the promises I cannot fall, Listening every moment to the Spirit's call, Resting in my Savior as my all in all, Standing on the promises of God, Standing, standing, Standing on the promises of God my Savior, Standing, standing, I'm standing on the promises of God. Very good singing. Let's start with the Word of Prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this opportunity to be gathered together. I pray that you would just bless our church services. You'd help fill us with your Holy Spirit. That you would bless all those that are here and those that can't make it. And I pray that everything would be done in honor and glory of your Son. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Go to our next song, He Leadeth Me, song 116. 116. He Leadeth Me, song 116. He leadeth me, O blessed thought, O words with heavenly comforts fraught, Whate'er I do, where'er I be, Still tis God's hand that leadeth me. He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me, His faithful Father I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me. Sometimes mid scenes of grief is gloom, Sometimes where Eden's bowers bloom, By water still or troubled sea, Still tis His hand that leadeth me. He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me, His faithful Father I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me. Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine, Nor ever murmur nor repine, Content whatever lot I see, Still tis my God that leadeth me. He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me, His faithful Father I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me. And when my task on earth is done, When by Thy grace the victory's won, In death called wave I will not flee, Since God through Jordan leadeth me. He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me, His faithful Father I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me. Very good singing. I only have a limited amount of bulletins, the printer just started going crazy on me, but if you have one and you've already looked at it, pass it to your neighbor and let them look, all right? So we're just sharing bulletins this morning. On the front we have John chapter 1 verse 20. Any child that's able to quote that verse for the midweek service can receive a special treat. On the inside we have our service and soul-wanting times as well as our church stats. And then on the right we have a list of our expecting ladies. Also we have our prayer list. Continue to pray for all those that are listed here. We had a soul-wanting marathon yesterday at College Station and we had about 25, 30 soul winners come out and we had 28 salvations that were reported. So praise the Lord on that. So a lot of great work and it was really receptive. So we didn't have a large group, but pretty much everybody was able to get people saved and it was really fun going down there and we had a great time, great weather. And so thanks for those that prayed, even if you weren't able to make it. On the back we have the note about the homeschool field trip, April 29th. And in order to participate, you just need at least one child of the age of five that you're homeschooling. So if you have at least one student in your family, then you can bring the whole family and we'll let you participate in the homeschool field trip. We're going to be going to the zoo and so that'll be a lot of fun. Hopefully they'll have the cat exhibit. That's what I'm looking forward to. Also May 21st is an Austin, Texas soul-winning marathon. And so we'll be headed that way. We're going to try and make Austin normal is our philosophy. And then the greatest announcement, congratulations to the Urbanic family on the birth of Rachel Michelle. She was born on the 30th at 1208 AM. She weighed six pounds, six ounces and 19 and three quarter inches long. So congratulations then that's so exciting. And it's great to be able to see a physical representation of our church growing. All right. So we get to see these babies and what a great blessing to see our prayers turn into literal people. So that's pretty much all I have for announcements this morning. We're going to go and go to our third song, 64 in our hymnals song 64. There is in the back more soul-winning materials. So we have new testaments, some of those Spanish new testaments that we've made, some DVDs and cards and everything like that. So get it while it lasts. That's all I can say. I borrowed some from Pure Words. Most of our stuff is still in deep storage. So it's kind of hard to get access to it, but hopefully I can still bring up some material here and there. And that way we can grab it. Some leftovers from the soul-winning marathon as well. So song 64 in our hymnals, Shall We Gather at the River? Song 64. You're on the verse. Shall we gather at the river Where bright angel feet have trod With its crystal tide forever Flowing by the throne of God Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God On the bosom of the river Where the aviary king we own We shall meet in sorrow never Neath the glory of the throne Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God Ere we reach the shining river Lay we every burden down Grace our spirits will deliver And provide a robe and crown Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God Soon we'll reach the shining river Soon our pilgrimage will cease Soon our happy hearts will quiver With the melody of peace Yes, we'll gather at the river The beautiful, the beautiful river Gather with the saints at the river That flows by the throne of God The throne of God This time we'll turn our Bibles and we'll pass the offering plate to Psalm 29 Follow along as Brother Ben's gonna read for us Psalm 29 And we'll pass the offering plate to this time Psalm 29 the Bible reads Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness The voice of the Lord is upon the waters The God of glory thundereth The Lord is upon many waters The voice of the Lord is powerful The voice of the Lord is full of majesty The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars The Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon He maketh them also to skip like a calf Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn The voice of the Lord divided the flames of fire The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness The Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calf And discovereth the faucets And in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory The Lord sitteth upon the flood Yea, the Lord sitteth king forever The Lord will give strength unto his people The Lord will bless his people with peace Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer Why don't we take you before the morning service and set fast the Baptist church and let's pray you fill in the name of God with your spirit and enable him to thunder forth your word and help us to pay attention and apply the message to our lives Okay? Amen Amen. So we're here in Psalm 29 and it's a really great psalm of the Bible It really emphasizes God's word and the title of my sermon this morning is The Power of God's Word The Power of God's Word And we see here in verse number one the Bible reads Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength Now this one verse you could probably preach a whole sermon on but if you think about it what the Bible is saying is that we're supposed to give glory unto God because he's worthy of that glory and it's specifically calling out a group of people it's calling out the mighty meaning those that have strength those that have might given to them by God God gave us might for a reason that might is to give glory to God you know and what kind of might do you need well I don't know how about the might to fight to fight a giant a Goliath that's standing in the way defying the God the armies of Israel you know and it takes a lot of might to face off with someone twice your size to go toe to toe with the man but you know what God gave David that might so that he could give glory to the God of Israel by striking the Philistine in the forehead with a rock and slicing off his head and going around and triumphing and destroying all of the Philistines you know God didn't make David a great warrior just to give glory and honor to David no he made David a great warrior to give glory unto God and you know what God gives us strength and he gives us might and he gives us power so that we can take that energy we can take that effort we can take that strength and use it to give glory to God notice that is saying that we're supposed to give of our strength meaning oh I have all this ability to think critically or I'm very strong physically or I have a lot of assets that are at my disposal well you know what God gave you that might God gave you that strength to glorify God to end up expending all of your energy all of your assets all of the things that God's blessed you with giving him glory giving him honor giving him praise and yet we often spend it on ourselves don't we we often allow ourselves to think well look how wonderful I am think how strong I am think how mighty I am to end up what collecting a lot of wealth collecting a lot of praise when we think of the mighty of the earth today most of the mighty are not interested in glorifying the Lord they're interested in glorifying themselves you know last time I checked the jerseys at every single one of the sport teams the professional athlete teams in this country have the guy's own name on it don't they it doesn't say like praise the Lord on the back of their jersey it doesn't say John 3 16 on the back of their jersey it has their name or it has a fake name like Ocho Cinco which is just completely worthless there was a football player Chad and he changed his name to Ocho Cinco which was his number in Spanish you know 85 in Spanish is Ocho Cinco and so he thinks he's cool he's not even Hispanic I don't even get it it's like Chad Johnson or whatever some black guy changes his name to Ocho Cinco or whatever it's like if you're gonna put something different on the back of your jersey why not put John 3 16 right I mean if you're gonna put something completely obscure but of course they're not given all this power and might to glorify themselves the Bible says we're given that to give him glory to give him honor not to have statues and posters and billboards in our name and in our glory and in our fashion and all the things that God has blessed us with it's not to glorify man it's to glorify God and the Bible makes it clear that we're supposed to give that back to the Lord whatever God gave us of power might strength money any of that we're supposed to bless the Lord and give the Lord that power why would God want to create a bunch of weak beings to worship him no he gave us great strength great in fact we are the top of the food chain you know there's no animal that can conquer us we've conquered all the animals yes I kill the wasps okay yes I kill all the beasts of the field yes man conquered all the beasts he conquered the lion he conquered the dragon he conquered the bear and you know what man is supposed to be at the top of the food chain to give glory to God to just show how great God is you're supposed to expend all of our efforts and all of our energy and all of our might and the praising the Lord and giving him the glory that he is due not trying to see how much glory we can rack up for ourselves not see how much we can enjoy this life for ourselves but rather seeing how much we can give back to the Lord considering he gave us life considering he gave us breath the Bible says in verse two give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name worship the Lord and the beauty of holiness here's a way that you need to expel a lot of strength and a lot of might today is living a clean life and you know what the Bible says that God gets more praise more glory out of you serving him in holiness what is holiness holiness is being set apart holiness is doing that which is right holiness is being holy be holy is what God said and you know what the more separated life you live the better you aren't following God's commandments the more you obey and every single day the more that you're reading your Bible the more that you're praying the more that you're getting the sin out of your life gives more honor and more glory to the Lord Jesus Christ when you have a group of people that are washing the filth of this world off of themselves and they're separating themselves and they're making themselves holy and then they're worshiping God and they say I don't care how weird this world gets I don't care how disgusting and filthy and abominable this world gets I'm gonna stay holy so that I give more honor and more glory to God what gives more honor to your guests when they come over to your house for a dinner party the cheap silverware the cheap bowl the bowl that you cooked spaghetti in and now it has a like a red ring around the edge of it you know what I mean like if you ever put spaghetti sauce in anything plastic it's red for the rest of its life you know what I mean and you know or do you want to bring out the cleanest vessel you want to bring out the nicest dishes you want to bring out the fine china as it were to present unto your guests that gives them more honor that gives them more glory and here's the thing we are vessels of the Lord and you know what God wants us to be as clean as possible God doesn't want us to just be some dirty vessel you know do you really want me to offer you a beverage that I already you know have kind of taken some use out of you know like hey I took a couple drinks out of that and so did my toddler now he was eating a cookie before so you might get a little extra cookie in there you know here you go buddy or would you like just a brand new clean I mean it's just been hand washed and hand toweled here's a here's a vessel for you to drink out of right isn't that what you want and the same as with God God wants a clean vessel God wants a vessel that's been cleaned up to be presented unto him and to give him honor and to give him glory and you know what that's what God calls us to do the Bible orders us to do this the Bible says give unto the Lord the glory do unto his name notice that God deserves this God is owed this we are supposed to live a holy and separated life just for God's sake alone just to give praise I mean if Jesus Christ died on the cross for every single one of your sins why would you not then say you know what I need to stop doing such wickedness such evil such rebellion considering what Christ had to do for me you know the Bible makes it abundantly clear that God is deserving of our praise God is deserving of our glory we should be constantly glorifying the Lord you know one of the best ways to do this is singing that's why a lot of the great books of the Bible talking about praise and glory are the songs why because we're supposed to glorify God on a regular basis we're supposed to praise the Lord on a regular basis you know and a sad thing is how few people on this earth actually praise the Lord on a regular basis how few people are giving glory unto the Lord Jesus Christ you know praising his name and you know what God likes to be worshiped in a certain way and one of those ways is singing the Psalms and if we're going to narrow it down I mean even if you just take the most liberal Christian you know you take the most liberal of Christianity all these people a lot of them will sing songs to the Lord but if you were to say who's singing the Psalms like who's singing the words right here found in your Bible it's such a small group of people on this planet and let me tell you something it's a shame how few people today are singing the Psalms of God you know we should be putting our effort and our energy into making music out of the Psalms and singing praises unto God you know what I get convicted by this that's why I work on a lot of Psalms and let me tell you something it's not easy it's not you know something that just goes overnight it takes a lot of effort it takes a lot of energy and because we're singing about God I also don't want to just do a half job you know I don't want it to just be kind of like a weird musical tune I want it to be something that's makes a lot of sense it's a really good tune the lyrics fit really well I mean I don't want to just put a little bit of energy in this I mean we're singing about the God of the universe here we better put some effort and energy into this thing we better make sure this is going to work really well and here's my philosophy I want to do the best that I can but I understand I'm limited in my abilities there's people that are infinitely smarter wiser and more talented in this area than I am but here's my philosophy if I can make a good Psalm and you make a better one then I'll start singing yours when you make yours okay so it's like there's no when you have nothing on the table when you have nothing to give when you have nothing to even offer me like let's just use what I got and then when you make it 10 times better I'll start singing yours you know I have no problem in fact if you look in your hymnal you'll find some songs doubled like you'll find like a Jesus loves me and then like a Jesus loves me you realize that there's a reason why we sing one of them because one of them is way better than the other one let's just be honest right I mean some songs are just better some songs are a little bit more unique or they're easier to sing or whatever the case is but you know what we should be putting effort and energy into praising the Lord and praising God you know here's some effort energy learning an instrument you know no one virtually can just pick up an instrument and just start playing it sounds good your children are helping you realize this every day okay if you give them any kind of lessons you know my children love the piano but let's you know be real they can't just play it you know they get up there just bang it you know it's just like clang clang clang clang whatever but you know they have that interest it takes a lot of effort it takes a lot of energy it takes a lot of skill to get to a point where you can play an instrument of the Lord with a lot of skill you know and I took piano lessons the majority of my life growing up and I hated it you know what it's because I really didn't have any purpose for it you know I really I just it was just playing music and I was just playing classical pieces I didn't really care about the classical pieces that much I wasn't even really learning music theory so unfortunately despite all the years of practice I had it didn't even really profit me that much because outside of playing that specific piece of music I was worthless you know as a piano player I was basically like a parlor trick right I'd come in and just play like a fit like a bunch of fancy classical pieces of music and people like oh you're so good at the piano it's like well I mean I'm good at this song you know but eventually I got to a point where my music teacher thought I needed to go up to another level get actual music theory learn how to play the piano learn really difficult pieces and I basically told my mom I was like I hate piano I don't want to do anymore and so she let me quit and let me tell you something that was a bad decision I wish that my mom had said I don't care if you hate it or not you're going to learn this you're going to do this anyways and you know what now in hindsight I would have been like wow that'd been a great ability a great skill if I could just sit down and just play any song just like that and you know what people that have put a lot of effort and energy into an instrument they can some people are savant and that that's not fair but most of us humans we have to actually put a lot of practice a lot of effort a lot of energy into playing an instrument but you know what you can do with that instrument you can praise God with it you know how many people are literally playing music for hours every single day and they're so good at an instrument and they're never going to worship God with it you know they're just they want to be in the band you know they want to make an album they want to get a hit you know they want to be a YouTube sensation or whatever and they're just looking for vain glory all the skill all the effort all the energy that God gave them to expound towards the Lord and then they just waste it they squander it on selfish ambition on selfish glory and look none of these musicians it doesn't even their lives just suck anyways because they always kill themselves they're on drugs and they basically ruin their entire life I mean what's the point of even going down that road anyways for their 15 minutes of fame you know what but you can sing in church your whole life and you can get great utility out of playing instruments and singing to God your whole life and you know what God made us musical on purpose so that we give honor and glory to him in fact probably the most musical creation of God was the devil I mean he literally has musical instruments put in his body is what the Bible says he's got like pipes and stuff like this and of course if the devil was made to create music what does he do he perverts music to end up leading people into hell rather than giving the glory that God gave him under the Lord but you know what if God made probably arguably if at least in the angel realm the greatest angel to literally have music in his body don't you think he thinks it's important for us to have music too and let me tell you something God put music in your body he gave you pipe he gave you pipes it's called your vocal cords and you're supposed to open your pipes and you're supposed to give glory and praise unto God and God gave us an ability to sing unto the Lord and that's what we're supposed to do on a regular basis is sing praises unto God and let me tell you something I don't care how good you are at singing or not get better you know I always love kids singing and they're not always the greatest but it just sounds good anyways you just like it you love it when your kids sing and let me tell you something God loves it when his children sing as well and we're supposed to be singing the word of God and you say well why sing the word of God because the word of God has power the word of God has power and let me tell you something the word of God makes major changes because of the power of God's word let me tell you something there would be almost no false doctrine in Baptist churches today if they sing all 150 Psalms on a regular basis I mean the the ability to preach as much false doctrine as they do is because they haven't even been singing the word of God but when you're just singing and screaming the word of God it's really hard to then believe the exact opposite you know when you're literally singing out loud do not I hate them oh Lord that hate thee it's going to be really hard for the Baptist to get up and say like oh I can't believe this hate speech hate it's like we we what about that song that we sang what about how the Lord abhors the bloody and deceitful man I mean how about that song you know I mean how about all these you know songs about breaking their teeth in their mouth oh God how about all these songs that it says that we're going to rejoice when we see the vengeance Lord you know how how how how do you reconcile that with your doctrine pastor oh it's because they don't sing it our God is an awesome God he reigns I mean who's going to argue with that and you know I give that song a really hard time but it's because of the lack of them actually singing the Psalms you know it's not like I really just think any song praising God is necessarily bad but when we replace the power of God's word with your cheap little ecumenical imitation I don't like it I like the power of God's word I like singing what God actually said and let me tell you something there's a major difference between the Psalms and the contemporary Christian music today it's giant difference and if you've ever been to one of these lame Christian churches today you know what I'm talking about a bunch of effeminate queer sissy little type singing a bunch of girls in miniskirts and dudes in skinny jeans getting on stage turn out the lights and they basically whisper in the mic our God is an awesome God it's like get that faggoty queer off the stage let's start singing the power of God's word you know what God gave you some strength why don't you put some strength behind that voice you don't even sound like a man I mean a man sounds different than a woman that's why every time I go through the drive through I know what you are you don't have to get I don't have to guess I don't have to look at you in fact I can't tell by looking at many of the men today it's the Adam's apple and it's the basic you know like my name is Karen no dude it's not okay and why would you want to be Karen anyways all right sorry if your name Karen all right you can't you can't change that all right just embrace it let's keep going I can spend all day on this verse three the voice of the Lord is upon the waters the glory of God thundereth the Lord is upon many waters the voice of the Lord is powerful the voice of the Lord is full of majesty you know I love that word majesty and you know majesty is a picture of grandeur of greatness of splendor the Bible is saying the voice of the Lord is full of magic meaning the word of God is unlike anything else it's greater than anything else it has more splendor than any other words you know