(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

When the dark light shines down your mouth with glee, only I shall wake you now before you are. Anywhere with Jesus I'll be forced to go. Anywhere, anywhere, where I can and go. Anywhere with Jesus I can see you are. Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to be here in church. I pray that you'll bless the service today. Bless our singing and bless Pastor Anderson's preaching. And please give us ears to hear. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. May I start our next song? Song 127. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Song 127. Song 127. Song 127. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Just to take him at his word. Just to rest upon his promise. Just to know the sin of God. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him. How I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, bless your Jesus. A warm place to trust in God. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Just to trust in 21. Just in simple faith in one tree. In the hill in 21. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him. How I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, bless your Jesus. A warm place to trust in God. Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus. Just from sin and self to cease. Just from Jesus simply taking life and rest in joy and peace. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust you. How I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, bless your Jesus. A warm place to trust in God. I'm so glad I learned to trust him. Precious Jesus, Savior friend. And I know that thou art with me. Will be with me to the end. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust you. How I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. A warm place to trust in God. Alright, at this time we'll go through our announcements. If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high. And we'll get to you with one on the inside. We have our service time. Sunday mornings at 10.30 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. Tonight we're in Psalm 62. We've got the soul winning times listed down there below. As well as salvation and baptisms. We've got the Bible memory passage. We're working on Isaiah chapter 40 verses 21 through 31. So keep plugging away with that. That's to be finished on October the 11th. And then the singing classes are on Sundays from 4.30 to 5.30. The ladies fellowship, that ship has already sailed. On the back we've got the notes about the special event down in Tucson. We've got the two year anniversary of the church plant down in Tucson. So we've got tomorrow night at 7 o'clock I'm going to be preaching. And then Friday night at 7 o'clock Pastor Bruce Mejia from First Works Baptist Church in LA. And then we've got the soul winning event on Saturday. That's a 9 o'clock breakfast. Followed by a couple hours of soul winning. Come back for fellowship, lunch and then two hours of soul winning in the afternoon. And so breakfast and lunch are provided. Now as far as getting a ride down there. There is a shuttle available to take you down there from here. Two shuttles on Thursday, one shuttle on Friday, nothing on Saturday and Sunday. So if you want to go down on Saturday or Sunday you just need to coordinate with other people. And just find a ride, carpool, figure that out on your own. And then below that we've got the, and as far as if you plan on showing up it says RSVP. Have you been getting RSVPs from people or should we do a raise of hands? Who's planning on coming on Thursday? Anybody planning on coming down tomorrow? Let's get a quick count real quick. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. And then the whole Segura family. So double, go ahead and double that number. So it looks like about 20 people put up their hand from here. And then what about Friday? Who's coming out Friday? That's where we've got the big numbers. How are you? All right, about 30. Very good, thank you. And then you need to count for Saturday. Saturday and Sunday are really the days of need. Whoa, what have I been doing then? You didn't even need that. It says right here in front of me Saturday or Sunday. It's nice to know too. And I'm spending a bunch of time counting Thursday and Friday. This is what happens when you don't follow instructions, folks. I am a cautionary tale right now. All right, Saturday. All right, let's start at one, two, three, four, five, six, six and a half. Eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. 30. Actually, I think I missed you there, Lola. 31. I might have missed a couple. So 30 to 35. Was your hand up? Okay. You blended in. Can we get Sunday? All right, let's do Sunday. I could do this all night, folks. It's going next Sunday. So who's coming down this Sunday? Last one, people. All right. One. Who else? Two. One and a half. All right. One and a half. What? Three, four. All right. Five. Five. All right. Very good. All right. Where were we? Keep praying for the pregnant ladies that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. And then that's about it for announcements. So let's go ahead and count up the soul winning. Did we get a total for the van from today? No. I think that we had three in the van. Who had someone save today in the van? Three. It was three total for the van. All right. Cool. Get that out of the way. All right. Now let's back up and go back to Monday. Is that a three? Three. Okay. Eight. All right. Anything else from Monday? What about Tuesday? Okay. Is that a three? All right. Okay. Gotcha. Five. Okay. Okay. All right. And then what about today outside of the van? Anything outside the van? Four. All right. Anything else outside the van? Gotcha. Oh. There we go. Late entry. All right. Very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. With that, let's sing our next song. We're going to do guide me o' the great Jehovah should be in your hymnal. Please raise your hand if you don't have that in your hymnal. Guide me o' the great Jehovah. Are you ready to go over? Are you ready? Are you ready? Let's do one more song in your song books. Song 123, The Christians Goodnight. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. Song 123. All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 62. Psalm 62, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one, follow on silently with brother Nick as he reads. Psalm 62, starting in verse number one. Psalm 62, truly my soul waited upon God, from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved. How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? Ye shall be slain, all of you, as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. They only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight in lies, they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense, I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times ye people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie. To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. God has spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God, also unto thee, O Lord, belong with mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his word. Father Thomas, would you pray for us? Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity to be in church. Lord, we just ask that you bless the service tonight, bless Pastor Anderson, and bless all that are here tonight, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Man, Psalm 62, the Bible reads, truly my soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved. Now, when we read scriptures like this and he talks about salvation, obviously the literal meaning here is not talking about salvation as in going to heaven versus going to hell. It's talking about a temporal salvation, a physical salvation from his enemies because there are people that are imagining mischief against him, people are plotting against him, they're lying about him, they're attacking him, just like a lot of the other psalms that we've seen over the last few months. But what we have to understand is that even though the primary meaning isn't about being saved as in going to heaven, obviously that's the symbolic meaning. That's basically a secondary application here. So when the Bible says here, truly my soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation, you could apply that obviously to salvation as in going to heaven, as in, you know, God is the source of our salvation. You know, Jonah, when he's in the belly of the whale, he prays and says, salvation is of the Lord. Now obviously he's trying to be saved out of the situation that he's in right then and there, but he's also prophesying about a lot of spiritual things and he's also given a secondary meaning there about hell and being saved and going to heaven and things like that. So we need to understand that God is the source of our salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation comes from God. It's not of works lest any man should boast. It's not something that we achieve by doing good deeds or keeping God's commandments. And it always blows my mind when you're out soloing and you ask people how they know they're going to heaven and they don't even mention Jesus. It's like, well, I keep the commandments and I go to church and I do good unto other people and they just start talking about themselves. It's like, wait a minute, does Jesus factor into this at all? And you call yourself a Christian and salvation just comes from you apparently. No, no, salvation comes from God. And the Bible says he only is my rock. You know what that means? He's the only one that you could truly rely on. He's the only one that is truly stable. Everything else in this world is going to change and come and go. The only thing that you can really bank on is Jesus. You might think that other areas of life are certain, but the Bible is clear that any day we could die at any moment. And you might think, oh man, I've got all this money. I've got all this portfolio. But look at Job. He had the perfect setup and he lost everything. So the one constant, the one thing that we can for sure rely on all the time is Jesus Christ. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved. And you know what? He's also the only certain sure source of truth. When it comes to being a rock, you know, we want something that we can trust, something that we can rely on, a foundation. That's what a rock is. And more than ever, today in 2020, we don't know who to believe. You know, we were just talking about this out solely today, how we don't know who to believe because you hear so many conflicting things and it's confusing. And you got this expert over here telling you one thing and then another expert over here is telling you another thing. And it's hard to even verify or fact check these things sometimes. And sometimes it just gets frustrating. I don't know who to believe. I don't know what's going on. And there's so many people who lie and the media will lie about things or twist things. And you don't really know. Thank God that at least there's one thing we know. This is true. Even when we're wondering, who do we listen to? Who do we trust? Who do we believe? And it's not just about politics or about coronavirus, about other things. You know, who do we trust? Who do we believe? You know, it's like that about a lot of subjects. You know, try getting nutrition advice from 10 different people. You get 10 different answers. And it's like, who do you believe? Who do you trust? You get these different books on nutrition and they'll tell you opposite things. And it's hard to know what do you believe? What do you trust? You know, the one thing that we can be sure of is that what the Bible says is right. Other things, even if you say, well, this is science, you know, but here's the thing. You know, science gets revised and changes as we learn more. The Bible is the one constant. The Bible is the one rock that we can always rely on. And that's why it needs to be the foundation of our worldview. You know, we must be founded upon the rock. We don't want to be built upon the shifting sands of what this world teaches, because then that stuff changes. Then your whole life falls apart. You know, make sure that your life is founded on something that's constant, that's immovable. The rock that is the word of God. That's one of the reasons why we're King James Bible only too, because the King James Bible still says the same thing as it said when I was a kid. It says the same thing as it said 400 years ago. Whereas the NIV says something different today than it said in 2009. It went through a dramatic overhaul in 2010, 2011. And so now they don't even sell the 1984 NIV. Now it's all the 2010 NIV. And people talk about how, you know, hey, I grew up memorizing scripture in the NIV and now it's all different. Well, you know what? I grew up learning scripture in the King James and it's all still the same. And I can still quote it the same way. There's no difference. You know, it's good to have something that you can rely on, not be a member of the Bible of the month club, but actually the one that's been tried and tested. You say, well, it's a little hard to understand. Hey, I'd rather have something that's a little hard to understand that's going to be the same year after year, decade after decade. And at least I know it's right. This is the one you can trust. It stood the test of time. We know it's right. It's been more tested and proven and attacked and it has stood up to the scrutiny and we know it's right. I'd rather have something I know is right and maybe have to learn a few new vocabulary words than to just have some constantly changing modernized version. And it's like the shifting sand. I want to be founded upon the rock. God is the only rock. God is the only salvation. And so other things are a cheap substitute. Make sure that you are founded. Make sure that your soul going to heaven is founded on Jesus. If somebody asks you why you're going to heaven, the answer better be about Jesus. It better be. Hey, I'm going to heaven because I believe on Jesus because Jesus died and was buried and rose again. It's through his blood that I have remission of my sins. Not an answer about all your achievements and all the things that you've done because those things are nothing. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved. Now, one of the things I love about this song is that at the end of verse two, he says, I should not be greatly moved. And then if you jump down to verse six, it repeats that statement. It says he only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved. What's the difference? There's no greatly. So basically he starts out at the beginning of the song and he's saying, you know what? I'm not going to be moved that much. You know, I might be moved a little bit, but at least I'm not going to be greatly moved. Then he talks about, you know, how God is going to defend him and he's trusting in God and these wicked people or they're going to be wiped out. And he says, you know what? I changed my mind. I'm not going to be moved at all. I'm not going to be moved whatsoever. And you know, one of the things that I like about this song is that it shows how sometimes just singing hymns or listening to preaching or reading the Bible or praying or going to church can change our attitude. And maybe we have a little bit of doubt. Maybe we're struggling to hang on. But you know what? A service in church or some time in the Bible, sing a few songs, pray, and you know, you can walk out stronger, more faith and saying, hey, I shall not be moved at all. Whereas at first you're like, well, I'm hanging in there. I don't think I'm going to be moved much. By the end of it, it's hey, I'm not going to be moved at all. And so I shall not be moved. Let's back up to verse number three, three. He says after he says, I shall not be greatly moved. He says, how long will you imagine mischief against a man? You shall be slain. All of you as a bowing wall. Shall you be? And as a tottering fence. Now, when I think of this bowing wall or tottering fence, I was thinking about how sometimes a fence will fall over. But it'll kind of stay connected to itself. Get this picture in your mind. You know, the fence stays connected to itself, but the whole thing just kind of falls over. Who knows what I'm talking about? And it kind of makes like a wave shape or like a like a spiraling wave. You know, it's just kind of like slumped over. That's what I think of when I think of the bowing wall or the tottering fence. Okay. And basically, David is saying that's what his enemies are going to be like. You know, you think of like a row of troops, maybe, because obviously there's a lot of military language in this part of the Bible. You can imagine like a row of troops, you know, standing firm. You can just see them all kind of just falling over like dominoes. And that's what I picture here with the tottering fence or the tottering wall bowing down, falling over. So God here is going to protect David and he's going to kill the enemies. They're going to fall on their face. They're going to be humiliated. They're going to be embarrassed. They're going to crash and burn. It says in verse four, they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. Now, who's the him here? Well, in verse three, it said, How long will you imagine mischief against a man? And then it says they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. So the him here is the guy that they're imagining mischief against. So you have a godly person, a righteous person like David or us or anyone who's a Christian who loves the Lord. Bad guys are imagining mischief against them. And they, the bad guys, the ones that God's going to wipe them all out eventually, they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. So what the Bible say here is that ungodly people, when they see an excellent man, an excellent woman, they want to take you down a notch is what they want to do. They want to cast you down from your excellency. In fact, that's all they want to do. They only, the Bible says, they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. You know, there are people that just would live to see a godly Christian crash and burn, you know, to bring you down. They can't stand it when someone else is excellent. What does it mean to be excellent? Excellent. You know, no way to be excellent means to be excelling. You know, you're going beyond what other people are doing. That's what it means to be excellent, right? Excellent doesn't just mean you did a good job. It means it was outstanding. You went beyond and you did more. You excel. If someone excels in their field, you know, they're one of the best. And so they want to cast down a guy like David, a man after God's own heart. They want to cast him down from his excellency. Think about the book of Daniel, the people around Daniel, what they want to do. They wanted to cast him down from his excellency. So they hate you because they ain't you. They see you be blessed by God, doing great things for God, being a righteous person and it drives them nuts and they want to bring you down because of envy. That's the word, envy. They want to bring you down because of envy. They want to be you and since they can't be you, they want to destroy you. They want to replace you. They want to take you down. Now, the reason that this verse is so important in verse three, when he says you shall be slain, all of you as bowing wall, shall you be in as a tottering fence, is that we need to understand that the people of this world that are plotting against us, people that are attacking us, lying about us, slandering us, fighting us. You know what? You need to understand they will get what's coming to them. So we don't need to go through lives angry because the tendency in our flesh is to just be mad from day to day, thinking about all the haters, thinking about all the enemies, getting mad and just thinking about them and constantly checking up on them and seeing what they're up to now. And look, you know, I don't even sit there and Google myself and look at what people are saying about me because I guarantee you that probably like almost every second of every day someone is cursing me in their heart or with their mouth. You know, because of the fact that I just have a lot of stuff out on YouTube and a lot of people are seeing it and a lot of people are just breathing out hatred toward me and people say all kinds of crazy lying things about me online. They slander me online. You say, well, why do people hear that and they believe it or something? You know what? It doesn't matter because they're all going to be like a tottering fence. They're going to be like a wall that bows and crashes and burns and they're going to all be killed. And you know what? At the end of the day, the truth will come out. So, you know, don't fret. Don't worry about it. Don't stress out about your enemies because keep in mind God is going to protect you and God will give them what's coming to them. In the end, everybody's going to get what's coming to them. The good are going to get what's coming to them. The bad are going to get what's coming to them. Obviously, I'm not talking about salvation, but I'm talking about just reaping what you sow in this life and God is going to take care of you and he's going to take care of your enemies in a bad way. So don't get angry and bitter and worry about these things. You don't want to become an angry person. Now, it's okay to be angry in certain situations where anger is warranted. And the Bible says be angry and sin not. But don't let the sun go down on your wrath. And don't become an angry person where Monday you're angry, Tuesday you're angry, Wednesday you're angry. And you know what? If there are things that make you mad like that, then just stop looking at them. This is the best way to control anger. If you want to fix your anger problem, stop getting around things that make you mad. Because sometimes we just expect ourselves to have some kind of a super human willpower or super human temperance. This would be like if you want to go on a diet and you're just going to surround yourself with junk food and chocolates and candy and everything and just be like, I can handle this, I can do this. You're basically like that Gandhi style. I don't even want to go there. If you heard the Gandhi sermon, you know what I'm talking about. But hey, let me just surround myself with temptation and just prove how much willpower I have. You know what? That's not what the Bible teaches. Because you know what the Bible teaches? Lead us not into temptation. Isn't that what the Bible says? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. You know what the Bible says? Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. And by the way, one of the best ways to go on a diet is to surround yourself with the right kind of food and get rid of the wrong temptations. You know, if you surround yourself with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and low calorie snacks that you like, you're going to do way better. You know, usually the time that I find myself just eating the worst things and just totally blowing my diet is when I'm in my office, I'm super busy working, and all I've got in my office is just sweets and candy. And I'm just like, I don't have time to get the right thing. This will work as a meal substitute, and it's just like candy bars and chips and whatever. And then he puts all the wrong stuff in my office. No, but lately I've been putting some of the right things in my office. See, I try to put like an apple, an orange, a banana, popcorn, you know, because don't tell me popcorn's not good or I'm in real trouble because I eat an incredible amount of popcorn. But, you know, it's high fiber, low calorie, it's not GMO, the one that I do, so if it's wrong, I don't want to be right. So the point is, though, you know, just like you'd be crazy to surround yourself by candy bars and ice cream and sodas when you're trying to lose weight and you need to surround it with the right things, well, here's the thing, you know, don't just indulge things that cause you to get super angry. You know, every time you look at the news, you're just mad and upset. Or every time you look at the news, you're getting stressed out, you're getting sick to your stomach, you're getting ulcer from thinking about, you know, coronavirus and Black Lives Matter and all this junk that's on. You know, maybe it's time to just ignore it. And the world will keep on turning without you. You know, the derelicts can burn cities down without you watching them do it. It's like it'll still happen without you watching. You don't even have to watch it happen. And you don't even have to know the exact statistic on the coronavirus. And now it turns out that this number was underestimated. No, wait a minute, it was overestimated. No, here's the real number over here. You know, it's just like at the end of the day, sometimes it can become just detrimental to your personal life to pay attention to all that and get all mad and upset. And why don't you just realize that God is going to take care of it and that all things work together for good and then the loved guy. Now, if you enjoy that sort of thing and you can look at that stuff without it bothering you, then you know what? Hey, why don't you keep up with every twist and turn of the Corona saga and the looting and pillaging saga? Hey, knock yourself out. But you know what? I've noticed a lot of people that it's having a detrimental effect on where I can tell that it's stressing people out. It's making them upset. It's making them angry. And, you know, it might be time to just turn that off for some of you or at least take a break from it and cool down a little. This stress is going to kill you. You know, God is going to punish our enemies, our haters, things that are going on in the world. It's all in his hand. So we don't need to worry about it. What we need to worry about is just being in God's good graces. That's what we need to worry about. So the Bible says in verse four, they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight in lies. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Man, these are the worst kind of people. Don't you hate it when people bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly? I'd rather have somebody just tell me, you know what, Pastor Anderson, I don't like you and you're a blankety blank blankety blank blank. You know, I'd rather have that any day of the week than these flattering sycophantic weirdos who pretend to be my friend and pretend to love me and they're my biggest fan. And then they're just stabbing me in the back and just knifing and malicious. It's better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. And the Bible says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And it's the worst thing these people who bless with their mouth, but curse inwardly, these wolves in sheep's clothing. And it's funny how sometimes my haters will be like, you're a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I'm thinking to myself, like, I'm openly I am openly hateful toward the sodomites. Have I made a secret about that? Is anybody confused about where I stand on that issue? Folks, I'm I'm not in any kind of clothing. I am what I am. And I get up and I say what I believe. And you know what? These bunch of trash, filthy perverts, you know, I just that's just what I say that they are. I don't say that. Well, I love you and Jesus loves you and it's gonna be great. I'm just like, go to hell. You know, I don't make any bones about it. Okay. And here's the thing. You know what? Toward the lost, toward the unsaved. Hey, I love them. I want to reach them with the gospel. But toward the twice dead, reprobate haters of God, the sodomites. Hey, may they all rot in hell. And I'm not going to get up and pretend that it isn't that way. I'm not going to get up and pretend that the Bible doesn't say that. And you say, well, where does the Bible say that? Well, see me after the service and I'll show you where the Bible says that. Or get get one of my many sermons before they're gone. Because when these sermons are gone, they're gone, gone, gone, gone. You know, you I mean, you got to get these sermons. You got to get them while you can. I mean, I was preaching on Sunday night. My YouTube channel was deleted during the sermon and I had no strikes on that channel. And people who told me that they were watching it, they said that as soon as I started talking about vaccines and I was on that subject that literally like within 60 seconds, my channel was just deleted. So I don't know if some some lived hard in Mountain View, California, was just, you know, they got a little trigger like, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. But, you know, they put on the headphones, shut it down. Like some kind of alarm goes off and it's like, shut this guy down. I mean, we're on a new channel tonight. And, you know, we don't this channel is is temporary. You know what my sermons are like? My sermons are like those sand sculptures that Buddhists make. And then the wind blows them away. That's what my sermons are like. You got to enjoy them before they're gone. You know, they're they're very temporary these days. OK. What did that have to do with anything? What are we talking about here? That was a rabbit trail. I say what I mean, even if it gets the channel deleted. And, you know, I'm not going to change my preaching. Have you guys noticed that I haven't changed my preaching? Good. Because, you know, my main channel got deleted a while back. Now this channel got deleted. I'm still going to keep preaching the same thing. Amen. I'm not going to preach it. I'm not going to preach it. They can keep deleting the channels and everything. I'd rather I'd rather not even be online and telling the truth than to be watering down my preaching for YouTube. Right. You know, obviously I've got to preach in the house of God, the whole council of God. I'm going to preach what the whole Bible says. I'm not going to worry about what they do, because you know what? There's always some other way to get the preaching out. And we've got other platforms. Otherwise we'll just, you know, pass it around on black market USBs or whatever. There's always a way to do it. But you know what? People who pretend to be your friend and are secretly stabbing you in the back, it's the worst. Don't ever be a person like that. You know, don't ever pretend to be loving or friendly toward someone that, you know, and I'm not saying just being polite. Obviously, sometimes you just be civil with people. You'd be polite with people because obviously, you know, the Bible says we should try to live at peace with all men. So we don't want to just, you know, be uncivil. But I'm telling you, don't don't ever try to ingratiate yourself with someone in such a wicked sin to to try to butter someone up and flatter them so that you can use them. It's very bad. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah, verse five, my soul, wait thou upon without only upon God, for my expectation is for him. He's the only one that we can rely on. Only wait on him. Our expectations from him. He's the only one that is for sure going to come through for us every single time. He only is my rock and my salvation. He's my defense. I shall not be moved in God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Now, look, these are important verses to think about right now in 2020 to think about God is our rock. He's our refuge. Look, the whole world could be coming down around us. God is our refuge. Amen. God is our rock. Our expectations are him. I shall not be moved. What's going on with the election? Hey, God's the rock. What's going to happen with the burning and looting? You know what? God is our rock. He's our expectation. We're not going to be moved. You know, what about all the people who hate us? What about the persecution? What about our channel being deleted every day? It's just so what? You know what? You just keep going. God is our rock. He's our defense. He's our refuge. OK, what is a refuge? You know, it's a place that you flee to a place where you can go and be your safe space will be the the 2020 version of this. God is my safe space. God is my refuge. The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe, the Bible says. Verse number seven in God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in him. Verse eight at all times. Trust in him at all times. No matter what's going on, just trust in God and everything's going to be OK. You people pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Go to Jesus. Tell him what's on your mind. Speak to the Lord in prayer. And he's our refuge. He's our rock. He's our salvation. He will hear us and take care of things. Don't worry. Trust him. Pour out your heart to him. So I got to complain to someone. Well, tell it to Jesus. Tell it to Jesus alone. The song says you don't always have to complain to everyone else. You know, take it to the Lord in prayer. Get it off your chest. Pour out your heart to him and then be stable. Be secure. Don't be moved. Keep doing what's right. It says in verse number nine, Surely men of low degree are vanity. Men of high degree are a lie. To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. God has spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Now, what's he saying in these few verses here? He's been talking about in this song how God's our refuge. Only God's our rock. God's the only one we can really trust. He's the only one that's always going to come through for us 100% of the time. He's the only one that's a firm foundation. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. He's the only thing that never moves, never changes, the one constant. So, starting in verse nine, he's talking about what is not our refuge, or what is not our rock, or what we should not rely on, because he's been telling us rely on God, rely on God. Now he's going to tell us what we can't rely on. And remember, whenever we see the word selah, it's basically breaking the psalm into sections. It's sort of a gear change in the psalm. And of course, we have a selah at the end of verse four. We have one at the end of verse eight. So, we're entering a third phase here. Surely men of low degree are vanity. Okay. Now, the word vanity has the idea of emptiness or lightness. Lightness, as in putting things on a scale. They're either heavy or they're light. You know, the Bible talks about vain and light persons. They don't really have a lot of substance to them. They don't have a lot of gravitas. They are light. They are vain. So, the Bible says here that men of low degree are vanity. So, then you might think to yourself, well, you know, men of low degree are vanity, but men of high degree, that's where the value is. That is where I can go to get facts. That's where I can go to have an anchor, you know, someone to rely on. But it says actually that men of high degree are alive to be laid in the balance. They are altogether lighter than vanity. So, here's how this works. Men of low degree are vanity. Men of high degree are lighter than vanity. Now, how can that be? And the reason I brought this up about weight is because it says to be laid in the balance, they're altogether lighter than vanity. Now, the balance is what we would use today as a scale. Right? So, we would have like an electronic scale, a digital scale. And basically, they used it in ancient times to use a balance. They would use this kind of scale. So, they'd have an object where they know how much it weighs. They say, okay, I know for a fact this weighs one talent. And they put it on there, and then they could use that to weigh other things, like, oh, let me put on a second talent, let me put on a third talent. And then when it balances, they know, okay, now I know the weight. I'm taking a known weight and balancing it with the unknown, and I can figure out how things weigh. Now, this is very similar to what you do when you go to the doctor and you're sliding around little weights. You know, those weights have a set determined accurate value, and you're sliding them from one side of the balance until you find that balance point. And when you find that balance point, you know how much you weigh. So, typically, you would not get on the scale and get a negative value. Okay? You know, that's not gonna happen. But God here is talking about people who have a negative weight, negative value. They're put in the balances, and it's a negative number. Okay, now, how can that work? How can they be lighter than vanity? Well, I was, you know, on the way over here, I geeked out with one of my fellow math geeks. I made a little math equation about this. But, you know, it's probably not gonna be interesting to most people. So, I'll give you the easy version of the equation for this, okay? Think about this. Let's take an equation. Let's use x and y. All right, don't tune out. Don't tune me out. Don't zone out on me. Some of you are having flashbacks from math class. So, x is how much you know. And y is how much you think you know. All right? Everybody got that? Everybody's got an x and a y value. X is what you know, and y is what you think you know. Okay? Your value on the scale that God's weighing you in is x minus y. Okay? So, if you think a lot more, you think you know a lot more than you actually know, you can see how you get a negative value. Because x minus y... Does anybody know what I just said? Everybody. This is a smart church. So, the point is, the guy of low degree, why is he vanity, and why is the guy of high degree lighter than vanity? Why is he going into the negative? I'll tell you why. Because the guy of low degree, at least he's humble and he knows I'm of low degree. Right? So, at least he's of low degree and he knows it. And so, as the Apostle Paul said, you know what? What did the Apostle Paul say? He said something along the lines of, if any man think himself to be wise in this world, you know, let him become a fool that he may become wise. You know, you have to realize how much higher God's thoughts are than our thoughts and how little we know. That we know so little in comparison with God that if we round it off, what we know, it will round to zero. Right. Like, we don't actually know zero. You know, it's not like Socrates. The only thing I know is that I know nothing at all. You know. We know something, but the amount that we know is so little that it kind of rounds down to zero when we put it on the order of magnitude with what God knows. Right? What about our power? Whatever power we have. When we compare it with God's power, when you start comparing it, you're going to have to use scientific notation. All right. Because of the fact that what God knows is so many more orders of magnitude above what we know, our knowledge, our power, our strength, our abilities are going to round down to zero, which is vanity. Vanity is just emptiness, nothingness, lightness, zilch, nothing. But the one that's lighter than vanity are these people who are puffed up and they think they have a lot of knowledge, they think they have a lot of power, they think they've got it all figured out, and God looks at them with a negative value. Because they're even more foolish because they've become wise in their own eyes. What does the Bible say? Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And so if you are humble and you realize how little we know, how little strength we have, how little power we have, how much greater God is, then you know what? That's better than the guy who might be a little smarter than you, but because he's so puffed up, he's actually become a fool and he's actually below zero. You're actually smarter than he is. It's sort of like I always said back when Michael Jackson was alive, I said, well, I have more money than Michael Jackson does. I would tell people I have more money, I am worth more than Michael Jackson because Michael Jackson was like millions of dollars in debt. So even if I have zero dollars, I'm worth more than Michael Jackson because zero is greater than negative 16 million or whatever. Does everybody see what I'm saying? And so the point is that people who get puffed up and think they're real smart, and it's funny how it uses the word degree because it says men of low degree are vanity, men of high degree are alike. Sometimes people get a degree and they think now that they know. They are so much smarter than everybody else and whatever because they have that degree. But you know what? If you have that degree, don't become puffed up or high-minded you could become lighter than vanity with that attitude. What do people trust in or seek after besides seeking after the Lord? Well, they could seek after education and high degrees of learning, but they could also seek after power or they could seek after wealth and money and that's why the Bible says, trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery if riches increase, set your heart not upon them. God has spoken once, twice have I heard this that power belongeth unto God. So we don't want to think that oh, because we have a lot of money, we have all this power, we have got the world by the tail, hey, we need to tremble before God. No matter how much learning we have, we need to tremble before God and be in awe of His wisdom, His knowledge. No matter how much pain, His knowledge. No matter how much power and authority we, you know, I'm the mayor of whatever town or whatever. Hey, God has way more power than you, they'll be higher than they. Or you might think because you have knowledge or education or money or power, don't get too smart for your own good, don't get too rich for your own good, too powerful in your own mind. You know, it's great, I'm all for learning a lot. I'm big on education, I spend a lot of time studying, I make sure that I also stay humble and realize that what I know is so tiny and minuscule compared to what God knows. And I need to always keep that attitude and no matter how much money you get, you need to have that attitude. And no matter how much authority or power or how many people look to you or look up to you, you need to stay humble because you don't want to be this guy who's lighter than vanity, less than vanity. You can be the negative in God's sight. You can say, this guy doesn't know anything. You can be worse than the guy who knows nothing when you're all puffed up when you're like Richard Dawkins or something. You know, he thinks he's so smart but he's become a complete idiot in his beliefs. And in fact, to anybody who actually knows about him, he's a laughing stock and he's just known for being a pedophile and just talking about, I've been molested as a kid. It's not a bad thing. It's all right. The guy's a freak. He's a hater of God. He's an evolutionist that believes that the world and everything came from nothing. Folks, how unscientific could you get than to think that life springs of its own accord? Because you know what? You don't have to get very far into the biology textbook before it tells you, hey, only life can beget life. Every life form comes from another life form, right? But then a few pages later, it's like, well, but you know, we know that life came about by itself too. But we just don't know how. But you know, it's like, well, you just told me two pages ago that only life can beget life because that's the truth. Because God is the author of life. God is the one who had to be that first spark of life. Life cannot originate on its own. But there are people out there that have lots of degrees. I'm sure people like Richard Dawkins and these guys, I mean, they have a lot of education. They have a lot of degrees. They've got a lot of training. But yet now they've become so stupid and foolish that they believe life springs up on its own and they think it's gonna spring up on its own on another planet. They wanna go to Mars like a million times just to keep looking for life. There's no life there. They can't, you know, they're like, well, let's send another rover. How many rovers can you send, folks, before you figure out that Mars doesn't have any life on it? I hate to, you know, I hate to break your heart or disappoint you about the next Mars mission. But it's probably gonna find the same thing that all the other Mars missions have. And then you'll read these headlines like, hey, there's a bacteria on Mars! They're like, yeah, we put it there because, you know, we contaminated the rover. Well, that was a cool article. Thank you for that. Life on Mars, psych! We sent it there. Folks, you could be super smart and get all these degrees and you can become a complete idiot because of the fact that you just reject the word of God and then God leaves you in darkness and then you can come up with these crazy ideas. And, you know, you're more likely to believe in interdimensional space aliens, but we know it's not the God of the Bible, though, right? Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. So do not follow after these other things and seek to make them your refuge and make them your rock. Look, I'm all for education, but education's not the rock. Jesus is the rock. Hey, I'm all for going out and making money and building a business, but you know what? That's not the rock. The bank account's not the rock. Jesus is the rock. Hey, I'm all for you being an influencer and, you know, being a leader and preaching the word of God, maybe, or whatever, but hey, Jesus is the rock. You're not the rock. Jesus is the rock. We need to keep that in perspective. He's the only rock. He's the only salvation. Our expectation is only from him. We only wait on him. He's the only one that we can for sure count on 100% of the time. Don't set your heart on money. Set your heart on God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on this earth, the Bible says. God has spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his work. And I think that he's ending on that note of God rendering every man according to his work. He's talking about the bad guys are gonna get what's coming to them. God's gonna render to them according to their work, and God's gonna be merciful to the godly man. God's gonna be merciful to David. And he's gonna give those suckers what's coming to them. So songs like this are really important in the day we're living because of the fact that we're living in a time of uncertainty. We're living in a time of conflicting reports, conflicting science, conflicting evidence, conflicting news articles, conflicting media. Who do we trust? You know what? I wish I could just tell you, hey, this is the website you go to for all the accurate stuff. Bookmark this page. Yeah, thepreaching.com. You know, hey, bookmark this. But here's the thing, I don't deal in news. You know, I'm preaching the word of God. I'm preaching timeless truths. I'm not preaching today's newspaper. And the thing is that I wish I could point you to some source and say, hey, this is the news source, or here's the science guru. This guy will tell you how it is. You know what? Really, the only thing you can take to the bank, the only thing that's gonna be the same 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now is the word of God. So you don't make friends with the word of God. Amen. This is where you get your anchor hooked to this. And you have young people that are here, maybe teenagers, young people, and you're just kind of thinking, ho, hum. You know, I can't wait to get home and rot my brain on some TV show or listen to pop music or something. You know, young people, you need an anchor too. Right. You need a refuge too. And you know, your life might be pretty smooth right now, pretty easy, pretty good. But you know what? There's a storm coming. How do I know that? Because everybody's life has storms in it. And you better make sure when you're young, you better get anchored to the rock. Otherwise, you're gonna be tossed to and fro. You're gonna crash. You're gonna be like that fence that the whole thing, it stays connected to itself, but the whole thing kind of falls over. You know what's wrong with that fence is it's not attached to the ground right. Because if that fence, if those fence posts were actually deep into the earth and there was actually some kind of concrete or rock or something holding that in, you know, it wouldn't be falling over like that, would it? Isn't it amazing how it's more connected to itself than to the ground, right? Who knows what I'm talking about where the whole fence falls over. Right. The whole, the fence is intact, but the whole thing fell over. Or it fell over like halfway. It's like just half hung over. Okay. That's because more care was put into the fence itself than into the foundation. And so, you know, you young people, you say, well, I've got a great network of friends and me and my BFF and whatever. But hold on a second. You better be digging a little deeper than that and have a strong foundation. Because, you know, who knows what we'll face over the next year? Because this year has been surprising. Who knows what 2021 will bring? Who knows what we'll face over the next five years? We don't know. I don't know. And you know what I don't do? I don't get up and make a whole bunch of predictions. I rarely make predictions. And if I do, I give a lot of disclaimers. I'm not into making predictions. I'm not into gambling and speculating. You know, I like to deal in fact. And so, you know what? I don't know what's coming, but I would just suggest that you just buckle up for whatever's coming. And the one way to just be ready for anything is to be anchored to the Word of God. And just be ready for anything. You say, well, you know, if I can get the education, if I can get the money and own the gold and own the silver and own the guns and the stocks and... And you know what? There's two kinds of people. There's people who are invested in stocks and there are people who get a new stock for the gun. But the thing about that is that, you know what? At the end of the day, this is the only really good investment that is 100% safe. So make sure and look, you teenagers, seek the Lord in your youth. Get anchored now. Go into adulthood having a firm foundation. And, you know, when you get confused about this or that, who do I listen to? Who do I trust? Where do I turn? Where do I go? What do I do with my life? Hey, this will keep you from being moved. Get anchored to the rock. You'll never go wrong reading your Bible cover to cover and sending that root down into the rock here. Wrap the roots around this rock and you're not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere because I'm anchored to the word of God. Don't you... You say, well, I'm just going to anchor myself to Pastor Anderson. I'm just going to anchor myself to Faith Lord Baptist Church. Hey, you know what? I hope that I could be an anchor unto you, but you know what? I can't guarantee that. Because you know what? The only guaranteed anchor, it's not me. Hey, I hope your parents will always be an anchor for you, but I can't guarantee that. Hey, you say, well, what's going to happen to you, Pastor Anderson? I might die tonight. Right? Who knows? Or what if I got backslidden and went off and just did something else with my life or something? Who knows? You cannot always just be relying on other people, your parents, your brother, your pastor. At some point, you've got to get anchored to the source. You've got to go to the source yourself and get anchored to the rock. Let him be your... He's the only rock. He's the only salvation. He's the only refuge. He's our only reliable expectation where we know he's going to come through for us. And you know what? You want to be anchored to something heavy, not something light. The last thing you want to do is anchor yourself to these guys that are lighter than vanity. Anchor yourself to Richard Dawkins. That's like a helium balloon. Right? That's a hot air balloon. You're like, well, I'm anchored to science. I am. Lighter than vanity. I shall not be moved. Hey, dig down into the foundation, the rock. Jesus Christ is the foundation. He's the only... No other foundation can be laid than Christ. The Word of God. Jesus, let's bow our heads and say a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the fact that we have an anchor and that we don't have to be greatly moved. And in fact, we don't even have to be a little bit moved. Thank you for giving us stability during unstable times, someone reliable in an unreliable time, someone that we can trust, a place to go to get the truth. And it's not going to change. It's been the same in English for 400 years. It's been the same in Greek for 2,000 years almost. It's been the same in Hebrew for 3,000 years, 3,500 years. Lord God, help us to get anchored to your word, Lord, and not to be tossed to and fro with all the things that are happening right now and the cares of this world and every wind of doctrine, Lord. Help us to be anchored. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's do one more song in your song book. Song 129, Rock of Ages. Song 129. 129. 129. 129. 129. Thank you for coming. You are dismissed. You are dismissed.