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Take something from the preaching tonight, in Jesus name I pray, Amen. Now Psalm 7 starts out with these words, O Lord my God, in Thee do I put my trust. Now this is a theme throughout the book of Psalms. One of my favorite verses is Psalm 118a. It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. And this verse is very important, especially today, because we're living in very uncertain times. First of all, the Bible said in the last days, perilous times would come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. Does that sound like the day we're living in? Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. I mean, that's the time we're living in. So number one, we're living in dangerous times, perilous times. But not only that, we're living in bad times financially in the United States, and really all over the world. People are hurting financially. And it's uncertain times. People are uncertain about their job, maybe they don't even have a job, or their job is cutting them back, or cutting their pay, or cutting their hours, or their mortgage is changing, or their interest rates and credit cards and whatever are all changing. People are living in a time right now where they need to be trusting in God to give them their daily bread, to take care of them, to feed them, to provide, to give them what they need. Now, today most people are trying to lean upon the flesh, okay, financially, especially. And what I mean by that is that they want to go to the devil, you know, to try to, to basically try to get some help from him, you know, by, you know, they're going to go to the state university and get that degree. And it's funny, because I know a lot of people who have degrees right now who are having trouble even getting any job, even just a minimum wage type job right now. But people think that going to college is the answer, you know, and if they just get that degree, they're going to have that great job. Or they think, well, you know, I'm going to have to cut out a church a little bit, I'm going to have to work a job that works me through church just because times are tough, you know, I've got to do what I've got to do. Or else people might, you know, not be typing and say, well, I'm not going to tithe because I can't afford it, and so I'm just going to, you know, keep all the money for myself. I'm not going to put any money in the plate, you know, I'll catch it up later, you know, some other time. Yeah, right. And people are leaning upon the flesh when in reality, in times like these, this is when you should be relying more heavily upon God. Because even if you have a good job, you know, even I have a business, you know, and my business has seen better days, but my business is going fine right now. But you know what? It could fall apart any time because of how bad the economy is, the way things are going, the way businesses are holding on to their money. You know, I could be out of a job anytime soon because of the way my business is. I don't know. You don't know. But the thing that gives me peace about it, the thing that gives me confidence is that it's always been God that's been providing for me, not any particular job. It's always been God. You see, I thought that I was going to lose my job when I moved to Arizona to start this church, but that didn't stop me from doing what I knew God wanted me to do and coming here and starting the church, and then God stepped in and provided. Okay? And then also, you know, when I lost my job a year ago. Again, I didn't know what was going to happen. I was worried. I was concerned about it. And yet God, you know, stepped in and worked things out so that I could provide for my family. God is the one who provides for you. The Bible says, and I turned to Deuteronomy chapter 11, but another scripture that I'm not going to turn to says that it's God that is the one that gives you power to get wealth. And I'm not talking about getting rich here, but any money that you make, God's the one that gave you the intelligence, the physical strength, the opportunities to make that money. But what I want to show you is in verse number 8, Deuteronomy 11, and I like to think of this as kind of like the Old Testament version of Matthew 6-33, which says, you know, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. This is like an Old Testament version of that. I love this scripture. In Deuteronomy chapter 11, it says in verse 8, Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong and go in and possess the land whither ye go to possess it, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swere unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey. For the land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from which ye came out, where thou sowest thy seed, and waterest it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs. Now, the way I see this is Egypt represents, you know, basically being carnal, worldly, okay, living the way the rest of the world lives. When the children of Israel put the blood on the doorposts of the Passover, that pictured salvation. When they crossed the Red Sea, that pictured baptism. And, of course, it was symbolic. It wasn't really salvation. It wasn't really baptism, but it was symbolism in the Old Testament. Not everybody who crossed the Red Sea was even saved, of course. God afterward destroyed them that believed not. But see, Egypt represents the worldly lifestyle, the way the world lives. And he said, you know, the land where you came out of in Egypt, you sow the seed, you water it, you grow it, you do the work, you reap the increase. But look, look what he says in verse 11. But the land whither you go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven, a land which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the year, even at the end of the year, and it shall come to pass that ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain, and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil. And I will send grass in thy field for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. Now, here's what he's saying. He's saying, the land that you're going to, it's a land that I water. I'll take care of it. I'll send the rain. I'll send the grass. And he says, I'll watch it all day long, all night long. You just need to hearken diligently to my commandments and I'll feed you, I'll provide for you in the new land. He said, in the old land, you do it all yourself. But he says, the most important thing for you as a believer, as a Christian, is to keep God's commandments diligently, then I'll provide for you. And that's the same thing he said in the New Testament. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. And so now's not the time to lean upon the flesh. Now is the time to be relying on God, trusting in the Lord to provide your needs. Because I'll be honest with you. It'd be pretty nerve-wracking if I didn't feel like God was going to provide. Living in today's world, having all kinds of kids, and they get to a certain age, they start eating like an adult. And I mean, it's a lot younger than you think. I mean, these kids put away, I mean, they put away like a foot long. I mean, we went to Subway, Solomon ate a foot long, Isaac ate a six inch, John's eating a six inch. I mean, it's unbelievable how much these kids eat. And you say, well, you know, I think we'll just wait a little while until we can afford to have kids. If you wait till you can afford to have kids, you're never going to have kids. You're never going to be able to afford it. But if you step out in faith and be fruitful and multiply and do what God told you to do and have children and realize that children are a blessing from God, not a burden, and that God has promised that he'll provide for them, you step out, you have the children, and then God's going to provide if you diligently hearken to keep his command. That's what the Bible says. He said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. And so you've got to just live by faith, trust in the Lord, and realize that now is the time to ask yourself not how secure is my job or how does my portfolio look? You know, not that anyone in this church knows what that means, myself included, you know. But what you ought to be asking yourself is, is God pleading with me? Am I right with God? Because that's the one who holds your faith in his hand. He's the one who's holding you in the balance right now. And so you better be right with him. Now is not the time to say, well, I'm not gonna tithe or I'm gonna, you know, work through church or soul winning is gonna have to go to the back burner. I can't do any soul winning or, well, I'm gonna have to take this job where I'm a bartender, you know, but I'm not gonna do any drinking or whatever, okay. Now's not the time to do that. Trust in the Lord. He said, oh Lord, my God, indeed do I put my trust. Save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me, lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces while there's none delivered. Again, David's saying here that if God doesn't protect me, I'm gonna get torn up. He's not trying to rely on his own strength and he was a strong man. He said that the Lord had taught his hands to war and his fingers to fight. He said so that a bow of steel was broken by his arms. Okay, so David was a warrior, a mighty warrior and all throughout the Bible that's emphasized. But he said, look, if God doesn't protect me, if God doesn't step in, I'm gonna get torn up. I'm gonna be destroyed. I'm gonna fall flat on my face. Remember when he faced Goliath, he said the battle is the Lord's, okay. And so we need to understand that God must protect us. God must provide for us or we will fail. We will fall apart without God. He said, oh, you know, my finances are so secure. God can destroy your finances tomorrow no matter who you are. No matter who you are, he can destroy you tomorrow. And so you can't get all puffed up and say, well, I'm taking it in my own hands. Nope, it's better to just let God handle it. Work hard, and I'm not saying not to work hard. You might have to work two jobs, you might have to work overtime. Work hard, do everything you can do, hearken diligently to God's commandments, take time for Bible, take time for prayer, take time for sowing, take time for church and God will provide, God will take it. Now, he's not gonna make you rich, but he's gonna provide. He said in verse number three, oh, Lord, my God, if I have done this, if I've done what? He said, if I persecuted those that are right, he said, if I've done this, if there be iniquity in my hands, if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me, yea, I've delivered him that without cause mine enemy. Let the enemy persecute my soul. He said, if I'm guilty, let him persecute me, God. I like what he says in verse eight, watch this. The Lord shall judge the people. Watch what he says, judge me, oh Lord, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity that is in me. Now, we live in a day where everybody just wants to say what? Don't judge, don't judge, don't judge, judge not, judge not, judge not. David said, judge me, judge me, go ahead, judge me. Why? Because David knew that he was doing what was right. And many times the reason that people come up with judge not is because they're doing wrong. And because they're doing something that's wicked, they say, oh, well, don't judge, don't judge me, don't judge. You know, don't judge by fornication, don't judge the fact I'm drinking, don't judge the fact that I don't go to church, don't judge the fact that I'm dressed this way. What are you trying to hide, you know? I mean, if you're doing right, you'd be like David who said later in the book of Psalms, great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them. Now, what was the big difference between David and Saul? They both committed some wicked sins. But the reason why Saul was destroyed and David was restored to his position is because of David's attitude toward being rebuked. That's the only reason. When Saul was rebuked, he made excuses, he got angry, he went into a rage, he tried to blame it on other people. Whereas when David was rebuked for his horrible sin, he just said, I'm wrong, I'm sorry. He cried out to God, he wept, and remember he watered his couch with tears and made his bed to swim and all that. And he begged God for mercy like we saw last week in Psalm 6. Psalm 51 is another example. All throughout the Bible, we see that David responded well to being rebuked. You know who did not respond well to being rebuked? Cain. Remember Cain? I mean, he could have just changed it and done it right, but he just couldn't stand for somebody to tell him that he was wrong. That's why a lot of people don't come to a church like this. And it's amazing to me because people will agree with 95% of what I preach or 99% of what I preach, but they just can't handle somebody pointing out a certain sin that they're guilty of and they don't wanna hear it and it just drives up. Now me, when I started going to a fundamental Baptist church, half of what was being preached was applied to me. I was guilty of it. I was listening to all the wrong music, I was dressed wrong, I was watching the wrong movies. I mean, half of what was being preached, I was in violation of. Now that's where I had the choice to be like Cain and just get mad. Say, well, I'm not coming back to this church. I'm gonna go to the church to make me feel good. Or to take the rebuke. The Bible says, rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. And that's how we ought to be. If somebody comes to you and rebukes you and says, hey, you're wrong. Here's what you need to change. You need to be meek and humble. And maybe it's true, maybe it's not true. If it's true, then you need to accept it and make the change necessary. If it's not true, you can still take a moment and reflect and do a self check and say, well, is there some truth to it? Just like David, Shimei was cursing David and rebuking David and Shimei was wrong and David was right. And yet David didn't fly off the handle. David said, hey, wait a minute. Maybe God told him to tell me this. Maybe God's trying to tell me something here. Maybe there's something I can learn from this rebuke. Now, later on, he told his son, Solomon to make sure that the guy died. But that was decades later. And because he thought about it long and hard and said, nah. That's in the second Chronicles chapter one and two. But anyway, back to Psalm seven here, we see that David is not afraid of God judging him, of being judged, of people looking at him. Reminds me of Samuel. Remember what Samuel said right before he died when he'd given the people the king that they wanted? He said, testify now against me. He stood up in front of the whole congregation and said, if I've wronged anybody, if I've stolen any man's cattle, if I've taken anything from you, he said, stand up now and right now, I'll make it good right now. And everybody said, hey, you haven't wronged us. Paul said the same thing. He said it, he challenged him first and second Thessalonians. He challenged them to show him what, where he'd wronged anybody. He wasn't afraid of being judged. And by the way, we should judge ourselves. The Bible says if we judge ourselves, then we would not be judged. But when we're judged, we're chasing the Lord, okay? And so we ought to be judging ourselves. We ought to be asking God to judge us, asking God, search me, O God, and know my thoughts, try me and know my heart and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. And we ought not be afraid of what other people pass judgment on us because Paul said that we should provide things honest in the sight of God and man, okay? So if what we're doing is honest, we should be able to be above reproach both before God and before men and not just be afraid all the time. Don't ever question me. Don't ever check anything I say out. Don't ever judge me because I'm right, okay? All the time. That is, you know, that's not what it is here. I mean, he's saying, judge me. That should be your motto, judge me. Not judge not, judge me. Go ahead and judge me. But he says in verse number six, Arise, oh Lord, in thine anger. Lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies and awake for me to the judgment that thou has commanded. So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about for their sakes therefore return thou on high. Look what he says in verse number 11. God judgeth the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day. Now God is a God of anger. Now God is a God of love, yes. Peace, joy, law of suffering, mercy, gentleness, goodness, faith, these are the fruit of the spirit. Basically, God has a lot more to his personality than some people would like to admit. Some people want to put God in this little box and just take him out every once in a while when they like what he has to say when it's something positive and when it's something loving. But God is angry on a daily basis. That means today, God's mad. I mean, at any given time, God is angry with the wicked every single day. That's a powerful thought. I mean, that's a lot of anger. It's a lot of wrath. I mean, somebody, you know, I get hate mails like every day and I got several today, you know, of course. But today I got one where somebody's saying, and I don't even read them, I read like the first sentence, so. If you ever want to send me a hate mail, make that first sentence a good one, okay? Because I get these really, really long emails, I just read the first sentence and then hit, you know, delete or whatever. But, and I love, or I read the first sentence and I scroll down and I'm like, man, this is so long. And then I see the last line, like, thank you for taking the time to read this. Like, delete, you know. But, you know, I got one today and said like, you know, Jesus rebuked people, but you know, Jesus was never this harsh as you are. It's like, did I create hell? You know, did I create a torture chamber? Did I create a furnace of fire? And you know, but Jesus was never this harsh. Look, God is a God of love. And you know what? Thank God if you're saved, you're on that loving side. Okay, because you don't want to be on the other side. You don't want to be on the side of God's wrath and God's anger. Because God's wrath is a consuming fire. God's wrath is burning. And basically hell, if you study the Bible, is basically the burning of God's wrath is what kindles hell. I mean, there are so many scriptures about that, how basically the fire, the torment, it's coming from the presence of God. Okay, that's clear in the Bible. And so God's angry with the wicked every day. He said in verse six, arise, O Lord, in thine anger. He's telling them to basically cloud up and rain on these people that are trying to persecute them, that are trying to harm them. He says, oh, let the wickedness, verse nine, the wicked come to an end, but establish the just for the righteous God, triumph the hearts and rains. My defense is of God, which saith the upright in heart. Now, we don't always have to defend ourselves either because even when we're being attacked all the time, David said, God's gonna defend him. God's gonna protect him. He went to prayer and prayed for God to basically step in and defeat his enemies. Now, did these people stop protesting us on Sunday mornings? Did somebody say that they're gone? I thought they were gonna be there until I stopped preaching hate. Did I tone down my preaching or something? I thought I preached pretty hard on Sunday. Did I do something wrong? Am I all right? Am I still preaching hard? Yeah, they quit while I'm shocked. I really thought they were gonna protest every single week until I stopped preaching hate, which is, you know, until hell freezes over, until the cows come home or whatever else. You know, and I don't have to go over there and fight them. And I don't have to go over there and defend myself and say, well, I gotta explain this. And I'll tell you something, if I responded to every hateful phone call, every hateful email, because I have to defend myself, or if every lie that's posted on the internet, if I try to defend that lie, it would be a full-time job, folks. And what's the point of it? My defense is of God. I mean, people have gone on there and just make up the weirdest things and spread it all over the internet. I get all these emails. Is this really true? You know? And you know how this guy was in the same dorm as me at Howells Anderson. It's like, when I went to Howells Anderson, I was married with three kids. I was married with two kids when I got there, three kids after I was there. I wasn't living in the dorms, you know? But they're spreading this rumor about me. And then Howells Anderson, himself, has lied and said that I quit school because I couldn't pay my bill. You know, even though I never even paid my bill one day late, and I paid up the whole rest of the semester when I quit, I paid the whole rest of it, even though they told me, you don't have to leave. I said, no, I'm gonna pay the whole bill because I don't want you to say that I didn't pay my bill and what they do, they turn around and lie and said I didn't pay my bill. And they're telling that lie to this day. I got the bank statements to prove that I paid those people. And I was never late with my bill even one day. And anybody who knows me knows that I paid my bills on time. I've never been out of money. I've never been to the point where I couldn't pay my bills in my life, okay? Since I've been married, I've paid my bills on time. I've always had the money to do it. God has been good to me and taken care of me. But you know what? People tell lies about me all the time, constantly. I mean, when I was a teenager, somebody came up with some lie that I had fornicated with this girl that I had never even met. Like I had only seen her at church. Was the only time I'd ever even come into contact with this girl was at church, at the church building. I had talked to her like once at church and this lie started going around like somebody tried to slander a bunch of people to protect themselves and I was slandered. Some of my friends were slandered. I was supposedly fornicated with this girl. And then of course, eventually it came out that it wasn't true, obviously. And then he was like, okay, well, thanks for telling everybody all these lies and whatever. And then they sent the girl that lied off to a brat camp and whatever, you know? You know how they do. The roll off home or whatever stupid thing. All these pastors send their kids to that they can't straighten out. The Bible says that they shouldn't even be running the house of God if they can't run their own family. So instead, they just send their kid to a brat camp and call it good. Their house is in order again, you know? I guess that's what, you know, I don't even want to go into that, but it's just, it's unbelievable to me how pastors can send their kid to a brat camp instead of taking care of their own kid. And then sit there and say, well, I'm gonna remain pastoring, you know, unbelievable. And so these things happen. I mean, my dad, you know, when he was a teenager, he said people used to lie about him at church and all this stuff and it's gonna happen. If you do something good for God, you will be slandered. You say, prove it from the Bible. Okay, how about when Jesus said blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and listen to this, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. What does that mean, for so persecuted they? Because this chapter is mainly about persecution. Psalm 7, okay, what does it mean, so persecuted they? How did they do it? They reviled them because he said, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. So what kind of persecution did they do toward the prophets? They said all manner of evil against them falsely, okay? This is a big way that you're gonna be persecuted. You're gonna be slandered. You're gonna be lied about. People are gonna make up stuff and lie about it. I mean, people have been calling me, calling my wife. People have called my wife saying that they were my girlfriend or something. People have called my wife and said that they were a homosexual. They call all these weird things. Do you really think I have to sit there and just defend myself? Hey, let your light speak for itself. Let your light so shine that men may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. If you try to defend yourself against every false rumor, every lie, every slander, every attack, every negative email, every phone call, every piece of hate mail, you're not gonna get anything done for God. Just let God be your defense. Let the Lord defend you. And what you oughta be doing is just rejoicing and be exceedingly glad. Hey, thank God I'm being persecuted because if everybody was speaking well of me, then I'd be wondering to myself, am I a false prophet? Am I a false teacher? Am I a liar? Am I misrepresenting Jesus Christ? But you know what? I feel pretty good right now because I'm getting persecuted a lot. And so that's good. And don't feel like you have to fight back all the time. God said vengeance belongeth unto me, saith the Lord. I will repay. So let God defend you. Let God balance things out and set the record straight. You don't always have to defend yourself, okay? He said, oh, but so-and-so's lying about me. People are gonna think it's true. You know, some people will think it's true. But you know what? In the long run, people will know who was right and who was wrong. You know, in the short term, it hurts your reputation. People will. You know, I've heard things about people before. It turned out not to be true. And when you hear it, though, you have this doubt in your mind, though, about that person. You know, I don't know, you know? Could that be true? You know, but you ought not. You oughta give people the benefit of the doubt, okay? But human nature, some people are just gonna believe everything that they hear. But then as time went on, and I saw, and I watched that person's life, and I could see, wait a minute, this is a righteous person. This is a godly person. And then later on, it would be obvious that, you know, it wasn't true. And so you're gonna be lied about. You're gonna be persecuted, okay? The Bible says ye and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. What does persecution include? It could be a beating, okay? It could be physical assault, like the disciples were beaten. It could be imprisonment. It could be people lying about you. It could be people, you know, vandalizing your property. Okay, it could be people, you know, harming people that you love. It could be people, you know, trying to infiltrate and destroy your church. I mean, it could be all manner of different things. It could be problems on the job. It could be anything, okay? These are the type of things that are gonna happen, but let me tell you something. It's not just happening to pastors. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, that's male and female, man, woman, boy, girl, young, old will suffer persecution. It could be strife in your family. It could be people in your family attacking you, criticizing you, a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a cousin, you know, children, nephews, nieces. Could be attacking you, laughing at you, mocking you, stealing from you, whatever, but it's gonna happen. And so you have to be like David here and look at this and say, wait a minute, am I gonna defend myself or am I gonna pray that God will defend me, that God will bring justice? And that's what David's doing in this whole song. He said, oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, verse nine, but establish the just for the righteous God try at the hearts and ranks. My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart. God judgeth the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will wet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready. He hath also prepared from the instruments of death. He ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors. So God knows who it is that's persecuting you and he'll defeat them, he'll destroy them. The Bible says this, touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm. Now that doesn't even just apply to a pastor because this Bible says that the same anointing which he received abide within you if you're saved. I mean, whether or not you're a pastor or not, you have the Holy Spirit's anointing in you. The same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie. Even as it's taught you shall abide in him. So look, if you're out there preaching the gospel, if you've got the Holy Spirit living inside of you cause you're saved and resting upon you because you're a spirit-filled soul winning Christian, God's protection is upon you and he said, touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm. He rebuked kings for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, whenever they were harmed by them and God will do the same for you so you don't have to take it into your own hands. If somebody smites you on the cheek, you can turn the other cheek because you know that God is gonna defeat them. You don't have to take it in your own hands, that's what this is about here. He says in verse number 14, because he travaileth with iniquity and hath conceived mischief and brought forth falsehood. He made a pit and digged it and has fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head and his violent dealings shall come down upon his own pate. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise in the name of the Lord most high. So people are gonna reap what they've sown. People who attack you are gonna fall into the pit that they've laid, the trap that they've laid for you, they're gonna fall into it. What's a perfect Bible example of this? The book of Esther. Remember Haman's wicked device that he devised against Mordecai and against all the Jews? Everything that he devised against Mordecai, first he tried to lift himself up. He wanted the king to ride him around on a horse and proclaim everything and dress him up fancy clothes. That's what happened to his enemy. Haman was the one who led Mordecai around, dressed up all fancy on the horse and all that stuff. Then Haman made a gallows to hang Mordecai on and guess what? He ended up being hung on the gallows that he made. And then his sons were hung, all 10 of them. And so we see that, and he wanted to be the second in command, Mordecai ended up being the second in command. He wanted Mordecai dead, he ended up being dead. And so you reap what you sow, okay? And God will protect you from your persecutors because they will reap what they've sown, according to the Bible. You don't have to worry about it. He says in verse number 17, I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord, Mosiah. Now we ought to be singing praises to God. David says, I'll sing praise. Look at Psalm nine, verse one. I will praise the old Lord with my whole heart. On and on throughout the Bible. Praise the Lord for he's good, for his mercy endureth forever. Praise the Lord all you nations. Praise him all you people, for his merciful kindness is great toward us and the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Praise ye the Lord. The book of Psalms in chapter 150 ends with, let everything that hath bread, praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. So let me ask someone, when was the last time you sang praises unto the Lord? About 40 minutes ago. Good, see, that's great. You're doing good. Okay, next point. No, but you know what? Honestly, you should probably be doing this a little more than just three times a week at church. He said, well, how do you know that? Because David said seven times a day will I praise thee because of thy right's judgments. And so one way of praising God is to sing praise to God. You could also just speak praises to God, but he said seven times a day, I'll praise thee because thy right's judgment. You should be singing praises to God throughout the week. And this should just become a part of who you are. Music is an important part of your life. Now today, music is a huge part of the world's life, except it's all the wrong music that they listen to all day long in the car, at the gas pump, in the store, at their job, everywhere they go, it's just music, music, music. And people are really into music. Before I was right with God, I was obsessed with music. I had so many CDs. I mean, I was just, that was all that, I mean, that was just my addiction. I mean, I would just love the music. And I was a lot more into music than anybody that I knew. I used to buy my CDs at a record store that was called Obsessed with Music in Sacramento. And so, I mean, I was really obsessed with music. And you've probably known people like that. Maybe you've been like that, but I see that hand now. But anyway, what I'm saying is that it's not that music's bad. It's just that music should be according to God's word. And music should be a big part of your life because the biggest book in the Bible is a song book, the one that we're reading right now, the Book of Psalms. And so music should be a part of who you are and it should be you singing praises to God. Now, can somebody show me in the Bible where God commands you to listen to music? Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to listen to music, but I'd like for you to show me where in the Bible God ever tells you to listen to music. Nowhere. And you'll rarely find anyone in the Bible listening to music. And yet today, that's what's emphasized in churches. Come to church and listen to music. And you got the special music up there. You know, here am I. I will go. You know, the special music, you just listen to it. And I'm joking about that. It's funny because I made that video and people like really took that seriously and they thought that it was supposed to be like a, it was supposed to like kind of be a little trick to get people to watch it and then, you know, surprise them at the end. But some people are just, you know, they really love that kind of music. But the thing is, hey, I don't come to church to listen to music. I come to church to sing praises to God. And look, just because we have congregational singing here, you should be singing. Because some people still come to our church and aren't necessarily singing out with a loud voice. Or maybe their lips are just kind of moving. You know, I wonder what it would sound like if everyone else stopped singing and just you were singing only. What would it sound like? You know, you ought to be singing out. Praising the Lord with your voice, okay? Not just sitting there, you know, pretending, lip syncing, you know, or whatever. You need to be singing it out. And that's why we don't come to church to listen. He said in the midst of the congregation, I will sing praise unto thee. Look at Saul in the Bible. Saul had this evil spirit from the Lord and he brings in a bunch of Christian music to listen to. It just put a bandaid on the problem. It made him feel good. But did it solve his problem with God? No, it just made him feel good. And then the next thing you know, he's listening to music, it's not working. Pretty soon he's trying to kill David while he's listening to the music. And it was the right music. And yet today, you know, it's all, we gotta get the bad music out of these young people's hands and get this good music in there and replace it. You know, we gotta replace the bad, we gotta replace the Metallica, you know, with these CDs and we're selling them and they're only 15.99, you know? And we're not making any profit on these. Now here's what I think is funny. The rock and roll star that's like making millions of dollars, right? He's got a million dollar piano in the studio, multi-million dollar recording equipment, right? $10,000 guitars and they're flying around in a jet and everything. And they sell the CD for 15.99, okay? Right? That just all this millions of dollars went into it. And then the church is selling the CD for 15.99 but they're not making any money, you know? I don't know, somebody's making some money, okay? I don't know, I don't know. Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. But you know, I have a feeling that they're making a little bit more money. You know, they have ways to kind of move the number. It's kind of like the car dealership. When you go there and they tell you, we're actually losing money by selling you this car. Yeah, right. I'm sure they're going to sell you a car if they can lose money. We're losing $500 on this deal. Yeah, okay, sure. Who's been told that before? It's a lot. What they mean is that they're supposed to at least make this much and they're 500 below what they're supposed to make to help pay all their overhead and blah, blah, blah. You know, there's like net profit and gross profit. And if you know about business, you know you can move numbers around to pretty much make them say what you want them to say. And so they're not making any money, selling you all the CDs, you know? But they only make $29,000 from the church yet they drive a Mercedes. So maybe they're making money on all the tapes and CDs that they sell. I don't know, or books or whatever. But no, no, they're just praying it down. They're praying down all that money. That's why they drive a fancy car, an Alexis and a Mercedes and a BMW because they prayed it down, brother. And so what I'm trying to say is churches today emphasize, listen to this tape, listen to this CD. Listen, what they ought to be saying is, here, let me replace your Metallica CD with a handle. Free to handle. Now, replace Metallica, replace listening to the world's music with singing to God because singing God's praises will do a lot more for you than listening to God's praises any day of the week. Any day of the week. Listening is not what God ever commanded. He said, sing, praise, open your mouth, lift up your voice. And so you say, well, it's not my personality, change. If it's not your personality, then get in a personality that obeys the Bible and sings and praises and blesses God. And don't come to church. And you know what, when I'm leading the singing, when I have to sneeze like I did a little earlier and can't sing, it shouldn't drop like one third volume. Okay? Because I'm only one person up here. So all of you should be able to totally overpower me to where when I stop singing, you can't even hardly notice. Because I'm just one voice. Do I have a microphone or no secret mic, nothing up to sleep? So why am I singing louder? You see what I mean? If I stop singing or if I mess up, you know, as long as I mess up the words of the song? What was that, yeah, about that? You know, it shouldn't... You know, one of the reasons why I mess up the songs is because when I grew up, some of the songs had a little bit different words. It's true, honestly. You don't believe me, but they do. And so sometimes I'm going from memory. But the point is that when I mess up, no one should even notice because everybody else is just belting it out. Say, well, I'm embarrassed, I'm sorry. That's just, you know what, humble yourself. Because it's not about you. It's not about everybody thinking you're wonderful and that you have the perfect voice. It's about praising God. That's what it's about. It's not about you. It's not about what people think about you. It's about what God thinks, that's all. So he said, I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord most high. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, please just help us. We're gonna go through persecution, dear God. You've told us, you've warned us. You've said in John 16, 33, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. Help us, Father, to take this ammunition from Psalm 7 to trust in you, to rest upon you, to rely on you. Let you defend us. Let you bring our enemies' works upon their own head, dear God, and help us to just go forward, serving you, working hard, doing the things that are right, and let you take care of our enemies, dear God. And I just pray that every single person that's here, when persecution comes to their life, because it will come if they're doing anything for you, that they would be able to stand strong and be steadfast and unmovable and not buckle under the pressure and not waver. And God, help us all to sing praises to you and shout upon our beds, as the Bible says, praises to the Lord, and not to become down in the mouth and sad and upset all the time, but rather help us to be joyful and praising you. And we love you, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, let's go ahead.