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you you you you you you you you welcome to the song of Baptist Church it's Roger Hiddleston the song of 191 the song of 191 in my heart there are wings and elbows we'll be singing this one I'll tell you tonight the song of 191 on the first I have a song and he's it was sang from heaven above there never was a sweeter melody tis a melody of love in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody with heaven's harmony in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody of love I love the Christ who died on Calvary for he washed my sins away he put within my heart a melody and I know it's there to stay in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody with heaven's harmony in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody of love to be my endlessly made glory with the angels I will sing to be a song with glorious harmony when the force of heaven rings in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody with heaven's harmony in my heart there rings a melody there rings a melody of love Amen church we're seeing this time let's open up in a word of prayer dear heavenly father lord thank you so much for this church father lord thank you so much for helping those that are sick, recovering, come back to be in church father lord I just pray that when Sunday comes around those that are still sick able to recover by then and be back in church lord lord we love you we pray that this service here is done for your glory and that you can feel past subversions when he comes up to preach allow him to preach with power and authority and allow us to be healers of the word and doers as well father we love you we pray these things in the name of Jesus Amen let's turn to our next song song 121 song 121 song 121 song 121 song 121 song 121 song 121 on the first like a river glorious is God's perfect peace over all victorious in its bright increase perfect yet it flow with fuller everyday perfect yet it grow with deeper all the way state upon Jehovah hearts are fully blessed finding as he promised perfect peace and rest hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand never honk and follow never try or stand not a surge of worry not a shade of care not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there state upon Jehovah hearts are fully blessed finding as he promised perfect peace and rest every joy or trial call it from above trace upon our dial by the son of love we may trust him fully all for us to do may who trust him holy find him holy true state upon Jehovah hearts are fully blessed finding as he promised perfect peace and rest Amen. Great singing this evening. It's good to have you all here with us on a Wednesday night. At this time we're going to go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin slip your hand up real high and one of our ushers will make sure that we get one out too. Keep your hand raised high until you get a bulletin. Looks like there's a little extra battle with the traffic today. Expect to have a few more people rolling in as we continue so in any case that's the way it is here in Atlanta so got to deal with that from time to time or like every day but it's not that bad. If you open up your announcements to the first page you'll see the service times listed there Sunday morning at 10 30 Sunday evening and 5 p.m. Wednesday night 7 of course is our Bible study. We've got the soul winning opportunities listed there as well as our salvations and our baptisms for the month of April as well as for the year. We have a lot of salvations and baptisms report for May so next week we'll have all those numbers updated. Let's go ahead and get a count of the soul winning for the week. Brother Carter what was the total for the Monday night group? Two. Amen. And then was there any other salvations to report for the week that haven't been reported yet? On Friday. The camping trip yes. Yes. There was 11 there was 10 that day but there was another one earlier in the week. So for the whole camping trip I got those numbers and then yeah so if there's no other soul winning numbers report then let's continue on. We got the offering totals down there through the month of April at the bottom of the page. Prayer requests. Continue to pray for ladies who are with child for Mrs. Rogers as well as Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Rogers is going to be due very soon here. Obviously this is an estimated due date so basically whenever God deems that baby is ready to come out then Mrs. Rogers will go into labor and that should be kind of any day now so be an extra prayer for her and for the baby and for the delivery and everything else. Pray for everyone else on our list here. Does anyone have any updates for the people who are on the list right now? And then continue to pray also for people who were at the camp and got sick and just pray everyone will be healed. I haven't heard specifically from anyone but you know families might end up dealing with this for a little while now. Thankfully Pastor Robinson's daughter is out of the hospital but this is just it kind of underscores my sermon on Sunday morning so if you missed my sermon on Sunday morning please go back and listen to that. It's one of the effects obviously as I mentioned before I'll say it again real briefly you can't always control sickness people get sick it's part of life these things happen but what we can control we can control and we want to make sure that we're considerate of other people and you know specifically in this instance I don't know if it could have been avoided or not I can't say. Maybe not right don't know that but I definitely know there's people who shouldn't have been around and I'll leave it at that right and you know I know it's nobody's intention but just know that a little girl went to the hospital coughing up blood because of this sickness so there's that right continuing on the camp was great okay still overall a lot of fun just one little thing that need to be addressed hopefully and you know unfortunately this is one of those things that just kind of goes on through church life and it's not going to be the last time you hear about it if you're going to be with our church for a while I'm sure it'll come up again and again and again unfortunately just as much as many other things that need to come up from time to time so but in any case though there's 11 salvations 4 baptisms at the camp is very successful in many ways there's lots of great preaching heard lots of great sermons I know I learned I grew from what I heard the preachers preach and it was very edifying for myself personally I know many others also we're talking about different sermons and how they were blessed by those sermons so I appreciate everyone that helped to pull this off and make it a success and I think that I keep on hearing a lot of people excited to come back already next year so we're going to figure out how we can make it even better and I've got some ideas from that at least on a digital standpoint to try to make things better but then also planning wise to try to get my act together a little bit and get things done a little bit sooner and but no everything went really well so appreciate that had a really good time continuing on here we got the May challenge is the baptism challenge so you should be thinking about talking to people about getting baptized we should always be thinking about talking to people about getting baptized but specifically this month you know if you haven't been doing that if it's something that's kind of slipped your mind and you've kind of let go you know this is why we're focusing on that this month we'll be focusing on talking to people encouraging them to get baptized showing the importance of baptism right and then after this month you know this is what I keep on talking about continue talking to people about baptism because it is very important it's not we're not just doing this just to do some type of a challenge for the month it's to emphasize something that's important in our spiritual life so be helping people to encourage them to get back oh and I want to bring I'll probably bring this up on Sunday too someone shared with me a sermon by brother Segura from Faith Ward Baptist Church and he was talking about baptism and he actually brought up a method that he uses when talking about baptism with people that I thought was actually really good and I've never thought about this before and I'll share it with you right now because it's really a good idea and it might drive home and help push people over that edge if they're kind of contemplating getting baptized when we talk to people and just say well hey you know obviously baptism doesn't save right we know that or you teach someone especially if you just get someone saved but you know isn't it a good thing to get baptized right it's a good thing Jesus got baptized right it was a good thing Jesus got baptized well you know the Bible says to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin now you know that it's a good thing to get baptized and look that's true right that is a very that is a very true statement and I think that will help push people over the edge because sometimes people have different reasons for not wanting to get baptized and they're probably usually more carnal reasons of like just dealing with the water or maybe being in front of everyone or whatever it is but you know God commands us to be baptized you know in Matthew 28 the great commission he sends them forth to baptize like that's a commandment to go out and baptize people well people got to be willing to be baptized in order to fulfill that great commission of baptizing them so anyways those are some things that you could consider when you're talking about baptism with people and discussing that and bring up those points are very good points to help convince people yeah you know what I really ought to get baptized the good thing about baptism is you only got to do it once once you've done it you've done it one and done right after you're saved of course obviously some people get baptized more than once because they have been seeking the truth and maybe they've been led down different paths whatever that's fine but now once a person realizes now you're actually saved that's it that's the last time you got to get baptized so continuing on here we've got the Bible Memory passage we're on week 5 of 7 of the latter half of Hebrews chapter 7 if you could memorize all these verses and quote them before the deadline you'll earn a prize for being able to do that upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there I don't even know what today's day is how far are we into the month the 10th so these are all still coming up and I apologize there's a misspelling of Mrs. Corson's name there spelled with a J not a G my fault my apologies and I have a good reason for being wrong about that okay it's not really that good of a reason it's just I overlooked the card information because I thought I knew better but apologize for that we got that we'll get that corrected for this Sunday and then we've got the upcoming events there May 27th is our next men's preaching class 10 am right here all men interested in attending this class are welcome to come even if you don't want to preach if you do want to preach plan on making I don't know up to like maybe a 15 minute sermon it depends on how many people want to preach at this class will determine how much time you're going to get to preach and men who have been coming to this preaching class for a while who come again you've got something different in store for you okay you can prepare a sermon if you like but you're probably not going to use it so we're going to we're going to kick things up a notch if you've if you've been coming to the preaching class for an extended period of time and it should be fun for everybody so I encourage you to come on off you can make it for that May 27th that is Memorial Day weekend so if you don't have plans you're not going out of town come on here Saturday morning and join us for that preaching class June 25th brother Carter are we are we confirmed on that other date in June for the preaching class was that the 17th so if you're keeping track June 17th then it's going to be our another men's preaching class trying to make these more regular and are you good with the time on that as well so we'll try to stay consistent with everything I'm going to be attempting to hold these once a month as a goal so we've got our next two men's preaching classes there on the calendar June 24th and 25th we're going to be celebrating the anniversary we're going to do some soul winning on that Saturday beforehand not necessarily a full blown marathon of you know many many hours entire day of soul winning but definitely doing soul winning on that day we'll do a significant amount again not necessarily for morning to night but we'll be holding some soul winning on Saturday and then Sunday we'll have some type of fellowship and entertainment between the church services for those who want to hang out as we also invite and welcome Pastor Mahia to preach for us on that Sunday and then Pastor Stephen Anderson from Faith Forward Baptist Church will be preaching for us on July 5th which is a Wednesday night service and that is about it for our announcements this evening so I'm going to turn the service back over to Brother Peter who will lead us in our next song alright church open up your hymnals again song number 412 song 412 onward song 412 onward Christian soldiers song 412 on the verse onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before Christ the royal pastor leads against the pole forward into battle see his banner go onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before at the sign of triumph Satan's host a-flee onward Christian soldiers on to victory hell's foundations quiver at the shout of praise brothers lift your voices loud your anthem's praise onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before like a mighty army moves the church of God brothers we are treading where the saints have trod we are not divided oh what body we won in hope and God traded one in charity onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before onward then ye people join our happy throng blend with of your voices in the triumph song glory, love, and honor unto Christ the king this through countless ages man and angels sing onward Christian soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before amen church this time we might go Wednesday night call for you to go support a mission and ask some ushers while the offering things are being passed around you can open up your Bibles and the book of Psalms chapter 56 that's the book of Psalms chapter 56 as we do customary here at Strong Mo Baptist Church we're going to read the entire chapter as brother Austin can you please do that for us in the name of Jesus amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Thankfully they're not out there beating on the doors, right? And It's easier to receive these truths when times are easier. Like Amen! God is my strength and I'm not going to fear anyone. And look, Amen, right? Receive it now, but store this truth inside. Keep God's Word in your heart. Remember these verses. Hold to them in the good times. So when the hard times do come, when the oppressors do come, when things do get bad, you can have this brought to your recollection and stand firm in the Lord and have that strength provided to you from the Word of God knowing, hey look, I know I'm good. I read, what can man do unto me? This needs to be, we need to remind ourselves when the fear comes. No, no, no. I don't need to be afraid. No, I don't need to worry about cancel culture. No, I don't need to worry about someone getting me fired from my job. No, I don't need to worry about being arrested or being thrown in jail or whatever consequence might be threatened for standing on the Word of God. I don't need to fear because if I'm doing the work of God then God is with me and I have nothing to fear. And I will not fear what flesh can do unto me. Hebrews chapter 13, you can flip back if you would to Psalm 56, I'll just read this for you. Hebrews 13 verse 5, the Bible says, Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. What fear can we have in this life when we know that the Lord is said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake. God doesn't lie. If you are a child of God, you are His. And your heavenly Father is there for you. What do you truly have to fear? We can think about this even in a human sense. You think about a young son or a young daughter that's going off and doing their thing in the world and maybe you know trouble finds them or something but then they've got their dad watching over everything that's being done, right? And a dad that's going to say, Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute there, buddy. You don't know who you're messing with. You better back off now. In a human sense, we can think of that and think of the love and the trust that the child would have knowing, Hey, Dad's looking out for me. Dad's protecting me. Dad's there. Dad's watching over my shoulder. And you know what? Some people might have never felt anything like that before, but you can at least hopefully understand what that feels like because that's what we have with a heavenly Father. And we have someone who says, Look, I'm never going to look. Worldly Fathers, they failed. Men of this world, they failed. Many of them do. We're living in a society where even just culturally speaking, it's just becoming more of the norm for children to be growing up in single parent households. And unfortunately, oftentimes, it's the dad that's failing. And the dad that's skipping out. And the dad that's leaving the children to be just raised by Mom. And the dad that's not looking over to protect their children. The dad that's not looking out for them. And you don't know what that feels like because you haven't had that. Well, you know what? God's not like that. He's the one that is going to stand there and protect and look over you and never leave you or forsake you. So that, like verse 6 says in Hebrews 13, so that we may boldly say, you can boldly say, no question, no doubt, no hesitancy, the Lord is my helper. And I will not fear what man shall do unto me. God is with me. He's my Father. He is with me. I don't have to worry. I have nothing to fear about man. And as we go into darker times, and as the world becomes more corrupt, and the nation becomes more perverted, and people become more violent, there's going to be more cause to fear. Again, in the United States of America, we live in relative safety. Very much so. But you can see the tide turning already. Things have been becoming more violent over the years. And it's just a matter of time. The more godless a society becomes, the more wicked and evil it becomes, and the more violence there will be. And we know in the end times, as Matthew 24 says, that because iniquity did abound, the love of many waxes cold. So that's going to happen as the sinfulness increases. People aren't going to be as loving anymore. They're cold-hearted, not going to be there to help, not care, doesn't matter. Well, we have a god that's there for us. And he's never going to leave you nor forsake you. Amen for that. Psalm 56, look at verse number 5. So continuing on here, of course he is worried about them swallowing up and fighting against them. Verse 5 says every day, and again, this is a daily occurrence. He brings us up like verse after verse after verse saying every day, daily, every day. Every day they rest my words. Now you look at that word rest there. It has a w in front of it, so it's not like laying down and taking a nap. Rest, it's similar to the word wrestle. They're grappling, they're twisting. So what are they doing? They're taking his words and they're twisting them. They're taking what he said and they're taking it out of context and they're trying to make him look bad. Oh, well you said this and you said that. Why? Because they're attacking him. And this happens to men of God all the time. The enemy is going to come after you and try to take your words out of context and try to use your words against you and twist them and try to make them say things they don't. This has been happening to the word of God forever. It's Satan's attack on God's word, which he's been doing since the Garden of Eden. He's been resting the words of God. This is what the false teachers do in the false prophets. They use guile and deceit to beguile the unstable souls, to beguile the people who don't know, like Ephesians chapter 4 talks about that we may be that God's given teachers and instructors that we may be perfect and we may grow and that because there are these false teachers and false prophets that are out there trying to beguile people and they're out there twisting the word of God and they're out there with their false doctrines resting the words of God. David is dealing with this as well. These wicked people who are after him, they're resting my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil. They're just doing everything they can to attack. Look, when you see someone under attack that doesn't mean that God has left that person. That doesn't mean that God's not with that person. We don't believe in a prosperity gospel here that just says, if you don't have money and if you don't have things going for you then you must not be right with God and the man who has all the money and all the wealth, that person must be living right because they're being blessed of God. No, that's not how God operates. Now, sometimes God blesses with wealth to people, sometimes, but that's not an indicator of whether or not you're being holy and righteous and spiritual because there's a lot of people that are really wicked that have all manner of this world's good and all manner of this wealth and in fact the Bible teaches not to care about the riches of this world and not to think on those things and to set your thoughts on heavenly things because all the riches of this world are going to burn up. If you have the riches of this world, the Bible says care not for it. Don't worry about it. Be someone's servant. So when people are struggling, now sometimes people do have hardships in their life for being disobedient to God. But here's the thing, especially if you don't know, if you don't know that someone's in sin, you do not assume that that person's in sin, ever. You assume the best about them. You think good about people. That's what Job's friends did. See, Job's friends come to Job thinking, oh man, Job, so what'd you do? You must have been having some kind of sin, Job. What was it? Why don't you just tell us? No one gets treated like this from God if they weren't doing something really bad. This is a paraphrase of all those chapters of Job's friends, his so-called friends, coming after him and telling him, your children must have been wicked. You must have been wicked. Fess up, Job. What did you do? He's like, I didn't do anything. It wasn't me. And we know from the chapter, we know from the word of God that he wasn't Job. Satan was attacking him. So you can't just make these assumptions on people thinking, oh, they're going through our time. It must be that God's angry with them. No. Maybe they're actually doing really good and the devil's mad and he's attacking them. And we always ought to give people the benefit of the doubt as much as possible and always think well of people instead of just thinking, oh man, God must be angry with them and he's really whooping them. Maybe they're actually doing well and maybe they're doing right. And you know what, sometimes, because people have misconceptions and a lot of times people like to get lifted up and have a holier than thou attitude, God is pleased when people are going the right direction too, by the way. And I'll tell you what, I'd much rather spend my time with someone who is less spiritual but they're trying and they're working on it and they're trying to grow than someone who's much more spiritual but they're backsliding and they've got a holier than thou attitude and they think that they're so great, I don't want to spend that much time with that person. I'd much rather spend the time with the person who's going the right way. Because if people are going the wrong way, they're going to drag you down. And they often just project their own things on other people anyways. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Assume that they're doing right. I mean, if you have absolute certain reason to know like, yeah, that person's in some serious sin, okay, then maybe you're seeing the judgment of God. But generally speaking, when you see that, you don't assume that all throughout the Bible, men of God, holy men of God are being persecuted by the enemy. Not because they're not right with God, because they are right with God. Because there's a spiritual warfare going on and they're being attacked and targeted for the good work that they're doing. Verse number 6, Psalm 56 6. They gather themselves together. They hide themselves. They mark my steps when they wait for my soul. I mean, this is a pretty bad situation. They gather themselves together. So it's not like just one person. These are people plotting together. They're gathered together. How are we going to get David? How are we going to get this man of God? They're hiding themselves. They don't want to be seen publicly conspiring. This is a conspiracy theory that's true. Okay? Conspiracies happen. And wicked people have a lot of conspiracies. And don't let the wicked media or wicked people behind the media convince you that if someone's talking about a conspiracy, well, you just must be some nut job then. Who believes in these conspiracy theories? Because conspiracies are real. And wicked people are conspiring frequently to do evil things. There's bad people in this world. And you're a fool to just think, whoa, no one's evil. Everybody's good. No one's conspiring. No one's plotting and playing to evil. Yeah, right. They hide themselves. They mark my steps. I mean, they are watching what he's doing. They are paying really close attention and watching everything that he does when they wait for my soul. They are waiting to pounce. They're waiting to set a trap. Many reasons to fear. David's aware of this. He's aware of the enemy. But you know what? He's not fearful. When I am afraid, I'm putting my trust in the Lord. Verse 7, shall they escape by iniquity? In nine anger cast down the people, O God. So here he's asking God to intercede by casting down those wicked people. Cast them down, Lord. Look at what they're doing to me. They're after me daily. Every day they're plotting me. They're swallowing me up. They're resting my words. They're delaying wait for my soul. God, cast down that people. Deal with them. Verse 8, thou tellest my wanderings. Put thou my tears into thy bottle. Are they not in thy book? Now, keep your place here and turn if you would to Job 19. And when he says thou tellest my wanderings, he's saying you count my wanderings. So it's like a bank teller. Again, it's that telling is you're counting all of my wanderings. All the times that I have to flee. All the times that I'm out there running away from my enemies who are trying to kill me. It's not like it's happening once. He's saying you're counting them all. You're keeping track of how many times it's happening. Put my tears into thy bottle because of how much he's weeping. It's not like he's just weeping one time over all the stress and all the turmoil and everything else that's happening. He's like, start collecting this stuff, God, because this is happening a lot. Are they not in thy book? God keeps a perfect score in heaven. God knows everything that's done, and that should also provide us with some comfort as well. There's nothing wrong with calling on the Lord and asking Him and saying, God, You know what's going on here. You see what's happening. God, please help me. Please deliver me. Okay, these people have it out for me. Lord, let them burn. Deal with them, but please save me, O Lord. But at the same time, while we pray that, while we ask for those things, we can still have full confidence knowing full well that God knows exactly what's happening, and if He doesn't happen to step in at the moment you literally ask Him for it, He knows what's going on, and it will come in His time. We don't see the big picture, the grand scale. And you know what? Sometimes it may be the case that God is still even showing mercy on people who are doing wicked things. We don't know how things play out, but we know that the Lord is long suffering and not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And from God's vantage point, you know, we may just be like, Hey man, we're getting bombarded here. Someone might be close to, you know, breaking down and then ultimately getting saved. And we don't know that. And God might be allowing things to happen for other reasons, for other concerns, for other things to happen. We don't always know that, right? So we don't see the big picture, but we still always know that God knows what's going on, and that the wicked are not going to just get away with everything that they've done. He's got the score. And I love what He's saying here in Psalm 56a because He's saying, Hey, you know my wanderings. You know, put my tears in a bottle. Are they not in my book? You've got the record. You've got this written down. And this reminded me of what Job was saying because he was also in a lot of distress. In Job chapter 19, we're going to start reading in verse number 19. Bob reads, All my inward friends abhorred me. And they whom I loved are turned against me. My friends have become my enemies. The people I love now hate me. My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. And this is where that common phrase comes from in the Bible. You know, getting away by the skin of your teeth. This is where it comes from. He's literally talking about my bone cleaveth to my skin. He's emaciated. I mean, He is so thin to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. Like, I'm just barely hanging on by a thread here. Have pity upon me. Have pity upon me, O ye my friends. For the hand of God hath touched me. Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh? He's like, Look at me! What more do you want to do to me? Obviously, I'm afflicted. Why are you adding to my affliction my friends? Why are you doing this to me? Can you at least have some pity? Can you see what I'm dealing with and extend a little bit of compassion for me, please? O that my words were now written! O that they were printed in a book! Well, look at that. They are. Isn't that amazing? I mean, imagine Job, right? What he must think now. Like, at the time, I mean, he's saying these things, but I don't think he knows that they're literally going to be printed in a book. Like, I don't think he has that knowledge, even though he's speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost here. I don't think he just has that knowledge that, like, what I'm actually saying right now is going to be written in a book. But how powerful, he knew that he wasn't doing anything wrong, and he knew where he was. All the stuff that happened is just like, man, this just needs to be written down. And here it is. They're written. Verse 24, that they were graven with an iron pen and led in the rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my rains be consumed within me. And his rain is talking about his entrails. He said, my body is going to be destroyed. And he's already at the point. My skin's cleaving to my flesh. He's like, to my bone. And I'm at this point now where I feel like I'm ready to die. And he still hasn't lost his hope. And everybody's turned their back on him. His friends have hated him. And I could still stand here knowing that even after the worms are eating this flesh, I'm going to see the Lord in my body talking about the resurrection that he knows that he is going to be a part of. And he's going to see the Lord perfectly in that day. And just what a great, I think it's very similar what Job is going through with what David's going through here. And they're both kind of making these statements about being written in the book and being recorded forever. Let's go back to Psalm 56. ... ... ... Verse number nine. When I cry unto thee. And that word cry there is not talking about weeping. It's talking about crying out. Yelling out. When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back. This I know. For God is for me. When you know that God is for you. Because like I said, you're faithful. You're serving the Lord. You're doing what's right. God's for you. Okay? This is in that similar example I was talking about, like Dad watching over his child. It's when the kid turns back and goes, Dad! This guy's bullying me! And that's going to make him turn and flee. And this is what he's saying. When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back. They're going to go because they're not going to mess with the Lord. And even if they're foolish enough to try to, obviously God is for me. We have God on our side. No reason to fear. Verse ten. In God will I praise His word. In the Lord will I praise His word. Amen. I mean, talk about a reason to be thankful and to praise God. We've got a defender. We've got someone there to fight for us. We've got someone there to make us not afraid. To squash all of our fears. To put all of our trust in the Lord. Hey, that's joyful. That's happy. That's great news. And what a great song this is. Right? You're going through. He's listing the hardships and the trials. But then right here near the end, there's only a few verses left. He's saying, In God will I praise His word. In the Lord will I praise His word. In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Amen. Turn to Matthew chapter ten. It's the last verse. I just want to, you know, because this comes up again about not fearing, not being afraid, not what man can do unto you. And we're going to see this in Matthew ten. I'm going to cover this real quickly because this verse should not be a cause of confusion for anyone. But I just want to make sure we cover this. Matthew chapter ten, we're going to start reading verse number twenty-four. And we're going to get this in the full context. Instead of just focusing in and honing in on one verse or one part of one verse. That some may try to twist and rest to make it say something it doesn't mean. Verse twenty-four, let's get this in context. The Bible says, The disciples not above his master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, which is basically Satan, it's the name of a devil, how much more shall they call them of his household? You're saying, look, if they're calling me the devil how much more are they going to call you names and say you're the devil and go after you? I mean, if they're going after the perfect one and the just one and if they're going to reject Jesus Christ and call names on him and cast out his name as evil, then what do you think they're going to do to you? And the reason why I'm going to take the time and dig into this a little bit is because this is the same truth that we are reading about in Psalm fifty-six that we see in many other places in the Bible. It's talking about not fearing. It's talking about building up your confidence in the Lord. It's talking about still doing the things that are hard and still standing for the Lord even when people are against you. He's giving the warning saying, look, if they've called me Beelzebub, what do you think they're going to call you? Verse number twenty-six, fear them not therefore. Don't be afraid just because they're calling you these names. They called me names, so if they call you names don't be afraid. Right? Fear them not. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known. God knows what's going on. No matter how much they lie and try to cover up the truth and hide what they're doing and sneak around and plot against you and mark your steps and try to slander you and say lies about you, the truth always will be revealed. So don't worry. Don't fear. When the lies come, don't worry. They lied about Christ over and over and over again but you know what? The truth always prevails. Fear them not therefore. Verse twenty-seven, what I tell you in darkness that speak ye in light and what ye hear in the ear that preach ye upon the housetops. Anything you've learned from the Lord in your Bible reading when you're at home at night and you're reading the word of God, hey, everything that's revealed unto you he says don't keep that secret. Shout it from the housetops. Make sure everyone hears this. The truth, the light needs to go forth and don't be afraid of what people might say or do. Don't fear. And he reiterates this in verse twenty-eight, and fear not them which kill the body. Isn't this the same as what he's saying about not fearing what flesh can do unto me, not fearing what man can do unto me. Not fearing what these people might do. Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body and hell. Jesus is encouraging his people. He's telling them not to worry. He's telling them not to fear. Look, I've dealt with this. You're going to deal with this too. I'm warning you about this so that you can stay strong, so you can be confident, so you can keep preaching. You know what he's not saying here? Hey, just keep preaching because if you don't, I'm sending you to hell. That's not what this verse is saying. He's saying if you're going to fear anybody, you don't fear man. You don't fear the wicked person that's coming against you, saying all manner of evil against you. Hey, fear God because who is it that's able to destroy both soul and body and hell? God. And that's the only one you should fear because God is able to cast those wicked people into hell. Their soul and their body is going into hell. Hey, don't fear anyone but God. This isn't saying, oh, well, if you don't do all these things, then you're going to be destroyed in hell. That's ridiculous. That doesn't even fit with the context of what he's trying to do and encourage his disciples here with. It doesn't fit in with any of the themes or any of the context that we see all throughout the Bible, all throughout the Psalms. We're reading this. Hey, people are going to come against you. They're going to fight against you, but don't fear. Don't be afraid. Put your trust in the Lord. And then he follows this up in verse 28 with verse 29. If his goal was to try to just scare the living daylights out of his disciples, that, wow, I don't want to go to hell, why is he encouraging so much all throughout this passage? That doesn't make any sense. I mean, he's edifying them. He's trying to build them up. He's giving them fair warning of what's going to come, but he's not telling them that, well, if you don't do this, or you're going to burn in hell for a thousand years, or you're going to burn in hell at all for any amount of time, that's ridiculous. It's not what this passage is teaching. People want to rest the word of God into saying something that it doesn't mean at all. But if you just want to focus on that one verse there in verse 28, who is he talking to here? Well, he's talking to his disciples. Then why does he tell them to fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body of hell if he's not going to throw their soul and body of hell? Straining at a net and swallowing a camel. Let's go back to Psalm 56. ... ... ... ... So real quickly reviewing in Psalm 56 in verse number 10, In God I will praise His word. In the Lord will I praise His word. In God if I put my trust, I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, O God. I will render praises unto Thee. I'm not going to be afraid what man can do to me, because just like we read in Hebrews chapter 13, you know, that I will never leave Thee nor forsake Thee. God's vows are upon you, O believer in Christ. His vows. God keeps His vows. God is faithful. Jesus is faithful. The Bible says in the hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. That's a vow. That's a promise that God has made. Hey, whosoever believeth shall never perish. Never. Shall never see death. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this. Amen. Yes, I do. God's vows are upon me. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that heareth my word, and believeth on me, that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is past from death unto life. Amen. His vows are upon me. And if that's the case, what do I have to fear? What do I have to fear? God promised! He'll never leave me or forsake me. So I'm going to keep walking with God because God is with me. And if God be for us, amen. Verse 13, for thou hast delivered my soul from death. Wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living? You've already delivered me from hell. So why won't you just keep my feet, right, to be able to keep walking in the land of the living, in the light of the living, right? Just keep me alive longer, God. You've already delivered me from hell. Just keep me going. Keep me going a little bit more. Keep me going so I can keep doing your will. Keep me going so I can keep serving you here. That's the prayer. And we could boldly call on the Lord with a prayer like that. Confidently, with great hope, keep these psalms in your heart. And again, another reason why the psalms are songs, songs are easy to memorize. Songs will stay with you. These are great truths in the Word of God that are very encouraging to keep with you. So if you're going to have some verses memorized that will definitely help encourage you in time of need, psalms are a great place to start. Now look, memorize all of God's Word, right? Because it all has value, it all is good for you. Memorize Proverbs, it will make you wise. Memorize Psalms, so these are going to encourage you and help strengthen you and help keep you going. In your time of need, you need a song. Think on these. Don't let these words pass out of your consciousness, out of your mind. You will need them one day. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we love you. We thank you so much for the encouragement in your Word. We thank you for being there for us. We thank you for being so faithful and so trustworthy that there is not a shred of doubt in our minds that you would ever turn your back on us, Lord, because you have promised and we know that you are true. We thank you for being there for us. We thank you for being the most loving father there could ever be. And Lord, please guide us, please help us. When the evildoers come, Lord, please keep us safe and help us to stay strong and help us, Lord, please to bring these verses to remembrance when we all go through our own trials. Please bring these back and help us to find the strength that we need in your Word. Lord, we love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, we're going to sing one last song before we're dismissed for the evening. Brother Peter, will you please lead us? Right church? Here goes. Song number 124. Song 124, God will take care of you. Song 124 on the verse, God, God, dismayed God will take care of you. God will God will take God will take care of you. Through every day, He will take care of you. God will take care of you. Though your days are cold and hard to fail, God will take care of you. When dangers pierce your path of sale, God will take care of you. God will take care of you. Through every day or all the way, He will take care of you. God will take care of you. All you may need He will provide. God will take care of you. Nothing you ask will be denied. God will take care of you. God will take care of you. Through every day or all the way, He will take care of you. God will take care of you. On the last, no matter what may be the test, God will take care of you. Leaning weary one upon his breast, God will take care of you. God will take care of you. Through every day or all the way, He will take care of you. God will take care of you.