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We're here in 2 Samuel 22, and 2 Samuel 22 is kind of similar to the previous chapter where it's just kind of a tag on chapter at the end of this book of 2 Samuel. We don't know exactly when this particular portion of scripture is really happening as far as like the exact timeline. It's just giving a relative point. It's just saying, hey, whenever he got triumph over all of his enemies, he sang this song. There's other places in scripture where we see the children of Israel singing a song of victory or essentially praising the Lord for the victories that they have received. Keep your finger and go to Exodus 15 for just a second. Go to Exodus chapter 15. Reminds me of how the children of Israel in Exodus chapter 14, they passed the Red Sea. All the Egyptians are killed through the Red Sea. The soldiers, the sea closes over them and they're all destroyed and all their dead bodies are floating. And it says in Exodus 15 verse 1, Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. Now go back if you would. What I like about reading that is it's interesting how the Christian Bible teaches that whenever our enemies are destroyed and killed, we sing praises unto God. You know, a lot of people think of the idea of wishing your enemy to die is like an unchristian value or that there's some something wrong with being joyful or happy that your enemy's been destroyed. But that's actually a Christian doctrine. That's actually what we see consistent in the Bible is that you pray for deliverance. You pray for the Lord to avenge your enemy. And when he finally does, you actually praise the Lord for that. And you sing and you rejoice and you have happiness. Whenever your enemy has been destroyed. Now, why I think that's really important of a chapter for us as a church is because there's going to be a day when we have a great victory. I believe that the Lord is going to show himself strong on our behalf. I believe we have a lot of enemies right now, but our enemies, their day is coming. And there will be a day when the Lord gives us some great victories. And what we have to do is we have to remind ourselves now. We have to we have to put it in our hearts now that we will praise the Lord when that day comes, that when that day of victory happens, when we see our enemies defeated instead of glorifying ourselves or or glorifying some other person or, you know, glorifying the Red Sea. Right. You see, throughout the Bible, the heathen would worship the works of their hands. They worship idols. They worship the sun. They worship the rain. They worship, you know, basically natural forces or persons. You know, instead of actually worshiping the God, the one that actually delivered them. You know, when David killed Goliath, he didn't worship his slingshot. He didn't take his slingshot and put it in a trophy box and hang it up on the wall. No, he realized it was God that had delivered him. It was God that gave him the victory. And so we should worship God. You know, a lot of sports athletes today, they worship their hands. They worship them, their image, their jersey or whatever it is, as opposed to saying, you know, God's the one that even gave me this ability. God's the one that's given me all these talents and giving him the honor and the glory and the praise for that victory. You know, our culture used to be that when when athletes would win, they would actually glorify God initially because they knew that was what was popular in the culture. I don't know if they actually meant it sincerely, but they just knew that that was what you do is that you give honor and glory to God first above anyone and everyone else. That's almost disappeared completely from our culture. It seems like nowadays you never see the Super Bowl champs or whoever wins the NBA finals or a golf tournament or anything praising God anymore. It's kind of a rarity. But that is a Christian value is when you have victory, you praise God. And who more than the church should we praise God if we get victories in our life? When we have our prayers answered, we should sing praises unto the Lord. We should thank him for the victories we've had in our life. You know, even so winning, we should really be giving him the honor and the glory. You know, we sing the songs like bringing the sheaves and we sing in other songs about soul winning. We need to make sure that we're realizing it's God that's giving us that victory. It's God that's giving us that opportunity to go out. And what door to door salesman ever has had the success that our soul winners have when we go someone, you know, and our product. You know, arguably speaking, not that many people are interested in. And it's you guys aren't even that great a salesman. It's that God's gospel is that good, you know, because I mean, I've been sewing some of the on. I'm like, you're not a very good salesperson, but you got that person saved. I don't know how it's just like, you know, I guess the gospels is that good. OK, whereas you could take the greatest salesman without the Holy Spirit and he can't get the job done. You take someone that's kind of awkward, but as the gospel and filled with the Holy Spirit and they get someone saved. And really, we need to realize where that power is coming from. It's coming from God. And so for David to sing this song is a reminder to us of how we are supposed to sing our praise in the Lord when he gives us victory in our life. You know, look at what it says in verse one. And David spake in the Lord the words of this song and the day that the Lord delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul. Now, again, from the timing perspective, I don't know when that is. I don't know if it's more relevant to all of the enemies are more relevant to Saul or who it's combining. Obviously, there was a lot of times when God delivered David in his life. But generally speaking, the Bible simply saying, hey, here. Here's a day that he's saying a lot of praises. Probably makes sense around the timeline of when he's, you know, King and Hebron or maybe coming back in Jerusalem, one of those periods of time, because he kind of has a lot of victory in those seasons. But obviously, David has enemies his whole life. It could have been at the end of his life and just kind of when he's essentially won, because there's kind of a point in David's life where he's basically beat everyone. And he's subdued everyone. And he's he's kind of set up the kingdom for his son Solomon to come in here and build the temple. And there's not really any more enemies. So perhaps it's just a lumping of all those individuals. But nevertheless, the point is that he's singing praise about God, delivering him from all of his enemies and even specifically, verse two, and he said, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, the God of my rock. And him will I trust. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my savior. Thou savest me from violence. One other thing you have to realize is that David's enemies were not just paper tigers. They weren't just people, you know, putting bad comments online about them. They weren't just banning them from social media. These people wanted to murder David. They wanted to brutally kill him and kill all of his family and kill all of his friends. And so he was being spared from death, from physical violence. And he didn't even have to lift a finger. God is the one that delivers him. God's the one that gives him this victory here. Saul wanted to kill David many times over. Yet the Lord delivered him. Yet the Lord preserved him. The Lord allowed him to be triumphant. And, you know, sometimes you have to just run. Because think about this. David's not a coward. Like, if you were going to say anything about David, not a coward. I mean, he faced Goliath. And when he faced Goliath, the Bible says that he ran. He, like, ran towards the Philistine. You know, he didn't just kind of, like, stay back and, like, throw a slingshot. He's running at the Philistine with a slingshot and kills him and just immediately cuts his head off, carrying the head around, and then just killing a bunch more Philistines. You know, when he needs to get a hundred foreskins to marry Saul's daughter, here's 200. You know, David's not a coward, but here's the thing. He ran from Saul, didn't he? Why? Because Saul wasn't someone he was supposed to fight. Saul wasn't someone that he was supposed to essentially defend himself from. And so sometimes you just have to let the Lord fight those battles. You know, there's going to be all kinds of enemies, right? There's reprobates, there's false prophets, there's people that are just worldly enemies in the sense that they're not even a reprobate necessarily, but they're just against you. You know, people that just kind of are trying to hinder you or do evil to you. Perhaps they're maybe the guys that make idols. So they're not necessarily even a reprobate. They just have a lot of money or they're interested in money. Jews, you know? And look, he's, oh, they're a reprobate. Not everybody's a reprobate, okay, folks? You know, we understand there's the dogs, there's the dogs, there's the false prophets, there's the people that love money, and then there's even saved people. There's godly people in the sense that they're saved, but they're just your enemy. They've turned from the Lord in a certain area of their life and they're attacking you and they're going after you. You know, so it's like there's certain people that I'll fight hardcore. You know, the dogs and the false prophets, but then the saved people that are attacking me, you know, it's like we just want to kind of stay away from them and just be like, hey, this guy's a bozo, but, you know, we're going to let him just, we'll let the Lord figure that one out, right? But no matter what, we realize God's going to deliver you out of all their hand and then you just praise the Lord when you get that victory. And of course, he's saying that the Lord is his rock, verse two. But then in verse three, he says this, the God of my rock. Now, I really like this phrasing because it's kind of an illusion here of the father and the son. And it gives us, you know, it's not necessarily a Trinity full picture because it doesn't really have the Holy Spirit in it. But at least the notes that there's kind of this distinction between the rock and the God of my rock, denoting that there's more than just one here. There's something else kind of in this picture. Now, this particular song is also found in Psalms 18. OK, go just keep your finger. Go to Psalms 18. But for some reason, Psalms 18 is a little bit different. Now, that's OK with me. You know, it doesn't bother me. But, you know, this is the codified song version. The other one's what David sang, right? Have you ever sang a song? You just added words or changed the words a little bit. So sometimes that's how it works, right? And here in Psalm 18, we have recorded basically the exact same thing. And it says in verse number one, I will love thee, O Lord my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. Notice this, my God. So in this particular version of it, it's saying that the rock is God. And specifically, it's David's God. But then we also have recorded in scripture in 2 Samuel 22 and verse number three, the God of my rock. So you'd ask this question, well, how can your God have a God? But that can be answered through the Trinity because we have the Lord Jesus Christ who is God. And then Jesus Christ, according to the Bible, has a God. Now go to, if you would, to Hebrews chapter number one. And let's just let the Bible explain this doctrine to us a little bit. But, you know, the word God, while it can really kind of mean a lot of different things depending upon the context, one of the ways that I liken the word God to our English vernacular is just the word ruler. Ruler. OK, so many times the word God is kind of used in this sense. Like think about Joseph talking about Pharaoh. He says that he's been made a God and a Pharaoh, right? What or a father and a Pharaoh. That's kind of like he's like a ruler. Joseph says he's the God of the land. What does that mean? It means he's the ruler. When we talk about the devil, the devil's known as the God of this world. What does that mean? You know, he's not deity. It's just the fact that he's the ruler. OK. And even other places in scripture, the Bible talks about the chief priests and the rulers being considered gods. Right. But not that they're God in heaven. They're not deity. They're just simply the ruler within the Trinity. Even though Jesus Christ is 100 percent God, the Father is 100 percent God and the Holy Spirit is 100 percent God. And we believe that there is there is a authority structure within the Godhead or the Trinity, the divinity of God. So we have the father at the top. We have the son and we have the Holy Spirit. And the son is subject under the father, as First Corinthians 15 describes. So in a sense, the son has a ruler, as it were, someone that is giving him commands and he's obeying the father. Now, in Hebrews, chapter number one, we have a lot of descriptions about Jesus. This says in verse eight, but unto the son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is a scepter of thy kingdom. So according to scripture, the son of God is God. And not only is he God, God the father considers him God. OK. So in this sense, when we see the word God, what are we kind of denoting here? We're not really denoting the ruler perspective because the son is not the ruler of the father. We're noting the deity aspect. So sometimes God is an essence and reference to the deity of the person. And that's what we're denoting here with Jesus, is that he's God. I mean, he is deity. OK, verse nine, thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with gladness above thy fellows. Now again, God can mean a lot of things. What does it mean in verse nine? The first God, therefore God, means God the father. OK. And then it says even thy God. What does that mean? Ruler. So it's basically saying Jesus Christ is deity and then God the father is his ruler. OK. It's kind of the, you know, what we're kind of getting is the semblance of this. Isn't that kind of in the same reference that we see in Second Samuel 22, where we have the rock, which is David's God, which would mean what? Who's the ruler of David? Jesus Christ, the son of God, is David's ruler, is his God, even in the Old Testament. But then we see that the rock, the God of my rock. Who's that talking about? God the father. And so, you know, some people think like the Trinity is a New Testament doctrine. That's not true. No, no, no. They had the father, the son of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, and they believed and trusted in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. You know, when Jesus Christ showed up, I don't know if you remember this, but he claimed to be the son of God. What did the Jews say? God doesn't have a son. No, that's Muslims. What did the Jews say? You're calling yourself God. That's what they said. They didn't say, what are you talking about son here? What are you talking about Trinity here? There's only one God. They never said that. I mean, show me in the scripture where the Jews are oneness. I mean, even the unsaved Jews aren't oneness. The unsaved Jews realized, though, by him claiming the title of son of God, he was denoting he is God. He's God in the flesh, and that's why they rejected him being the son of God, is not just because he's the son, but because that's deity. And he was showing them that he's deity by doing things like only God can do. Walking on water, and healing people, and raising people from the dead, forgiving sin, which is something that only God could do. Men in the Bible heal people. Men in the Bible raise people from the dead. Men in the Bible did all kinds of miracles. They walk through the Red Sea. But you know what men never did in the Bible? Forgive sin. You know who forgave sin? Jesus Christ. And the God of the Old Testament, they'll be like, oh, the God of the Old Testament. That was Jesus. You know who created everything? Jesus. I mean, what does it even say in the next verse, verse 10? And thou, Lord, in the beginning has laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands. Oh, well, you know, back in the Old Testament, it was the Father and just words. And then the words became the Son. No, no, no. No, who made the world? The Son's hands made the world. You know, you know, it has hands, a person. Why? Because Jesus Christ is a person. And you say, when did he become a person? That's a dumb question, because he's always been a person. We believe in the three persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. You say, when did they come into existence? Never, because they always were. There was never a point when they came into existence. Now, of course, Jesus Christ manifested himself, right? He became flesh. But you know what? It wasn't nothing became flesh. He became flesh. Okay, God was manifest in the flesh. It wasn't that nothing came into existence through flesh. It was that God manifested himself in that flesh, and he put on flesh. He took on flesh. We were actually created in our mother's wombs, or in the lower parts of the earth, depending on how you want to read that in the verse. But there was a point in time when we just came into existence, okay? In our mother's womb, essentially, and we were flesh as well. But that's different than God from heaven, because he came down from heaven, and became flesh, and put on the body that God had given him. But he was already in heaven, and he already had hands, and he already created everything, as the Bible describes Jesus Christ, the root and offspring of David. Now, that's a conundrum for us in a finite world, being a finite creation. We can't really understand infinite things entirely. But we understand that they're true. I don't understand infinity, okay? But I understand that infinity is true, because if you ask me, let's go back to the furthest point in human history, or whatever the furthest time that we could ever go back to, and say, well, what happened five minutes before that? And what happened five minutes before that? And what happened five minutes before that? The only thing that makes sense is that time goes in every direction, forever. Now you say, how do you understand eternity? I can't fully understand what eternity is, but I would never be so foolish to deny the existence of eternity, because there's no logical conception that you can draw up to destroy eternity. Eternity has to exist. Can I understand that? No, okay? God is three persons, and yet it's one God. You say, can you fully comprehend that? No, I can't. But I fully comprehend that there's three persons that are one God. So it's like some people like to hide, people that don't believe in the Trinity are just usually not saved. I would say 100% of the time, but maybe there's an exception. I don't know. It's possible someone was ignorant, but someone denying the Trinity, I don't believe they're saved, okay? But these people that try to pretend like they're saved, and then claim they don't believe in the Trinity, what they like to do is they like to hide behind the fact that the Trinity is a little bit too difficult of a concept for us to fully wrap our minds around, okay? But that's not the same as denying that there's three persons, one God. Just like, you know what? I get in my truck and I drive home. I have no idea how every single component of my truck works. I don't know how all the microchips and the computer, but you know what? I don't deny the existence of my truck. You know, I don't know how every single mechanism in my computer works, but I'm not going to deny that my computer works. I'm not going to deny that there's a motherboard in my computer. But you say, oh, well, do you know everything about the motherboard? No, but I know the motherboard exists, and I know the motherboard's in my computer, and that's why it runs, okay? So it's like, well, do you know everything about the Trinity? No, I don't. You know, I know there's a Trinity. I know there's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I know that they're all God. Case closed. I don't need to know how all that works, or every other aspect of that. And of course, we even have Trinity's that we deal in every day. I mean, we have time, past, present, and future, would you say that the past is time? Absolutely. What have you said? Past is kind of time. It's a little bit time. It's like time. No, it's 100% time. There's nothing about the past that's not time. But the past is not the future. There are different concepts of time. And when it comes to God, there's different manifestations of God. There's the Father, there's the Son, there's the Holy Ghost. But whoever Jesus is, is 100% God. There's nothing about Jesus that's not God. He's 100% God, and he's 100% man. And we have yet recorded in the scripture the God of that rock. God the Father. Now, if you go back to 2 Samuel 22, and again, this is not a New Testament doctrine. It might be more clear in the New Testament, I agree. Just like salvation. Salvation's not a New Testament doctrine. It's clearer in the New Testament. You know, the end times is not a New Testament doctrine. It's clear in the Book of Revelation, though. Everything in the New Testament is simply the Old Testament clearer. It's basically you got glasses on now. You know, before, you couldn't really see very well. You saw through a glass darkly, and then someone just turned on that bifocal. You know, it's like you go to the doctor, the eye doctor, A or B. You know, it's like you're still looking at the same thing. It just one's a little bit sharper than the other, right? And sometimes, you know, depending on what we're talking about, you can't even tell, right? Once they finally get to the point where you're like, you can't tell, then they're like, all right, that's the prescription for you, you know? And again, even in the Bible, you could find tons of doctrines where it's hard to argue which one's more clear on, because you got plenty of great verses in the Old Testament, plenty of great verses in the New Testament. There's a lot of good stuff in both. We believe both. And the Trinity is a doctrine that's taught from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. There's not, it's not like, well, you have one verse or what. No, it's the whole Bible. The reason why people don't believe in the Trinity is because they're not saved. Just like, just like salvation. Oh, well, salvation, you know, there's only a few verses on that. No, no, it's the whole Bible, folks. Okay, everything is the whole Bible. It's just when you're not saved, none of it makes sense to you. You can't understand any of it. So, of course, they don't believe in the Trinity. And of course, believing in the Trinity, while it's not necessarily something that you have to emphasize when you go soloing, I still bring it up, it's kind of one of those things where it's like, if you showed somebody a picture on the wall and they can't see it from afar, you're like, this guy needs glasses, right? And, and so it's kind of like with the Trinity, it's like when this person can't see the Trinity, it's like this person's just not saved. They need glasses, you know, they need the Holy Spirit. It's kind of a, it's kind of a marker or an indication that the person is not saved. Okay. Because if you're saved, you're going to believe the Trinity. And the only exception would be someone that only hears about Jesus and the gospel and gets saved and has heard nothing before. But as soon as they're confronted with the gospel or they're confronted with the Trinity, they're going to believe it. It's kind of like the Old Testament. Most, I believe most of the people that we read about in the New Testament were already saved. And when it says they believed on Jesus Christ, it wasn't that they were getting saved, it's that they were recognizing the person they believed in. Okay. Because John the Baptist has got a lot of people saved. You know, he's like, hey, you got to believe on him. That's going to come after me. That is on Christ Jesus, right? But they didn't know who that was in the crowd. So then when Jesus shows up and he starts talking, they're like, hey, that's that guy that I believed in. That's my Messiah. Just like us, we've never seen Jesus. Who in here is seeing Jesus? You can leave. No, I'm just kidding. But don't you believe wholeheartedly the moment you see Jesus, you're going to recognize him? Yeah. And you're going to believe that that's who Jesus is. Okay. Not some long haired, effeminate hippie that all these freaks worship out there. Okay. You're going to see the real Lord and Savior is a bright and shining light. And we're going to be like, that's Jesus. Okay. That's kind of how it was in the flesh in the sense that in the time of the Jews, a lot of people are already saved. Okay. But they're getting this like that actually the person that I believed in too. And we found him and we believed in him. And now it's just a recognition of the fact that they're already saved. Just like someone who's already saved. They're going to believe the virgin birth. They're going to believe in the Trinity. They're going to believe the core doctrines of the faith. And when someone doesn't, it's like, there's something weird about you. That would be the same conundrum of somebody saying, Hey, you know, I believe in the coming Messiah, but it's not this guy of Jesus and Nazareth. You're not saved. You know, it doesn't matter what you say if you don't, if you're not connecting the dots here, it's because you're just not saved. Okay. Just like when you see on the wall, everybody can see an A on the wall. And the guy's saying it's a B it's like, you don't, you need glasses. Okay. Just like when it comes to the Bible, when you're showing people spiritual pictures and you're showing them all these things and they can't get it often, it's just because they're not saved. Now, I don't want to take this doctrine too, too far to the idea of like, you show someone something in the Bible and they don't agree with it. You're unsafe. You know? Okay. I mean, we want to give grace to people and we want to work on them, but it's just, it's one of those things when they just can't believe anything in the Bible. You start wondering like, are you saved? You know, what's, what's the problem here? So we have this great picture of the Trinity and you know, this chapter is so long. There's no way I can cover all of it this evening. I'm, I'm, I'm giving you that, that relief right now. You can all breathe. Okay. But I had planned to try and get through it, but I'm not going to. But here's the thing. This, this, this, this song is so great because it just has so many good truths that are like rabbits that you can just run on. I ran on that rabbit. Okay. So we're going to come back to our chapter here and kind of focus on, on the context is that doesn't really have anything to do with this chapter. This chapter again is about the victory that God has given to David. But I wanted us to realize who gave him the victory. It was Jesus. It wasn't just the God of the Old Testament. It was the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay. And of course, the God of that rock is also on his team because you get the son, you get the father too. And we have here in verse four, I will call on the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemies. Now, another thing you have to understand is that the Bible will use similar phraseology, but denoting two types of salvation, physical salvation and spiritual salvation. Now both are achieved by the same vehicle of calling upon the name of the Lord. Okay. But you have to realize that not every time someone's calling on the name of the Lord is it physical salvation and not every time someone's calling on the name of the Lord is it spiritual salvation. Okay. So we don't want to, we don't want to like get these confused. And some people, some idiots out there will try to take both or they'll take one of these doctrines and apply it to all of the verses. So essentially like every time they call upon the Lord, it's always spiritual salvation. And then some people go the other way where every time you call on the Lord, it's only physical salvation. Both is a foolish way to interpret the Bible. Okay. Both have serious problems because if you, if you believe it's always spiritual, then you start teaching work salvation. When you start believing that it's always physical, you start believing that you don't have to pray to get saved, which is even, is just weird. Okay. You have to pray to get physically saved, but not spiritually saved. It's like, what kind of idiot are you? Okay. Now let's just prove that calling upon the name of the Lord is not always physical. Now in this place, it is okay. Go if you would to Acts chapter nine though, I want to show you some other places in the Bible, but of course God wants us to ask him for everything. Okay. That makes sense. Just like a father wants his children and his wife to ask for things. You know, we're not mind readers folks. Okay. If you want stuff, you ask us for it. Okay. If you don't want things, don't ask for it because we're really good at not getting things you don't ask for. I'm sure some wives in here can agree with that and they would probably say amen, but we're going to refrain. Acts chapter nine, verse 13. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he had done to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all that call on thy name. Now, let me ask you this question. Those who got saved early, early Christians, and they called upon the name of the Lord. Did they get physically saved from Saul? No, it's all was binding them and putting them in prison and even causing all kinds of evil to happen to them. So did they get physical salvation when they had called on the name Lord? No, that was obviously a spiritual salvation that they had received. Wasn't it? Look at chapter 22, acts chapter 22, acts chapter 22. And look at verse 12, the Bible says, and one Ananias, a devout man, according to the law, having good report of all the Jews, which dwelt there came unto me and stood and said unto me, brother Saul received thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon it. And he said, the God of our fathers had chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will and see that just one should hear the voice of his mouth. But thou shalt be his witness in all men of what thou has seen and heard. And now why terriest thou arise, be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. So notice in this passage, the apostle Paul, he's been blinded. He saw the Lord on the, on the road to Damascus, but he, I believe he wasn't saved spiritually at this point in time. Now, is there anything that's really an immediate physical danger though of Saul? No, he obviously is blind and that's not great, but there's not like some enemy persecuting him or someone coming after him. So also Ananias though, is not saying, Hey, call the name of the Lord and be rescued from your enemies. He's saying, wash away thy sins. Now, how do I wash away my sins by calling on the name of the Lord? That's through faith in Jesus Christ. So of course this transaction, again, do I have to do that every single day? How many times do I have to wash my sins away? That's a one-time transaction of the blood of Jesus Christ being applied to you and you're clean as snow and their new man has been completely cleansed and renewed and you're saved forever. So this calling on the name of the Lord is a spiritual salvation. Now, when Paul received this, is that going to protect him from physical danger for the rest of his life? Or is in fact, by doing this, he's now going to have the worst physical experiences of his life. He's going to be beaten and shipwrecked and all kinds of horrible things are going to happen to him physically because it wasn't this situation where he's calling on the name of the Lord and being rescued from physical danger. It was a spiritual salvation. Romans chapter number 10, flip over there for a moment. How about when Peter said, he looked at the Lord though and he was drowning and he said, Lord, save me. Was that him going, is that him saying, I want to go to heaven? No, that was obviously a physical salvation. So of course, sometimes in the Bible, calling on the name of the Lord, it's physical salvation. You know, when you're thrown in the lion's den, that prayer is so you don't get eaten by lions. Okay, when you're about to be thrown in the fiery furnace, that calling on the name of the Lord is so you don't get burned to death. You know, whenever you're unsaved and you call on the name of the Lord, that is to go to heaven. Okay, so both are true in the Bible. We have to be careful when we study scripture because sometimes a phrase we might get really carried away with it, thinking, oh, calling on the name of the Lord is always spiritual, always spiritual, always spiritual. Sometimes it's physical, but then also sometimes it's spiritual, right? So we have to discern the context of the passage, make sure doctrine is lining up correctly. Romans chapter number 10, verse number one, rather than my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Now, again, at that current time, is there really an impending doom? There isn't an immediate doom. Of course, we know eventually in AD 70, the Romans are going to completely wipe them out. And yet, is that really what Paul's really hoping for, is that they just don't get physically wiped out? Of course, that's an aspect of it, but what he's describing here is a spiritual salvation because that's the context of Romans one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. And then when he gets to 10, he didn't just randomly change, I just hope these guys don't die or something. You know, from what? I mean, there's not, is there an immediate danger to just all Jews at this point? Is this like a Haman situation where there's a certain day that they're going to all be delivered unto their enemies and slain? No, it's a generic saving that he's talking about spiritually, he wants them to be spiritually saved. And of course, he says in verse number three, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves on the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. End of the law, meaning there's no point in the law for this kind of righteousness because the law can't give you righteousness. The law is righteous. The law tells you that you're not righteous. That's what the law does. Okay, so if you want to know how to be righteous, it's by belief in Jesus Christ. And he's saying they were trying to be righteous through the law, never happened. So really, their righteousness came through faith in Jesus Christ, or they didn't have any. And of course, that's what the Bible is describing. Verse five, for Moses described the righteous which is the law, that the man which does those things shall live by them. Okay, but then it gives you the righteous which is by faith. If you skip down to verse 13, it says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Again, in what part of this chapter has it said, you know, when you're about to die physically, call upon the name of the Lord. When you're in physical danger, call in the name of the Lord. When you're afraid of cancer, call in the name of the Lord. I mean, is anything in this talking about physical danger or is it talking about receiving righteousness? The whole passage is about receiving righteousness which is what it's clearly about. Even the next phrase, how then shall they call on him whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach, except they be sent as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not obeyed the gospel for Isaiah saith the Lord who hath believed our report, so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So of course, Romans 10 is what we use when we go soul-wanting because it's so clear about someone preaching the gospel, being sent, preaching the gospel, people believing it and then calling on the name of the Lord and doing what? Spiritually saved, spiritually going to go to heaven, spiritually they've been given righteousness. This has nothing to do with physical salvation. Now go back if you went through our passage, 2 Samuel chapter 22, when he says here in verse 4, I will call on the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall be saved by my enemies. This is not spiritual salvation. This is physical salvation. Now of course, it's similar in the sense that God wants you to have faith in him, and he wants you to pray to him. And I can still liken this to spiritual salvation in the sense that just like David did nothing to be saved from his enemies physically, it's the same way you do nothing to get saved spiritually. They both have those same common elements. But many times in the Bible, we call on the name of the Lord for that physical salvation on top of it. You know, like people, when we've got so many, often will say, well, I pray every night that God would forgive me for my sins. And it's like, that's great, but that has nothing to do with going to heaven. Just like me praying every night for deliverance from my enemies has nothing to do with me going to heaven. You know, it's actually preventing me from going to heaven sooner, if you think about it. Because if I didn't pray, maybe I'd be killed by my enemies, but I'd still go to heaven. Okay, so we're not talking about heaven, but what's good about learning this is that there's a lot of passions that mean calling on the name of the Lord. And you guys are already saved. And what I don't want you to do is just gloss over that verse like, well, I don't need to do that because I've already done that. I've already called on the name of the Lord. Yeah, yeah. But there's another calling on the name of the Lord. It's about physical deliverance too. And you know what? You do need that. And we do need to be calling on the name of the Lord. And we do need to be praying. And we do need to be asking for deliverance. You know, we have a prayer time even at our church for our church members. We should be praying on a daily basis for our family, for our friends, for our future, for our church, for the lost. You know, this is what God wants us to be doing as a church is constantly calling on the name of the Lord and realizing that is what actually gives us the victory. I will call on the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies. You say, well, I haven't been winning a lot of battles lately. Let me ask you this question. What are you doing to win that battle? Because according to scripture, the way you win the battle is prayer. So if you're not praying, how are you going to ever win that battle? You can't win that battle. You actually win the battle by praying. And many times in the Bible, you literally get the victory through prayer. Job, when did Job finally get over all of his issues? The moment he prayed for his friends. You know, the Bible says that the God told him, hey, pray for your three friends that are bozos here and preach the false doctrine. And it says as soon as he prayed, the Lord, you know, delivered him from the boils and from all the evil. And he has 10 more kids. And, you know, he has everybody comes and gives him money and everything like that. It's like the victory is in the prayer. You know, as soon as God's people start praying, God starts doing things. How about Daniel? You know, when the angel finally comes and delivers a message to Daniel, he says, hey, as soon as you started praying, I came. It was just the devil kind of held me up. You know, the devil took me to court or something. I was at the angels say, you know, drug me through court and it took me a while to get here. But, you know, some lawyer or whatever, right? I mean, that's just how it is. But you know what? Eventually it happens. But God is constantly rewarding his saints through prayer. And think about how many times Jesus taught on prayer. How many times Jesus is emphasizing prayer. And he's even saying, you know, when I come back, am I going to find faith on the earth? And that faith was in prayer. And the reason why prayer is so important is because it's 100% faith. I mean, what could be more faith than going into a closet by yourself and praying to a God you can't see with your eyes physically and saying, I'm going to do nothing to solve my problem. I'm expecting you to do it. I mean, what could be more faith than that? Nothing. But you know what's not faith? Never praying. It actually shows you have no faith. That's why God, that's why Jesus is saying like, hey, am I going to find faith on the earth? And notice how God defines finding faith, prayer. You know, we should be praying on a regular basis for deliverance, for the victory in our situation. And you know what? If we're not getting victory, we need to be praying more. You know, Peter, he got rescued out of prison and the church did not stop praying until he was delivered. And that was New Testament doctrine. That's New Testament theology. I mean, we need to get serious about prayer and serious about calling the name of the Lord. And I want you when you read verses in your Bible, not to just think, oh, I called the name of the Lord. I've done that. There's another calling on the name of the Lord that's just as serious. It's just as important. Obviously going to heaven's the most, but you know, we're just saying this is still really serious here. And we want to realize that we get victory through calling on the name of the Lord. Verse five, when the waves of death compass me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compass me about, the snares of death prevented me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried to my God. And he did hear my voice out of his temple and my cry did enter into his ears. Now, there's so much in this passage and there's so much in this chapter. I don't, I can't cover all of it. So don't expect me to, okay? I will not. But you kind of have these interesting dichotomies of it's talking about David, obviously. And then it's bringing up things about Jesus too, simultaneously. And here, you know, when it's talking about the waves of death compass me, that's both of them in the sense that there was plenty of times in their lives where death was surrounding them. You know, David is surrounded by Saul and his army. David's surrounded by Philistines. David's surrounded by a lot of enemies. And Jesus is the same way. Even Jesus is led out to a hill to be thrown over. And he had to just walk through the midst of all of his enemies. They compass him about whenever they accused him falsely. So there's a lot of different times when both of these men have gone through this. But number six, the sorrows of hell compass me about. I believe that number one, pretty much everything in the Bible always pertains to the author, but in a metaphorical sense, sometimes. So what I mean by that is, is David can say this sincerely about himself, but it's only in a metaphor. You know, sometimes we use hell as a metaphor. You know, like, man, it's hot as hell out here, okay? Now some people say I'm cussing, but but the thing is, the word cuss is in my King James Bible. Isn't it funny that people that are so King James get mad at you about doctrines that aren't found in the King James Bible? Show me the word cussing in my Bible, and then I'll start, you know, believing that doctrine. Now they'll say, oh, you're swearing. I didn't make an oath. I didn't promise you anything just now. Okay, well, you're cursing. I didn't curse anyone. No one. There was no evil that I spoke of anybody. So let's get our doctrines right, okay? Now, if you decide you don't ever want to use that word, go for it. You can do whatever you want, okay? But I've said plenty of times before, I'm going to use any word that I want, and I will not censor myself behind the pulpit, and if you don't like it, you can go anywhere else, okay? Now, again, we use this metaphor, hotter than hell out here, right? Or somebody will say that. What are they meaning? They're not literally saying it's hell, right? Even the Bible uses this kind of language. Jesus is calling people child of hell. Now, here's the thing. Were the Pharisees literally birthed in hell? Like, were they physically born by a mother? They had a physical mother birth, okay? What was Jesus referring to? It's a metaphor saying that you're basically a son of the devil. You're an unsaved reprobate. You're going to go to hell, and you basically were just born to go to hell. That's what he's saying in a metaphor. So for David, he's saying, hey, the sorrows of hell compass me about. Meaning that it's just like, what will be the sorrows of hell? Well, you're alone. You're alone. You're in physical torment. It just feels dark, right? It just feels inescapable. Those are the sorrows of hell. If we were to think about, of course, there's other sorrows of hell, like burning alive. There's other sorrows like eternal regret of the fact that you didn't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ when you could have. There's going to be other sorrows of just other people being there and the screaming and whatever. But again, when David's saying the sorrows of hell, he's not saying all of them necessarily. He's just saying, hey, a lot of the similarities of what people are suffering in hell, he feels like he's going through. And of course, it's hyperbole, right? It's not necessarily to the extremity or to the degree that the people in hell are really suffering. He's just saying, personally, I feel really alone. I feel like an inescapable torment. And this is just frustrating. And so for him, he's like, man, the sorrows of hell compass me about. OK, but then for another application of this is it's Jesus that we're talking about. And for Jesus, he's not just feeling this metaphorically. He's feeling this like I know what hell is going to be like, and I'm worried about hell like he's saying, man, the sorrows of hell are terrifying me. I don't want to die and go to hell because who would? And so for him, you know, and think about what Jesus was doing. It says the snares of death prevented me. OK, what did Jesus do right before? He's basically betrayed. He gets on his knees in the Garden of Gethsemane and he's praying to the father, you know, let this cup pass from me. Why? Because the sorrows of hell, what does it say? The sorrows of hell compass me about the snares of death prevented me, meaning he's like, I don't really want to do this. OK, in my distress, I called upon the Lord. Doesn't that bring to life some of these verses and cry to my God? Now, of course, not only could this be a picture of the Garden of Gethsemane, this could be a picture of when it was literally happening. Where he's experiencing the sorrows of hell and the Jesus is crying unto him. And finally, God in heaven hears from the temple. OK, and my cried and enter into his ears. Verse eight. Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations of heaven moved and shook because he was wrong. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth devoured. Coles were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also and came down and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly. And he was seen upon the wings of the wind. And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters and thick clouds of the skies through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled. The Lord thundered from heaven and the Most High uttered his voice. Now, this is a lot of symbolism, a lot of picture here. But I want to point out one. Keep your finger here and go to Matthew Chapter 28. Go to Matthew Chapter 28. Now, of course, the Bible says that the earth shook and trembled. There's a lot of times in the Bible when the earth shakes. But I wanted to note one specific time. And of course, you know, I think that this passage could be applied to a lot of things. So don't tie me to this passage only means one thing. Don't tie any verse to one thing, because sometimes the Bible will flip flop and go back and forth. The book of Jonah goes from Jonah to Jesus, Jonah to Jesus. This book is going from David to Jesus to David to Jesus, Jesus at the cross or Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane or Jesus being in hell. There's a lot of different time frames that this could possibly apply to. OK, but one that I believe that it applies to is here in Matthew Chapter 28. Look at verse number two or let's read verse one for the context. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. So we have this imagery of the cry being heard from the sorrows of hell and the earth shaking and we have the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's other times in the earthquake. At the moment that Jesus died, the Bible talks about a great quake and a great shaking. Look at Chapter 27, verse 50. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost and behold, the veil of the temple is rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And the earth did quake and the rocks rent and the graves are open and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went to the holy city and appeared in the men. So we have in the scripture kind of some symbolism here and some pictures of how God the Father is delivering the Lord Jesus Christ from what? His enemies. And of course, some of his enemies aren't even just a person. They're kind of like a concept. His death is considered an enemy and hell is kind of like an enemy. And you know, the Bible talks about how Jesus triumphed over those. In Revelation, chapter number one, the Bible says he has the keys of hell and of death, meaning he's conquered them. He's defeated these foes and he has the victory. And of course, nothing's going to make the father more angry than his own son being tortured, right? And then having to suffer that sin that we gave to him, essentially. Those who killed the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, that's going to give him a lot of wrath. And you know, his wrath being poured out is even still future coming. So I even think some of these verses could signify or point to the future events of when God the Father is going to pour out his wrath on this earth. And it's going to be through a lot of earthquakes. It's going to be through a lot of fire and a lot of just everything the Lord's going to pour out on this earth. And his voice is going to thunder from heaven. I mean, we have the great thunderings mentioned in the book of Revelation. So I really don't even know that I would tie this particular portion in 2 Samuel 22, just to one event. It seems like there's so many different events here that we're talking about. I also still even believe it applies to David. That in David's lifetime, there were times when the Lord was wroth with the enemies and he quaked the earth and he came down and he destroyed their enemies and fought for them. We see all kinds of cool battles in the Bible where the Lord will just rain on people with hailstones or devour people from the wood. I mean, with Absalom, the Bible says that the wood devoured more enemies that day than the actual soldiers did. And so we see the Lord just fighting with man. He's coming alongside of us. He's coming down from heaven. You know, the Lord, God the Father, was descending down onto the mount and giving the Ten Commandments to Moses. God the Father was ascending and coming into the tabernacle. God the Father was coming into the temple. God the Father wants to dwell with us. God the Father wants to be with us, but there's a problem. We're sinners. And He's so glorious, He's so bright, that seeing Him would just kill us instantly. We just wouldn't be able to handle it. And so of course, God the Father wants to get us to a point where we can handle it and then we can have communion and fellowship with Him. And that only door is through Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, and what He did for us. So again, we're incapable of becoming strong enough to see Him. So He's got to do that for us. And we're incapable of saving ourselves spiritually, physically, everything. He just wants us to trust in Him. That's the only thing He wants. That's what our whole life is about. Do you realize your whole life is just a test of how much you can just trust the Father? There's all these different experiments that people do to try to work on this. I remember if you go to youth camp, and it's not ours, any kind of normal youth camp, this is what they usually do is they have all the kids stand on the table and you have to fall backwards and the counselor will catch you. And they're trying to get you to realize what faith is like. Because in that example, and again, it's not a bad example, because in the example of the person, you can hear the person and they're promising to catch you, but you can't see them. And so you have to just by faith just fall backwards and hope that it's not a bozo or something, right? It's a little bit easier when it's God the Father you're falling back to for Him to catch you than some youth camp counselor, okay? But of course, that's the whole point of the exercise is to kind of teach you what faith is really like. And again, this life is a whole test of just how many times can you fall backwards and just let God catch you. Because you can't do it yourself. You're never going to be strong enough. We have to just simply trust in Him. And He's the one that gives us that victory. Look at verse 15. He sent out His arrows and scattered them, lightning and discomfort to them. And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundation of the world were discovered, after the rebuking of the Lord, the blast of the breath of His nostrils. He sent from above, He took me, drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them that hated me, for they were too strong for me. Notice how the Bible words it. They were too strong. You know, we like to be strong. Being strong is a good virtue. We have to sometimes realize, sometimes our enemies are just literally too strong for us. There's too many of them. They're too vicious. They're too wicked. Whatever the case is, they have too much power. They have too much might for us to physically defeat them ourselves. And I believe in the world that we live in today, if we truly understood our enemy, which we probably don't even know, conspiracy theorists like to presume they understand how bad our enemies are, we probably don't even really understand how bad they really are, how powerful they are. But one thing I know for a fact is, we can't physically overcome them. It would only be by miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver us from our current enemies. And we have to just trust in Him and realize that, hey, they hate us and they're strong, but He's stronger than them. And verse 19, They prevented me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord in my stay. He brought me forth also into large place. He delivered me because He delighted me. The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands, how He recompensed me. For I had kept the ways of the Lord have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His judgments were before me. And as for His statutes, I did not depart from them. I was also upright before Him and have kept myself from mine iniquity. So again, I believe that from the passage, everything applies to David. Okay, in a sense, some of it's metaphorical. Only portions of this is applying to Jesus. Now again, for Jesus, it makes a lot of sense because Jesus kept the ways of the Lord. Jesus didn't wickedly depart from God at any point. All of His judgments were before Jesus. All of His statutes, He did not depart from them. But in verse 24, it also says, I've kept myself from mine iniquity. Jesus doesn't have any iniquity. So obviously that verse would not be applied to Jesus. That's applied to David, okay? And again, some of this is generic to David, maybe not even 100% to David because David's not perfect. David did have some issues, okay? Whereas Jesus didn't. So that's where you kind of get this dichotomy of how the passage can apply to both. But it's not always exactly just one. It's kind of both. And that's the cool thing about the Bible. You're saved, you get to see all the layers. Whereas you're unsaved, none of it makes sense to you. And you don't get it and it's confusing. It's a paradox. And yet even unsaved people can still realize there's a distinction here because notice the Ethiopian eunuch is saying like, hey, is this guy talking about himself or some other man? You know, and that would be a good question. It's like, hey, is he talking about David or are you talking about Jesus here? You're talking about Jesus, you know? And you started the same scripture and you preach unto them Jesus. But it also says in verse 22 that I have not wickedly departed from my God. And in verse 21, it said he'd rewarded me according to my righteousness. You know, some people get mad at us for preaching about how salvation's free at the door. But that would just be to be mad at Jesus because he's the one that made it free. I didn't make it free. Oh, you're making the gospel free. I didn't make it free. Jesus made it free. I'm telling you that it's free, okay? I didn't make anything free. Oh, you're preaching easy believism. I didn't make it easy. Jesus did. Well, but if you say that, people are gonna live however they want. If I don't say that, they're gonna live however they want. You know, I never felt like I met someone that said, you know, I've been really trying to live a righteous life, but after meeting you, I'm going straight into sin. Like after hearing this, the bar is where I'm going to next. You know, it's like I was already headed to the bar and I'm still going. You know, that's usually how it is, right? Somebody told me the other day, it's like this guy like met his prostitute five minutes after getting saved or something. But it wasn't because he was like, the gospel was free. He had already called her before. Okay, folks. It wasn't like, it wasn't like, hey, now that I heard that I'm saved, I'm going to do whatever I want. You know, that's a dumb doctrine. That's a dumb reason not to get saved too. If it's true, it's true. I can't stop it from being true. I'm just telling you, that's what the Bible says, folks. Now, even though that's true, you could be the worst person ever. You could be a hypocrite. You could be a fake. You could be a phony. You can teach lies and still go to heaven. According to the Bible, you could preach false doctrine. You could be a bad preacher. You could be a bad pastor. You could preach lies. You could be a giant hypocrite. You could not do anything right and still go to heaven if you believe in Jesus Christ. Absolutely true. But here's the thing. God's also not going to deliver you from evil when you're like that. Because noticing this passage, he's saying, hey, he's delivering this guy because he's rewarding him according to his righteousness. Now, this righteousness is different than what we talked about in Romans chapter number 10, where we get the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ to go to heaven. We still have a sense of our righteousness and our righteousness is still important to God and he still wants us to live a clean of life as possible. And of course, you get rewarded according to your righteousness. I don't go to heaven by my righteousness. I get rewarded according to my righteousness. Now, of course, what does that reward? Well, I can be rewarded with evil on the earth or I can be rewarded with literal spiritual rewards in heaven. But I'll get rewarded. You're going to reap what you sow. So that's why it's so important we preach hard against sin. That's why we have a church that we have. That's why we encourage the youth to live clean lives because you know what? They're going to be rewarded according to their righteousness. You say, oh, what's the point of coming to church like ours or coming to church on Wednesday and Thursday. Didn't you know, Pastor Shelley, there's Thursday night football? Nobody even likes Thursday night football. OK, even the players don't like it because it's a short week and they usually suck. It's usually a low scoring game and it's two teams that nobody even cared about that much is because it's Thursday. Why? And how is that going to prevent you from your enemy? You know, I saw this meme from Andrew Torba, the guy that owns like Gab or whatever, the owner of Gab. And it was like, he's just saying, hey, in America, we have inflation we have inflations out of control. Our elections are obviously being rigged. We're giving billions of dollars to Ukraine, yet we're not giving any money to the victims of Ian in Florida. You know, we have all kinds of record crime going on in our country. We just have just rampant sodomy and just Satanism and just all kinds of evil happening in our country. Anti-white-ism, all kinds of lies and deception, online censorship, just all kinds of issues and problems, supplying chain issues. And then it just shows a picture of a guy grilling and he says, man, that's crazy, but did you check out the game last week? And it's like, that's America. It's like, oh man, the whole world's going to hell, but I'm going to go on Friday night to watch the football game. You know, you got Thursday night football, then you got Friday night high school football, then you got Saturday night college football, and then Sunday night, you got the NFL again, and then they're like, well, I guess Monday night too. And then Tuesday's the replay. I guess Wednesday, church, okay? Finally come to church, right? But it's like, man, Texas, you got football every single day. But isn't it so funny that nobody complained about having football Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then they complain about going to church three times a week. You worship football so many times, and I mean, look, there's even a mid Sunday game. There's the noon game, the mid game, and then the Sunday night game. They have three services on Sunday. That's like the people in our church that do the Spanish service, okay? They have three services. And like, you sit here and you think like, those people are crazy. You go to church three times a week. Do you go to six football games a week? And that's not even, probably their kids play football on Tuesday and Wednesday too, huh? Do you go to football seven times a week? How many football games did you watch? How many, I mean, how many baseball games are in a year? 182? What is the number? 162, sorry. I was way off, okay? I exaggerate, folks, okay? There's only 162 games, okay, folks? That's more than, if you went to every church service, three church services every week, that is less than all of the baseball games for one team. Oh, you guys, you fundamentalists are so crazy. No, you're crazy. You're crazy to watch a bunch of overpaid, prideful punts play a game, play a game, play a game, when we're coming here and worshiping the living God, the God in heaven, and you say, oh, well, it doesn't matter. No, no, no, your righteousness matters. And then you say, well, who's going to deliver us from China? Who's going to deliver us from Israel? Who's going to deliver us from the Jews? Who's going to deliver us from Ukraine? Who's going to deliver us from Putin? Who's going to deliver us from all of the bankers and all of the election fraud? Well, you know who's not going to do it? Tom Brady. You know who's not going to do it? Brett Favre. He retired. You know who's not going to do it? Aaron Rodgers, the atheist. You know who's not going to do it? Your high school football team. You know who will do it? God. You know why God would do it? Because of your righteousness. But here's the problem, America. You don't have any righteousness. You might have had some righteousness in the past. There might have been a time that this country was a little bit more godly, that was a little bit more like the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, you wonder, how did we even defeat Hitler? Oh, because we're so strong. Or was it because we were a godlier nation than him? But you've got to ask this question. When the next Hitler rises up, are we going to actually be godlier than him? They claim Putin's Hitler. But I'm thinking like, you know, I don't think that America's that much more righteous than Putin. I mean, we have dudes in dresses in our government that we're claiming are women. You know, oh, well, Ukraine's a really righteous man. We should all support Ukraine. The president of Ukraine is a tranny. Zelensky, I mean, there's videos of him dancing in leather stilettos. How is that guy righteous? Oh, let's please give money to guys dancing in stilettos. I mean, most people don't even realize that a lot of the Nazis, the Nazis that were defeated in World War II, they fled to Ukraine and they're still thriving in Ukraine. I mean, we're just giving money. I mean, do you realize that someone who fought the Nazis was Russia? Russia. Russia was our friend in World War II. But now all of a sudden, Russians are enemy. And here's my question. Is it because Russia got more wicked or is it because we got more wicked? Because I look at it and Russia seems about the same. They still drink vodka and they still got some, you know, they're still white as snow and they're still mean, you know, OK. But folks, you know, what happened? America changed. And you got to ask this question. How are we going to get delivered? We're not going to be delivered the way we are. We got to change something. And you know what we got to change? We got to change our righteousness. We got to become more like Christ and we got to drag people in church and we got to start teaching them that this matters, not football. Look, I like football. I'm not against football. I play football. But at the same time, you know, if I never watched football again and then in accordance to just loving the Lord, I'll choose that. I'll sacrifice. You know, if you say, hey, Pastor Shelley, everybody's going to become a fundamental Baptist, but you'll never have football again. I'll press that button right now. I would I would say nuke golf, burn every golf course, all the golf clubs burn. You know, I'll give up baseball. OK, folks. I give up NASCAR. OK, I put that on the oath. Look, who cares about the games? The games are a distraction. Read history, bread and circuses. You know, why did Rome fall? You know, they have all their sports. You know what? I don't see the gladiators, you know, anymore. Now we have our modern day gladiators going out there with their football helmets, but they can't tackle them too hard anymore. You know, they want to hurt their feelings or anything. Got the little prima donnas out there. At least they were like fighting each other to the death and fast. You know, that was a little bit cooler. You know, nowadays it's just soft, right? All these pads and everything like that. Look, folks, this is important, and I'm done with this chapter for this night. We'll pick it up next week, OK? But what's the point of the passage? We need to realize that God is the only way we can win any battle. And instead of worrying about us fixing our problems, why don't we worry about just serving God? You say, well, what are you going to do to fix the problems in America? What are you doing, Pastor Shelley? Are you going to vote this November? No! You know what I will do? I will pray. Oh, you're not going to vote for, you know, Abbott? No. You're going to vote for Beto? Hell no. If you vote for Beto, I don't think you're safe. Beto is a wicked, evil person. Anybody that votes for Beto is basically just proving to me you're like going to go to hell for sure. Maybe there's an exception. You know what? You're you're a loser if you like Beto. I understand why people vote for Abbott. It's not because he stands up, but it's because he's not Beto. But you know what? He's a little bit better. He's not Beto, but he's better. But here's the thing. You know how I'm going to fix America? I'm going to pray tonight. You know how I'm going to fix America? By me being righteous. You know how we're going to fix America? You're righteous. You know how America goes to hell in a handbasket? Stay home. Go to the football game. Just live your life. Just don't care and just do whatever. And you know what? Your kids will go to hell in a handbasket. Your grandchildren will go to hell in a handbasket and your whole country and your state. And pretty soon they'll be putting beans in the chili at Texas competitions. And you'll be like, what happened? So you got to stand for righteousness, folks. OK, let's go to prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us the word of God and giving us the victory. We're too weak. I pray that we would realize our weakness. We'd realize our ineptitude to save ourselves. We realize we have strong enemies out there. We have foes. And I pray that instead of us trying to worry about how we're going to solve our problems, we'd worry about just serving you. And we worry about praying to you and asking you to help and asking for you to deliver us. I pray that you would just crush our enemies as soon as possible. I pray that you would just help increase our faith, that our whole church would just start to pray like it's never prayed before and that you would just hear our prayers and that you would just deliver us. And when you do deliver us, we'd be reminded to give you the glory, that we'd sing praise unto you and we rejoice. And we know that one day, no matter what happens on this earth, we will rejoice with you in heaven when we get the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, amen.