Where in Psalm 119, Dennis came this morning and read the 17th and 18th stanzas to you. And I pray the Lord will add a blessing to the reading of His Word this day and apply it to your heart and mind, to your living, to your giving. to everything that you are, that you might be that vibrant, vocal, visible vision of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world. And that's what we're supposed to be. We're to be vibrant, vocal, visible visions of Christ to the world. I hate to say this, but you may end up being the only Jesus that some folks see. And according to Romans chapter 8, verse 29, we are to be conformed to His image. And if we are true believers, we will be conformed to His image. By the way, that's not the text, Romans 8, 29, though I could preach from there. We're at Psalm 119, 129. And last Sunday's message, I told you that because of the state of my religion this hour, because of the state of the local church this hour, and certainly because of the state of the culture this hour, first of all, from last Sunday's sermon, we must continue to defend the faith once delivered to the saints. Jude, verse 3. Secondly, we must continue to occupy in this land until He come. We are to pray, we're to preach, we're to proclaim the gospel, Luke 19, 13, to the world as an occupation force. This land God created, He created it for us. That is not to say that everybody else doesn't get to use it. But I love this land, don't you? I really, really do. And I think it behooves us to do our best to bring right morals, values, and ethics back to it so God won't destroy it. that we all, thirdly, would continue to pray 2 Chronicles 7.14, which says, if my people, that's you and me, if my people, which are called by His name, will humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, then, God says, He would hear from heaven and would forgive our sins and heal our land. That's what I want. If it's God's will, Lord, heal our land. Lord, I pray that it's not gone too far that it can't be healed. That's why we must occupy the way we do, trusting the Lord for the outcome, for He is sovereign over all. We don't have a clue when the Lord is coming back. Who knows? He might answer our prayers and heal our land. We are America's and the world's best hope for that happening this hour. You know that, don't you? It's not the government. Yeah, we sang a while ago, Search Me, O God, and one of the lines says, Send a revival and let it begin in me. And that's what we need in this country is a sin-killing, Holy Ghost revival. And we're only going to have one if His people who are called by His name will humble themselves and seek His face and pray and turn from their wicked ways. You can't tell anybody else to turn from theirs if you don't turn from yours. So I told you before, Sindelar grieves modern religion, so they're no help. As a matter of fact, the last thing on their mind is to be vibrant, vocal, visible visions of Christ to the world. Most of the time it's all about them more than anything else. And secondly, we're at a time now where the preachers and priests and rabbis have become nothing more than lap dogs for the left. Many of them are just ladder climbers, career seekers, and sadly a lot of them are child abusers, gay and yes lesbian, or transgender, standing in the pulpit and no one is receiving the truth of the Word of God. Matter of fact, these participate in the abominations that are destroying our country even now. And the world at large is working with them. And I want you to understand that it's bringing the judgment of God down upon us. You know that God can't tolerate this much longer. We're very fortunate that He has tolerated this long. Because I want to tell you, judgment begins at the house of God. And if it begins there, it may begin with us. God may not be happy with prophets in this baptist church this morning. Maybe we're not confessing our sins and repenting of our sins as we should. Maybe we're not living as we should outside this church before men. And we have to be fundamentally faithful to following Him if we expect Him to do anything. The rest of the world has fundamentally rejected the truth. as it is given the Word of God. They openly disobey, dishonor, degrade, demean the very Creator that made them. And we must stand, clinging to our Bibles as we do, saying, Thus saith the Lord. Let me give you eight things that we are to do as we see the day approaching and all this nonsense going on in our world. Number one, you are to challenge these abominations, these departures from the Word of God. You're to challenge them. It doesn't matter if the government will call you racist, homophobe, white supremacist, urban terrorist. You must challenge these things. You can challenge them with prayer, no doubt, but when the opportunity arises where you can tell them about the truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom we all are once chief, then do so. The gospel is like a hot knife cutting through butter. Number two, you must realize now that your Christianity is already offensive to these So stand up for the truth of the Word of God in the face of this nastiness. You have absolutely zero to lose. Thirdly, you have to believe that they intend to silence your message and even ban your Bible if they can. So while you still have it, speak up, speak out, stand up, stand out. Yes, they're going to hate you because you stand against everything they are. But they already hate your Lord who definitely stands against everything that they are. They hate God's Word because it definitely stands against everything they are. And so, why should you back down? The die is already cast. Number four, you must be sober and vigilant. You've got to start being sober and vigilant, and that doesn't mean laying off the alcohol, though you should. But sober means thinking right, seeing things right. And when you see things right, be vigilant over these things, and over yourself, over your family, for your adversary, the devil, walks to and fro in your seeking whom he may devour. whom you are to resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions were accomplished on your brethren before us. And we're no better than them. They died for their faith. We're willing to die for their faith. Number five, you must believe without a shadow of doubt that greater is he that is in you than he that's in the world. Do you believe that this morning? Oh, if you don't believe that, you've lost already. If you don't believe that greater is the Lord that's in you, the Spirit that's in you, the Father that's in you, is greater than he, the devil, in the world, you've lost. You must believe that. Sixth, you must learn to hate sin and hate it so badly that your spirit becomes vexed and grieved at the terrors of the Christ rejecters that promote and perform these abominations against our God. I remind you that their every abomination is an open, vicious, and open, violent blasphemy against your God. Man, you do that to my wife, I'm going to jack your jaw. I'm being serious. I love my wife. You accost her, you accost me. That's my God. That's my Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to stand up when people use His name in vain and say, oh no, no, that's my Lord. Well, I'm afraid they might punch me in the mouth. So be it. Number seven, if you are a faithfully fundamental follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you should be and you must become extremely alert to the fact that perilous times are upon us. How many know that perilous times are here? Let me see your hand. Oh my goodness, you've got to know that. And yet, most people, even believers, live like they have all the time in the world and it's nothing but peace and safety. Hey, remember when they start saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes. We're not in darkness. We're the children of light. We know these things. At least we should. The light that is in Him has so shined in us and illuminated our minds and given us discernment so we can see the times and seasons for what they are. Hey, we can even tell by their fruit who they are. When I say fruit, for those who are listening by Facebook, you don't know what that means. The Bible tells us over in Matthew chapter 7, by their deeds, that's what fruits is, by their deeds, you'll know exactly who they are. You will. Their actions, give them up. And then lastly, number eight, you must without hesitation set yourself to drawing nigh to God in the hopes that He'll draw nigh to you. James 4.8, David wrote in Psalm 145 verse 18, The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He's nigh to all them that call upon Him. Man, how's your prayer life? Some of you won't even bow your unworthy head in public and pray over your meals. God knows I'm thankful, Brother Darrell. You cannot be a vibrant, vocal, visible vision of Christ if you're not willing to pray in front of the masses and herald Him with your prayer. I believe with David. Psalm 119 verse 126 now. I'm violating my text. I believe with David that it is time for the Lord to work. And boy, is He going to work. Oh, listen very carefully. He's going to work. And when the Lord goes to work, let me tell you something, He gets the job done. In verse 126, David says that they have made void the Lord's law. Who is the they? All the inhabitants of the world. all those that I mentioned in modern religion, the local church, and the culture, no matter where it resides. Certainly, that's what's happening today in America, and we should be pleading with the Lord every day to remedy this situation. We ought to be saying, look, Lord, what they're doing to your law, to your word. Again, as I told you last week, the fact that this culture is trying to ban the Word of God is not just about God, it's about you. For if they are bold and brash enough to shake their fist to the face of God, if they're bold and brash enough to burn Bibles and try their best to silence Christians and silence the Word of God, you've got to know they'll have no qualms about coming after you. And David screamed at the top of his voice, I hate every false way. Well, why David? Because God hates every false way. And whatever God hates, I hate, says David. And we're to do the same. If you remember, I told you how that David proclaimed, and I didn't write down what Psalm it is, but he said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? And am I not great with those that rise up against Thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. I didn't know there was a perfect hatred until I read those verses. Of course, I read them years ago. A perfect hatred. A perfect hatred is one that's like this. I love you, man, but I hate what you're doing. That's a perfect hatred. I love sinners. Oh, I love them, but I'm to hate what they're doing. That's a perfect hatred. And David goes on so far to say, I count them my enemies and they are my enemies if they're the enemies of Christ. Well, anyway, the reason that David is this way is found now beginning in verse 129 of Psalm 119. David begins there, first of all, by praising God for His Word. Look at Psalm 119 verse 129. Thy testimonies are wonderful, he says. This is David praising the Lord. Thy testimonies are wonderful. To David, the Lord's Word in its entirety, that that he had was wonderful. It was precious to him. It was worthy of praise. God was worthy of praise for giving it to him. And just how wonderful was God's Word? Well, it's so wonderful, in fact, that David uses the Lord's testimony, His Word, for his own life map. Let me say it again. So precious is the Word of God to David, so wonderful is the Word of God to David, that it was his life map. He used them as the very rule of his existence. Look at the last line of that first verse. He says, Therefore doth my soul keep them. Y'all see that? Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore does my soul keep them. They are everything to me. They are my existence. They are my life map. They are my core principles. By the way, the Hebrew word for soul there is nephesh. And what it means is self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living, being, desire, emotion, passion, that which breathes, the breathing substance or being, the soul, the inner being of man. David says, I love your word with my entire being. Not just on Sunday morning. Not just on Wednesday night. I love it with my entire being all the time. It's my life map. It's my instruction book. I exist the way I do because of it. And why shouldn't you keep God's Word with your very soul, your very being? David says you should. Notice, if you will, that David says, verse 130, the entrance of thy words giveth light, gives instruction, gives help, gives hope. What kind of light? Well, it's the kind of light that giveth understanding unto the simple. By the way, write your name down there by that word simple. You do not have to be the world's greatest intellectual. You don't have to be an Einstein. You don't have to be a rocket scientist. You don't even have to know how to wire up a network for a telephone system. You don't, to understand God's Word. to understand the world at large and all that matters to it. God gives understanding to the simple. His words are light that exposes the darkness for what it is, that exposes the kingdom of God for how it is and what it is and how you can be in it. God makes wise the simple. Psalm 19 verse 7, David writes, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. You know that's true. Look who's standing up here preaching this morning. Look who your treasurer is down there sitting on the front for you there. If God didn't make wise the simple, where would we be dead? Proverbs 6.23 says, For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life. That's what we get from the light of God's Word if we read it, if we heed it, if we literally eat it. Now don't go taking bites out of the pages of your Bible, you simple folk. You understand what I'm saying. David wants this understanding, this wisdom, so much so that he is secondly moved to prayer now. David says in verse 131, I opened my mouth and panted. Are you paying attention? Are you reading the Bible with me? In other words, David is saying he is breathlessly hungry for God's Word. You ever seen an old dog panting like that? Now I understand in the summertime that keeps them cool. For me, when I pant like that, that gets me fed. But look here. What he has tasted so far had been wonderful and he can't seem to get enough, can't get it fast enough. He wants more and more. He's breathlessly panting for more. Oh, my mouth, give me more. This is a metaphor about his mouth, but he's talking about his being, his very being. give me more, put more in me." This is indicated by his next entry there in verse 131, "...for I longed for thy commandments." Oh, he's aching for them. He wants them so bad. I was in Germany by myself and my bride was coming over, but we had to wait from June. We got married to August for her to get there. You know, walking across the ocean is a long time. No. I was on a waiting list in Fulton to get us an apartment. I'd been on that waiting list ever since we decided to get married. So she'd come over there and finally they got us an apartment. And so she came over in August. Her first plane trip ever came to Frankfort. Man, I tell you what, Oh, every day I was beside myself, waiting for them to call me and say, you got that apartment? So I could call her so she could come. And boy, I got a day early to the Frankfurt Airport, waiting for her flight to come in. This is the way David's feeling. Upon reading and studying the Lord's Word, he had read count after count of how God had poured into and upon the people that he had read about in the Word. And David says, I want that! I want that too!" So he prays, verse 132, "...Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou used to do unto those that love thy name." Hey, listen, if God did it for others, He'll do it for you. If you desire it. But if you're just toying with this thing, if you're just playing a Christian, don't expect any more than what you get every once in a while. Oh, brother, you're so mean. I'm just telling you, God is so good to us. But I'm going to tell you something, folks. He really doesn't have to. That He does is a testament of His mercy and grace and His love for His people. Why would you do to Him such nasty things as just just nonchalantly taking this Christian thing that we do into your life. Verse 133, David says, order my steps in thy word. And he's concerned about his own sin so much that he says, let not any iniquity, that's sin, have demean over me. Get rid of my pet sins, Lord, my private sins, Lord. my ornery lusts and things, Lord. Get them out of me. Get them out. Boy, man, you know what I'm talking about. He says, let nothing separate me from you. Don't let sin break the union we have, Lord. Well, why does he pray like this? Because he can not only acknowledge his own sin from the past, but he can also see the sin of his own people and what it's doing to them. He can see it at the world at large, and I believe that him being a prophet, that God has let him look clean into the future. Hang with me here. Please, y'all. Stay awake. Hang with me. This is such an important message. And it hurts him what he sees. Now he goes from praise to prayer, and now he goes to pain. Verse 134, deliver me from the oppression of man. Oh Lord, these things are just absolutely killing me what I see. But I'm going to keep your precepts. Verse 135, make thy face to shine upon thy servant, and teach me thy statutes, because I do not want to end up like them. I don't want your judgment upon me. Life's going to come on them. He sees sin for what it is. He wants no part of it. He sees the terror of it. He sees the tragedy of it and the tremendous judgment that it's going to bring. It cost the life of his child that he had with Bathsheba. You know that, don't you? That's what sin did. But not only did it cost him that child that he had with Bathsheba, it tore up his own household and his state tore up to the day he died. Go read about his son Absalom. Go read about how they tried to overthrow his kingdom. Go read about how his other son raped his own sister. His house stayed in disorder. all because of sin. So he sees the disobedience, the degradation, the defilement, the total disregard for God and His Word, and he pleads with tears flowing down his face for the Lord to keep him and his own from being like those that hate God and His Word. Look at verse 136. He says, rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law. What he sees them doing and degrading and disobeying, and oh, disallowing the Word of God. grieves him. God's word to him is precious. The Lord God is precious to him. The Messiah to come is so precious to him that when he sees how the world is acting, oh, it makes tears run down his face. Are you crying over some lost loved one? Why not? Does not what's going on in the world grieve you? Why not? If the Lord is precious to you, you see what they're doing to him, it ought to grieve you. That's my Lord they're doing that to. and he pleads with tears flowing down his cheeks. As I told you last time, David is either seeing, first of all, the sin of his own people and the world at large around him, and it makes him weep these bitter tears. Or, as a prophet of God, secondly, he's given to see the falling away of his own people. And their falling away, listen to me, was so that God allowed the Assyrians and the Babylonians to take the nation captive. You know the book of Daniel? Daniel wrote that book while he was down in Babylon, and he was down there for 70 long years. He died down there. They eventually came back from that captivity, but not for 70 years. You ought to read Jeremiah 8 sometime and see the heartbreak of Jeremiah for his people. And thirdly, David may have been made to see us in this generation. I say us. This time of perilousness. This time of disregard for God. that permeates the world right into the house of God, and it makes Him weep rivers of tears. It breaks Him. He's bowed down. His own love for the Word of God is so intense that it breaks His heart to see what they're doing to His God and His Word. So, fourthly, it moves him to protest. He started with the praise, he went to prayer, and then he began to have pain, and now he starts to protest. Look at verse 137, 138. It's as if David is standing before the world, and all the rottenness, and he yells out not only for the Lord to hear, but also the Christ rejecters to hear, And he says, Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments. Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful. And I'm adding this for you. How dare they treat you so miserably? David is up in arms. He's ready to fight for what is right, to defend the faith once delivered to saints. And so much so that he says, verse 139, My zeal hath consumed me. That's how aggravated he was. That's how grieved he was. His zeal consumed him. Because my enemies have forgotten thy word, he says. How dare they? How dare they? And the protest doesn't stop there. He yells even more, verse 140. Thy word is very pure. That's why I love it, he says in verse 140, and so should all men. Further, Lord, because I love you and your word to the world and to hell itself, I am nothing but small and despised, verse 141. And by the way, you know that's what we are today. It's okay, David, don't worry about it. That's why we are considered by the rest of the world. We're small and despised. Well, that little old cranky church up on the hill up there, what are they going to do about it? What's that fat little goatee preacher going to do about it? We're despised. You know we're despised. David says, I am small. Here's the king of Israel saying, I am small and despised. Hey, David was a man's man. You know that? God wouldn't let him build the temple because he was a bloody man. He had killed thousands upon ten thousands. The women even sang when he came into the city, Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his ten thousands. This is a man's man. But he says, I'm small and despised to those who hate you, Lord. But let them think what they think. Let them say what they're going to say. Let them do to me what they will do. Yet, 141, yet do not I or I will not forget thy precepts. How can I forget them? I will not forget them. Though the world thinks I'm small and they despise me, they're not going to change my mind. I'm going to tell you something. Listen very carefully. if perchance, and I believe in a rapture, you know I do, but if perchance they start doling out the mark of the beast before we get out of here, there's going to be a lot of folks that say they're believers who are going to jut their hand out real quick. You know that? It's going to be a great separation of the men and the boys, the true and the untrue, the sheep and the goats, right here in our time. But David says, not me. David takes it personally. And so personally he takes it that he moves on the offensive. Listen to this. He goes on the offensive by brandishing the sword of divine principle." I'm almost through. I know it's a little warm in here, and I know I'm heating you up. He brandishes the sword of divine principle. Verse 142, David says, thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. What a divine principle! Based upon that, what can anybody do to God? Based upon that, what can anybody do to us? Because if you were saved today, you've been given that divine principle. You have the imputed righteousness of Christ in you, on you, so that when God sees you, He sees Jesus. He don't see your nastiness. He sees Christ's righteousness. I pray a lot of times, Lord, don't see me, see Jesus. This righteousness can give you eternal life. It's the only one of its kind. This divine principle, this sword of divine principle, gives us the truth. Look at the second line. Thy law is the truth. And the truth will do what for you? What? Make you free. Not set you free. You know, they can set you free and still come get you. But if you're made free, you've got the papers that says you're a free man, free woman. Nothing but the truth will give you life, and only you, Lord, have the words of life." That's what David is pretty well saying. And it's so, so deep in him that he craves it. And he holds it precious. You know, David once said in Psalm 19, verse 9, that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. He says, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And for you saints, listen to me, Jesus has prayed to the Father that he would sanctify you by his truth. John 17, 17. The truth. granting us His righteousness. And that righteousness that brings our sanctification in the whole grants us interest into the Beloved. We are a part of the Godhead of God now. No, we're not little gods. Don't listen to Kenneth Copeland, he's a nut. We're not little gods, but we are the children of God, joint heirs with Christ Jesus. If you are saved, But if you're not, you don't have no part of this. You can fake it as long as you want to, but there'll be a day when all the fake will be over. The worst thing you can hear after you do all this religious calisthenics is hear your Lord say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, I never knew you. So this brings David to his final petition. And my final point He's praised. He's praised. He's been pained. He's protested. He's brandished the sword of divine principle. And now he lifts up his final petition to God. And I say final, final for this particular episode, not final as his last and only one. Verse 143, he says, Trouble and anguish has taken hold on me, or taken hold on David. It was a trouble enough and an anguish enough to make some want to throw in the towel. That's how troubled and anguished he is. What can a simple, small, despised man do in the first place? So I'm just going to tuck my tail and go home. But David doesn't give up. He sees the trouble. He sees the trial. He sees the tribulation. He sees the degradation. He sees the disregard, the disobedience. and he's going to go on, keeping on, taking the fight to the enemy with the Word of God, the sword and shield of the truth. Look there at the bottom there of 143. Yet thy commandments, he says, are my delights. That word delights there is the same, if you would, like weapons. These delights are David's weapons of his warfare. This is a whole armor of God for David. He is going about with this armor, standing against the wiles of the devil. He's got his loins girded about with truth. He's got on a breastplate of righteousness. He's got his feet sawed with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And above all, he's taken the shield of faith, wherewith he is able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and he's put on the helmet of salvation, and he's picked up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and he's gone forth to battle being the vibrant, vocal, visible vision of Messiah to come right where He was. He doesn't run. He occupies. He takes control of the narrative in His land, and He preaches the Word with His life. He teaches the Word as a witness of what God can do. He does so to a lost and dying world that hates your God and your Christ, and you too. Well, how do you know? Because, I'll tell you something, they do. If He hadn't occupied, we wouldn't. We wouldn't have this world if the men of old, Old Testament, New Testament life had not been willing to die for the cause of Christ. We would not have any hope of heaven today. David says in 144, "...the righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting." And that's what he's counting on. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're righteous through God, mighty to pulling down the strongholds, putting down the imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And we ought to be ready to revenge all disobedience when we are obedient and do so before a lost and dying world. Well, I'm almost through. Here it is. David is making his petition. And in 144, he is basically asking God for understanding so that he can continue to live because this is grieving him to death. The Bible tells us in John 5.39, search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me, says Jesus. So your petition ought to be, Lord give me understanding so that I can live for you in this rotten world. Lord, send a revival. and let it begin in me. Revive us again. Fill each heart with thy love. May soul be rekindled with fire from above. Hallelujah! Thine the glory. Hallelujah! Amen. Hallelujah! Thine the glory. Revive us again. Oh, Father, give us, Lord, a revival. Give us a renewing. Make us, Lord, to see things as they are and rededicate ourselves to the cause of Jesus Christ in this world. Lord, refurbish our minds with your Word. And Lord, if you would reconstitute the fervor that we once had when we were first saved, that we might go forth into this royal battle. Neither turn left or right, nor turn and run, but stand up, stand up for Jesus. Thank you Lord for your Word this morning. Bless your people. These listening by Facebook, there's one lost and undone without you, Lord. They have no clue what I'm talking about. Perhaps, Lord, somewhere in there they heard enough gospel to realize they must cry out to you or they will die in their sins and go to hell. Oh, Lord, make it so. And Lord, if you would, let them call us and tell us. It would be wonderful to know that these messages are making an impact. not for our self-aggrandizement, not to put a pat on the back of Providence Baptist Church, but for thy glory. For we know that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that has been accomplished on Calvary, and now He's in the collecting business, using means like little churches like ours, on Facebook and Sermon Audio. Oh Lord, Make us, make us a true witness of who you are. Bless me the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love, the fellowship of kindred minds that is like to that above. In Christ's name we pray, Amen and Amen.