That encourages me to know that God himself, God Almighty, wants to be that personal and intimate and feed me mouth to mouth. If I just open my mouth up and let him feed me. Or the idea is my heart is open, but how does he get to my heart? It gets to my heart through my ears and through my mouth. He's wanting to change me to look like Him, but my mouth is open for Him to do that, amen? You want God interrupting you? You want God invading you, you want God shepherding your life, right? That's the safest place to live in this world. Even in the most dangerous places, the safest place is having our shepherd shepherd us. Verse 13, people would not heed my voice. So we see that he's telling us that heeding his voice, hearing him, listening to him is how he feeds us. He feeds us when we are listening and hearing because you've heard me say in the kingdom of God, hearing is seeing. You see by hearing. You see what God sees when you hear from the Lord. That's how we see life through hearing from him because what is faith? Faith cometh by what? hearing and hearing by the word of God. So when you hear, you see in God's world. You see the things that God wants you to see. And what God wants us to see is really what's most important to be seen. Because if you're not seeing it the way God sees it, you're seeing it wrong. No matter how you look at it, no matter what it is, you'll see it the wrong way. You will perceive it the wrong way. To dig around in and to ponder, especially when you come across things where God said he'd feed you, It feeds you, when you read something like that, like in Psalm 81. Psalm 81, he tells us such a great word in that, that's where some of these ideas of nesting, nesting comes from. Nesting with Jesus, nesting with him. We got a nest over at the house and them grandkids have been having fun watching the birds over there. And those little ones, I got to see them while they were eggs and right after they hatched and they're growing pretty quickly. But look at verse number eight of 81. Let's just jump in that just for a second. He says, hear, hear, hear, O my people, and I will admonish you. O Israel, if you would listen to me. Now we know this is the Lord speaking. A lot of times when you read these Psalms, you wanna pick up on, okay, is it the Psalm writer sharing this, or is this God intervening in this? Well, it all depends on the context of what we're looking at and what is being said, and this is coming from the Lord. Now, some translations will capitalize. That is a benefit for you that somebody's gone through already when they translate it, the Bible into the particular translation. Not every one of them does this, but some of them do. And sometimes they will even let you know, is it a capital me or is it a lowercase me? Because we're not quite sure, but most likely we would lean toward maybe a lowercase. He's talking about a person and not God himself. But you wanna read the whole thing and get the feel of it. But in this particular passage, Verse eight, when he says, oh my people, in my translations, the my is capitalized, because that's a reference toward God in. In putting this in this particular Psalm, he's speaking, O my people, I would admonish you, O Israel, if you would listen to me, there shall be no foreign God among you, nor shall you worship any foreign God. I am the Lord your God. Now, no man would take that upon himself to say that, especially as he's writing these things in lieu of glorifying God. He's letting us know God's speaking. speaking directly through. Now, we believe God speaks through all these, but there are specific times where we see this happen. But he said in verse 10, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will do what? I'll feel it. Now, when you read something like that, you wanna grab a hold of it like a bulldog and not let go. When God says, if we would open our mouths wide, he will fill it. Man, that's a word there to cling to. And the image of that would be a wide mouth bird in a nest with God with their mouths open. You know how those little birds are this time of the year. They poke that old head out and that head will be a little wobbly and that mom or that dad will come and drop that food in that mouth and they keep feeding it. If they're in the nest where they're supposed to be, they're going to get fed. Stephanie was showing me something she had seen a couple days ago, had the kids over there looking at it, we was all watching it, but somebody had built bird house and that house was built like a little miniature house and that bird had access to get in it and they put a camera in there to watch it all. So the whole process of those birds finding that little house going in and going to collect all the stuff and build them a nest in there and and they just chronicled it like day one, day two, day three, and you can see it. Of course, they got it in a little faster motion so it wouldn't take two whole, three whole days to watch it, but you watch mom and dad going in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out, bringing, and they filled the inside of that house, and it looked to be about this big, that birdhouse with a little small hole to get in, And they get in it, and it was bright enough to see everything really well. Took them one whole day, they filled up that whole bottom with all kind of stuff. And then they kind of rearranged it, and you watch them in there working, and they rearranging. And then the next day they keep adding to it and they get it piled up in there and then they made them a little open in there and they show where the mama laid the eggs and then she sits on the eggs and then the daddy goes and gets food and brings it back and feeds her while she's sitting on the nest. and he feeds her, and you can see all this going on. And then eventually the birds hatch, and then they're going back and forth. Dad going to get food while she's in there with them, and he'd bring food to her and then bring food to them, and they were just steady feeding. But those birds, wide mouth, what would they do? They dropped that food right in it. And that's the invitation God was saying to his people. If they would have come to him with open mouths, wide open, he would have kept them fed. Fed with the right things. He didn't deliver them out of Egypt for no reason, right? He had an intention and purpose in that. Verse 11, he says, but my people would not heed my voice. So we see that he's telling us that heeding his voice, hearing him, listening to him is how he feeds us. He feeds us when we are listening and hearing because you've heard me say in the kingdom of God, hearing is seeing. You see by hearing. You see what God sees when you hear from the Lord. That's how we see life through hearing from him because what is faith? Faith cometh by what? hearing and hearing by the word of God. So when you hear, you see in God's world, you see the things that God wants you to see. And what God wants us to see is really what's most important to be seen. Because if you're not seeing it the way God sees it, you're seeing it wrong. No matter how you look at it, no matter what it is, you'll see it the wrong way. You will perceive it the wrong way. And that's obvious by this. He says, they would not heed my voice. Another way you've heard me define faith, I've shared with you before, we could say faith is what? Seeing, agreeing, and acting. That is, you see what God wants you to see, You agree with it, and then you act on it. Because if you never act on it, you really can't claim it was faith. Because dead faith don't act, right? It's just something you claim, but it's really not genuine faith. Faith is seeing, agreeing, and acting. And another way that you heard me explain it is what? Hearing, heeding, honoring, and holding forth. You hear, what God speaks. You heed it, that is you trust it, you heed it to act on it so that you can honor him in how you walk through life and then you hold it forth to other people as the way of life for you and also it's a way for them to walk with the Lord as well. We become messengers of the faith that we live. Paul said it in Corinthians, I believed so therefore I spoke. You see, what you believe, you'll live and you'll speak it. You'll communicate it. It'll be how you conduct your life, and then you'll communicate that to other people. So it's hearing, heeding, honoring, and holding it forth. And that's exactly what we see in this. He says, hear, and then in verse eight said, hear my people. Verse 11 says, but you wouldn't heed my voice, and Israel would have none of me. See, if you're not honoring God, you're not having anything to do with God. The only way to have something to do with God is you're honoring Him. God doesn't take our second best, does He? He demands what? He demands first place in our life. So we honor him with that, verse 12. So what did God do in return? Now you gotta look at this as the scope of the whole nation as a whole over a period of time. The nation is built up of people, individuals, and there was individuals who what? Heard, who heeded, who honored, and held it forth as a way of life. But the nation as a whole, as a whole, they didn't. They didn't. We've been reading that in the Psalms. Remember in Psalm 78, he said that, that you wouldn't act like your fathers acted. We want to teach another generation that they don't follow in the same footsteps as those who rebelled against the Lord. But in every generation, God always had a remnant, didn't he? God was never without a remnant. So there were people who heard him. who heeded him and who honored him and who held it forth, but there was other people who pushed back at it. And right now what we're focusing on is those that pushed back at it. So verse 12 says, so I gave them over to their own stubborn, what? Woo, that's a dangerous place to live, isn't it? To be given over to yourself. To do life how you wanna do it. God let him do that. That's not good. At the time they liked doing what they wanted, that's why they wouldn't honor him. But the consequences of that is just headlong toward trouble. So he said, I gave them over to their own stubborn heart to walk as a way of life in their own counsels and their own advice. Man, you want God interrupting you, you want God invading you, you want God shepherding your life, right? That's the safest place to live in this world. Even in the most dangerous places, the safest place is having our shepherds. You hear the plea of God, oh, that my people would do what? Hearken or listen to me. That Israel would walk in my ways. So we see how to walk in his ways is a way of life. So you're holding it forth, Brother Shannon. All those elements are all right here. What, hearing, heeding, honoring and holding it forth as a way of life. Walking in it. Walking in it. Verse 14. If they would have done that, I would have soon subdued their enemies. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have enemies, but God would be what? Working for them in dealing with their enemies. And turn my hand against their adversaries. Man, when God's for you, That's what he says, right? When God's for you, who can be against you? Verse 15. The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to him, but their fate would endure forever. So that's basically saying you can't play games with him, right? You can pretend, man Holden, Holden likes to pretend. He's got a great imagination. Today, I have received packages all day long. He was the UPS man the day. And he would package and repackage something his mama sent him. He got him some claws in the mail. We pot a train in days and she's doing really good. So her mama sent her a little baby doll. Well, if she sends one one thing, what do you got to do for the other She sent something to him, too, and what she sent him is, there's a hero character called Black Panther, and he turns into a panther, and he's a superhero, but he's got claws. So she sent him some of those. I told her, oh, Lord, you done messed up sending him. He's gonna hurt his sister with them things, because they don't extend out like regular claws. I'm thinking, this is gonna be trouble. I can see it already, but he's done okay with it thus far. He would put them in a box, I've got a pair, Stephanie found me a pair of boots last week for about $40, $170 boots for $40 and they ain't never been worn before so they came in the box and so the box they came in, he's been using it and he's been putting stuff in it and he'll come knock on the door and he says he's got a package for Pawpaw. I get the package and then I open it up and we go through the whole thing every time of how great this package is. Then he says Pawpaw it's your turn. I bring the package to Holden and so we've done it, if I've done it a hundred times Maybe, maybe 200 times, who knows? But he's been pretending, he loves pretending. And I know when he's pretending, and he likes to tell, well, I'm pretending, Pawpaw, let's pretend. Well, here, he says that, that the haters, if you compare the idea, is that either you love the Lord in comparison to hating the Lord. As Jesus would say, where your treasure is, So is your heart. You can't serve what? Two masters. You're a loved one and what? Hate the other. So you're either gonna love self and do it your way or you're gonna love the Lord and deny yourself. Where he says here, the pretenders would pretend that they are in love with me, but their actions are gonna validate otherwise. And that's what he's getting at. The haters of the Lord would pretend submission. And the key word there is not only the idea of pretending, but they pretend what? Submission to the Lord. And that's just, either you submit or you're pretending you're submitting, right? So submission, and submission's a good thing. I mean, that comes under orders. That is, you got an assignment, so they're pretending they're under God's orders. They're pretending they're under an assignment from Him. But an assignment and orders was the last thing in the world they desired from the Lord. But they pretended they belonged to Him. They would tell people they belonged to Him. You ever been out witnessing? And you ask somebody, when I say witnessing, you just live in life and you talk with somebody and say, man, have you ever been saved? Which is a word I rarely ever use just because in our day, it's so common, people will just tell you, yeah, I'm saved. Like with my father-in-law, pinned me down at 18 years old and asked me to pray a prayer. He'd done it so many times it seemed like to me that I just felt like, okay, well I'm gonna go through the motions with him and maybe he'll quit asking me. So I prayed the prayer, did what he asked me to do, and eventually was baptized, he baptized me. But I didn't surrender to Jesus. I surrendered or played pretended submission to the preacher, to my father-in-law who kept telling me I needed to give my life to Jesus. Now I trusted him, I believed I needed to, but it ain't something that I, I didn't trust Jesus with my life. Now he would have told me and everybody else would have told me because I prayed that prayer, I was okay. I did what I was supposed to. They got a checklist off, man, I want him to Jesus. And he's one, let's move on to somebody else now. And you see, nothing to do with him in particular, but that's just what America has done. rather than understanding that salvation is totally of the Lord, and when God does save, they no longer play, pretend submission to him, they submit themselves to him. Why? Because God changes the nature of the man. He changes him from within, right? And that therefore changes how we live. Well, I was 18 when I did that, but it was, I was 26 years old when the Lord interrupted my life. invaded me with his grace and I understood who he was, not fully, but enough to know who he was and what he's done and what I was and what I didn't do and what he did on my behalf and I entrusted my life to him. and asked him to take my life, do whatever he wanted with my life. I was at his mercy to do what he wanted to do with me, having no idea what he would do with me. It didn't matter, I was giving my life to him. And he then began to transform my life from there. Now, I have not done everything rightly nor perfectly. I've done a million things to discredit him, to mess it all up, but he is faithful to himself. And because I'm his and his work, he's been faithful to continually discipline and chasing and guide me and shepherd me and feed me because I put myself in the nest to be fed by him. Verse 16. He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you. That's saying God would give you, would feed you with the best of the best. Not only would he feed you, not only would he shepherd and guide you, not only would he fight for you with the enemy, but you wouldn't have to pretend. You could be what he set you apart to be, and then he would continue to meet every need in your life according to his riches, according to his purpose, according to his glory. And these things, man, they encourage me when I read something like that. When God says, I wanna feed you. And feeding from Him means hearing, listening, honoring, and holding it forth as a way of life. Amen? That encourages me to know that God Himself, God Almighty, wants to be that personal and intimate and feed me mouth to mouth. If I just open my mouth up and let Him feed me. The idea is my heart is open, but how does he get to my heart? He gets to my heart through my ears and through my mouth. He's wanting to change me to look like him, but my mouth is open for him to do that. Anything y'all pick up on as y'all was reading in that or somewhere else that just blessed you. I wonder if that's where the song comes from. You know, that could be from there. There's other places where he makes commitment. Yes, yes, that could be where they originated that from, because there is a song, honey from the rock. But there's other places in the scripture that speaks about honey. and speaks about the wisdom of God because that's when God feeds you he's giving you his wisdom for you to walk in and it is more precious than gold even fine gold it's more precious than honey in the honeycomb And he does wanna feed us with all those precious, precious things. Now, we know the honey is referring to the sweet things of life, and the fineness of wheat is talking about bread. And remember, man don't live on bread alone, but what? Every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord, and we know that means that what God says about a thing is more important than the thing itself, because he was teaching them how to be dependent upon him when he fed them the manna for that period of time. It wasn't the manna that really sustained them. It was God who sustained them, because if they didn't follow his ways to collect the manna, the manna wouldn't profit them. wouldn't be any good for him. So what was God doing? He said, I was humbling you, teaching you that man was not to be dependent upon the manna, the bread, but what I said. And what I said is most important. That goes back to heeding and hearing, right? of where we are. So yes, I would say that that is one of those passages that would fit in with that message in that song. We bless you. We love you and praise you. We thank you for your kindness and your mercies, your goodness toward us. And I do, I do just stand before you and thank you for your willingness to feed us, to feed us. I pray you find our mouths wide open and that we swallow up everything you pull out and everything you give. And we know you work with us little by little, day by day, step by step, so that we can be utterly dependent upon you. Our greatest example, our greatest example is Jesus. who taught us how to live and teaches us how to live and how to be dependent upon you. So we're gonna bless you and thank you. Thank you for these tonight. They're families, our families, and just ask you to continue to raise us up and use us as you see fit. In Jesus' name, amen. Love y'all. Y'all have a good night and be careful.