Psalm 95 (We Will Kneel or Wander)

We thank you so much for this chance to be changed by looking. Changed by beholding the glory of the

Son of God. Reveal that glory in Psalm 95. Please do that for us,

God. In Jesus' name, amen. So Palm Sunday, it is an example of praise.

We know the story how Jesus rode into the city on a donkey, and all of the people welcomed him.

In fact, it was mostly his disciples, mostly from Galilee, that gathered. But there were so many people cheering for him that the entire city took notice.

So this was no small gathering. It was filled with people, opponents as well as those who were for him.

Palm Sunday was a shining example of praise. They praised because they threw their coats on the ground to make way for the king.

And they took palm branches and put the palm branches on the ground, and they waved them as he came, celebrating the king.

But there's a second thing to notice about Palm Sunday. Not only is it an example of praise, it's also a warning against superficiality.

Because when Jesus was betrayed on that night, even his closest friends ran for the hills.

John was at the foot of the cross, so was Mary and a couple other women. But no one else was to be found on Good Friday.

Just a few days later, the king who rode in, celebrated by the masses, had been abandoned.

And so Palm Sunday does remind us to praise, but it calls us to something deeper than what the disciples demonstrated.

As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise

God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.

A loud voice. When we go to Psalm 95 today, we're going to be taught to make a joyful, exuberant, loud noise to the

Lord. But it has to be more than just noise. The noise that comes from these pipes has to be motivated from the heart, or else it's empty.

We can't settle for just an outward show of religion. We are being called to something deep that comes from the level of the heart.

If we don't learn to do this, to kneel in our hearts, to maybe even kneel physically if you're able to do that when you're alone in the privacy of your prayer closet.

If you don't learn how to kneel and worship and pray and be joyful, you are in great danger of wandering away from the faith.

The early disciples, many came to faith in a short amount of time. But during the first 300 years of Christianity, until the year 312, there were great waves of persecution.

And when the testing of their faith came, many people who had named the name of Christ denied his name for fear of being thrown to the lions or being lit up like a torch in Rome.

Many apostatized from the faith. In fact, after that episode, there was what was called the

Donatist controversy. The Donatist controversy revolved around this question of, what are we to do with apostates?

Because in the year 312, Constantine became emperor, and he put an end to the persecution of Christians.

So with peace on the land, many who had denied the name of Christ now wanted to come back to Christianity.

And a group of Donatists, a group of believers who were very pure, who had seen their fathers and mothers put to death, who had put their neck on the line and seen their own kids die for the faith, many of them were unable to forgive those who apostatized during the persecution.

And they said, if anyone denied the name of Christ and went back to Judaism and refused his name, they can no longer be redeemed.

And so Augustine, that great theologian, explained the gospel of grace that, yes, this sin of apostasy was horrible.

But by trusting in the blood of Christ, even apostates can return. It wasn't too late for them.

Apostasy has been a real problem in the history of the church. Ephesians 6 .13

says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.

The evil day, when things become difficult, not easy, when the Christian road is more difficult than things were before you became a

Christian. The evil day, and having done all to stand. Will you still be standing when the race is over?

Casting Crowns gives us a clue into how to do that. So a

Christian group, they make a joyful noise. They sing loudly. Casting Crowns, in one of their lyrics, says, the only way to make our stand is on our knees with lifted hands.

Comes from the song, We Were Meant to Be Courageous. Courageous. The only way to make our stand is on our knees with lifted hands.

Becoming worshipers who humbly kneel before God and lift our hands, that's how we'll stand.

We have not yet taken our armor off. We're told to put our armor on. There was some great trash talk in 1

Kings chapter 20. The wicked king of Israel, who still represented

Yahweh as the king, was in a battle of words with the king of Assyria, Ben -Hadad.

And Ben -Hadad sent a taunting message. It was a lot like WWE. Tell me none of you watch worldwide wrestling.

Used to be WWF when I grew up. Tell me none of you watch that. But before they get to the actual fight, a majority of what happens is trash talk back and forth.

And so building up to the fight, they were arguing with words. And the king of Israel said to Ben -Hadad, the one who puts on the armor should not boast like the one who takes it off.

Point being, we're about to go to war. Be humble. If you take your armor off, that means you live through the battle.

But as it is, we still have a fight ahead of us. Brothers and sisters, don't boast as if you've run the race to conclusion.

I'm now 20 years into ministry, 19 full -time ministry. And looking back on it,

I see things a little differently than when I started. Because I can count not on one hand or two hands.

I'd have to use all my fingers and toes to count the number of people that I've seen apostatize.

That when I knew them as a believer in Christ or so I thought, they look the part of a genuine

Christian. One, a seminary student, departed for Rome, became a

Roman Catholic. Another, having gone to the mission field to minister to Muslims, came back denying the substitutionary atonement of Christ, calling the substitutionary atonement a monster god theory.

Some who were baptized by these hands departed years later for Islam.

It's been painful to watch. Now, praise the Lord, thousands have continued on the race.

But even if it's 20 who apostatized, I never would have guessed when I knew them.

And looking back, here's what I want to say to you. Let it not be one of us in this room today.

And here, from Psalm 95, there is a sure and steady place. There is a rock to kneel on.

There is a place you can build your house that when the wind and the waves come, it will not fall.

For you will be built upon the rock, Psalm chapter 95. This sermon is my attempt to preach what

Hebrews 3 and 4 says. Do not be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Sin is very deceitful. It tricks us. We think we're strong, and that's why we're weak.

Sin, it can be very deceitful. I have a deceitful friend. Now, I say that jokingly. He called me up the other day, and he tricked me on the phone.

I won't tell you the name of who this person is. He is a radio preacher, and his name rhymes with pill bloob come in.

But he called me up excited to tell me that YouTube and Twitter and Facebook were merging to join one giant company.

And I said, really? That's really interesting. He said, yeah, the new one will be called YouTwitFace. And I said, oh, you're yanking my leg.

He deceived me. I wasn't ready for that one. But sin is very deceitful that way.

You don't see it coming. You think you're strong when it comes. Be careful when you think you're standing firm, lest you fall.

The main idea, the deceitfulness of sin is such that we must continue to listen carefully to the voice of our shepherd and kneel joyfully in his presence, or else we'll wander off into sin and destruction.

Psalm 95, it comes after the exile of Israel. The northern kingdom had been destroyed by the

Assyrians. The southern kingdom hung on for another 100 years, but then they themselves were wiped out by the

Babylonians. Why? Because their hearts had wandered from their first love.

After 70 years in exile in Babylon, they were brought back to the promised land.

And at this point, Psalm 95 is written. It's a reminder not to wander.

It has two invitations and three impetuses. Or is that impeti?

How do you pluralize impetus? Three motivations, three reasons to accept the invitation.

The invitation is to praise. It's to worship. And the reasons are because he is

God, because of who he is and what he's done for us, and third, because there is a very real danger that any one of us could wander off to sin and destruction.

So let's read Psalm 95, 1 and 2. The first invitation, to joyful song, thanksgiving, and praise.

Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise.

Again and again, he says joyful. It's described as noise, it's not quiet.

I thought I was alone in my office this morning and I was singing gracefully broken, nice and loud, and somebody came walking in and overheard me and said, oh, you sing.

And I was very embarrassed. I thought I was alone and my singing was neither graceful, well, maybe it was broken, it was broken.

But what I was doing was making a joyful noise. Maybe you don't have the pipes of our worship leader,

Michael, but you can make a joyful noise. A noise that comes from the heart that's celebrating something.

This in verse one and two can only be sung by the redeemed. Those who have been in captivity in Babylon and know what it's like to come out.

Maybe you've been in captivity to sin and you've been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. You know what it's like to be a prisoner to your own selfish flesh.

And now you've been set free and you know what it's like to raise your hands because you have a savior that set you free.

This is the song of the saved. This is the redeemed making noise. Oh, come, let us sing to the

Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. This is a steady place.

When you build your house on the rock, when the winds come and the waves, this house does not fall because it's built on rock.

Jesus is our great cornerstone. We are the church, living stones built upon the foundation stone, which is

Christ. Christ is our rock. And so I've been saying again and again that Jesus is all throughout the

Psalms. The Psalms are a book about him. Here he is again, the rock of our salvation.

The one upon whom we build our lives, the only fortress we can run into, the only place you can go to be safe,

Jesus Christ. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Now, the opposite of thanksgiving is grumbling, complaining.

Thanksgiving is a grateful heart that recognizes who God is and what he's done. So come with this thankful heart.

And so now, what then is the reason to do this? We need an impetus because truth be known, we wake up in the morning and we've got sleepies in our eyes and we cleared the grogginess away, get rid of the cobwebs.

And right away, we begin to think about what we have to do in that day. Why should we go alone into the closet and pray?

And why should we lift up a voice in praise and kneel and actually spend some literal physical time on our knees in the morning?

Why should we do that? Here's the first impetus, verses three to five. Four, the

Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his for he made it and his hands formed the dry land.

First reason, the first impetus to praise is who God is.

Begin to contemplate like the psalmist do again and again. Remember Psalm 104, how

God formed everything and it recites the creations of God. One of the things that it talks about is how the waters was over the earth and then

God spoke and the mountains burst forth and the valleys fell low and the waters fled to form the oceans.

God speaking the world into existence in the seven days of creation. This is the

God who made everything. Psalm 139 reminds us this is the God who knows everything.

He has everything planned. He's not surprised, he doesn't learn. He is God and he's working out his decree in this world.

He is omniscient, he knows all. And then we're told he's omnipresent. Where can we go to flee from his presence?

If we took the wings of the morning, he'd be there. If we went to heaven, he's there. If we descended to hell, even there, we'd find him.

He is everywhere, he's God, he's omnipresent. And then Psalm 139 reminded us that he is omnipotent.

He makes all that is, he created us. We were fearfully and wonderfully made in the womb where God fashioned us in the secret place.

God made us. And so we remind ourselves who he is.

Psalm 95 verses three to five says remember who God is. The Lord is a great

God, a great king above all gods. Any pretender to the throne, he's greater.

The heights of the mountains are his. The sea is his, it belongs to him. And so when you wake up in the morning, remind yourself,

I am not my own. I am not the king of my own life. I am not the God of my own life.

I belong to a master, a loving master. I am willingly enslaved to a

Lord, joyfully submitted to him, his will for my life.

I am his, not my own. So the first impetus to praise is to remember who God is.

Remind yourself, if you have to go read Psalm 139 or Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God.

Be reminded of who we are dealing with here. Second invitation, verse six.

Oh, come, we're invited to come. Let us worship and bow down.

Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. I'm gonna get really deep here.

I'm gonna tell you the real meaning of kneel in this verse.

The real Hebrew, this is what it refers to. It refers to this. Isn't that deep?

It refers to physically kneeling before God. The reason I do that and the reason

I remind you of that, it's not deep, it just means kneel. While we were away at the men's retreat last year, one of the men said he made a habit of physically kneeling during his devotion time and it's made all the difference.

Since he said that, I've done the same thing, trying to kneel daily before God and I have discovered the same thing.

To put yourself in the physical posture of kneeling humbles you and it reminds you who you're praying to.

I don't know about you, but when I lay on my back and I start to pray, I usually fall asleep.

Anybody else like me? When I'm driving in the car and I start praying, my mind can wander.

But when I kneel, when I humble myself before God, my mind stays focused on who it is and that's the invitation, come, worship and kneel.

Do you realize that the word for worship in the New Testament, proskuneo, means to kneel or prostrate oneself before God?

It refers to that physical posture and here again is an evidence for the deity of Christ.

Do you recognize that in Matthew, when people encountered Christ on at least three occasions,

I have them in your notes, chapter two, chapter 14, chapter 28, when they come and see

Jesus, they fall down and they proskuneo. They worship him.

They take the physical posture of worshiping and the Bible says that people worship

Jesus. Well, in any other place where someone tried to worship either an angel or a man of God, when they tried to worship

Paul as he preached the gospel, he ripped his clothes and said, no,

I am a man like you, don't worship me. When the angel of the

Lord, the minister of God, was worshiped by John, when

John just overwhelmed by the glory of this angel in the book of Revelation, he tried to fall down and worship the angel.

The angel said, don't do that. Don't do that, worship God. Only God deserves proskuneo.

Only God deserves worship. Angels turn it away, men of God turn it away, but Jesus, when people bowed down to worship him, he did not turn it away.

He received the worship because that is the appropriate posture before the

Lord Jesus Christ. It's evidence that he's God, that he receives worship.

And so we're invited to it, verse six. Come, let us worship and bow down.

Form a physical habit in your life, literally bowing down.

And I think it's best to do this when you're by yourself, by the way. One of the things that I'm concerned about is the outward show of religion.

Too many people want to look spiritual. I'm all for raising your hands in worship,

I do that. But some people say, I don't wanna look like I'm trying to be spiritual, and I get that.

Now, I still think it's worth raising your hands to God because you're not doing it for the person and you don't care what other people think, you're actually doing it for God.

But more important than whether or not you raise your hands or even whether or not you bow your physical knees, more important is what's happening inside your heart.

Are you humbling yourself in your heart before God? Do you want him or are you going through motions?

It's very easy to go through the motions of worship, especially because we do this every week, right? We come here every

Sunday to praise the name of Jesus. It would be very easy to get that into a habit and just a ritual, doesn't please him.

He says he's not pleased with sacrifices without a heart behind it. So we have two more impetuses to praise.

Verse seven, the first part. For he is our

God. And we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

Isn't that beautiful? Who he is to us and who we are to him. He is a shepherd.

Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. In John chapter 10,

Jesus shows up and he says, I am the good shepherd. And here's how you know that a shepherd is good.

When trouble comes, he doesn't run away. When wolves come to tear apart the flock, he stays to fight to the point where he says, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

This metaphor of a shepherd and his sheep is one of the most powerful, important images that the

Bible gives us of God. First of all, because sheep are dumb.

And that's who we are. We wander into sin. We make the same mistakes over and over again.

We're prone to wander. But secondly, because a shepherd cares for the sheep and completely provides for this helpless beast.

The sheep can do nothing for himself or herself. Can't ward off the wolf. Not ferocious at all, helpless.

But the good shepherd comes. And that's not the end of the metaphor because not only does the shepherd protect the sheep and die for the sheep, we're told that Jesus becomes a sheep.

When John the Baptist introduced him to us, remember the immortal words of John the

Baptist? Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Every sacrificial lamb in the Old Testament, every time they killed an animal in place of a person who sinned, that animal was pointing to the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus became a human to save humans. We, like sheep, go astray, but the

Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. Jesus is the good shepherd, but not only does he offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people, as a good priest would do, not only does he do that, he himself becomes the sacrifice.

He becomes the lamb, and he takes the penalty in his body being raised up on a tree.

The meaning of the cross is the sacrifice of the lamb of God for a sinner like me.

He identifies with us. He becomes one of us, and so he's able to help us. He didn't become an angel to save angels.

He became a person, a human, to save humans like us, sinners like us.

The good news of the gospel is all here in verse six, and seven, I should say. He is our

God. Jesus is more than a man. He is God in the flesh. We are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

He lays down his life for us. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Now, I saved as much time as I could for the last impetus, and I began talking about apostasy and the danger of wandering because this psalm takes a turn here halfway through the seventh verse, and the third impetus is a warning, a warning to all of us who think that we stand.

Be careful that we do not fall. The third impetus is to be careful that we do not fall, to hear his voice.

What happens when we don't praise? Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massa in the wilderness when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

For 40 years, I loathed that generation and said, they are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.

Therefore, I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. To catch the weight of what's being said here, of course, we have to remember

Meribah, Massa. What is that? Well, when

God redeemed his people with the blood of lambs and the doorposts and the lentils were marked with the blood of the lamb, the people came out having seen 10 signs of God's power, 10 signs, the plagues of Egypt.

They came out of their slavery, and they were camped by the Red Sea. God says in Exodus 13 that he did not bring them directly to the promised land because he knew if they faced war with the

Philistines right away, they would turn back to Egypt. He knew that their hearts were not consecrated, were not strong.

And so as soon as the Red Sea blocked them in and Pharaoh hardened his heart and this army was chasing them down, right away in Exodus 14, they began to grumble.

They saw Pharaoh approaching and they turned against their own God. And they said, it would be better for us to have stayed in Egypt instead of coming out into this wilderness to be run down by Pharaoh and his army.

Their hearts went back to Egypt one time. Yet God mercifully brought them through the

Red Sea. And as soon as they got out into the desert, they got thirsty and they found some water, but it turned out to be bitter.

It would have poisoned them to drink it. And so they grumbled and they said, it would be better for us to go back to Egypt.

But God had mercy, Moses interceded and they went on. And of course they got hungry. And what happened?

They grumbled and they complained about their circumstances and their hearts became hardened towards God.

And they said, it would be better for us to go back to Egypt. They even tried to get a leader to overthrow

Moses. And then it happened again in Exodus chapter 17. They were thirsty again.

Don't we sometimes struggle with the same thing over and over again? But this time they rebelled violently.

They almost stoned Moses. He fell down before God. They quarreled with him.

He took his stick and he hit the rock and water came from the rock and they had water to drink.

But Moses named that place Masa and Meribah.

Masa means testing. Meribah means quarreling. You see their hearts tested

God. In truth, the trials that come into your life, according to first Peter chapter one, are tests that are sent from God meant to refine your faith.

First Peter 1 .7 talks about how God is testing you to refine you.

He allows difficulty to come. He might even allow martyrdom. He might allow you to be put in a life or death situation where you have to choose whether you stand or whether you depart.

This testing actually comes from God to refine your faith. But Masa means testing

God. They put him to the test. Will he judge us or will he forgive us again?

Is he really among us is what they say. Is God really among us? Zephaniah 1 .12, will he do good?

Will he do bad? Is he the God of Israel? Is he here? Does he matter? They tested

God. And we're told in Psalm 95 that it was one time too many.

The final time comes in Numbers chapter 14. They spy out the land.

Joshua and Caleb say, we can do it. We can take them. But the other 10 spies say, no, we can't.

And they deliver a bad report. And they put God to the test. And he says, they shall never enter my rest.

But for 40 years, they will wander in the wilderness. And this entire generation save Caleb and Joshua will die in the wilderness.

This is some heavy teaching because these are the redeemed people of God.

He brought them out. They were in the assembly. And yet many of them, the vast majority of that first generation fell dead in the wilderness and never entered the promised land.

That's scary. What would it mean for us as Christians? How would we apply that? Well, the only way to do that in a sure -footed way is to take how the

New Testament applies what was prophetically written in the old and make that application to the church.

Can we do that? Yes, we can. Hebrews chapter one and chapter two, quote the

Psalms over and over again to establish that Jesus is better. Jesus is better than the old life that you left behind, than the easy way out that you're looking at.

Jesus is better than angels. He's better than anything you could imagine. In chapter three, he's better than Moses.

And then for the remainder of Hebrews chapter three and chapter four, the apostle, whoever it was, exegetes

Psalm 95 and gives us the interpretation of these verses, how would it apply to us?

Psalm 95 becomes the subject matter for two chapters of the New Testament, Hebrews three and four.

And we are warned to take this as the example for our lives. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Masa, at Meribah.

Do not harden your hearts, accept the invitation to come. Do not be hardened by sin's deceitfulness, we're told.

What happened to the Israelites was a warning for us. It teaches us to hold firm to the faith until the end.

So let's address a subject then, this is very important. You say, wait a minute, are you telling me that you can lose your salvation?

I thought it was once saved, always saved. Raise your hand if you heard once saved, always saved.

We've all heard once saved, always saved. You know what, I affirm that teaching. But I think it's better said, if saved, always saved.

If saved, always saved. Because there's many who have walked aisles and raised hands and gathered in churches, maybe they grew up in churches, but they never were born again.

And so they go out from us when the time of death and the time of testing comes. So they fall in the wilderness.

Don't assume that you're saved unless your faith is abiding and real.

Hebrews three goes on to say, and I think it's verse six, you are his house if you hold to the teaching you believed at first.

It says the same thing in verse 14. Hold firm to the confidence you had at first, and then you hold firm to the faith until the end.

Hebrews three, six and 14. What is that saying? You are saved, you have been born again.

It's a done deal. You can't lose it. And it is demonstrated by the fact that you're continuing in the faith.

You're continuing to gather to worship. You're the one who lifts your hands and bows the knee.

Not that you did it one time when you were young, but that your faith is an abiding faith.

It continues. If saved, always saved. So how do we apply this?

If you've been wandering, it's time to come back. Take the warning, come back.

He invites you back. There is forgiveness at the cross. There is forgiveness.

Jesus died to open a new and living way that you can come to him and find rescue and build your life upon that rock.

Never stop singing and thanking and praising and worshiping and bowing and kneeling and listening.

If you ever stop, you risk wandering off into destruction. Never stop bowing the knee.

I close with three quick stories that were all in this month's episode of Voice of the

Martyrs, which is a magazine that tells about persecution of Christians worldwide. The first was Min J.

Min J from North Korea went on a business trip to China. While he was there, he heard the same gospel that we're talking about now.

He believed it. But right before he went back to North Korea, somebody said, can we smuggle

Bibles into North Korea through you? He was conflicted because he knew it could carry the penalty of death, prison at the least.

But knowing that Jesus died for him, he counted not his life dear to himself and he said,

I will do it. He received three duffel bags filled with pants wrapping up 10

Bibles in the middle of the night off of a boat from China. He took them to his house and prayed about who to give them to.

One day he heard a North Korean man singing a Christian song, making a joyful noise.

And so he left those Bibles on that man's doorstep. 27 of that man's family members became

Christian. But all of them wound up in jail, as did he. Question, do you turn back when you're in a

North Korean jail? He didn't and he was eventually delivered. Last he knew this last month, the 27, all from the same family, by the way.

That family who got the Bibles, they're still in jail as we speak. Second story, we go over to Iran.

Pastor Humayun, arrested for preaching the gospel. Thrown in jail, his

Bible taken. Along with other Christians, they began to write the

Bible. They had diaries in there, they had paper. They began to write the Bible from memory. Somebody wrote

Acts 14, 22, through many tribulations we must inherit the kingdom of God. They began to assemble these pieces.

In fact, there was an Imam who would come and visit some of the Muslims in the prison. And the

Christians arranged for him to bring diaries to the people, only the Imam did not read

English. Instead of letters from family, it was the scriptures written in English.

And from that, they made copies of the Bible and distributed it among the prisoners. As the prisoners became

Christians, Pastor Humayun was persecuted by the guards. And was thrown into what was called prison's hell.

Prison's hell was the basement of the chamber where the hardened criminals, the murderers were.

Prison's hell was so bad that there was a murder a week in the jail, there were about 200 soldiers there.

I mean, 200 criminals there. They would make knives out of metal shards of cans or whatever they could find, and they were killing one another.

As a way to break Pastor Humayun, knowing that he had been a drug addict, many of them had drugs because of the opium that's grown in Afghanistan, crosses the border, and so there's a real heroin epidemic there as well.

Pastor Humayun had been a drug addict for 30 years, but was set free through Christ. So you wanna know what they did?

They brought drugs into the prison to make him fall. And in the depths of his despair, he had a choice to make.

To wander back into destruction or to continue to kneel in praise. He chose to kneel in praise.

And many in hell's prison, prison's hell, were saved before they died.

He eventually got out, and he now lives as a pastor right outside of Iran in a neighboring country, and Iranians who are fleeing from Iran are getting saved and joining his church.

He did not apostatize. He remained strong. Finally, Kenya. In Kenya, there were a group of children that converted to Christianity, hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But some Muslim evangelists, as they called them, although they had no good news, they came to these children and offered them candy.

And 20 children returned to Islam because they were offered candy.

Now fortunately, the gospel preachers came back, not offering them anything tangible, but the gospel of Christ and giving them a

Bible. Many of them returned to the faith. But I close with these stories because I want to ask you, what would it take for you to sell your salvation?

What would you trade it for? Are you willing to trade it for candy?

Or are you willing to die, or go to prison, or to suffer for the name? Guys, I don't know what's coming to America.

But the more I see the movement of this culture, the more it looks to me like 2

Thessalonians chapter two. The great apostasy. The apostasy that swept

Europe, that once was a Christian continent, quote unquote. Now there's hardly evangelicals there.

And America could go that same way. Unless God has grace and we have a revival. But if the apostasy, the great apostasy is coming, will you be ready to stand and on the evil day to stand?

I'll tell you how you can be sure that you will. To value the blood of the lamb. So much that here in our comfort, guys, the temptations that come at us are not like the

Iranian prisons and the North Korean prisons. They're so much more subtle. They're the professor that calls into question the validity of the word of God.

They're Richard Rohr mocking the Bible. And with nuance, claiming to have found something far more sophisticated than that old time religion.

The voices come and they become more and more deceptive. Let not one of us fall.

20 years from now, let's every one of us be praising. And here's how you can know for sure that you're gonna do it.

Trusting in the shed blood of Jesus Christ and his righteousness, worship him daily.

Carve out a time, carve out a time alone with God to bow the knee and to pray.

Don't assume that you're strong. Don't assume that you could never fall. I am shocked by the people who have fallen and apostatized.

Never would have guessed it. Never would have guessed it. This is the warning of Psalm 95.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for Psalm 95.

And as the worship team comes, Lord, I pray that you would use this Psalm to inspire praise.

This is Palm Sunday, Lord. They wave palm branches for you. They threw their coats on the ground.

We pray, Lord, that we would lift our hands, we would lift our hearts, we would bow our knees, we would bow our hearts to you in worship every day.

Let it begin right now, this morning, Lord. Tune our hearts to sing your praise.

Help us to make a joyful noise to the Lord. A joyful noise.

This morning, we confess that the blood of Jesus is worthy of our lives, for to me, to live is

Christ. To die is gain. Help us not to count our lives dear to ourselves, to recognize that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God.

Lord, make us strong this morning, not in our own strength, but the strength that comes from falling to our knees, humbling ourselves before you, worshiping you daily.

Encourage one another as long as it is called today, that none of you would be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.