Have you ever thought about this? God's blessings are not random, but they rest upon him who walks with the Lord. Psalm 1 and verse number 1 says, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Now we're talking about the blessed man. Verse 2 says, But his delight, the blessed man, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he, the blessed man, shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Father, I pray that you'd bless in this short time we have just to read, think, speak about your word and the blessed man, the one who walks in your way and Lord, the one that takes your instructions, the one who enjoys his or her life because they have invested their life in your word and your will. Blessed this morning, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. In a world obsessed with chasing blessings and every fortune, fame, comfort, or success that can be pursued, people are frantically trying to find the secret sauce to a happy and fulfilled life. The searchers look in new places. In fact, some people are so given to seeking out pleasure in new things, they're going from this new thing or that new place or this new relationship. They go from one new thing to another because new things do have an allurement and they do have something to excite the flesh for a little while. But you know the problem with that? the new wears off in a little while. You ever see a little kid, get them a new toy, man they're all about that new toy for a little while. They play with it for a little while, next thing you know it's thrown over in the corner and they're doing what? Playing with a cardboard box. And so new things don't have a way of giving us permanent satisfaction, it has a way of bringing us joy for a little while and then when that wears off we're chasing something else. And if we pursue fulfillment, satisfaction, peace, and joy in the things of the world, we're never going to find it, never going to have it, because those things make themselves wings and fly away. But God has not left us to just guess about how blessings come into our lives. He's told us plainly in His Word what kind of life He does bless. and in Psalms 1.1, a little set of verses here you've heard many times probably, but I want you to think about it very closely today. In the context of seeking God's blessings, where do we look and how do we find it? Well, the world measures blessing by outward gain. God begins with an inward walk. In the Word of God, I've read in verse number one, let's read it one more time. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. So the very first thing that we see in this passage of scripture, how blessings come is through separation. A separation that God blesses. There's some things we ought to be separated from. I know that doesn't get preached a lot nowadays and maybe some focus on that exclusively about separation. They used to but not much anymore. Anything goes pretty much now. But there is a separation that God blesses. There is a separation that God expects and that God instructs us. Like avoiding the counsel of the ungodly. It says, blessed is the man that walketh not in what? The counsel of the ungodly. We're instructed in avoiding this counsel. I've known in my 40 some odd years of ministry, I've known a lot of people who got excited about the Lord, served the Lord for a while, came to church for a while, maybe even witnessed for the Lord, maybe sing or serve by teaching or singing in the choir and then suddenly without seemingly notice, they're all flitting around in the world again and have no place for God in their lives. I've seen it happen too many times and I bet you have too. Maybe it's happened to us. We looked for satisfaction and we forgot that we had what God wanted us to have, but we went after the counsel of the ungodly. God blesses those who reject that path in favor of his counsel. God has good counsel. It's healthy cancer. You remember the story of Rehoboam, right? Solomon's son. I mean, he inherited what most people in that world would have just dreamed about. I mean, he inherited an empire. A rich empire that had increased trade routes in that part of the country, that part of the world. Riches galore in that kingdom that Rehoboam inherited. He had it. And the temple They'd had that tabernacle that we're preaching about on Wednesday nights. They'd had that tabernacle for 500 years, and then Solomon built this glorious tabernacle for the Lord. And all of its splendor, it stood in the middle of this kingdom that Rehoboam had inherited. But the people were a little weary of the heavy tax burdens, but they were pretty happy, and it was a great, strong empire. When he inherited it, there came a moment of decision. When the tribes of Israel gathered together to crown him, Rehoboam, as their new king, they gathered together and they made one request. They said, make the heavy yoke thy father put upon us lighter and we will serve thee. And that was a turning point. Rehoboam did something good. He turned to the old men for counsel. And they said, if you'll just be kind to these people, you know, if you'll just be kind to them, show some appreciation. You love these people and if you just treat them right, Rehoboam, they'll serve you from now on. But then, Rehoboam turned to his peers, the young men. who knew nothing about great leadership, who knew nothing about godly example, who had not known King David and even Solomon very well. He turned to the young men who had no experience, no wisdom, and they said, here's what you do, Rehoboam. You don't listen to the old men. You do this. You tell those guys that's whining about the heavy burden that they've borne under your father. You tell them your little finger's gonna be heavier than your father's loin. And you show them, Rehoboam, who's boss. That's what he did. And guess what happened then? Because Rehoboam sought the counsel of the young men and believed them and trusted them more than the counsel of the old men, he took the young men's counsel. You know what happened next? Ten tribes of those twelve walked out. They said, we're done. And now there's a split in the kingdom. The kingdom that had been united for so long is now split because Rehoboam didn't take godly counsel but he took the counsel of the young men and said, you know, let's just, let's do things our way. A lot of Christianity is that way nowadays. Instead of seeking the counsel of God, instead of coming to hear the preaching of the word of God, they said, well, me and Jesus got our own thing going. We'll just work it out the way we want to. We'll just build our own God in this box that we've created. And so they don't separate from the counsel of the ungodly, and they pay the price. Some young people marry wrong. wise Christian gave them advice but they didn't follow it. And they married one that they later regretted. Maybe some people had gone in the right direction. They were serving God. They were going to church. They were doing things for God. But then somebody came into their life that gave them bad counsel. You hear what I'm saying? There'll be people giving you counsel from all different directions, but you better weigh in the balances godly counsel from the worldly counsel. God instructs us in Psalm 1-1 to weigh the advice in light of the Word of God. God's Word has not gone out of date. God's Word is just as accurate today as it's ever been. God's Word ought to be consulted before anybody else. I'm talking about in front of the scientists, in front of the biologists, in front of the psychologists and the psychiatrists. God's counsel ought to be sought first instead of as a last resort. You're to be separate from bad counsel and you should be standing apart from the path of the sinners. Let's read it again, verse 1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners. That word standing there, standeth, suggests a settled state. Standing, just standing. Not flittering off here and yonder, but he's settled. He's settled on the word of God. He's settled on the way of God. He's settled on the will of God. It's a settled position. You know why so many people regret so many decisions today? A lot of times it's because they're given to change, change, change. They feel like they get a little pressure over in this situation instead of trying to settle it with the Word of God. and having faith in God, they switch positions and change. They'll switch this place and go to that place. Change, change. The Bible says meddle not with them that are given to change. Some people change so much they don't know where they stand. They don't know the truth from a lie. Kind of describes America today. I don't think In my 74 years, I don't think I've ever seen a time, I've said this over and over, but it just gets worse and worse. I've never seen an America divided as it is today. People don't know what to believe. And they'll turn on this channel and watch the news report over here, and wow, they believe what they said. And if this news channel over here repeats what that one said, it must be true. Well, you know what that is? Hitler said if you repeat a lie often enough and strong enough, people will finally believe it. And a lot of what America believes today is not even close to the truth, much less being logical. God's blessed man is steadfast. He stays stuck. there's some problems facing me right now but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna change my position I'm not gonna change my convictions I'm not gonna change what I know to be the truth from the Word of God I'll just stand here I'll just stand here and battle it out and that's called faith Romans 12 says, be ye not conformed to this world. You know what's happening now? People are conforming to this world. If it's the popular thing to do, you do that instead of standing on the Word of God. This Word is not always easy. This is not always the easiest path, but as my preacher in Bible college said, oftentimes, a lot of times he said, the best way is a lot of times the hard way. You hear that? The hard way is often the best way. God doesn't make life easy in every situation. And when we begin to make decisions to take off the pressure, we change instead of standing. Romans 12 says, Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Once you get the mind of God, stay with it. Don't switch. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, in our text, again, in verse number one of Psalms chapter one, it says, blessed is the man. We're talking about blessedness. We're finding the blessings of God. First of all, it's not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standing in the way of the sinners. And thirdly, it's not in the seat of the scornful. Refuse the seat of the scornful. I've known of young people, teenagers or young adults, to get around their own company. And they maybe had the right position before, right ways before, but then they get around their own company, take their own counsel, and they begin to walk in that way of their company, their newfound friends, and next thing you know, they're scornful. There's websites of people who used to be independent Baptists, They got around the wrong people. Now, have there been some bad independent Baptists? Yeah, there's bad independent Baptists, there's bad doctors, there's bad lawyers, there's bad businessmen, there's bad preachers, there's bad ordinary human beings. There's a bad apple in a lot of different barrels. But you don't throw the whole barrel away, you throw the rotten apple out, right? And so people would get to sitting in the seat of the scornful and on these websites they discuss With a broad brush, they swipe every independent Baptist and say, they're all bad, they're all wicked, get out, go to this group or that group. They don't preach doctrine over there. Well, doctrine is simply Bible teaching. If you don't preach doctrine, you ain't preaching nothing. If there's not something to say, why say it? And if there's something to say, it ought to be the truth of the Word of God. If it's not that, you can't depend on it anyway. Everybody's got an opinion, right? Opinions are kind of like armpits. Everybody's got them and they usually stink. The mockers and scorners. In the early days of our church, we were in that little old storefront building across the street and we were just getting kind of cranked up and started and there was a young woman that came to us. She was Christian. but an ungodly man was stalking her and had had a relationship with her and had led her astray but she had decided to go straight again with the Lord and so she came to our church and she was getting back in the way of doing right and then one Sunday night this guy, the scorner, showed up and he was sitting on the back row pretty much looked like he didn't like being there, but he was after her. He knew she was in the little congregation we had, and so he sat back there, and speaking of armpits, he had on an old sweatshirt that had the whole sides cut out of it, leaning back on the pew like he owned the back pew with his armpits showing, and just as I was preaching, I thought, boy, I don't think that guy likes the preaching. I don't think he likes the Word of God. because he looked like he was scorning, mocking and he couldn't get out of that place fast enough but the young woman that we were trying to rescue from his clutches came to me a little bit later and she said I found this note in the front seat of my car that was parked out front during church from this guy who was leading her astray and this letter was trying to pull her away from church and get her back into the world with him Well, this happened a couple of times and the scorning and the mocking got worse. And I don't know about you, but I want everybody in church that I can get in. But there's been a few who I thought we'd be better off without them. And this guy made it so bad that, I mean, it was killing the spirit in the church because everybody knew why he was there. I mean, it's just a real tiny group. And I knew why he was there. He's stalking this young woman trying to pull her back into the world. and he was rude and crude. I went to his place of work, took another man in the church with me, a little bigger than me. I thought if a guy tries to attack us, maybe he can whoop him. And so we went to visit this guy at work and when I stepped up there to talk to him, I said, I'd like to have a word with you in private if you've got a room. He said, I ain't got nothing to say to you. I have nothing to say to you. Get out. I said, I'm either gonna talk to you in private or I'm gonna talk to you in front of everybody here. And he just turned his back and walked away. He was mad. I mean, he was smoking, smoke coming out of his ears as he was leaving. And so the guy that was with me, when we got back in the car, he said, before you go back to the church, he said, let's go down Main Street. He said, there's a gun store down there. He said, you need a gun. I said, man, I don't need a gun. I don't feel threatened. He said, you don't know that guy like I do. He said, he'll try to kill you. I said, well, I don't think. He said, believe me, I know. I said, I don't even have the money to buy a gun. And he said, we'll get you the gun. And we went down there and he bought a pistol, a box of shells and gave it to me. He said, you better keep that close to you even when you're preaching. For the next several services, I preached with a pistol under the pulpit ready in case something happened. Fortunately, the guy didn't come back. I guess he got the message. Now he eventually did lead the woman astray again. But I'm just saying, bad counsel will come and the way of the sinners and the way of the scornful can lead people in the wrong direction and none of us are immune to it. The way of the ungodly and the scorner will take people to ruin. Remember a man by the name of Abraham and his nephew Lot? becoming prosperous in the land and the herds were growing, they were increasing their number of servants and they were becoming very prosperous and so Lot separated off from Abraham. Now his separation was not a good one because he pitched his tent towards Sodom and Gomorrah. He's just looking that way. Are you with me now? He's just looking that way. He didn't go to Sodom and Gomorrah. He just pitched his tent so he could keep an eye on what's going on down there. And pretty soon he heard the loud music. He heard the shrieks of pleasure. He saw that they were having what he thought was a good time. And he moved closer and he moved closer until he was right smack dab in the middle of it. Abraham stayed separate. He didn't go down there. He stayed close to God. He decided he's going to walk with God. Well, you know the rest of the story. Lot's little Sodom city got destroyed because God doesn't appreciate that kind of lifestyle. I said it. God doesn't appreciate that kind of lifestyle. And nobody is born that way. And even if they were, they don't have to give in to the temptation, whatever it may be. Just like a heterosexual has temptations to the other sex, he must avoid that temptation, avoid the fornication. And so if somebody has homosexual tendencies, just by the same token, they have to resist those temptations. Everybody has a choice when a temptation comes. Reggie White was the most feared man, defensive lineman in football, in NFL history. He was known as the Minister of Defense for he had a bold testimony for the Lord. His career spanned 15 seasons and he was in a Super Bowl win with the Green Bay Packers and he earned not just fame but influence. People listened to him. And so at the height of his career he was approached by several companies that wanted to get him doing commercials for them. One big beer company offered him more money than he was making playing NFL football if he would sponsor, if he would advertise their beer. He turned it down flatly. He said, I can't do that with a clear conscience because as a minister of the gospel I have counseled a lot of people who had homes destroyed by alcohol and relationships that have broken up, careers that have been trashed. And he said, as a minister of the gospel, no matter how much the money is, I can't with a clear conscience do that after I've counseled people against it. And the Bible speaks so strongly against it. I can't do it. You know what? He lost out on a bunch of money there. Millions. A lot of people would have given in and said, you know, a guy can just be a little flexible. After all, we're talking about a lot of money. but he didn't. And while he never had those riches promised by the world, he did have a testimony that he stood against it. He did have an influence that would not lead people in the wrong direction. He said, I don't want my name associated or my image associated with something that destroys families. We live in a time, listen, we live in a time where Christianity is being bombarded with this ideology that, well, there's nothing wrong with a little drinking, you know, after all, the Bible doesn't condemn drinking, it's just you're not supposed to get drunk. You know the problem with drinking a little bit? By the way, I think I could take the Bible and show you that wine is a mocker, it's a deceiver, that is something so tragic that we ought not to even look at it? It's poisonous. If a half a case of beer makes you drunk, you ought to avoid it, right? But if 12 cans makes you drunk, what do six cans make you? Half drunk? Where do we draw the line? I draw the line at being a teetotaler. I used to be a drunk. I know what it would do. I remember when I was a young man and I'd get in the car on Friday afternoon and I'm driving down the road and I crank up that loud rock music and it's pounding in my ears and that gives a perfect setting for the devil to whisper in my ear and say, Rick, drive over to Newport. That's a wet town over there. You can buy booze over there. And man, I was on my way. I got there before dark. And I'm here to tell you that everything I did after I found that booze wasn't a good thing. And a little bit, if a lot of it hurts, a little bit of it doesn't help. I still don't think a little bit, but what good does it do? I mean, if you use the same logic that just a little bit After all, if the Bible did teach that a little bit was okay, couldn't you use that same logic about heroin? Well, you don't want to get addicted to heroin, but couldn't you just take a little bit? I mean, the Bible doesn't say anything wrong about heroin, does it? Never found it. The Bible doesn't command us not to do meth, but I think most of us have got enough sense that we know it wouldn't be a good thing. Well, if the Bible didn't have a specific command, even if you interpret it that way, that there's no specific command against drinking a little bit, wouldn't that same logic say, okay, take a little bit of drugs? Same thing. Well, I can see that's real popular, so I'm moving on. Society scorns us when we decide to separate from worldliness. But it's a simple instruction of God's unfailing word. Hanging out with those who are worldly has got a good chance of rubbing off. Go ahead and go to those clubs, drink a 7-up instead of the booze. But the smell comes your way, the sounds come your way, and the temptation becomes strong. You know I'm telling you the truth. How can we fix that? Quit hanging out with the ungodly. The Bible says in Proverbs chapter 13 verse number 20, He that walketh with wise men shall be wise. Now what's the flip side? But a companion of fools shall be destroyed. I think it makes a difference who we choose as our closest friends. Look, I'm not saying that we ought to just avoid altogether people who live a lifestyle that's different, that's not a godly lifestyle. We need to witness to them. We need to show them the love of God. We need to show them the word of God and the plan of God for people to be saved so they can have a relationship with Jesus Christ and a home in heaven. That's true. We're not to be isolationist but we're not to embrace as our closest friends those who are going to bring temptation right up to us. It's dangerous. God doesn't bless compromise. But what we cling to is more important than what we separate from. Separate from the world, but listen, that's not all there is. I've known people who have lived a separated life but they didn't live for the Lord. So it's a separation and then there's a saturation. The saturation that God blesses. We're talking about God's blessings. What does God bless? What is the life of a person who is blessed by God? First of all, he's walking close to God. The saturation is the part where he's walking close. He stays away from the sin, stays away from the worldliness. He has a separation, but then he has a saturation. A saturation with the things of God. Look at the second verse in our text, Psalm 1 verse 2. Now he's already talked about what to separate from. Now he says in verse number 2, But his delight, the blessed man, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law Does he meditate day and night? He meditates. He delights and he meditates in the things of God. Did you ever have a love for the Word of God and for the walk with God? Oh, listen friend, it's not nearly so hard to separate from those sinful and worldly things if we have a love for the Lord Jesus. If we really want to love what He loves, we will find it easy to walk away and turn our back on the things we shouldn't be seeking after and we'll turn to Him and find our delight, our joy, our peace, our fulfillment in Him. The blessed man has a heart that delights in God's Word. It isn't a chore. Some people say, man, it's just hard to read the Bible, especially the King James Bible. I found out that you have to have a dictionary to read any of them just about and many times the modern versions you'll have to have a dictionary more often than you will in the old King James. They use some terminology that we don't use everyday in all the versions. But the King James is not what we adopt because of its Elizabethan language, its majesty, of words and its reverence those are good things but that's not primarily why we adopt it the primary reason is because it comes from the right family of underlying manuscripts that weren't corrupted and so that's why we stick with it and we love it and it's not hard to read the Bible is not hard to read I mean if you come to a part you don't know get out the dictionary and look it up If you don't have time or have a dictionary, just skip over that part and read some more. Read somewhere else and then go back and study that out later. A heart that delights in God's Word won't find it to be a chore, but he'll find affection from the Word of God. You love it. You want it. Job said, you remember how much trouble Job had, right? Job said this in verse 23 and verse number 12, neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed, listen to this, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Woo, I like that. You know what Job said? He said, man, I love to eat when I'm hungry, but I'd rather have this if I had to make a choice between this and a chili hot dog, I'd take this. And I love chili hot dogs. especially with slaw and mustard and cheese. But you know the Bible is to be more of our nourishment. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. What's he saying, that we shouldn't eat? No, you've got to eat to live. But it comes down to a choice. To give up one, you better hang with the Word of God. You better have an affection for the Word of God. and a heart that delights in the word and meditates day and night. You know what meditation is? Meditation is not speed reading through the Bible. I have read through the Bible a number of times. But I found out in my later years that I need to slow down and soak up what it's saying. I'm not just trying to get from Genesis to Revelation as quick as I can so I can go to church and brag about how many chapters I read a day. What does that do you? You'll have five minutes of fame and it's gone. But if you take the Word of God and you read it, you take a passage of Scripture and you focus on it and you cross-reference it through the Bible, you look up the words, you meditate on it and you think on it and say, God, how does this apply to me? How is this going to help me to love you and serve you? And when we begin to focus on a shorter passage of scripture, I'm not saying don't read through your Bible, I'm just saying that we need to have some study time where we soak in the Word of God and meditate on it like an old cow. You ever see an old cow out in the pasture? She's in the middle of the day and there's a shade tree and she's ate a bunch of grass and she's over there laying down in the shade and she's chewing, chewing that cud. It's kind of like meditation. When you read some of the Word of God, you stop and just chew on it and soak it in. Have a time with the Word. Have a time with the Lord. Say, Lord, I know this has got to work in my life somewhere. Show me how this works. What's the principle in that passage that can help me? And you know what? If you meditate on it a while, He's more likely to show you more and more and more. spiritual chewing. A life rooted in biblical priorities is going to be the life that God blesses. What are your priorities? Vacation? We all love vacations. What's more important? Living for God doesn't mean that you've got to give up everything in the whole world and become a monk in a monastery. Or if you're a woman, you'd be a monk. That's bad, I know. I couldn't resist it. God doesn't want you to sit around and just meditate and go... and pretend to be spiritual. God wants you to live. And God's okay with you enjoying food and vacation and doing things for fun. As long as it's not ungodly, God's not against you having fun. But you know, there are priorities. The weightier things, Jesus said the weightier things. There's some things that's more important than others, even in the scripture. There's some things that's more important than others. It's all important, but some are way up here. We all have priorities in our life. There's some things we're just not going to give up. If it's godly, we're going to cling to it. God blesses those who use his word as their guidebook. You remember this verse, Joshua 1.8. Joshua said, So he put the word of God first, then the success comes later. Keep the priorities. Martin Luther once said he was so busy he couldn't afford not to spend time in the scriptures every day and walking with God. J.C. Penney, businessman back decades ago, in the 1920s, he was one of the most successful businessmen in America. He had built his company from a single little dry goods store in Wyoming to a chain of stores. And then the Great Depression hit. He had invested heavily in expanding his business. He had a lot of debts because of it. It was growing, but when the Depression hit, things got tough. His businesses got wrecked. Financial losses were numerous. The pressure on him, on J.C. Penney, was immeasurable. Man, the pressure of all this. He came to the point where he was so depressed about it, losing his financial stability, that he checked himself into an asylum. He was afraid he was just losing his mind. He just thought at one point he wasn't going to live to see the morning. and he wrote letters to his wife and children telling them goodbye. He wandered the halls of that sanatorium and he heard singing from a little chapel. Curious, he went inside. There were people singing and testifying about what the Lord had done for them and a small group of staff and patients. They were holding a devotion time They were singing, God will take care of you. We've sung that here before. God will take care of you. And he sat down at the back and he was soaking that up. He was hungry for some relief. This struck a note in his heart. Then somebody stood up and read a portion from the book of Psalms and part of it included these words. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. Psalm 42, 11. Man, that rung a bell with him. That moment broke him. He said later that he realized he'd been trying to take care of everything himself. And giving testimony of salvation, he said, I was filled with a hope, a new sense of hope and resolve. I'd been saved spiritually. From that day forward, J.C. Penney began reading from the Psalms each morning before he started his day. Now he never did build everything back financially quite to where it was before but you know what he had that was greater than the riches he had accumulated? He had peace and blessedness in his heart that he gained from the Psalms like the one we're studying this morning. He had peace and resolve where he could face the rest of life not dreading the day when he got out of bed but facing life with joy and peace and comfort and faith in God. Well, if you want God's blessings on your life, stop dipping your toes in the Word of God and bathe in it. Separation is part of the blessedness, saturation is part of it, and then lastly, the stability God blesses. Psalm 1-3. And he, who? The blessed man. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Tree. You ever slug a tree? I hope not, they're pretty solid. They're solid. And he says, The man that experiences the blessings of God is the same man who is steadfast, he's solid, he's like a tree planted by the rivers of water where the roots are going down deep and they're soaking up the nutrition and the moisture. And it talks about, in their psalm, it talks about fruitfulness there. It's berries, fruit, and season. A lot of Christians just got fire insurance and they never do anything for the Lord. Not fruitful. God saved us for a purpose, ladies and gentlemen. God saved us for a purpose. He didn't save us to sit on our blessed assurance. He saved us to do something for Him. and God wants us to be busy growing closer to Him and doing something because of it. We're not a spectator sport. Christianity is a teamwork and we work together for God and with God's service. This kind of life, that life like a tree, it's a life that endures and prospers. The redwoods in California, those things stand such high winds, it's almost unbelievable how much wind they can endure. because their roots are down deep and they're intertwined. Man, and the wind just can't seem to blow them over. Remember how Joseph was when he went down to Egypt, sold as a slave in Egypt? He was in a pagan land, but he planted himself firmly in the Word of God and the things of God and in his faith in God. Even in a place that was adverse to him, he planted himself deeply. And because he did that, he prospered. Remember he became, listen, he became the prime minister just under the king in Egypt. He had a lot of responsibility and a lot of blessings. God doesn't promise us a life free of storms, but he promises us stability in those storms. Well, blessings are not random. Some people think, well, he gets blessed, she gets blessed. Sometimes I do, but not very much. I don't even understand how blessings come. God makes it pretty plain that you have to be separated from some things. Separated from the things that will draw you away from God. You need to be saturated with the Word and you need to just be steadfast. Say, I'm going to stick with God no matter what. Ecclesiastes 4.12 says, And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. You know what he's saying? You ever see a rope? It's not just one solid rope. A rope is made up of strands that are twisted together. If you took one of those strands, you could just snap it. But you twist all those strands together and you make up a massive rope, man, that thing's strong. I pulled Dustin out of the ditch. Well, he got stuck out here mowing. You want me to tell them the whole story, Dustin? Don't feel too bad, Al's been stuck a time or two out here. Yes, you have, don't you lie. Me, I've never been stuck out here. That's not true. I took a strap, a fabric strap. It wasn't a chain. I've got a log chain, but I've got a strap that I hooked onto his mower and pulled his truck out and his mower out. That strap is strong because it's made up of a bunch of strands. That's why the Bible says a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. You need more than just a little bit hanging on with God. You need a three-fold cord. Can I suggest a three-fold cord to you? First, you have to be saved. Second, you need to be worshiping the Lord corporately with others. You know, Jesus loved the church and gave himself for it. People need a church. A three-fold cord is not quickly broken. If you're meeting together, listen, if you're meeting together with God's people, you've got a thicker cord than you are standing alone, being a lone ranger type of Christian. So you need that. And you need to walk with the Lord, a personal walk with the Lord. Now, any one of those is good, but if you've got all three twisted together, that's better. You see, God gave us a church so we'd have something to hang on to. We can walk with the Lord better and easier and stronger if we're part of a local church. Now, I understand that there is some different terminologies can be used to explain a spiritual family, body, a spiritual family where everybody's saved belongs to it but they're usually aloof from one another but God gives us a local church because we know each other by name we know each other's faces we know each other's prayer needs we know each other's problems and we can pray and help each other we can serve together and that's why the church is so important. I suggest to you that belonging to a church is part of that threefold cord that's not quickly broken. Don't try to go it alone. A life that God blesses. Imagine, we said it's not random. The blessings of God don't just fall here and yonder. The blessings of God are generally directed for a reason and it's because of how we go about living for him. Imagine a farmer who plants corn and then he complains because he doesn't have tomatoes growing. Doesn't the Bible say you reap what you sow? So God's blessings, if we plant what he's talking about in Psalm 1, 1 through 3, if we plant that, we'll reap his blessings. Does that make sense? God wants to bless you more than you want to be blessed. Sometimes we work against Him. Jesus is the ultimate blessed man of Psalm 1, 1 through 3. He's beyond being blessed. He was perfect. Walk in His footsteps. and live the life that God blesses. Let's pray together. We always have an altar call. I know there's some that don't do that anymore. I still believe it serves a purpose. It signals a time for salvation for those who have never trusted Christ. We ask them to come and trust Him as Savior. He died for the lost. while we were yet lost. He died for us, and he's willing to save. I'm talking to those outside this room, too, who are watching the live stream. Maybe watch him later. If you're not saved, trust him today. Trust what he did to you. He paid for your sin in full and across, but you've got to sign the blank check. He said, Lord, I trust you as my Savior, and you've got to lean it in your heart. Maybe altar call is time for reflection, where you just reflect on life. Am I blessed? And am I doing the things that God wants to bless? It's time of repentance. If I'm not separating from some of the things, I've been tampering with some of the sins. It's time when those who've been saved and never been baptized, they can get in the water and talk about it if you come. Those who want to be members of the Bible Preaching Church can come as a preacher. I really want to join this church, be a member of it so we're joined together If you need to come to the altar and pray, there's a decision you need to make. Make it now while the Spirit is speaking. Amen, thank you for being here. Let's just remind you a couple of things.