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Praise God. Listen, we have prayed, we have worshiped, and we're getting ready for the word. And we want to welcome you into our service this morning. You know, God is so good. Hallelujah. He loves us and he loves his people with such passion and ebullience. Listen, don't you dare scroll. Stay with us. We welcome you into this message today. I want to invite every person that's joining us to share this. Glory to the name of God. If you're here in the building, please go on Facebook to our Rhoda Church Facebook page. And share this to your timeline. I'm going to do the same while I'm asking you to do this. Praise God. And we want to make sure that we get this word out to as many people as we possibly can today. Praise God. Hallelujah. Isn't God good? Hallelujah. He's a great God. He's a mighty God, and beside him there is no other. Praise the name of Jesus. We bless him. Hallelujah! Thank you, Father. Yeah, please join us and share. Wonderful Jesus, join us and share. Hallelujah! There is a word from the Lord today, and I'm certainly excited to preach it. Glory to God! I hope you're excited to hear it. Praise God! Thank you, Lord. Handabasi! We bless the name of Jesus. Wonderful Savior. Mighty God, everlasting Father. Yeah, please make sure you share and check in. Get your Bibles, those of you watching us and those of you here in the building, and go with us. Glory to the name of God. Praise the name of the Lord. To Romans, the 13th chapter. Glory to the name of God. And, um, I'm going to begin reading at verses 1 through 7. I can't seem to stray from this. Why? Okay, Holy Spirit, I hear you. Glory to the name of God. Thank you, Lord. I'm going to read this. This is the foundation of our teaching we're sharing on the election and the elected. Again, as you know, we are in an election season. And it is very important that as elected people, we do the right thing when it comes to casting our vote. We cannot vote because— we can't put the Bible down. We gotta keep the Bible in our hand. And most of all, we got to be Spirit-led and have a consciousness that discerns the heart of God concerning this election. Now watch this. When we start understanding this, we understand— Mike, turn the lights up for me so I can see you guys. Praise God. Hallelujah. When we, when we understand this, glory to God, we have to realize that God is not Democrat nor Republican, all right? He ain't neither one. He's God. And in the kingdom, we're not a part of a democracy. We are part of a theocracy. God is sovereign, govern, rules. But when we pray to God— hear me— we pray to God to heal our land, to invoke himself, to his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we ask God for these things, he partners with us. To bring his will to pass in the earth. We ask him to bring heaven, then he partners with us. So God has a will for a new president, a new senator, a new governor, a new mayor, then he's partnering with us, his kingdom voters, to put the right person in place. Now, the moment a kingdom-minded person puts God's desire to the side we have then missed the mark. We've come short of the glory. And in, in, for the lack of a better word, we have sinned, because sin is unrighteousness. It's missing the mark. It's coming short of the glory of God. So if we don't do what we're supposed to do, that's why we got to be— take this very serious. I see a lot of saints on social media with their voter stickers on. They went to vote early, they're happy about it. And the only thing that goes through my mind is, I wonder, did they pray? Because we're so in a hurry to support our party. Let's read the foundation scripture, all right? And then we're going to get into this. This is the foundation text of this whole lesson. Here we go, all right? It says, every person— and I'm reading out of the New American Standard Bible is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. So wait a minute, so if every one of us is to be in subjection to the governing authorities— that's the president, that's the governor, that's the mayor, that's senators, that's Congress, that's the police, that's the chief of police, that's sheriffs— if these governing authorities in the earth, if God says to us in scripture, let every one of us be subject to a governing authority. Who do we want in office? Certainly we want somebody that has the heart of God. We want somebody that aligns themselves with his principles. We want somebody that aligns itself with his ideas, with the Bible. Okay, so let every person be subject to the governing authority, for there is no authority— watch this— except from God. So all authority is delegated authority. Watch this. So again, we pray for authority, and then God partners with us to put authority, his theocratic desire, in control of a democratic system. But we got to get in place so he can partner with us. If we go into the polls Thinking about everything the media says, thinking about the last 8 years, or the last— yeah, the last 8 years with Obama, the last 4 years with Trump, and the only thing in our mind is those things. We need to be clear through discernment what God wants. Here we go, let me just read this. He said, and those which exist are established by God. So God allowed law, authorities, government to be in place to create parameters so that we can have order in the world. Man didn't come up with that system, God did. Matter of fact, when the laws were structured in the Constitution, at its base it was structured according to scripture. Hallelujah. Even though most of the men that signed The Constitution was slave owners. And if you study history, Black folks still was not able to vote when the Constitution was written. And if they did, when they did get to vote, their vote was only counted for 1/3 of a human. That's crazy. We were not even considered a whole human being. So, so man from the beginning have lack discernment in carrying this out. So I think we're in a day and time where God wants us to get it right. Oh God, we got to get it right, y'all. He said, watch this, verse 2: Therefore, whoever resists authority, uh-oh, has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. Verse 4: For it is a minister of God to you for good. It's a servant of God to us. The governmental system should serve us for good. Good in Greek is profit, for profit, for increase, for a better life. Oh boy. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a servant of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath Hallelujah. But also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God. So we pay taxes into the governmental system to make sure the government runs right, to make sure the government has employees, to make sure these offices are funded. God set this system up. Wow. He said, for because of this— hear me— You also pay taxes, for the rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Verse 7: Render to all what is due them—tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. So far the scripture. So that's our basis, our substratum. For this teaching. All right, and we're going to revisit this throughout this message. I've taught a couple of messages on this already, and I'm just all the way in it now because I want to prophetically continue to plow through the reality that we have to understand that when we are elected— and I know people are looking at me saying, 'Who is this? Who, who he supporting?' He still ain't said it. Listen, I'm not Democrat nor Republican. To be honest with you right now, I don't know how I'm gonna vote. And the more I pray about it, the more God opens my eyes to what I need to be teaching and, and how I need to embrace Kingdom Constitution. I need you to understand something. I'm not on either side. I'm on the side of God. And As I said on Thursday, I gave the example of my favorite sport, which is basketball. In basketball, you have two teams have two separate uniforms. They are in a conflict going after two separate goals. Now they're playing a game to see who gonna win. They're conflict— in conflict with each other. Each team has a staff. Each team has coaches, personnel for medical reasons, physical trainers, and they have agents. All of those things are part of the team. But what people don't realize, there's a third team that's not on the team of either the West or the East, the Lakers or the Heat. That's a team of referees. They all show up with striped shirts on. Hallelujah. And they come to enforce the rule book of the NBA to make sure these teams play according to the rules. They cannot go against the book, and if they go against the book of the NBA, they'll be penalized. Can I tell you something? This is how we as believers have to approach Democratic, Republican, Independents, liberals, conservatives. We have to approach this from this idea: we are the referees, and we come to enforce God's book to make sure that the heart of the king or the president or the prime minister that is put in place is God's elect, is God's desire, is someone that will yield to God's plan. Y'all hear me? My goal in this message is to share with you how God operates, not just from the realm of government in the heaven, but he also operates from the realm of government in the earth. So this morning, I talked on Thursday about the mindset of the elected when it comes to elections, the mindset, how we ought to be thinking. And I talked about how the Lord hears us in trouble and how if we're in a dilemma, we should go to God and let him speak to us and navigate us through every issue. I want to go to Psalm again this morning. Let's go to Psalm 16, and this is where we're going to find ourselves until we're done. I'm almost through. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Y'all stay with me, don't scroll. I know it's a lot of people online teaching right now and you're trying to figure out who you want to listen to. You need to listen to this. Stay right there. Glory to the name of God. Hallelujah. Psalm 16, and we're gonna look— praise God. Matter of fact, let's go back to Proverbs 3. I ended there. Let's go back to Proverbs 3 real quick. Proverbs 3. I ended there. I just want to recap a little bit of that on Thursday night because this is important. Proverbs 3, and let's look at verse 6. The Bible says, in all thy ways— not some of them, not when you feel like it, not in every way except voting— he said in all your ways acknowledge him. Who him? God. Acknowledge him, not CNN, not Twitter, not Fox News, not NBC News. God said in everything you do, acknowledge him. The word acknowledge, two words: ek and knowledge. Ek means to open up to. Knowledge means information. Watch this, information that breeds confidence. So acknowledge means to open yourself up to information or revelation that breeds confidence. He says, in all your ways, open yourself up to revelation, information that breeds confidence. That was good, y'all. Information revelation breeds confidence. If you're going to do something, you're more confident in doing it when you're informed. So God says, in all your ways, get the information, get the revelation, become acquiesce to what's on God's mind concerning every situation, including voting. 'in all your ways acknowledge him.' Oh my God. 'And he shall direct your paths.' The only reason a person won't do this is because they don't want God to direct their paths. See, the reason I pray for real is because I want God to be in control, because I don't want to be in control. I want him to lead me. I want him to speak. And for me, the hardest thing in the world is when God says nothing, because I, I want his direction. I don't want to figure it out. While some things he leaves it to my faith to figure out and follow him and follow his spirit, follow just little pieces that he may show me. But it would be so great if every time I pray he gave me the whole thing and I have full direction. That would be a powerful thing. But the Bible says if I acknowledge him in all things, he will make sure I have the right navigation. He'll make sure my GPS is set properly, that where I'm trying to go, the destination I'm trying to get to— glory to God— that I would get to it in the right time, and I will make the right decisions when I arrive. Are y'all hearing me? He says, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. He said, be not wise in your own eyes. Wait a minute, so I left off on here Thursday night. In other words, whether it's voting, whether it's your career, whether it's your geographical location, whether it's getting married, whether it's not getting married, whether it is— glory to the name of God— dating someone, whether it is working a certain job. The Bible says here, be not wise in your own eyes. Wow. He said, but fear the Lord and depart from evil. In other words, lend your life and your ears to God. I was praying today when I was praying, and I said to the Lord, let us see ourselves the way you see us. That should be our desire. God, I want to see myself the way you see me, not the way I see me. Because most people have a tendency— all of us have done it— to think more higher than ourselves than we should. That's why the Bible said, think not more highly of yourself than y'all do. I don't know about you, maybe I can't speak for y'all, I've been guilty of that before in my life. And God had to say, okay, bro, you need to humble yourself, dude, because you're thinking you're this and you really this. And I need you to be wise in your own eyes. Don't try that, don't try that, don't say that, because this is really who you are. So we need to see ourselves, measure ourselves according to God's government in our life. And then even when we go to the polls, we can't be wise in our own eyes. We gotta say what thus saith the Lord with our vote. We gotta speak loudly with our vote and say God is in this poll. Do you know when you go into the voting booth, God goes with you? Hallelujah! He goes in there with you. You, you're taking the will of God in the voting booth, in your belly. It's— you're carrying it. And you have an opportunity to make something happen that needs to happen for this world. Hallelujah. Go to Psalm 16. Let's go, y'all. So again, last week I talked about the mindsets. The mindset ought to be a discerning, a clarity, a trusting in God, uh, remembering the name of the Lord God, remembering what he wants. So I'm gonna stay there today. Praise God. And we're going to keep talking about this mindset, this mentality of the elected, how we should think and move when it comes down to casting our votes. Are we hearing this? Are we hearing this? Okay, so let's look at Psalm 16. Let's look at verse 1 first. The Bible said this is a miktam of David. Say miktam. Say that. That's a beautiful word. Say, say miktam. And can I tell you something? The word literally means in Hebrew engraved or engraving. So this is a miktam of David, meaning as David wrote this is an imprecatory psalm, which meant I needed God's help, I need God's protection, I need God to fight for me in my life against my enemies. I need God to guide my path. But a mctom deals with the idea that I want this engraved in my spirit. I want it engraved in my heart. He said, I don't want this to depart from me. Not only do I want it engraved in my heart, but everybody that receives it, I need it to be engraved in their hearts. So I want you to get this as well. Let this thing get engraved in you. So it's a mctom of David. He says, preserve me. Let me stop right there. Preserve me. Preserve. The Hebrew word is shamar, S-H-A-M-A-R. That word means to keep. Watch this, we were just singing it. To cover us, to guard us, to protect us. So David is saying, protect me, keep me. Cover me, guard me. He said, I need this engraved in my heart because Saul— he wrote this while Saul was chasing him, trying to kill him. David's hiding in a cave saying, preserve me, keep me. Saul wants to destroy me because you gave me an assignment. Watch this, it is always the enemy's will to destroy those who are anointed from God with an assignment. Saul knew David was anointed to be the next king, and he said, look, I'm gonna kill him before he able to get there. That's what the devil wants. That's why he's made attempts on all of our lives. He's done things to try to destroy us, either naturally or physically, naturally or spiritually, emotionally. Watch this, even in our character. He's worked hard to kill those who have anointed assignments. But I want to say to somebody this morning in here and watching me, listen, glory to God, you are anointed to do what you're in this planet to do. And I know you've been going through hell, but Lord told me to tell you, you are protected, you are covered, you are kept. And no matter what the enemy tries to throw at you, I'm here to tell you today You are going to win. Hallelujah! Somebody ought to lift your hands and say, preserve me. Whoa, preserve me! Glory to God! Protect me! Because listen, you need to know that you're preserved, because the enemy is going to throw things at you. He's going to throw darts. He's going to try to take you down. He's going to try to take you out. But you need to know that God is with you. You need to know that he's covering you. David said, preserve me, O God, for in thee— yes, Lord, in thee, in thee do I put my trust. Wait a minute, he said He says, I'm not trusting in the systems of man. I'm not trusting in the systems of the world. In thee do I put my trust in every part of my life. We read it last Thursday in Proverbs: trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to your own understanding. So we got to make— it's deliberate. Say it's deliberate. You make a choice daily. Trust is not automatic. You choose to trust. I was talking to a couple one time. The husband had cheated, and I have been counseling them for like 15 weeks at least by now. And let me back up. The husband cheated 2 years prior to this counseling session. The woman had been there 2 years. We in the office talking about this. She's still mad, she's still hurt, because that's how women do— they carry things. And she said, I want my marriage, I love my husband, but he cheated on me and I just can't trust him. First thing I said to her, I said, well, in a very— if you stay in this emotional state, trust is going to be like this to you. It's like a vase that's very expensive that you drop on the floor and it breaks, and then you pick it up, take it to a shop, try to fix it. It may be able to be repaired, but it never is the same. I said, if you live in your emotions and not the spirit, that's what's going to be for you. You're going to have a flawed vase that have no value. I said, but your husband has proved to you over the last 2 years that he loves you. He hasn't cheated again. He's been faithful. He's followed even all of your parameters that you put in place. You have access to his phone, email. You listen, you know his every move. He checks in with you when he leaves the house, when he gets to work, when he leaves work, when he gets home. He go— he's always checking in. He's worked really to prove his trust? I said, at this point, trust is a choice. You're choosing to distrust. The act is long over. You're choosing not to forgive him. I said, watch this. What if God— and this is what Broker forgave you with the penalty that when you go to him to repent, when you come short, and he looked at you and said, I'm gonna penalize you. I forgive you, but I don't trust you, so I'm not going to use you anymore. I don't trust you, so I'm not going to let you experience the power of the Holy Spirit. I don't trust you, so I'm not going to let you enjoy the benefits of being saved because I don't trust you. I said, God doesn't handle you like that, so neither should you handle your husband like that, because at this point choice. Trust is a choice. And I told him, if she continues— I said, we've been going through this 15 weeks counseling. I said, if she continues to distrust you, anything that you go through from this point on is your fault, because obviously you're going to continue to be unhappy as long as she doesn't trust you. Trust is a choice. That's why David said, in thee I put my trust. I put it there. I choose not to trust you over Fox News. I choose to trust you over Facebook timelines, IG timelines, Twitter timelines. I trust you. I trust that you love me enough that I don't have to be on my phone all the time scrolling, trying to see who liked my stuff, because I know he loves me. I don't have to be following people trying to make sure that they're— glory to the name of God— engaged with who I am, because I trust him. Do you trust him this morning? You got to trust him with everything, including voting. You got to put your trust right there in him, because you got to make sure again you're voting like the referee. You're voting like a governor in the kingdom. Because again, the referee in the basketball game is not on the side of the Miami Heat, he's not on the side of the Lakers, he's on the side of the NBA. We're not on the side of the Republicans or the Democrats, we're on the side of heaven. Let's drop down to verse 11. I'm almost through. Watch this. He says, thou will show me. They said, okay, Saul's trying to kill me, I'm in this cave, I put my trust in you, God. My life is at stake here, I need to see something. He says, thou will show me. The word show there in Hebrew is the word yada, Y-A-D-A. It means to be intimate, to be up close, to see with clarity what God sees. Yada means that you're let in on the secret. Matter of fact, it's the same word in Hebrew as the word know. No, in Hebrew is yada too, yada, which means again close, to come, to come in close proximity to God's knowledge. There's that word again, acknowledge, ek yada, to open yourself up to receive what God thinks, what he says, his information, his intelligence, his revelation. He said, you will give me what you see, what you know. Say, Lord, show me. You got to want to see it. You got to want to see yourself, your assignment, your life. You got to want to see the right candidate. Let me tell you something, with all of the political stuff that goes on, the political commercials on both sides, with the last 4 years, glory to God, it's kind of hard to really see the heart of God in some things. With the last 8 years, because Biden was vice president for 8 years, if you check his record, you're going to see some things, glory to God, that wasn't quite right. And you know, I'm just inclined to believe that we need to be saying, God, show us the heart of this candidate. Show us the one that will submit to your will, because neither one of them— I read the prophecy last week Neither one of them are God's choice right now. So we need to pray, whose, whose heart will God turn? Who will get to the place where they say, I surrender to you, God? And if they don't, what are we left to do? The question was proposed to me after I taught the message last week. He said, okay, well, so what if neither one of them will turn their heart to God. I said, well, that's not my faith. The Bible said the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, and God turns it however he please. So if I pray and ask the Lord to turn his heart, I'm believing God's going to turn the king's heart. Yeah, so we gotta— the question becomes, when the dealings of God come to this individual Who's going to hear them? Who's going to submit? Because again, we're here to enforce the book. Ah Lord, that will show me. How does he show us? Let's keep reading. He said, what is he going— what do we want to see? We want to see the path of life. The path of life. Thou will show me the path of life. Wait a minute, let's break that down. Path is orach, O-R-A-C-H. That's the Hebrew word. Orach means— listen to me, some of y'all tempted to scroll, stay with me because this is why a lot of people on the wrong path. It means— watch this— orach is what we get words like architecture, design. So he says, you will show me, make me clear, give me knowledge, bring me close to the design, the design, the plans for my life. Let me tell you something, there's a complete plan for your entire life. I'm gonna say that again, there's a complete plan for your entire life. And God says, as you ask me to show you, I'll open your eyes and show you the design. So it works like architecture. An architect designs a building. This building was designed— this whole place was designed by an architect. But when they designed this whole plaza, they designed it on paper, and they put everything that needed to be in place in place. That— those plans, that's what An architectural drawing is called plans. Your life has plans. Your life has a design. They had to take those plans to the city before they started building. The city looked over the plans, make sure everything was in right specifics, parameters, uh, everything was lined up according to law. Once they went over those plans, they approved them. They stamped them approved, and, and then when the, when the city planner signed it, that meant the building was finished even before they built one wall, laid one foundation. The building was finished. The pla— this whole plaza was finished before they started building. Watch this. Your life has already been approved by God. It's already finished. It's the, the dreams, the vision, the, the things that God has planned for you to do. He's already designed it. Just gotta say, Lord, show me the plans so I can build according to those plans. I don't want— and, and you have people that believe you could come to this earth and you could do it, but it don't mean it's the will of God, and start just building according to plans that's in your heart. Proverbs 19:11 says— 22, I'm sorry— it says many other plans the designs, the ideas in a man's heart. Nevertheless, so even though you got a whole lot of dreams, a whole lot of things you could do, he said it's the plans of the Lord, the purpose of the Lord that stands forever. So even though you got a whole lot of stuff you could be accomplishing, only thing— glory to God— that you really can guarantee to stand forever is God's purpose for your life. He said, you'll show me these plans. Watch this. You'll show me your plans for this nation. You'll show me your plans for this election. We just gotta want to see it. I'm telling you, most church folk, when it comes down to voting, they're like, okay God, I know what I want to do. I'm gonna come back to you when I come out these polls, but let me just do this because I just feel this is what I got. They put it down when it comes to voting. We can't do that. That's just like saying, oh, I'm gonna put my religion down. Ever heard somebody say that? Don't make me put my religion down. I don't want no religion I can put down anyway. I, I want to be so in love with God I can never dismiss what he wants. That's like saying, I'm gonna put my religion down so I can drink and get drunk. I'm gonna put my religion down so we can fight. Don't make me slap you. Now come on, man. At the end of the day, we can't just take this thing off and on. We got to really be saved at all times and walk according to his plans. Almost done. He said, you'll show me the path of life, the assignment for my life. Touch yourself. Say, I have an assignment. Those you watching me, come on, touch yourself and say, I have an assignment. Every one of you in this room are watching me live, you have an assignment. What is your assignment? Your assignment is the problem you were created to solve. Every person watching, every person here, myself, we have a problem that we were created to solve. Bankers solve money problems. Hallelujah! Teachers solve education problems. Praise God for teachers. Thank you, Lord. Policemen solve law enforcement problems. My God, pastors solve spiritual problems. We're all created to solve a problem. Here's what I want to submit to you: you, you gotta ask God to show you the plan so you'll know the problem you were created to solve. You are a life jacket to somebody that's drowning. You got to find them. They need what's in you. There's something you could do for someone I can't. There's something I can do for someone you can't. We're authentically and uniquely created to carry out our assignment, to expand the kingdom and bring God glory. Every assignment has primarily 4 things. People, number 1. Because God is a people person, he'll never give an assignment without including people. Somebody say people. God is concerned about the people. And if God is concerned about the people, that means even in the country like the United States, he's concerned about the people. He's concerned about the government. I read it in the beginning in Romans 13. He's concerned about who's in control. That the ones who run the country, who create the government, create according to his will. So we have an assignment to vote his will. Hallelujah! We have an assignment to partner with God to bring change. Let me keep moving, I'm almost done. He says, thou will show me the path of life in thy presence. In thy pre-sense. Most times we define presence wrongly. Uh, this word in the text is panayim. P-A-N-I-Y-M is how we spell and pronounce the English panayim. Payam, payam, that's how it's pronounced. This word, watch this. It means the intelligence. See how we keep going back to knowledge and information and revelation? It means the intelligence, the intelligence, the senses of God. It means thou will show— it wasn't the path of life— in thy intelligence. See, we've, we mistook the presence because we don't study. But the church don't study. So because the church doesn't study, we