We thank you for it in his name. Amen. Okay, what next? Oh, home. No, no. Just kidding. I don't kid very often. I'm kidding now. This morning we're going to talk about what must I do to be unhappy? Now, most creatures would tell you what to do to be happy. But I don't do that. I just soon tell you how to be unhappy. It's a lot easier because most of you are going to try to be unhappy anyway. And it's sort of like, I have a track that I hand out and it says what must I do to go to hell? I have most preachers who will tell you how to go to heaven, but I just soon tell people how easy it is to go to hell, because that's my nature. I'm just being an ordinary by nature. Most people are unhappy, it's bad not to be unhappy, but an unhappy Christian is really sour grapes for the Lord. Very simply, he wants you to be happy. But it's easier to be unhappy. That's all I can tell you about an unhappy person. If you want to be unhappy, I'll tell you how easy it is. Number one, an unhappy person tries to change himself because he feels inferior to your sheep. Under that, if you're going to write this down, put down A, he tries to please others. You ever try to please other people? If you're ladies and gentlemen, if you're married, don't try to change yourself to please your wife or your husband. You know what that'll do? That'll make the unhappy. Be who you are, and if your wife or your husband can't handle that, that's their problem. Don't try to change the police others. Don't try to impress others. I know some people who spend all their time trying to praise others and trying to impress others so they'll be liked. I got news for you. Don't try to be liked. Just be yourself. And if you're yourself, people will usually like you for who you are, not who you're trying to be. An unhappy person tries to feel people or superior to others. Do you ever see anybody do that? They always try to lift themselves up. I call it self-judged justification. An unhappy person will always condemn and criticize other people because they make it feel, they make them feel superior. Let's them up, but they're really unhappy. An unhappy person has a need to be long and to fit in. And so we do a lot of things to our body just to be part of the crowd, to fit in, to belong. I wear the right kind of clothes, even though they're not the right kind of clothes, just to fit in and belong. We say things and do things to fit in. If you're gonna try to fit in and do things that you're not really wanna do to fit it, you're making a big mistake, you'll be unhappy. An unhappy person has no goals, has set no future. Nothing to look forward to. An unhappy person has a feeling of no feeling of accomplishment. I don't know why to do anything. I can't do anything. They have an I can't attitude, or it won't work attitude. No feeling of accomplishment. And he has an I cannot, will not, shall not, do not attitude. Number two, an unhappy person tries to change others after they try to change himself, but that won't work. He tries to change others. one measures up to his standards. He's got high standards set for himself that he can never accomplish and never by everybody else around him has to meet those high standards. He's never wrong. Everybody else is wrong. He never makes a mistake. Always somebody else is fault. Because he feels inferior, he always judges everyone critically. Never meet anybody like that. Everyone is judge condemned and criticized because he or she feels inferior. They're not happy. An unhappy person oftentimes is indebted to someone in some way, shape, or form. Pay your bills. Don't get indebted to anyone. An unhappy person has unhealthy emotions, anger, guilt, frustration, Never feel that way. An unhappy person blames God for his lack or his loss. An unhappy person blames society. It's society's fault. And so we go into schools and kill people. And of course, we have the secular counselors that tell us how to deal with the problem, put them on Ridland and Pro-Zack. And that will solve the problem. In the long run, you know what will happen? They'll go bananas. Ridwin or Pro-Zack, that's the answer to everything. An unhappy person is bitter, bitter against everything and everybody. And most of all, an unhappy person, as a negative, unpositive person, if you have any of these things, if you see any things in yourself and you're probably not a very happy person. We're going to begin looking, we've been going through the book of Genesis for some time now. We're not going to do that this morning. But we're going to look at four people during the next coming weeks. One of those is Joseph in the book of Genesis. Another one is a man by the name of Job. Another one by is a man by the name of Paul, and these are all examples, and another one is a person by the name of Ruth, who we're going to look at this morning, who had an uncanny way of being happy. And I want you to turn over there if you will, the little book of root, right in between the book of judges, right in between the book of judges and the book of person. And we're going to take a look at two people this morning. We're going to look at an unhappy person by the name of Naomi. And we're going to look at a happy person or pretty well-concended person by the name of root. And the reason we do this is to find examples. How should I look at life? You know what we do and I used to counsel a young lady quite often that didn't really want to but you know what we do we look at life and I've done this many many times so look up here and pay attention if you will. We look at life and we focus on the negative and we take that little negative see this is the negative and we bring it up here like this and that's all we can see. We focus on negative. No, it was me. I can't. Never happen. Everybody treats me bad. Life is terrible. I've got a terrible job. I hate my boss. My wife treats me bad. Negative, negative, negative. And I focus on that negative and all the positive things in my life. I just can't see. And I've got a lot of them. But we don't look for them. And if we don't look for them, we can't see them. All we want to do is focus on the negative. And so we're unhappy. Most people are unhappy. God doesn't want us to be unhappy. Turn it, if you will, before we go to Ruth, I want you to turn over to Proverbs Chapter 3, if you will. We'll begin there. And then we'll go back to the book of Ruth. Just turn over here to Proverbs Chapter 3. We're not going to spend a lot of time on Proverbs and Proverbs, but go to Chapter 3. And I know what you're thinking. You think, and I know what he's going to do, he's going to tell us to read the Bible and we'll be happy. No, I'm not. He's going to tell us to study the Bible and obey the Bible and then I'll be happy. No, I'm not going to do that. What I am going to say is this, what the Bible will do is give you understanding. It'll help you understand yourself. It'll help you understand how to deal with life. How do I look at life? In the Bible, we'll teach you how to focus. But in chapter 3 of Proverbs, verse 4, let's read verse 4, my son, verse 1, forget not my law, but let thy heart keep my commandments. What will it do for me if I keep God's commandments? Verse 2, for length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Notice that, if you will. length of days, long life, and peace. Well, how in the world can God's word give me long life? That doesn't make any sense, does it? How in the world can just reading the Bible, keep in God's commandments, and so forth, give me long life? Well, you know how this is very simple. If I read the Bible and I learn, I learn to understand what God has in store for me, and I learn to have understanding through the Bible. it'll give me a piece of mine and do you realize that piece of mine will give you a physical piece? It'll make you feel good, it'll make you feel better. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them about thy neck, write them upon the table of my heart, and then notice this, if you will. Let me tell you something. Stop trying to please people. Stop trying to do what you think everybody wants you to do and make them happy. Stop trying to be popular, stop changing your hair color, stop doing everything you need to do to try to make others look at you in a different way of life. There's only one way to please people and God says, listen, God says, obey my commandments, read my word, learn understanding and listen, what he said in verse 3. So shall thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man, trust in the Lord with all thy heart. Now just turn over here, if you will, to verse 18, if you will, and verse 13, verse 13, for happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that geteth understanding. Now pay attention to what God's trying to say here. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that geteth understanding. If you don't want a person that has wisdom does, they don't look at the negative. They look at the positive. They say, I can, well maybe I can do this. Maybe I can accomplish this. Maybe this will work. Oh yeah, maybe if I do it this way, things will get better. Or maybe if I focus differently, I'll feel better. I'll have a better attitude. happy is the man to get understanding. Verse 18, she wisdom is a tree of life to those who lay hold upon her and happy is everyone that retaineth her that is wisdom. You know it takes a little bit of wisdom to understand why I don't feel so good. Why am I so unhappy? Why am I so negative? How come I just I'm just not a a happy person. Wisdom helps me to understand myself. And once I begin to understand myself, then I can understand the world around me. I can understand why other people do what they do. And if you want to be a happy camper, get wisdom and through wisdom, understand not only myself, but you know what you got to go through life understanding other people. You know, I don't always condemn and criticize. Everybody else has feelings in the world. Do you You know that? Everybody has feelings in them. When you say things that hurt other people's feelings, you're really hurting yourself. I remember a person telling me, I just scream at him. That's how I get things done. No. That is so stupid. Screaming at other people. You know what that does? The first thing that does is put the other person on the defensive. And as soon as you put somebody on the defensive, I know one person went, We went into a grocery store and this person thought they were short-changed. And if you've short-changed me, well, the first thing to cash here did was get defensive. You know, nobody wants to be yelled at, do they? Nobody wants to be told they cheated. Nobody wants to be told they lied, so I said, well, you know, we could better think about this a little bit. I was with the person at the time. And so we went over it. the person that I was with really wasn't cheated at all. The cashier was right. That's a bad attitude isn't it? You know what a person does that? I'm not happy. They just weren't happy. The book of Ruth. In the book of Ruth we see a few things Sharon we hopefully I'll get through all this this morning. Chapter one, verse one if you will, the person we're really going to look at is a person by the name of Ruth, but not do that, we have to look at another person by the name of Naomi. Verse 1, chapter 1, now came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, and there was a family in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to Sojourn in the country of Lohan. He and his wife and his two sons. Well, first of all, we're going to take a look at this family here, if they were really thinking about God, which they should have had, they were a type of a Christian, they should have stayed in the land, you know why? God will provide. That was their first mistake. God isn't going to provide, so we went to Moab. By the way, as anybody know where Moab was, Moab was a country given to Lot. Lot's descendants founded Moab. God gave this to him because God is a righteous God. Lot didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve an inheritance because God is righteous. God gave lot the country of Moab and they became the Moabites. Unfortunately, they didn't know God. The God of Israel, they didn't serve the God of Israel. They served false gods. They served every God they could think of, but they did not serve the God of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ. so they were an ungodly group of people. Naomi and her husband, Ella Molech, went to Moab. Let me ask you something. If you want to be blessed by God, why would you serve other gods? Why would you walk away from God and go to another country and serve other gods and think God is going to protect you there? God is not obligated to protect you while you're serving other God. Verse 2. And the name of the man was Dylan Oleg and the name of his wife, Naomi. And the name of his two sons, Melon and Cholion, Epithites of Bethlehem Judah. And they came into the country of Moab and look at their first mistake. The first mistake was they came in the Moab. The second mistake was they continued there. Let me tell you something. When I get to the point where I don't want to serve God anymore and I go into Moab, that's my first mistake. My second mistake is staying there. Pretty soon when I'm going to be pretty unhappy. Do you know why? I'll lose all my understanding. Mary. Moab is a type of actually yes. Moab is a type of, I'm glad you asked that question. Remember I've said many, many times Egypt is a type of being in bondage when I'm lost, being in bondage to false religion, being in bondage to false God. Israel was in bondage in Egypt, a type of being lost. God delivered Israel across the Red Sea which is a type of, I've said this many many times so I'm going to repeat it all again. They delivered God delivered Israel across the Red Sea out of bondage in Egypt. Red Sea is a type of the word of God mixed with the blood of Christ. When I hear the word of God which is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, I am saved by the blood of Christ, the word of God and the blood are a type of the Red Sea. And then God took Israel and put them on the other side in the wilderness. The first thing they did was begin to complain. Oh, what are we doing here? I wish we were back in Egypt. I don't know how many Christians I've seen when they got saved, wish they were not. Now I've got to serve the Lord, now I've got to go to church, now I've got to read the Bible, now I've got to put my bad habits. Get a question Mary? Yeah, the effect that they're being pointed is there is backslider? A backslider, that's good. We'll get right through that. I'm glad you brought that up because we're going to get to that. That's good. So I get put across, you're right. When I get across to the other side of the red sea, the red sea is a type of being saved by the Word of God and the blood of Christ. I'm saved. I'm forgiven now. Now that I'm saved, people are going to expect things out of me. No, no. If you start going to church and you start changing your attitude and changing your way of life because you think other people expect it, you're making a big mistake. Remember what we were talking about being unhappy? Trying to please others. The only thing I have to do when I get saved is put my faith in trusting God. You know what, please is God? Faith. Faith pleases God. Not my works, not going to church, not my religious attitude, not me trying to change myself. Faith is what pleases God. Put your faith in God. What happens in Naomi and her husband? No faith. Lack of faith. They have a family in the land so we left. Instead of trusting God, putting my faith in God, being a happy camper where I am, I'm going to leave God, run away from God, and go to Moab, which is a type of serving false gods, which is a type of walking away from God, backsliding, that's the word we were going to use. That's good. Let's see, a backslidden Christian will always lead God. The first thing they're going to do is lose their blessings. When I walk away from God and go into Moab, the first thing I'm going to do is lose my blessings, unfortunately I'm too stupid to see it. And when I walk away from God, it's because I don't trust him. I don't have any faith in him. There was a famine in the land, but I want you to notice later on in Roof, you'll see that everyone that stayed in the land of famine got fed. God would have fed Naomi and her husband, but they walked away from God, and then I want you to notice what happened. In verse 6. So, they took their children with him, and in verse 4, rather, back up here, if you will. Now we've got to back up to verse 3. I'm sorry. In a limelike, Naomi's husband died, and she was left in her two sons. Notice what happened when they walked away from God. You know what's going to happen almost without exception? You ever hear of the sin unto death? The sin unto death is the sin that a Christian commits when they become so despicable that God does not want them only earth anymore because they are making him look bad. You know what he might do? Take your life. the sin unto death. When I put my faith in trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I walk away from Him, and I tell everybody, oh, I'm a Christian now, I'm saved, and I begin to go to church, and I begin to change my life, and I begin to do this, and I begin to do all these things because I think other people want to be doing, and I can't handle them anymore, and I walk away from Christ, and I begin to make Him look bad. He's going to say, no, not anymore. You've made me look bad for so long, and I'm supposed to be the God who died on the cross for the sins of the world and you're making me look bad and people are not going to trust me people are going to turn away from me I'm going to just take your life and take you home early because you're you're you're getting in the way The sent-on to death and that's what I believe a little like that He committed the sin unto death. He began to make God look bad He was the God of Israel was their God and if you begin to make him look bad He was in a foreign country making Israel look bad, making their God look bad, so I'm just going to take your life And that's what I think happened here And then in verse four Her husband died and she was left with two sons and they took themselves wives of the women of Moeth big mistake Big mistake However, sometimes it turns out pretty good. I want you to read on the name of the one was orpa and the name of the other route And they too, out there about ten years, and mail them and Chilean died. Also, both of them and the women was bereft, or your Bible may say let go. Her two sons and her husband. And she rose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab for she had heard in the country of Moab how the Lord had visited his people and given them meat. You know what? If she has stayed, she has got some of the meat. You know why she didn't stay because they weren't happy Mary No, I think if they would have stayed let me tell you what I think that's another good question. Thank you And I'm the reason and let me like left in the first place is because he likes faith Things got bad for him, and I'm going to bring something up here things got bad for a lemma neck and he couldn't handle it. You know why he couldn't handle it because he didn't have faith in God in the first place but you ever see somebody who does nothing but move just move every six months move here every year four months move here and move from one place to the other just places uncomfortable this place isn't good enough you know why they're not happy They're just not happy. A person who is happy is happy where they are. They learn to be comfortable where they are. You know what Paul said? I had learned to be content in whatever state I am. A person who is content is content no matter where they are. Moving from place to place and trying to be happy here and trying to be happy there doesn't work. You know what you do? You pack your bags when you leave and when you unpack your bags, you've got the same problems you had before. You pack your bags when you're left. You can't leave your problems behind. They follow you everywhere you go. Learn to deal with the problem and then you won't have to pack your bags and move every other day. Learn to face your problems. Deal with the problems. Learn to be content. Learn to be happy. and so they weren't happy so they left. If they just stayed, God would have fed them. He would have fed them just like he did everybody else. Isn't that what the Bible says? Sure. You're absolutely right. Good questions, Mary. I like that. Wines me up a little bit. This is going to take me all day to unwind. Now I have to beat my… I'll be hard on my wife. I'll be hard on her four little dogs. I'll get unhappy trying to unwind. Oh, it's terrible. Hey, now, back to the Bible. So she decided to go back where she shouldn't have left in the first place. And she went fourth out of the place where she was and her two dollars in law with her. And they went on the way to return them to the land of Judah. Now, she is a perfect type. Naomi was a type of a backslidden Christian. When she left God behind, she lost her blessings. blessings and when she went back to God she took someone with her. You know something? Sometimes it's not so bad when a person backslides if they can bring somebody back with it. Isn't that something? It's amazing how God works isn't it? So she took somebody back with them and they she took Ruth as you're going to see here shortly and she visited people giving them the wherefore she went for first seven out of the place where she was, where she shouldn't have been, and her two daughters-in-law with her and they went on the way to return them to the land of Judah. And Naomi said on two or two daughters-in-law, go, return each to her mother's house, the Lord deal kindly with you as he is dealt with the dead and with me. This was a mistake, don't you think? You know what Naomi was basically saying, go over here to verse 11 if you will. And Naomi said, turn again my daughters, why will you go with me? Are they anymore sons in my womb? Why? You know what? That's the wrong question. Isn't that the wrong question? She was going back to Israel, back to her God, and she's telling these two why will you go with me? You know what she should have said? Go with me to my God. That's what she should have said. Don't you think? You know what a problem was? Just not happy. She dwelt on being unhappy. She asked for it. She earned it. She deserved it. Her husband died. Her two sons died. She's left with her two daughters-in-law. Now she's got a chance to go back and take them with you. I don't know about you, but I'm going to say born again Christian, and I go back to Serpent God. You know what I'm going to do? See how many people I can take with me? am I going to say to somebody out there, oh, go serve your own God. You don't want to go with me. That's foolish, isn't it? You know why I would do that? Because I'm not happy with myself. If I'm happy with myself and I'm content, I'm going to say, come with me. Let's go see my God. Let's go serve my God. Don't you think? I do. Verse 13, would you He's already buried before them until they were grown, that she's talking about having more children and saying, I don't have anything for you, I don't have any more sons, so what? So what? That's just a lame excuse. It's just a lame excuse that Naomi had, I don't have any more children and if I do have children, you're going to hang around until they're grown up so you can marry them, lame excuses, isn't it? Poor Naomi. I feel sorry for her, or I would have. And then the verse 13, would you carry for them her son till they were grown? Would you have seen from marrying, refrain from marrying? They, my daughters, for a great with me, much for your sakes that the hand of the Lord is going out against me. Well, isn't that too bad? You poor little thing. It greets me much that the hand of the Lord is going out against me. So why don't you growl, stay here? I'm going to go back to my God, but he's against me. You stay here. needing. Do you see where she's coming from? You know what an unhappy person does? An unhappy person will ruin the lives of everybody around them unless they get back to God, take a look at theirself, begin to focus logically with understanding. You know what God's Word does? It gives you understanding how to understand myself because if I don't understand myself, I'm going to take it out on everybody around me. You see, if I don't understand myself, I'm going to try to please others that way, maybe I can understand myself. If I don't understand myself, I'm going to try to impress others, and then maybe they'll like me better. If I don't understand myself, I'm going to do things to try to feel equal or supreme, superior. If I don't understand myself, I don't have any goals. You know what you need some goals in life, don't you? You'll Bob and Daryl want fishing now Sunday. You know what? That's a goal. There's nothing wrong with that. It's something to do, something to look forward to. A goal. Set some goals. When I got saved, I said some goals. Mary, you have a goal. Yeah. I got a letter. You go right in. Sorry, but, um, Did you think that if Emma left with her there and of course they're in the nail and would have stayed together? That the Lord, the Emma left with their head to say she changed so since he couldn't take them both, he sacrificed him so they keep going back. Actually, I think the Lord took the lemonade's life just to get him out of the way. Get him out of the way I think it was a problem after all look at it this way Alemmelack was the head of the house, right? He was the head of the house. He should have said Naomi We're gonna get hungry here, but let's stay where the Lord is and serve the Lord. That's what Alemmelack should have done Instead of going the Moab, but the running away from the Lord trying to find happiness in another part of the country trying to find And you know, stay where the Lord has put you. And you know, that brings up another point. I don't know how many times I've seen preachers move around and move around trying to get into a bigger church, a better church with more people, a prettier church, a stained glass one does move around, do this, do that, try it, you know what, if the Lord puts you somewhere, stay there unless he definitely tells you to leave. We had a church in Rome. He stayed there as long as we could, and the Lord finally told me to leave. Now we're here. Stay where the Lord puts you. That's what an emilection had done. He filed a home down here, if you will. Girls wept, orca, and Ruth. They didn't want to leave Naomi, and she said, behold, verse 15 by a sister-in-law who's going back to her, Ruth said, on two, wait, tension this verse, if you will. said she clung the name of it and she said group behold by sister-in-law is going back into her people and unto her gods unto her gods let me ask question why did she go back to her gods because Naomi told her to Naomi center let me ask you something you can know someone that's close to putting their faith and trust in Jesus Christ would you send them back to their gods would you do that? Would you say go back to your gods and then when you die you'll go right straight to hell. Would you do that? Or would you tell that person you don't want Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins you need to put your faith and trust in Him? Is that what you would do? May all means they go back to your gods. And Ruth said verse 16 and treat me not to leave the or to return, turn away from following after thee, or once thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodges, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people. Now pay attention to this. And thy God, my God. Think about root here. Number one, she was determined to find the God of Naomi. Determination. You know what determination does for you? It makes you happy. Do you believe that? Determination. You know a person that is not determined. You know what it takes to serve the Lord. Let me just put it this way. It takes basically three things. Determination, commitment, and the drive, the drive. It takes three things. Naomi said, my God will be thy God. She had a goal number one. She was determined to go back with Naomi and find Naomi's God. And then she said in verse 71, thou dyes, where thou dyes will I die, and there will I be buried, the Lord so do to me and more also, and more also ought but death, part, thee and me. And when she saw that she She was steadfastly. The word is minded, it means determined to go with her, then she ceased speaking unto her. You see what kind of a person Rukh was? She was determined. She was committed. She was committed to Naomi, no matter how depressed Naomi was, Naomi was a depressed person because she was unhappy. But Rukh said, I'm not going to leave you, I'm not going to forsake you, I'm going to go back with you and I'm going to serve your God. you know what it takes to be happy? It takes three things basically determination, dedication, motivation, and another thing commitment. And if you've got those four things and you're dedicated to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got those four things I'm going to say something. That's the beginning of understanding yourself and the beginning of being happy. But I didn't come here just wanting to tell you how to be happy. I told you how to be okay here just wanting to tell you how to be unhappy. That's my goal. I want to tell you how to be unhappy. One of the ways to be unhappy is to be selfish. Think about yourself, and you'll be unhappy. Now, if you want to be unhappy, that's the first thing you want to do. Learn to be selfish, and think about yourself. I'm going to do that for the rest of the day, because I want to be unhappy. I want to take advantage of my wife. Yeah, and I'm going to dwell on me, I'm going to dwell on being a pity, I'm going to dwell on that. I'm going to dwell on pity myself all day because I want to be unhappy. So I came here just wanting to tell you how to be unhappy and that's what I'm doing. The selfish, that's the first thing you want to do. And then the next thing you want to do is dwell on the negative. Just go through the rest of the day dwelling on negative and you'll be unhappy. And if you want to be unhappy, that's why I came here this morning to tell you how to be unhappy. If that's what you want to do, dwell on the negative. Be selfish. Don't think about anybody else. Send everybody back to their gods. You want to be unhappy? And everybody back to their gods don't even think about your gods, don't even think about bringing them to your gods, Jesus Christ don't even think about it. Just be unhappy. Praise the Lord. I just thought I'd throw that in. We need to turn over a few more verses here. What time is it getting to be? Oh, it's late. I'm running late. We're going to have to close with that, I guess. But I want you to look at two more verses and then we'll close. I'm going to take up a little bit of your extra time today. In verse 19, so they went until they came to Bethlehem, and it came to pass when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, is this Naomi? And she said unto them, call me not Naomi, and then we'll stop here. Call me Mara. The word Mara means bitter. Call me bitter, she said. Don't call me, our name was really a pleasant, Naomi meant pleasant, but I'm going to something because of her attitude because she was running away from God because she learned because she lost her lack of understanding. She lost everything. She said, now you can call me bitter for the Almighty have dealt very bitterly with me. No, you ask for it, lady. You ask for it. God didn't deal with you that way. You ask for it. You know why you're bitter because you're on a great big pity party and that's another reason to be unhappy my friends get on a great big pity party and feel sorry for yourself and get bitter you know what'll make you unhappy bitterness bitterness you want to make you bitter blame blame God for everything blame society for the way your life is. I know people would actually do that. I had to go on welfare but everybody else has fought. No, it's not. You're just plain lazy. That's the problem. You're bitter. I got all these problems. God did it to me. No, you did it to yourself. Bitter, bitter, bitter. If you want to be unhappy, get bitter. Well, I'm going to stop with this, but I'm going to say something before we go. I don't want to be unhappy. You'd be unhappy if you want to. I want to be happy. And I'm going to be happy by learning how to understand myself first and understand others' second. And I'm going to be happy because I realize that Jesus Christ paid for my sin, past, present and future. He did. He paid for all my sin and I have an eternity with him in heaven and everything else that takes place in this world is just fleeting. I thought about being unhappy because of this Kim Jong-il is creating a bomb over there and I thought I'd be unhappy about that but it ain't worth it. And I thought maybe I'd be unhappy because I don't know who, whether the Republicans or the Democrats are going to take over Congress is coming election. I thought I'd be unhappy and dwell on that. But you know what I really don't care who gets elected. And I thought I'd be unhappy because I don't know if George Bush or the Republican Party is going to take control when the next presidential election comes. I thought I'd be unhappy about that, but you know what? I changed my mind. I don't care who gets elected. It doesn't matter to me. Jesus Christ is the king. Someday He'll be in charge. He already is. And I'm not going to walk away from me because when the famine comes, he's going to feed me. Amen. He will. And so I think I'll be happy. I don't think I'll dwell on all that negative. In closing, let me show you this. I don't know what I got my hand for. But anyway, I don't remember what they take my wallet. Anyway, now that I've got it out, let me show you this. This hand represents me, I'm a sinner. And if I dwell on my sin, and if I dwell on myself, I'm going to be unhappy, but anyway, I'm a sinner, this represents my sin. The Bible says, I've got to go to hell pay for it, Roman 6.23, the wages of sinners' death means separation from God, Venatose, Greek word, separation. But this hand represents me, or Jesus Christ, he died on the cross for me. When he said in John 6.47, very, very I say to you, whoever believed in me had everlasting life. It's that simple. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, your sins are paid. You have everlasting life for all time and eternity. Life begins there. Happiness begins there. And then it begins happiness continues when I begin to read the Bible and understand. I understand Christ, I understand myself, I understand people, I understand world events, I understand that everything that goes on in the world is just nothing. The only thing important is Jesus Christ. If you're here today and you don't know you're going to have him when you die right now before we close, just say to yourself, between you and the Lord, Lord, I believe you died on the cross for me and paid for my sin. Life begins there, eternity begins there, for goodness begins there. And we'll pick this message up next week and we'll continue with proof and then we'll take a look at Joe and Joseph and all the other people that had problems in their life because of circumstances, but they learned how to deal with it. And that's the secret, learn how to deal with circumstances. Let's have word prayer will close. But dear Lord, we thank You for Christ, we thank You for Your Word, we thank You for all the examples You give us in the Bible, the examples to follow, the examples not to follow. The attitudes to follow. The attitudes not to follow. I can learn to be happy, not everything in life is going to make me happy, but I can learn to be happy by dealing with circumstances to the best of my ability. It's a sad thing to go through life, unhappy, constantly unhappy, when I can learn to be content in whatever state I am. There's so many good things and about good keys just to make the go through this life, feeling better about things. We thank you for Christ, we thank you for salvation just by believing in Him, and we thank you for your word that keeps us going every day in Christ name. Amen. Okay, please rise if you will and we'll think one verse of 47, I think it was. Yeah, one verse, the last verse, page 487. I don't want to thank everyone for being here this morning. And for putting up with the ugly old preacher, that takes a lot. That probably makes you unhappy, but I'm happy. I don't mind being ugly. So I blood my soul for Jesus to save me, treat me from sin, Long had enslaved me his precious blood to be gave to redeem. Now I belong to him, and I belong to Jesus. Jesus belongs to me. Not for the years, but for eternity. Thank you.