Alright, we're here in 1 Samuel 26, and before we get into 1 Samuel 26, turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 11. I want to show you a quick verse.
I think everyone in this room could agree that I was here for the first sermon that, man, the first sermon I preached today, man, I just laid down the hammer from the Catholic church.
That's 1,700 years of history. I said stuff that basically no pastor can say. Nobody has the guts to say that's the truth.
But quite honestly, this sermon's kind of like the opposite, so we've got a good balance here.
Because the first sermon was probably the most hardcore, intense sermon I've preached at this church, I would say, quite perhaps.
But this sermon's kind of the opposite, and the name of the sermon is the Sons of Zeruiah.
And what we're going to see with the Sons of Zeruiah is these were some of David's best men, but they were also kind of his worst men at times.
Because sometimes they were just a little bit too extreme. I think it's good to have a proper balance, so if this is the first sermon he occurred today,
then if you wanted the intense sermon, that was the first sermon. And the first sermon next week, it's going to be pretty intense as well.
But there is a balance on the things of God. Now, once you realize the first sermon I said today, I said a lot of things that nobody's going to say.
There were also things, though, that I did not say intentionally. And I'll kind of explain that in the sermon.
But one thing I've learned being here in the Philippines is that there are certain things that you can say in America and things that you cannot say here.
Like, you know, I'm thankful to have you. My wife's parents are with us today, which is great. I get along very well with my parents.
And one thing they told me ahead of time, which they turned out to be right about, be careful with naming certain false prophets.
And me being kind of zealous, I'm like, man, I'm just going to lay down the hammer. And I learned pretty early with this church, okay, it's a little bit different than America.
You've got to be kind of smart sometimes. And so I want you to understand that, you know, I preach very large sermons like the first sermon was,
but I preach at a level I'm comfortable with, and we need to be careful not to go above it because, you know what, we're a church that's doing something great for God.
We're getting tons of people saved, and God is blessing us. There are just certain things and certain people you can't name by name.
And I preached a whole sermon against the Roman Catholic Church, but there are a few religions out there where it's like you're going to be six feet under the ground if you preach against them, okay?
And I want you to see here in 1 Chronicles 11, verse 6, the Bible reads,
And David said, Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites first shall be chief and captain.
So Joab the son of Zerawiah went first up and was chief.
And so if you're familiar with your Bible, Joab was basically the best person for David.
He was basically his chief warrior, and the way he became that is he was the first person to smite the Jebusites.
Basically, David needed somebody to fight the battle, and Joab was the first person there.
He fought the battle. He became the right-hand man of David.
And in the Bible, Joab is a great character for part of the Bible.
He's like the best man for David often, and he's also the worst man of David.
Now, I'll be honest with you. I had this sermon as an idea like four months ago, and I was kind of waiting to preach it.
And Pastor Jimenez, our sinning pastor, he preached a sermon very similar to this.
Now, I want you to know if you heard that sermon, I did not steal that sermon.
I already had that sermon as an idea, and he preached that recently.
But it's a great thought that he preached. Now turn back to 1 Samuel 26.
So there's three sons of Zerawiah, and one of them is Joab.
And Joab was kind of the most central character. He's like the right-hand man of David.
And the first point we have in this sermon is this, that Joab and the sons of Zerawiah,
they were the best men of David, but they were also the worst men of David.
They were the most helpful, but they were also the most harmful.
In 1 Samuel 26, verse 5, the Bible reads,
Joab said, who will go down with me to solve the camp?
And Abishah said, I will go down with me.
You see, you like characters like Abishah.
Because David says, I need a guy to go with me.
And Abishah says, hey, I'll go with you. I'll fight that battle.
See, this is the sort of person in church that you love.
You're doing so many marathons, and they say, hey, you know what? I'm going to meet him.
If you do some sort of event, I'm going to meet him.
They're basically there for everything.
And Abishah is a great, great helper.
You see that he wants to go down and fight this battle.
He's a great help, but he's also a liability at times.
Notice what it says in verse 7.
So David and Abishah came to the people by night.
And behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench,
and his spear stuck in the ground in his bolster.
But Abner and the people lay round about.
Then said Abishah to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day.
Now, therefore, let me smite in my praise him with the spear,
even if the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time.
What does he mean by I will not smite him the second time?
He's saying I only need one shot.
I don't need a second time.
I smite him once, I'm going to kill him.
And what he's saying is true.
You say why?
Because Abishah was a mighty warrior.
Joab and Abishah and Asahel, they were a great help today.
They were great warriors.
He's saying, I don't need two chances.
All I need is one chance, and I'll kill your enemy.
But here's the thing.
David wanted someone to go down with him.
He doesn't want to kill King Saul.
And see, what's happening is Abishah is going a little bit more extreme than David wants.
Now, when we see the end of the story with David,
it's good that David was patient and let the Lord fight those battles.
You say why?
Because eventually he becomes the king.
And there's not all this bloodshed on his own hands.
Now, notice what it says in verse number 9.
And David said to Abishah, destroy him not,
for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?
David said furthermore, as the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him,
for his day shall come to die, for he shall descend into battle and perish.
The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed,
but I pray thee, take thou now the spirit that is at his bolster in the cruise of water and let us go.
And so David says, hey, if it's his time to die, God will strike him back.
This was God's chosen. He's the chosen king.
If God wants me as the king, God will put me as the king.
I don't have to promote myself.
It's a good lesson for all of us.
We don't want to promote ourselves in this life.
The problem is when we try to promote ourselves,
we usually think we're ready before we are ready.
That's the way it works.
Now, I don't really think this is particularly a problem at our church,
but I think this is always a relevant sermon
because our type of church will attract very zealous young people.
Isn't that true?
Look, I've been an independent fundamental Baptist for 14 years,
and when it comes to like-minded churches,
I started listening to Pastor Anderson in 2008 more than a decade ago.
I remember in the early days when very few people listened to him,
when it was kind of new and it was exciting,
and I remember being a young, very zealous person,
and I remember being very zealous in a positive way 90% of the time,
but 10% of the time I was just a little bit too extreme.
And I can look back now that I'm married and I have a family,
and I can understand this a little bit better than when I was a bit younger.
And so honestly, when it comes to people that are really zealous,
oftentimes they go a little bit too zealous sometimes,
and that's something that's always going to happen at our church.
Now, here's the thing about this.
The last thing I would want to do is destroy their zeal.
You understand what I'm saying?
These are members you like.
These are not reprobates.
These are not bad people.
These are some of your best soul owners.
These are people you love,
people that are a great help to your church.
You would never want to run these people away.
There's just some times when you're like,
man, I don't want to kill people.
It's like, I love your zeal.
Just calm it down just a little bit.
It's like 90% of the time, David's like,
man, I'll buy shit.
You're such a great help.
No, no, no. Don't kill him.
You're just a tad bit too extreme.
Now turn in your Bible to 2nd Samuel, chapter 2.
2nd Samuel.
Now, I'll be honest.
It was me 10 years ago.
You start learning all these new doctrines
and all these things.
Man, you're excited.
You want to go to war with everyone.
But as you get a little bit older,
you're kind of like, well, you can only fight so many battles.
And if I go to war with this church and this church
and this church, it's like, well, I'm going to make it
like two months, and then I'll be gone.
It's like you need to be kind of rational more so.
And so it's great to be zealous.
And let me reiterate, I love members like this
that are really zealous, that want to serve God
and are doing great things.
It's just sometimes they can be a little bit too zealous.
Okay?
Now, it says in 2nd Samuel 2, verse 12,
And Abner, the son of Nur,
and the servants of Ishtosheth, the son of Saul,
went out from Menahem to Gilead.
And Joab, the son of Zoriah, and the servants of David,
went out and met together by the pool of Gilead.
And they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool
and the other on the other side of the pool.
And so basically, we're going to see a battle
from Abner and Joab.
Basically, the men of King Saul
and the lineage from King Saul and then King David's men.
They're going to fight it out.
Notice verse 17, verse number 17.
And there was a very sore battle that day,
and Abner was beaten and the men of Israel
before the servants of David.
So basically, they fight this battle,
and David's side won the battle.
The side of Abner's beaten, they're running away,
they lost the battle, it's over.
At this time, no need to fight anymore.
It's over.
You already won the battle.
But see, the problem was the sons of Zoriah,
they wanted to fight a little bit more.
Notice what it says in verse 18.
And so the first point, and as I mentioned this morning,
this sermon's going to be a little bit shorter
because our first sermon was so long.
Let me say this, the first point was that
these people, the sons of Zoriah,
they were the best men of David.
They were his top people.
They were also his worst people.
They were very helpful and very harmful.
You say, why didn't David just get rid of them?
Because they're his best people.
You're not going to get rid of them.
If I was David, I wouldn't have gotten rid of Joab.
I wouldn't have gotten rid of Amishah.
I wouldn't have gotten rid of Asinville.
Why? Because they're your best people.
They're the ones that are leading the charge in the battle.
It's just that once you've won the battle,
you're like, no, just stop.
You don't have to kill the enemy now.
You've already won that battle.
And they just want to go a little bit further.
Verse number 18.
And what you have to understand in this second point
is that you can destroy your life
by being too zealous.
That's the truth.
You can actually cause harm to your life
by being a little bit too zealous.
Now let me say this.
This is an individual sermon, as all sermons are.
If you believe this applies to your life,
then you don't apply it to your life.
There's plenty of different people in here.
All ages.
Some are married.
Some aren't.
Some are children.
Some are adults.
And so if you believe this,
you can apply the sermon and apply it.
The last thing I would want to do is say,
hey, you owe so many less.
Read Bible Less.
No, of course I want you to read Bible Less.
Of course I want you to be going so away.
But I just want you to realize in your life
that look at yourself and see if sometimes
you can be a little bit too extreme.
You know, as I mentioned in the first sermon,
the first sermon I preached today is something
no Baptist church is going to preach.
Yeah.
Nobody's going to preach.
You say, why?
They don't think that's the preaching.
Yeah.
They're afraid.
They would never say those words.
But I preached really intense,
but I didn't just up it intentionally.
You know, I reached a level that
I feel perfectly comfortable with.
I feel safe with.
I laid down the hammer on 1,700 years
of the scandal within the Catholic church,
the pedophilia and all the sexual scandals.
But at the same time,
I'm not trying to be intense with the same thing.
I preach a lot of sermons on how to be a good husband.
Yeah.
You say, why?
Because I want to be a good husband.
Mm-hmm.
Not every sermon's on the Sodomites.
Quite honestly, there's the sermons
I preached against the Sodomites like this morning.
But more important to my individual life
is just being a good husband.
Mm-hmm.
Being a good father,
doing a good job raising my son, right?
For the ladies in this room,
honestly, the sermons on being a good wife,
being a good mom,
those are very important sermons for you.
Yeah, they're not the sermons
that get you a million views on YouTube.
But quite honestly, I'm not a YouTube pastor.
People that are sermons online,
people are edified.
We have people in some Asian countries
that listen to sermons
because they can't find a great church.
But at the same time,
I'm not trying to be intense for the sake of being intense.
Yeah.
There's times you got to lay down the hammer
and preach everything.
But there's also times just to not try
to always let it go.
Because, you know, honestly,
you can't just always go to war.
And I want you to realize
that in verse number 18 here,
Asahel, which was the brother of Joab and Abishah,
he's someone who always wanted to go to war.
Keep in mind, they won the battle.
You might not know the name Asahel,
and the reason why is because he destroys his life here.
Verse number 18,
And there were three sons of Zeruiah there,
Joab and Abishah and Asahel.
And Asahel was as light of foot as a wild goat.
What does it mean by he was light of foot?
What it means is he was very fast.
Right.
You know, I'm sure he was probably
younger than his brothers,
and he was faster than them,
very athletic, very fast.
And, you know, Abner's getting away,
and he's zealous,
and he's just charging after Abner.
There's a problem with this.
Abner actually has weapons.
You have nothing.
He doesn't have any weapons.
He doesn't have any defense for himself.
He's just charging after Abner like a madman.
He's just going after him.
He has nothing to defend himself.
Notice what it says in verse number 19.
And Asahel pursued after Abner,
and in going he turned not to the right hand nor to the left
from following Abner.
Then Abner looked behind him and said,
Art thou as a hale?
And he answered, I am.
And Abner said to him,
Turn thee aside to thy right hand or to thy left,
and lay thee whole on one of the young men
and take me his armor,
but Asahel would not turn aside from following them.
So Abner realizes Asahel is catching him,
and Abner says,
Stop and get armor if you're going to fight.
Why is Abner saying that?
Well, what we're going to find out,
it's not that Abner was just such a great guy,
where he's like,
Man, I feel real bad about telling this guy,
because Abner's someone who's also a good guy and a bad guy.
He's got kind of a mix.
But the reason why is because he's worried
that if he kills Joab's brother,
Joab is one day going to kill him,
which does end up happening.
So he's telling him,
Hey, stop.
So at least I can say,
Hey, we fought a battle.
You know, it's not like I just killed a defenseless man.
But Asahel is charging after Abner.
Now, Abner's not as fast as Asahel,
and the application we can make is,
Asahel is very zealous, okay?
But Abner's a trained warrior,
and he's ready for that battle,
so he will kill Asahel if they fight.
Notice what it says in verse number 22.
And Abner said again to Asahel,
Turn thee aside from following me.
Wherefore should I smite thee to the ground?
Basically, I'm going to kill you
if you keep charging after me.
How then should I hold up my face
to Joab thy brother?
What's Abner worried about?
If I kill Asahel,
Joab's going to want to kill me.
Realize Joab was the chief warrior of David.
He's the one who just beat Abner in this battle,
and he realizes if I kill Joab's brother,
he is going to come after me
and try to kill me, okay?
Verse number 23,
Howbeit he refused to turn aside,
wherefore Abner with the hinder end of the spear
smote him under the fifth rib,
that the spear came out behind him.
And he fell down there and died in the same place,
and it came to pass that as many as came to the place
where Asahel fell down and died stood still.
So Asahel was charging after Abner,
Abner keeps looking behind him,
and eventually Abner realizes
Asahel's going to catch me,
so he turns around and he just kills Asahel.
He doesn't want to do it
because he knows Joab's going to want to kill him.
Asahel is a perfect picture of someone
who's very young and very zealous,
but he doesn't have enough knowledge yet.
I mean, why would you charge a trained warrior
without a weapon,
without a shield to defend yourself?
Does it really make a lot of sense?
You're not charging just a normal person.
You're charging one of the greatest warriors there were,
and you don't have anything to defend yourself.
But see, the truth is that when you're young,
you're willing to fight battles that quite honestly
you're probably not going to win.
Now, it's true when it comes to children.
Children are willing to do anything.
They have great faith.
Your child will literally just jump off the couch
expecting you to catch them.
Whoa, what are you doing?
But honestly, when it comes to dating Christians,
because the Bible likens in a lot of ways,
people that have really saved the dating Christians,
they're very zealous.
The Bible talks about being zealous without knowledge.
Unfortunately, when it comes to being sold out to serve God,
usually zeal comes first.
And it's a great thing 90% of the time.
But 10% of the time, it's not a good thing.
And look, I would never want to destroy somebody's heel,
because I remember when I was in my young 20s,
man, I did a lot of soul.
Man, I would go soul-winning all the time.
I would stop during my lunch break at work
and I would just go out for a walk
and just try to find somebody.
I got a lot of people saying the worst thing for me at that time
would be for someone to say, man, you got to calm things down.
But at the same time, there were areas
where I needed to just be a little bit wiser,
have a little bit more knowledge and experience.
Quite honestly, some things, it just takes experience.
That's why the Bible talks about being a pastor,
that a bishop, he basically needs to know how to rule his own house well.
You say, why?
Because before you have kids, you're an expert on raising kids.
And then once you get married and have kids,
you're like, wow, this is a lot more difficult than I thought.
I thought it was going to leave, but it's actually not here.
I thought it was going to be so easy.
I'm just working, providing money.
I just come home.
Your wife greets you at the door.
Oh, it's so great to see you.
She hugs you.
Your son's there.
He greets you.
And you're always happy.
It doesn't work that way.
And see, unfortunately, you don't realize that until you actually experience.
And see, Asahel is a very young and zealous person.
But unfortunately, he's a little bit too zealous
because he's lacking the knowledge in this battle.
Verse number 24.
Joab, also in a vice, had pursued after Abner.
And the sun went down when they were come to the hill of Ammon,
that lieth before Gaius, by the way, the wilderness of Gibeon.
And the children of Benjamin gathered themselves together after Abner,
and became one true, and stood on the top of an hill.
Then Abner called to Joab and said,
Shall the sword devour for Abner?
Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?
How long shall it be then ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?
So Abner's fought Joab's men, and Abner's basically like,
Are we just going to kill each other forever?
Now, I want you to understand something,
that when you're losing the battle,
it's very easy to say, Let's just have a truce.
I mean, should we just keep killing each other?
I mean, would Abner have done that if they were winning the battle?
Because quite honestly, usually when I hear this preach,
people say, you know, Abner was just rational.
They're like, No, he's losing the battle.
It's like, he probably doesn't want to just say,
Well, let's just keep fighting, because we'll probably get killed.
They lost the battle. They were running for their lives.
That's why Azzie Hill is running after him.
He's not charging after Azzie Hill. He's running away. Why?
They've lost the battle.
So of course he's like, Hey, let's just be friends.
Let's just pretend that I didn't just kill your brother five minutes ago.
Let's just pretend that all things are okay.
Let's just calm it down. Shall the sword devour forever?
Now, what he says is true.
You know, the reason why he's saying it, that's pretty suspect.
But what he's saying is true.
Because honestly, are you just going to fight and fight and fight and fight and fight?
It's the question I would love to ask to the United States of America.
Quite honestly, it's like, Man, why are you always fighting in some country?
But people just always want to fight and fight and fight.
Now, are there times to call out the Catholic Church like this morning? Absolutely.
And when you preach, you have to have boldness.
You have to have guts.
But it's not like every sermon should be against a new religion.
Do you guys know how many false religions there are in this country?
I mean, there's so many.
I hear about new ones every week, and I'm like, Man, I've never even heard of that church.
It's like there's so many false religions here.
Now, what do we preach against?
Well, we preach against the ones that are common.
Don't we get Catholics saved every single week?
Don't we deal with idolatry every single week?
Don't we see the scandals in the Catholic Church every single week?
Well, guess what we preach against? We preach against that religion.
But we can't just preach one sermon after another against some new religion.
It's not just all a battle.
It always kind of is interesting to me when you look at people that are young,
like within this movement or like-minded churches or whatever,
because the sermons that get the most views are like sermons against the LGBT.
Isn't that the truth?
Like if you preach a sermon called Take Back the Rainbow,
it's going to get like a thousand views in like an hour.
But, you know, a sermon on like how to be a good husband.
Oh, poor views.
That's the way it works.
People want that sermon where they're laying down their hand and you say, what?
Because people are young, useless.
And look, I used to be that way.
At this point in my life, the last sermon I would listen to is a sermon like Take Back the Rainbow.
Now, it needs to be preached because look at our world today.
But I know that that's probably not the most helpful sermon in my life.
A sermon on how to be a good husband, well, that's something I struggle with every week.
I'm not perfect. I'm not claiming to be.
So those are the sermons I actually need that will change my life.
How to be a good father?
Well, my son is less than two years old.
I don't have it all figured out.
That's the sermon that I need.
And so honestly, sermons on being patient, not being bitter,
those are sermons we all, you say, why?
Because we're not God and flesh.
We struggle with those things, every single person.
But quite honestly, you know, I already hate the LGBT agenda.
Now, I'm not saying you don't need to preach those sermons because you know you do
because it's an issue of our day.
But quite honestly, it's not just the sermons where you're going to war against some false religion.
Those are the sermons that get the most views.
But quite honestly, they're usually not the most helpful.
I remember when I used to look at my views when I preached at the early Baptist church.
And honestly, the sermons with the most views were like my worst sermons.
And it always frustrated me because I feel like I preached a pretty good sermon.
I'm like, man, all these new things in the Bible I learned that were really in-depth.
And then all of a sudden, nobody watches it because it doesn't have an exciting title.
And I'm like, man, this was like the best sermon I've preached.
And it doesn't get views.
But honestly, that's the way it works.
Because people love the sermons about calling out some religion.
Quite honestly, they're not always the most important sermons.
And so you need a balance between the sermon this morning,
but also a sermon like we have here this afternoon.
Now, turn to 2 Samuel 16.
2 Samuel 16.
That's how Ashenel dies.
He charges after Abner without anything to defend himself.
I mean, quite honestly, he was very exilous, but he's pretty bobo in that story.
It's like you're charging against the greatest warrior,
and you don't have anything to defend yourself.
It kind of reminds me, and I'll talk about this next week
because they're going to preach about the Catholic Church in the Philippines,
but you have Hernam and Jelen and like 50 men just saying,
we'll just kill a thousand people in a second.
Are you an idiot?
And then he gets killed.
Obviously, that's going to happen.
Now, 2 Samuel 16, verse 5.
The problem with being zealous, though, is it's not just that you can destroy your own life,
but you can also destroy the life of those around you as well.
And in 2 Samuel 16, verse 5, 5 reads,
And when King David came to Bahurim,
behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul,
whose name was Shimei, the son of Gerah.
He came forth and cursed still as he came.
And he cast stones at David and at all the servants of King David.
And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left.
And thus said Shimei when he cursed,
Come out, come out, thou bloody man and thou man of Belia.
So here's Shimei's opportunity to basically mock David
because David at this point is running from his son Absalom.
So right now David's got bigger fish to fry than some random person named Shimei.
And so Shimei realizes, I have an opportunity to mock David.
And he does. And he's calling him out and basically challenging him.
Now he's lucky that David doesn't call him up on that challenge
because he would just be killed.
But see, he realizes David's probably not going to fight that battle.
And so quite honestly, when you're running for your life,
it doesn't make sense to stop and kill somebody else.
Shimei's not sure of your battle that you're fighting.
It's like you're running from Absalom,
you're trying to get in position for the battle and come up with a plan.
Look, you don't want to take 15 minutes to just kill someone.
It's like it's a pointless battle to fight.
But the sons of Zeruiah, they want to fight that battle.
Notice what it says in verse 8.
The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul,
in whose stead thou hast reign.
And the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom, thy son.
And behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.
Here Shimei is calling out David.
Now, I want you to understand that we have all been in those situations out so early.
Where basically, there's somebody who is not going to get saved.
They are a hard-core, they are a hard-core Catholic, or whatever religion.
They do not want to hear the gospel, but they want to mock you.
They want to debate you.
I remember just like three or four weeks ago, I was knocking doors.
And this old guy walks by me, and he just wants to start arguing.
You know, about the Bible.
And it's like, man, I'm knocking doors.
Obviously, this guy's not going to get saved when he's starting an argument with me.
And I wasn't even talking to him.
I'm knocking doors, and he just stops, and he's like, oh, what church are you?
And I was like, man, I really want to just ignore this guy, because I want him to just walk on.
And I realized, though, he's going to follow me from order.
And he just wants to argue with me.
Now, look, in the flesh, you want to fight that battle, don't you?
I mean, if you know the Bible, you're like, man, I can make this guy look like me.
I can make him look like such an idiot right now.
And you're tempted to do that.
I remember when I was probably a sophomore in college, when I first got saved,
being in college I really studied evolution and creation, like how to disprove evolution.
And I remember I knocked on a door.
And this guy was like a master's, he was getting a master's in biology.
He was like a hardcore evolutionist.
And I had watched a lot of stuff on creation, so I literally spent more than an hour at that door arguing about evolution.
And, man, I laid down a hand.
I easily won that argument.
But guess what? He didn't get saved.
And you know what? The next door, somebody might have gotten saved.
I wasted over an hour arguing about evolution.
Now, was it fun at the time? Well, absolutely.
But it was also a foolish thing to do.
When we go soloing again, people don't want to hear the gospel.
It is what it is. You shake off the dust of your feet and just move on to the next person.
Because there are people right now that want to know how to get to heaven.
And there's also people that have no interest whatsoever.
But those who have no interest also sometimes argue with you.
They'll spend like 30 minutes debating whether or not Jesus is God.
There's no debate. God was manifest in the flesh.
What is there to debate?
You say, well, I want to debate.
Look, it's a waste of time.
If people want to argue with you, they will not get saved.
The people that get saved are those willing to hear the words.
God says if they're worthy, if they're willing, we hear the words.
But if they don't want to hear the words of the gospel, then look, we're not going to waste our time.
And I've said this before at the door with people.
I'm trying to go through the gospel, and I can tell they just want to argue with me.
And I just kind of walk away.
Because when I was newer, I would argue.
But honestly, I would literally oftentimes just walk away during the conversation
if I realized I'm going to waste like 20 more minutes of my time.
And they just want to tell me what they believe.
And unfortunately, sometimes you have so many partners that just stay there to argue.
You literally walk away, and they're staying there.
It's like, what are you doing?
And then 20 minutes later, they catch up to you.
It's like, what have you done?
It's like, he was never going to get saved.
He's like, why are you still there?
But I literally said this to somebody sometime.
Because he's like, oh, you knocked on my door.
You're not willing to debate.
I said, look, I knocked on your door to tell you what I believe.
I said, when you knock on my door, you can tell me what you believe.
So they're obviously never going to knock on my door.
Because you know where I live.
You have to understand that it's not the same thing as being a salesman.
But look, if you're a professional salesman,
you can't stop to get into arguments about what's a better product.
You have what you know is correct or what you're trying to sell.
But when it comes to the gospel, we know we're right.
And if somebody wants to debate with us and what's the better gospel,
well, there's no debate.
You're just wasting your time.
And so when it comes to this story, what we can learn is sometimes, honestly,
you can be a little bit overzealous.
Now, what verse are we on?
Verse number nine.
Then said Abishah the son of Zeruiah unto the king,
Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?
Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his hat.
Now, you've got to love the seal of this guy.
He said, man, I'll just be quickly over there.
I'll catch up.
You just keep walking.
I'll kill him.
I'll bring back the head or whatever.
But look, it's not a wise thing to do.
You're just trying to move on.
You're wasting your time.
Look, don't do that out solely.
You say, hey, don't worry.
I'll finish off this Catholic priest.
Man, I'll finish the argument.
You just keep going solely.
No, just move on.
And so the problem here is that Abishah,
look, he was a great help to David most of the time.
But right here, he's a little bit too zealous.
Verse number 10, and the king said,
What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah?
Now, look, the way he words this,
you can tell that David's a little frustrated.
Because his son wants to kill him.
Obviously, he's emotional.
His son wants to kill him.
The last thing he wants to worry about
is stopping and fighting some random person.
It's like, man, let's just move on.
He's like, what are you doing?
He's like, basically, I've had enough of you.
Now, he's never going to get rid of Abishah
because Abishah is one of his best people.
He just wishes Abishah would just calm it down
just a little bit.
Notice what it says.
So let him curse, because the Lord hath said on him,
I don't know, curse David.
Who shall then say, wherefore hast thou done so?
Look, as we put our sermons online,
there are people that posted just wanting to make an argument.
And I spent every single week just responding
to every single comment on YouTube,
every single message on Facebook from somebody
who hates our church, hates me.
Look, I would spend all my time just wasting my time
just arguing online.
But the question is, what is the purpose
of getting in an argument on YouTube
with some random person I'm never going to meet in the flesh
and someone who's probably already rejected God
and is probably never going to be saved?
There's no point.
It's like, if you want to know, I preached an hour-long sermon.
It's like, I'm obviously not going to change my mind.
I'm not preaching a sermon and being like,
well, you know, I'm still not sure about it.
I'll print a whole sermon against the Catholic church,
but maybe there are the right answers.
I mean, I've already made up my mind.
And so when it comes to these battles,
you know, some battles are just not worth fighting.
Verse number 11.
And David said to Abishai to all his servants, behold my son,
which came forth my vows.
Seeketh my life.
How much more now may this vengeance might do?
Let him alone and let him curse.
For the Lord hath bidden him.
It may be that the Lord will look at my deflection
and that the Lord will provide me good first mercy this day.
So what David says is, if I can be patient and not
fight this battle, maybe God will bless me because
of having the right attitude.
Right.
When I realize these battles, the Lord will take care of.
I don't have to fight these battles.
It's the same way in our lives.
We don't have to fight every battle that comes our way.
Right.
I've mentioned soul winning.
But what about when your brother wants
to argue with you for two hours on whatever time?
Right.
Look, the things we believe, we'll
have people that are wanting to argue with us.
What if your coworker wants to just take you out to lunch
to argue with you about your thoughts on whether or not
gay marriage should be legal?
Quite honestly, they're not saying they just
need to hear the gospel anyway.
Right.
But honestly, what's the point of wasting your time?
All it's going to do is cause you
to get persecuted more and more.
I'm not saying to back down from what you believe.
Because I'm preaching a sermon about, hey,
it's good to be zealous.
It's just sometimes you need to be watched.
Not every battle is worth fighting.
So the Bible does say, answer not a fool
or you need to be followed.
Right.
So also be like I'm him.
It also says, answer a fool or you need to be followed.
There is a time to fight a battle,
there's a time not to fight a battle.
Yeah.
And so you individually need to look at your life
and realize, is this a battle worth fighting?
Sometimes the answer is yes.
Quite honestly, sometimes the answer is no.
It doesn't make you weak if you don't fight every battle.
Now turn to 2 Samuel 19.
2 Samuel 19.
And here's the truth.
When you preach the way I do for a like-minded church,
sometimes people listen and kind of assume that,
man, you step outside the pulpit,
you're just yelling at people, laying down the hammer.
Has anyone seen me act like that, though, in my whole life?
I don't act like that.
Right.
You see why?
It's a waste of time.
Yeah.
And so yes, you're bold behind the pulpit,
but you don't just go out there and just yell at people.
The question is you're going solo, man.
You're trying as nice as you can to see
if you're willing to listen.
Yeah.
This is someone who I'm good friends with today,
but he is in West Virginia, and he's a friend of mine.
And I remember when I first started going to the church
he was attending, he was the assistant pastor of the church.
He graduated from Piles Anderson College.
And he's a great guy.
He loves the Lord and goes soloing all the time.
But I remember when we first visited, me and my friends,
they were worried about me and my friends visiting.
And they just kind of assumed, like, oh, we
know you preach every once in a while.
And they were worried that we just are like jerks.
Jerks.
I was like, why would you think I'm a jerk?
I was like, what's your reason?
Because when you preach hard behind the pulpit,
people kind of just assume that's
how you act outside the pulpit.
I mean, look, almost everybody in this room,
I didn't know you until this church started.
Some of you I met during the missions trip in April of 2018.
But look, when you first came to church,
was I just like a jerk, or was I just saying,
oh, that's great to have you.
My name's Matthew.
Here's my wife.
Here's my son.
I just acted nice.
And quite honestly, that's the default way to be,
is to try to just act nice.
Most of the time, you don't want to just fight your entire life.
Verse 18, and there went over a ferryboat
to carry over the king's house when
he did what he thought good.
And Shimei the son of Garret fell down before the king
as he was come over Jordan.
So what's taking place is that David has won the battle.
And so now Shimei is basically like, I'm so sorry.
Please forgive me.
And he falls down before him.
Isn't this a pretty humbling thing to do?
You fall down before another person,
just kind of like people fall down before you fall.
Humble themselves.
So basically, Shimei is basically falling down
before David.
Verse 19, and said unto the king,
let not my Lord impute iniquity unto me.
Neither do thou remember that which my servant did
perversely the day that my Lord the king went out
of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart.
The thy servant doth know that I have sinned.
Therefore, behold, I am come to first this day
of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my Lord the king.
Now, you might ask this question.
Is he really sorry?
The Bible talks about godly sorrow and worldly sorrow.
There's a lot of people who get confused on repentance
because the Bible does not teach that you need to repent
of your sins and be saved.
The Bible says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved.
What the Bible does talk about in 2 Corinthians 7
is that after you are saved, there are people
that when they hear the word of God, they are truly sorry
and they make changes in their life.
And other people that don't have godly sorrow,
they have worldly sorrow.
Look, everybody's sorry when they get caught.
But that doesn't mean that it's godly sorrow.
It might be worldly sorrow.
You say, what's the difference?
Worldly sorrow means there's no change.
See, godly sorrow is when there's actually a change.
So as a saved person, because when you're not saved,
it's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
Let's say, for example, you don't read the Bible.
And you hear a sermon preaching about how you need
to read the Bible every day.
You can either have godly sorrow or worldly sorrow.
You're probably going to be sorry if you don't read the Bible.
But worldly sorrow means, basically,
like in most Baptist churches, you come down to the altar.
I'm so sorry.
I'll start reading the Bible.
And the next week, you come down to the altar again.
You say, why don't you have an altar call?
Because it doesn't work.
There's just a bunch of people that have worldly sorrow
that just keep coming down and keep coming down
and keep coming down.
No, godly sorrow is when there's a real change.
Look, we're all sorry when we get caught.
But it doesn't mean that you have godly sorrow.
And so is he sorry?
Well, absolutely he's sorry.
Does he have godly sorrow?
Well, I mean, I guess that's up for debate.
Probably not, I would say.
But it says in verse number 21, but Abisht,
the son of Zeruiah, answered and said,
shall not Shimei be put to death for this,
because he cursed the Lord's anointed?
Look, Abisht still wants to kill him.
Didn't we settle that earlier?
I said, no, let the Lord deal with it.
And then Abisht was like, all right,
now that you've won the battle and you've
allowed God to win that battle for you over Abisht,
then let's just kill this guy.
It's like, what is the purpose?
The war's over.
And let me say this, that when countries go
and they kill somebody in a foreign country
when it's not part of the war, they just kill civilians.
That is the thing.
And it happens all the time.
Now that we have YouTube, you can see the videos
where you'll just bomb a country.
They're just innocent people.
And it happens all the time, especially, you know,
America's the one that's really killing them.
That is the truth.
And you see these videos, and they are just literally
gunning down innocent civilians.
A mom is holding her baby, not involved in the battle.
I mean, in the Bible, don't you see the men
going out to battle?
You don't see the children.
You don't see the moms.
And then they just kill some innocent victim.
And it's not part of the battle.
Or they win the battle, and they still keep fighting.
Look, that's wicked.
And it's like, the battle's over.
Whatever the battle is about.
Verse number 22.
And David said, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah,
that ye should this day be adversaries unto me?
Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel,
for do I not I know that I am this day king over Israel?
And David said, what are you doing?
He's like, you son of Zeruiah.
He's like, we won the battle.
There's no point in fighting.
I'll turn to First Samuel 24.
As you're turning there, I'll finish reading.
Therefore, the king said unto Shimei, thou shalt not die.
And the king sware unto him.
So basically, Abishai just wants to keep fighting this battle.
And David already determined he doesn't want to fight that battle.
At this point, it's like, what are you doing to fight?
Because the decision's been made to not fight the battle.
And he still wants to go for it.
Look, the reason why God allowed David
to overcome Absalom in these battles
is because he allowed the Lord to fight him.
And us as believers, as godly people,
God can fight those battles in our lives.
And people that are wicked false prophets
or wicked devils or evil people,
they're going to get what's coming to them.
We don't have to finish the job.
And quite honestly, sometimes it's not a good idea to do it.
Now, in these stories you read, David,
he doesn't fight the battles.
But what I want you to understand is
there was one time where David comes very, very early.
Where David comes very, very close to killing King Saul.
1 Samuel 24, verse 4.
And the men of David said unto them,
behold, the day of which the Lord said unto thee,
behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand,
that thou mayest do to him, as it shall seem good unto thee.
Then David arose and cut off the skirt,
and Saul's robe friendly.
So what happens in verse number 4?
They say, here's King Saul, your enemy.
You can kill him right now. Let's do it.
What does David do?
He goes to do it.
He goes to kill King Saul,
but he ends up just cutting off the skirt of his garments.
The skirt of your garment is not talking about
like a dress that a woman wears.
The skirt is basically like the end of your garment.
People get confused and say,
well, see, men will wear their skirts throughout the bottom.
No, the skirt of your garment is the bottom part of the garment.
It's like, no, they did not wear dresses.
Verse number 25.
And it came to pass afterwards that David's heart smote him
because he had cut off Saul's skirt.
And he said unto his men,
the Lord forbid that I should do this thing on my master.
The Lord's anointed to stretch forth my hand against him,
seeing he has anointed a Lord.
So David goes down to kill Saul,
and he basically stops.
And he said, God forbid that I should do this.
But what I want you to think about is
what if he actually killed King Saul there?
It's hard to tell what would happen throughout the rest of the Bible.
I mean, a central theme throughout the Bible with David
is that he's on the run from King Saul.
He trusts in the Lord. He trusts in the Lord.
But what you have to understand is that
when you're someone who has really zealous people around you all the time,
even though 90% of the time you'll say,
man, it's not worth fighting,
there's that 10% of the time where you're caught in the wrong day
and you're like, man, let's kill him.
And see, that's where it can be dangerous if people are too zealous.
Because if you're too zealous,
you could influence other people to fight a battle
that when they're in their right mind,
they're going to be like, no, it's just not what.
Now you have to understand that,
as I've said in this sermon,
when it comes to sons of Jeremiah,
these are people you love.
I mean, does David get rid of these people? Absolutely not.
Because quite honestly, the sons of Jeremiah are the ones,
especially with the potential to be,
not only great members some of the time, but all the time.
Because look, some people are just not zealous.
They just don't really care about the kings of God.
Isn't it true that there's people that just don't care?
It's like maybe tell them you should read the Bible,
let's go soul-winning.
They're just like, eh, I don't want to go soul-winning.
Look, 99% of the time,
those people are never going to do anything for God.
They don't want to do anything.
And it's like, man, at a church like this,
we go out there to fight the battles.
We go out there to go soul-winning every week.
Several times, we're serving God.
You know, events, we've got a soul-winning marathon
coming up in the blue of time.
We're trying to do everything.
And yet some people will just hear sermons
about going soul-winning,
about 30 years, never go soul-winning.
Never read the Bible, never pray.
And they'll just never be zealous.
The people you love are the ones that are very zealous.
But the truth is that most of the time,
zeal will come a little bit before a little bit of maturity.
In my life, I'm willing to admit
that when I was younger,
I was very zealous, sometimes too zealous.
You say, what's the danger now?
Well, let me give you a story from my life, okay?
I'll give you an example being a little bit too zealous.
There was somebody I got saved in college, okay?
And I was a junior, she was a freshman,
and we would often preach the gospel
to people at the mountain lair of West Virginia
where people were just kind of hanging out.
It's kind of an indoor result park, okay?
It's the area where there's lots of people,
air-conditioned though.
And I remember I went up to her and I asked her,
you know, she knew for sure she was going to heaven
after I introduced myself.
And she said, you know, no, I'm not sure.
And she said, you know, I'm saved,
but I'm worried I'll go to hell.
It's kind of a weird response.
So I was like, you're saved,
but you're worried you're going to go to hell.
She was being sincere.
She wasn't mocking or whatever,
but she didn't fully understand salvation, obviously.
Because when you're saved, you know you have eternal life.
You see, if people do not know you're going to heaven,
it's because they're not.
People that are saved, they know they're going to heaven.
You may know they have eternal life
if you believe I'm the son of God, okay?
And so she did not know she was going to heaven.
She was not saved.
And I went through the Gospel with her and she got saved.
And, you know, someone I saw in college,
you know, a decent event because, you know,
you run into the same sorts of people.
Sometimes she'd come to, like, church with us and stuff like that.
And I remember one time, you know,
I didn't live in West Virginia anymore,
but we were doing, like, a soul-winning event
and I used to just invite everybody to come soul-winning.
And she decided to come for an hour.
And she came out soul-winning for an hour
and she ended up, you know, we ended up getting somebody saved.
And she told me it was, like, the most exciting thing
but I remember the same person.
I remember I was telling her all these conspiracy theories
because when I first learned about all these conspiracy theories,
like 9-11 and all this stuff,
you know, you're learning all this new information,
it's really interesting to you.
And so I remember just going through all these different conspiracy theories
and everything like that
and she really turned her off to things of God
because it was really a dark, depressing thing to think about.
And I realized, you know, not all of this information is necessarily good for you
because, you know, when you first get saved,
you don't know everything about fire.
You're slowly learning, you're slowly growing and things such as that.
And honestly, when it comes to people that you know that are not saved
with family and stuff,
don't argue with them about all these other things that don't matter.
If they are not saved, they need to hear the gospel.
And if they're not saved, they're not going to understand all of these things.
You don't have to just go in great detail about all these different things
because, quite honestly, they're probably never going to want to listen to you give them the gospel.
When it comes to giving the gospel to your family,
sometimes you've got one shot or two shots at it
and it's like you don't want to throw away that opportunity
because you're a little bit too zealous.
And so the thing about being zealous is it's a good thing,
but the problem is sometimes it can be a little bit too much.
As a church, I would say in this area we probably have the hardest sermon to get saved.
I would be surprised if there's a church in Metro Manila that's really laying down the hammer.
If they are, then they're not publishing the sermons.
That's for sure.
You know, there's not many churches that are going to lay down the hammer like that.
And quite honestly, if it comes to a church getting persecuted,
I have bad news for you. We're probably near the top of the list
in this area of the devil wanting to persecute a church.
But I will say this, that we can speed that up if we try.
There's no point to do that, though.
Say why? Because we have how many salvations?
4,367 disappeared.
Over 5,000 since this church started.
And that's amazing.
And it hasn't been just preaching to 600 people to count all over the state.
No, it's been like 50-plus hours of sowing every week from our church.
I mean, we had 28 salvations in Case Hall Memorial Circle yesterday,
but quite honestly, that was a lot of time.
Because earlier this week, I went sowing areas that were very tough areas.
I went out for five areas over there.
There was the more rich area, no salvation.
And that happens in America, not in the Philippines.
It's like five hours and no salvation.
It's like, are you kidding me? What in the world?
So I went there early yesterday at like 9 a.m. and just started preaching to God.
So we had 28 salvations, but there was a lot of time being put in.
And honestly, we're serving God. Our church is growing.
Praise God for that. It's amazing.
Our church is growing. We're doing lots of sowing.
We're having sowing events.
Quite honestly, we're doing great things for God.
Quite honestly, though, if we invite persecution to us, it's not going to be good for us.
It's not going to make it easier.
Do we have enemies? Absolutely.
And quite honestly, we have enemies probably just about every combination.
Just like our church. We're getting to remember saints.
But we don't invite that persecution on us.
And so when it comes to a sermon like this,
look, I'm not trying to be like a little Debbie Downer
and be like an expression we use in the U.S.
I think it's great that people have a seal.
And I want you to keep that seal.
But I also want you to realize that there are times where you can be a little bit too zealous.
There's times to answer a poll. There's a time not to.
There's a time to be very zealous. There's a time not to.
Doesn't the Bible say a time to love and a time to hate?
There is a time to be zealous, for sure.
There is also a time not to be zealous.
And you need to find that proper balance in your life.
Let's go over it quickly.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today, God.
We're just going to...