over Israel. Fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite.
For I have provided me king among his sons, and Samuel said, How can I go?
If Saul hear it, he'll kill me. And the Lord said, Take and heifer with thee, and say, I am come to
sacrifice
to the Lord, and call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show thee
what thou shalt do, and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee."
So remember, we've seen in the last few chapters some of Saul's failures as king.
He started out as a really great king. He was little in his own sight. He was a very humble man.
He was a righteous man. He was filled with the Spirit of God.
But he committed some sins, and we already went through those.
And not only that, when he was faced with the man of God confronting him
and exposing his sins to him, instead of getting right, he made excuses. He blamed
other people,
and so forth. And so now God is to the point where he says,
I'm ready to find a completely different king. And so he's going to go
unto Jesse the Bethlehemite and find another king. It says in verse 4,
And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Bethlehem.
And the elders of the Lord trembled at his coming,
and said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said, Peaceably, I am come unto the
sacrifice unto the Lord. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he
sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.
Now what's interesting about this is that
people were so afraid of Samuel. Now
today we have so many milk toast preachers, and so many preachers,
and this is the way that preachers are also portrayed in Hollywood.
They're portrayed as being really soft, weak,
wimpy, spineless type guys. And in reality, that's what a lot of preachers are today.
That's what's coming out of a lot of these Bible colleges, is a really milk toast product.
You know, that's not the kind of guy that Samuel was. You see, when Samuel showed up,
they had a lot of respect for him, and they were afraid of him because he was
not a weakling.
Go back. I have to do this. I told brother Dave, because brother Dave confronted me after the
service last Wednesday night, because of the fact that, you know, there was so much great
preaching in chapter 15. I didn't get to the end, and I left out what he felt was the best part.
Go back to 1 Samuel 15 and see this about Samuel. It says in verse 32,
Then said Samuel, and before I read this, remember what happened was
Saul had failed to kill Agag the king of the Amalekites.
They were supposed to kill all the Amalekites, and they saved one man alive, Agag the king,
and they also tried to keep all the nice animals and nice stuff.
It says in verse 32,
Then said Samuel, bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.
And Agag came unto him delicately.
This guy's afraid of Samuel too, notice.
And Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is past.
Don't be so sure, Agag.
And it says in verse 33,
And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless
among women.
And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
Now that's a pretty serious guy.
He didn't just kill him, he hewed him in pieces.
I mean, he took a sword and chopped him up.
You know, I'm not going to act out exactly what I think he did, but
he hewed him in pieces.
He chopped him up.
And he and by the way, I did it before the Lord, he said,
you know, I did it in the name of God.
And so we have a big difference today between what we think of when we think of clergy or
a minister and what we see in the Bible when we see a man of God who had backbone and who
stood for something and who he wasn't afraid of the people.
The people were afraid of him.
You know, a lot of people, they get up in the pulpit to preach
and they're afraid of the people.
They're afraid of offending.
They're afraid of what people are going to say.
They're afraid of confrontation.
Not Samuel.
He wasn't afraid of anything.
They were afraid of him.
Look at 1 Samuel 16.
Now I just had to do that for brother Dave.
But look at verse number six.
He's called Jesse and his sons.
He wants to find the next king of Israel.
And so he's going to go through the the sons of Jesse here because God has told him that
it's going to be one of these sons.
It says in verse six, and it came to pass when they were come, that he looked on Eliab
and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him.
So he looks at the firstborn and he was obviously a very impressive looking guy.
And so he said, this has got to be him.
Now, remember, the last guy that he anointed was King Saul, who was head and shoulders
above any of the people.
That means you find the tall people.
He was head and shoulders above them.
Saul was a very impressive looking man.
That's what Samuel is assuming that he's going to find again.
And he thinks it's going to be Eliab.
But it says in verse seven, but the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance or
on the height of his stature, because I have refused him.
For the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the
Lord looketh on the heart.
That's a very famous quote.
The problem is a lot of people will misuse that quote because what they'll do is they'll
take that quote that says that man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks
on the heart.
And they'll basically say that God doesn't care what you look like.
It doesn't matter what you look like.
It just matters what's inside.
Well, that's not what Jesus Christ taught when he was on this earth, because what Jesus
Christ taught when he was rebuking the Pharisees in Matthew 23, he was calling them hypocrites.
And he said, you know, you appear outwardly, righteous unto men.
But he said within you're full of hypocrisy and dead men's bones.
Here's what he said.
Cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter that the outside of them may
be clean also.
So notice he didn't say clean the inside and the outside doesn't matter.
That's not what he said.
He said cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them
may be clean also.
See, God wants us to be clean inside and out.
But it starts on the inside and then it shows on the outside.
You see, a lot of people today are more concerned with appearances.
They're more concerned with looking right than being right.
You know, and I mean, if you're committing fornication, but you come to church dressed
in a suit or dressed in a nice outfit, you know, you're wicked as hell.
And that is not acceptable.
And, you know, the Bible is clear that what's inside is more important than the outside.
But that doesn't mean that the outside is not important because the outside is important,
frankly.
And the Bible tells us in places like 1 Corinthians chapter 11, for example, that it's a shame
for a man to have long hair.
OK, and the Bible commands women to have long hair and men to have short hair.
That is something to do with our appearance, with our outward appearance.
And people say God doesn't care.
If God didn't care, he wouldn't spend half of a chapter.
The first half of 1 Corinthians 11 is dedicated to nothing but the length of your
That means it's important.
That means it does matter.
The Bible says that the woman should not wear that which pertain to a man.
Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment for all they that do such things are abomination
of the Lord thy God.
That shows that the outside matters.
The Bible teaches that we should be clean, that men should dress like men, that women
should dress like women, that men should have short hair, that women should have longer.
Our appearance matters, but it doesn't matter nearly as much as what's on the inside.
Let's strive for both.
We don't have to choose between looking good on the outside and being good on the inside.
No, be good on the inside first and foremost and let that affect how you look on the outside.
That's what the Bible says.
Cleanse first that which is within the cup and the platter that the outside of them may
be clean also.
And so God looked at this guy and he sees what's inside and he knows that this guy is
not suitable to be the next king even though he looks great on the outside.
And there are a lot of people today who look great on the outside, it doesn't mean that
they're good on the inside.
And when you look at someone and you see them dressed really nice and looking sharp, that
doesn't always mean that they're righteous.
For example, we've had people come into our church before and man they look like they've
been in church their whole life.
I mean they look as sharp as a tack and a lot of times you just kind of assume that
people like that are saved.
But I'll walk up to those people and just ask them, hey do you know for sure if you
die today you go to heaven?
And they'll say, no I have no idea.
And then it's a great soul winning opportunity.
And there was a lady, she came in here and I mean she looked like she'd been in church
her whole life, she looked like a fundamental Baptist, she had the Bible, she was dressed
really nice and she had no clue.
I gave her the gospel, got her saved, we baptized her.
You know that was a great soul winning opportunity because you don't want to just assume that
because the outside is right that the inside is right because the inside may not be right.
And so God looks on the heart.
We can't look at the heart though.
All we can look at is the outward appearance.
That's what the Bible says, man looks on the outward appearance.
That's all we've got.
But God looks on the heart.
Let's keep reading here.
It says in verse 8, then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel and he said
neither had the Lord chosen this.
Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by and he said neither had the Lord chosen this.
Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, the Lord hath not chosen these.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, are here all thy children?
And he said, there remaineth yet the youngest and be able to keep it the sheep.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, send and fetch him for we will not sit down till he come
thither.
Let me point this out.
Seven sons.
And did you know that he had daughters as well?
The Bible is clear.
As we go on later in the story, we'll hear about some of the daughters of Jesse.
He's got eight sons, seven and then David plus daughters.
This guy had a lot of kids.
Now, today we live in a society that disdains having a lot of children.
And they look at you when you're on your third and they say, you know, are you done?
I mean, are you finished?
Or let's say, for example, our first three children were sons.
And, you know, everybody just assumed, oh, you're still having kids because you're
still trying for that girl, trying to have that girl.
So then when our fourth was a girl, it was like you had you got your girl, you're done.
No, I'm not done.
You know, and then we had another girl and then we had another girl.
And now it's like, what in the world?
How many are you going to have?
You know, I just tell people there's no end in sight.
Just keep them coming.
And, you know, that's very uncommon today.
It's extremely uncommon.
And even just having six children, which to us doesn't seem that big.
I mean, we're just getting started.
But people look at that and they think that's a huge family in the Bible.
That's not a huge family.
When you see men like He-Man who had 14 sons and three daughters.
When you see this guy, he had at least 10 children.
Maybe he had more than that.
And stop and think about this.
Which one did God use?
Which one was the great man of God?
Which one was the powerful leader that changed the nation?
Which one was the progenitor of Jesus Christ?
Which one was it?
The youngest one.
So what if they just said, oh, let's just stop after Eliab?
You know, let's just stop after Shammah.
We've got, you know, we have our 2.5 kids.
Let's just stop.
Now, that's not biblical to stop, by the way.
And a lot of people, they're shocked by this kind of preaching.
But I'll tell you right now, I'm sick and tired of people calling themselves old-fashioned
and they follow all the new-fangled ways of the world.
And then they call that old-fashioned.
Somebody explain that to me.
Somebody explain to me how you're an old-fashioned independent fundamental Baptist.
We're old-fashioned because we're singing songs from the 1600s,
like we just sang a few minutes ago.
But here's the thing.
You're singing songs from the 1600s, but you're living like it's the 1960s.
You know, you're going down to Walgreens and Rite Aid and you're buying all these contraptions
and buying all these drugs and buying all this weird stuff that God never talked about,
that God never commanded, that God never intended,
in order to stop having children so you can fit in with the world around you.
Or because you have no faith that God can feed you and take care of your children.
That is not old-fashioned.
The President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt.
Does anybody know what years he was President?
Anybody know?
Like the early 1900s?
I know it was the early 1900s.
I don't know exactly.
In 1911, yeah, somewhere around those early 1900s.
He got up and made a speech while he was President.
And he said in his speech, he was speaking to women, he said,
birth control is a sin.
I mean, can you imagine President Obama getting on TV and saying,
birth control is a sin?
I mean, can you imagine any of the Republican candidates getting up and saying,
you know, I just believe birth control is a sin.
Can you imagine how people would flip out?
I mean, that guy's campaign is over.
That guy's career is over.
That was a popular President of the United States who stood up and said,
birth control is a sin.
And every preacher, he was against birth control.
And birth control was illegal.
Did you hear me?
It was illegal until what?
The 1930s and the 1940s is when they started to make birth control legal.
I mean, it was completely against.
I mean, for married people to use birth control, illegal.
And yet today, they're handing it out on Bible college campuses.
Here, use this.
And a lot of it's abortive.
You know, the pills, the pills and the shots and the IUDs.
A lot of that stuff is actually aborting a child after a few days old.
And then other methods are just sick and weird.
You know, there's one instance of birth control in the Bible.
Let's turn to it.
Genesis 37.
Am I in the right chapter?
Somebody help me out.
I'm going off the top of my head here.
I added this to my sermon like 30 seconds before the service started.
What chapter am I supposed to be in?
Help me out.
It's not 37.
Somebody help me out.
Put me in the right place here.
You know what I'm looking for.
What is it?
38.
That was one chapter off.
There we go.
Chapter 38.
Here's birth control in the Bible.
You say the Bible doesn't talk about birth control.
Of course the Bible talks about birth control.
The Bible talks about everything.
There's nothing new under the sun.
Every subject is covered in the Bible.
Look at birth control in the Bible.
It says in verse number 6,
And Judah took a wife for Ur his firstborn, whose name was Tamar.
And Ur Judah's firstborn was wicked in the sight of the Lord.
And the Lord slew him.
And Judah said unto Onan,
Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
And Onan knew that the seed should not be his.
And it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife,
that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.
And the thing which he did displeased the Lord, therefore he slew him also.
So there's the only instance in the entire Bible.
If you can find another instance of birth control in the Bible,
come show it to me and come tell me about it,
because I'll incorporate it into my next sermon.
I can't find it.
This is the only place I can see in the entire Bible
where someone is basically trying to
commit relations with their wife without a pregnancy ensuing.
That's what I see here.
And that's the only time you see it in the Bible.
And God gets so mad that he kills the guy.
And yet people today will say,
well, if you don't use birth control, you're irresponsible.
OK, go to Hosea 1.
I'm getting off our rabbit trail on this tonight.
Go to Hosea 1.8.
Hosea is the book right at the beginning of the Minor Prophets,
right after Daniel.
Daniel, Hosea.
Go to Hosea chapter 1, verse number 8,
because what a lot of people will tell you is they'll say,
well, you know, you have to use birth control,
even though people for thousands of years
did not use birth control.
They say, well, you have to use birth control,
and you're irresponsible,
or you don't know what you're doing if you don't use it.
Well, look at Hosea 1.8,
because a lot of people will say,
well, if you don't use birth control,
you're going to have a child every nine months.
Have you ever heard people say that?
You're going to be having a kid every nine months,
and that's not good for you.
Well, I agree that it's not good for you
to have a child every nine months.
That's not healthy for your body.
Obviously, a woman's body needs a break,
but you don't need to use birth control,
because God already thought of that,
and God was already smart enough to think of that.
When He created your body,
He created you to where you would not have children
every nine months, okay, without birth control.
Look at this in the Bible in Hosea 1.8.
Sometimes you just blow past verses like this,
but this is a profound verse in the Bible.
It says in Hosea 1.8,
Now when she had weaned Lo Ruhamah,
she conceived and bare a son.
Now notice, she conceived and bare a son
after she had weaned the previous son, Lo Ruhamah.
Why?
Because it's a scientific fact
that if a woman nurses and breastfeeds her child exclusively
and does it the right way,
that she cannot get pregnant
while she's fully breastfeeding her child.
And so that is God's way of naturally spacing children.
I have six children,
and all of my children are approximately two years apart.
You don't see my children being nine months apart.
My children are approximately two years apart.
Some are a little more than that.
Some are a little bit less than that.
And it is just strictly based upon this right here,
what I just showed you in the Bible.
It's just based on the fact that she nurses them and so forth.
And there's more information you could get on that from my wife.
I'm not really an expert on lactation, okay?
But my wife is an expert on that.
You can talk to my wife about it.
This is knowledge that used to be passed down
from mother to daughter, from mother to daughter and so forth.
But today we've lost a lot of this knowledge
to where people are completely ignorant of this.
And they think it's either buy stuff at Walgreens
or else have a kid every nine months.
And there is another option.
There is a natural way.
And it's even found in the Bible.
And so I just showed it to you in the Bible.
I don't want to spend too much time on that point,
but let's go back to 1 Samuel 16.
It's a good thing that Jesse didn't stop after that ninth child
and say, you know, people already think I'm insane
because I have nine children.
And this family is way too big.
We just can't afford that tenth child David
or maybe he was the eighth child,
depending on where those girls factored in.
You know, the Bible says,
I've never seen the righteous forsaken
nor his seed begging bread.
The Bible says that if God so clothed the grass of the field,
which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven,
shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Behold, the foul of the air.
They sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are you not much better than they?
Can't God feed you?
Can't God feed your children?
Can't God take care of you financially
if you work hard and bring home the bacon and have kids?
And you know, I'm sorry.
The Bible teaches this very clearly.
And a lot of people will use abstinence
as a method of birth.
That's not biblical either.
The Bible commands against abstinence.
I'm talking about for married people, of course.
The Bible commands against abstinence
and the Bible commands against birth control methods
that we saw in Genesis chapter 38.
So be a normal person, get married,
go to bed with your wife
and let the chips fall where they may.
And 1 Samuel chapter 16, the Bible reads in verse number 12.
And he said and brought him in.
This is where he brings David in finally
after he's paraded the other seven sons in front of him.
And brought him in.
Now he was ruddy and with all the beautiful countenance
and goodly to look to.
And the Lord said, arise, anoint him for this is he.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil
and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.
And the spirit of the Lord came upon David
from that day forward.
So Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.
So let me explain this really quickly.
The spirit of the Lord coming upon David.
This is something that we see a lot in the Old Testament.
The spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, came upon Samson.
And really there are a lot of prophets
and we don't really know all their names.
And some of them have names that aren't really that famous
like Oded or Tihu, the son of Hanani.
A lot of these prophets throughout the Bible,
the Bible talks about the spirit of the Lord came upon them.
And David right here, as soon as he was anointed
with the anointing oil from Samuel's horn,
the spirit of the Lord came upon him right away.
What does that mean?
Well, a lot of people will confuse this
with the New Testament's indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Now, according to John chapter seven,
the Holy Spirit did not indwell believers
until after that Jesus was glorified.
Okay.
When Jesus was talking to the disciples
in John 14 through 16,
he talked about how after he was gone,
he would send the comforter
and he would send the spirit of truth
who was the comforter.
And he tells them, he said,
he is with you, but he shall be in you.
Okay.
And the Holy Spirit's indwelling is a New Testament thing,
not found in the Old Testament.
New Testament believers are indwelled by the spirit of God.
Old Testament believers were not.
Now in John chapter 20,
when Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room
and they feel the holes in his hand
and they feel the hole in his side,
he breeds on them and says unto them,
receive ye the Holy Ghost.
Okay.
That's where they're indwelled by the Holy Spirit
for the first time.
Okay.
But even though they were indwelled by the Holy Spirit
at that time,
he still after that told them in Acts chapter one,
wait for the promise of the father,
which saith he, ye have heard of me,
for John truly baptized with water,
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost,
not many days hence.
So you see in John chapter 20,
they were indwelled by the Holy Spirit
and so were all believers after Jesus was glorified.
But in Acts chapter one was when they were
endued with power from on high.
And that's where the spirit of the Lord came upon them,
just like he did in the Old Testament,
upon David, upon Saul, upon Oded, upon Jeehu,
all these other men.
So we see that in the Old Testament,
the spirit of the Lord came upon people
in mighty power.
That was temporary.
That could come and go.
That was not replaced by the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
No.
God added the indwelling in the New Testament
because the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
is a permanent thing.
The Bible says that God has sealed us
and given the earnest of the spirit in our hearts.
Earnest means down payment,
like when you put earnest money on a house.
He has sealed us by the spirit
until the day of redemption.
We're sealed with the Holy Ghost.
He also says this.
He says that if any man have not the spirit of Christ,
he is none of his.
The Bible says Christ in you,
the hope of glory.
The Bible says examine yourselves
whether you be in the faith.
Prove your own selves.
Know ye not your own selves,
how that Jesus Christ is in you,
except you be reprobates,
2 Corinthians 13.5.
And so the Bible tells us that
the Holy Spirit's indwelling is for every believer
and is permanent.
He's not going to leave you nor forsake you.
He will be in you.
He will comfort you.
He's the spirit of truth.
He'll guide you into truth.
That is the New Testament indwelling
of the Holy Spirit.
But just because you're indwelled with the Holy Spirit
does not mean that the spirit of the Lord is upon you
as we see throughout the Old Testament.
You see, the Holy Ghost came upon them in Acts chapter 2,
but then two chapters later they prayed again.
The Holy Ghost came upon them again.
And the Bible says when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they were assembled together
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost
and they spake the word of God with boldness.
So the effect of having the spirit of God upon them
or being filled with the spirit
is that they spake the word of God with boldness.
They preach with power.
Then in Acts chapter 10,
the spirit of the Lord came upon them again
in the book of Acts.
We see commands in the Bible like Ephesians 5 18
and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess,
but be filled with the spirit.
It's not automatic.
He's talking to people that are already saved
saying you need to be filled with the spirit.
You need to have the spirit of God upon you.
You need the spirit of Christ resting upon you.
That theme is found throughout the New Testament.
So don't get confused here.
God did not do away with this in the New Testament.
He just added the indwelling of the spirit,
but you can still have the spirit of the Lord come upon you.
You can still be filled with the spirit
just like they were in the Old Testament.
That is temporary.
I'll prove to you it's temporary.
Look at verse 14.
But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.
So we see that the spirit of the Lord comes upon David in verse 13
and in verse 14 the spirit of the Lord departs from Saul.
Saul did not lose his salvation.
Saul was still saved
because even after Saul gets way worse than he is right now,
Saul's a bad guy at this point,
but he's going to get a lot worse by the end of the book of 1st Samuel.
And even at the end of the book,
God still tells him, or Samuel, sent by God,
tells him the day before he dies,
he said, tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.
And Samuel wasn't in hell, he was in heaven.
And no, he was not in the center of the earth in somebody's bosom.
That's a lie.
But anyway, it has another sermon.
But anyway, the bottom line is,
Samuel told him that he was going to heaven.
He was saved.
You can't lose your salvation
and you couldn't lose your salvation in the Old Testament
and you can't lose your salvation in the New Testament
because it's everlasting life, it's eternal life,
it's paid for by Jesus,
it's paid for by grace through faith
and that's always what it was.
Abraham, the Bible even says,
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
David called upon the name of the Lord for salvation
just like we call upon the name of the Lord for salvation.
Just like Seth and Enos in Genesis 4
called upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
Salvation has always been by faith.
It's ridiculous to say that people were saved by works in the Old Testament.
You know why?
Because they'd all come short.
You know what I mean?
If you could be saved by works in the Old Testament,
well, be saved by it in the New Testament, right?
No, it's nonsense.
You know why you can't be saved by works?
Because all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags to God.
And by the way, that's an Old Testament passage.
So those filthy rags didn't get them to heaven in the Old Testament?
It's not going to get you to heaven in the New Testament.
And so we see that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.
Why?
Because he's living in sin.
Why?
Because he's disobedient to God.
Now look, the Spirit of the Lord may come upon you.
You may be filled with the Spirit at one time in your life,
but if you begin to live in sin,
then that will depart from you as well.
The indwelling will never depart from you.
You're sealed unto the day of redemption.
You will still be indwelled by the Holy Spirit,
but you'll not have the Spirit of Christ resting upon you.
You'll not be filled with the Holy Ghost.
You'll not be preaching the Word of God with boldness as you once did,
because the Spirit will have departed from being upon you.
He's still in you, but you're not filled with the Spirit.
He's not resting upon you in mighty power.
Now this is an interesting part of the story here.
So David's been anointed.
The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him.
We saw already that Saul, the Spirit of the Lord, had come upon him repeatedly.
Well now the Spirit of the Lord has departed from him.
He's still saved, but it's just that the Spirit of the Lord is not resting on him.
You say, well, is he still indwelled?
Well, he's never indwelled in the first place,
because that didn't happen until John chapter 20.
But look at verse 14.
The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit.
Now a lot of people stop and say, oh, he's a demon.
He's demon-possessed.
But look at the next verse.
From the Lord.
Okay, so this is not a spirit that's of Satan here.
This isn't the devil coming and doing it.
This is an evil spirit sent by who?
God.
It says an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.
And Saul's servant sent him to him.
Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.
Let our Lord now command thy servants which are before thee
to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp.
And it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God.
Notice three times the Bible has emphasized to us that it's from God.
Three times.
When the evil spirit from God is upon thee that he shall play with the sand and thou shalt be well.
Now, let's talk about this evil spirit for a moment.
A lot of people will try to say, and they'll try to use this passage
to say that a Christian can become demon-possessed, someone who's saved.
I don't believe that for one second because as we read throughout the entire Bible,
you'll never see saved people demon-possessed.
Now, you'll see very few, you know, in the Old Testament,
you don't really see people being demon-possessed.
There just aren't, I don't see stories about that in the Old Testament.
Now, in the New Testament, there's a big focus on that during Jesus' earthly ministry, right?
I mean, when Jesus was on this earth,
he's constantly being confronted with people that are possessed.
And he's casting out the evil spirits or the unclean spirits or the unclean devils.
Those are three terms that are used.
And he casts out these spirits.
Now, the people who are demon-possessed,
if you remember, they were throwing themselves in the fire,
throwing themselves in the water like suicidal, cutting themselves with stones,
hanging around in the graveyard, saying a lot of strange things.
Some of them were actually falling on their face before Jesus saying,
thou art the son of God, because they knew him.
And they said to him, you know, art thou come hither to torment us before the time.
So they knew that they had a judgment day coming when they're going to be tormented in hell,
in the future.
And they said, wait a minute, it's not that time yet.
Don't torment us before the time.
And so we see that a lot in the New Testament, right?
Don't really see it in the Old Testament.
I'm sure it was going on.
God's just not really emphasizing it or talking much about it.
Now, are people demon-possessed today?
Or, you know, that's really a term that we use.
That's not really the biblical term.
The biblical term is possessed with devils.
But just using the modern vernacular, people say demon-possessed.
You know, I'll say, of course they are.
I mean, I don't see how anything has changed.
I mean, they were possessed back then.
The devil hasn't gone anywhere.
Demons haven't gone, devils haven't gone anywhere.
I mean, they're still out there.
I believe that a few times in my life,
I've been confronted with people that were demon-possessed.
You know, and I, you know, I can't really say for sure,
but I've been talking to somebody who is a really nice person
and they were acting really normal.
And then all of a sudden they just freaked out
and started screaming all kinds of blasphemies against Jesus
and all kinds of really strange things
and saying things about the future and everything.
And I've seen some weird things
and I've seen people just snap and do really weird things.
Also, there are a lot of people who you see
who are called by the world insane.
They're crazy.
You know, a lot of them are probably just possessed
when you see people walking down the street.
You know, what's it called where people just,
Tourette's syndrome, right?
You know, it's probably just being,
a lot of that's just being demon-possessed is what it is.
You know, and when you have a split personality
and you're schizophrenic,
it's probably just like that guy
who had all those devils in him and he said,
you know, well, what's your name?
And he said, my name's Legion, but we are many.
And a Legion is like, what, 6,000 or something?
So I'm not saying he had that many in him,
but he did cast it into 2,000 swine.
This guy had thousands of devils living inside of him.
And so, yeah, that's a multiple personality for you.
That's a split personality disorder.
And the world doesn't believe in that though.
They don't believe in anything spiritual.
They don't believe in the spiritual realm.
They don't believe that there are good spirits or bad spirits.
They believe that everything is just explained by science,
you know, and it's a chemical imbalance,
you know, and so forth.
But it's not.
And if Jesus were on this earth today,
he'd probably be walking up to some of these weirdos
and, you know, say it come out of him and cast out.
You say, why don't you do that Pastor?
I said, let me tell you what, because in the Bible,
God specifically gave the apostles power to do that.
Not every believer had the power to do that ever.
Nowhere in the Bible you find just your average Joe believer
just being able to do that.
He gave them power against unclean spirits
when he sent out the 12 apostles and later the 70 apostles.
He specifically gave them that power
and other believers would bring people to them
because they were the only ones who had that power
was Jesus and the apostles.
Now, obviously God can do a miracle today.
God can do whatever he wants.
But, you know, I am not an apostle of Jesus Christ.
I have not seen the resurrected Jesus Christ,
as it says in 1 Corinthians 15.
Paul was the last apostle, according to 1 Corinthians 15,
the apostle Paul.
He was the final apostle.
And so I do not have a special power
where I can touch people and heal them,
or I can, you know, cast out the devils and so forth.
Now, I'm not saying that I couldn't pray for somebody
and God could heal them.
You know, God does that, right?
You pray for people, they're healed.
You might pray that someone who's possessed with a devil,
you could pray for them and hopefully God will do something.
But we don't just have the power to just automatically.
And the apostles did have that power.
I mean, they could just cast out any devil.
They could just heal any sickness.
I mean, they had that power.
We do not have that power.
There are a lot of people who pretend to have that power,
but they're imposters and so don't believe it for a second.
Now pray, I'm not saying that God can't do a miracle.
I'm not saying that prayer can't cause miraculous things to take place,
but I'm saying that we do not have this automatic power
that they had in the Old Testament to cast out devils.
Now, in the New Testament, we see lots and lots of examples
of people possessed with devils.
None of them are saved.
We don't see anyone who's saved.
And in all the epistles of Paul and James and John and Peter,
I don't see them talking about,
hey, if you get into sin, you're going to be possessed by devils.
You know, I don't see that at all.
And so I don't believe that that's biblical for one second that a Christian,
because if you stop and think about it too,
especially in the New Testament, we're indwelt by the Holy Ghost.
Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
You know, I don't see how you could be filled,
how you could have the Holy Ghost living inside you
and then you're possessed with the devil.
And the Bible says God has not given us the spirit of fear,
but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
And somebody who's cutting themself and in the graveyard and doing all this stuff,
they don't have a sound mind.
Now, was King Saul possessed with a devil?
I don't believe he was possessed by anything.
I don't think he was possessed at all.
Because the Bible just says that an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.
It doesn't say that it took over his body.
And when we see people possessed with devils in the Bible,
they literally, their body is taken over by this devil.
And they're saying stuff that they have no control over.
The devil is talking through them.
Okay.
And so we don't see that with King Saul.
And here's a little more evidence.
Flip over to chapter 18 verse 8.
Because there's a little bit more mentioned here of this evil spirit coming and troubling
Saul in chapter 18 verse 8.
I'm sorry, I'm in the wrong place here.
Go to chapter 19 verse 9.
Here we go.
Sorry about that.
It says,
And the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand.
And David played with his hand.
And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin.
But he slipped away out of Saul's presence and he smote the javelin into the wall.
And David fled and escaped that night.
So this is later on.
While David's playing the harp, the evil spirit comes upon Saul and he throws a javelin at David.
Now, you say, well, right there.
Why is he doing that?
But keep in mind, even when the evil spirit's not troubling him, he's been trying to kill David.
Repeatedly.
So he's not really doing anything.
He's just really mad and in a bad mood because this evil spirit's upon him.
And so he just, oh, I'm going to kill David.
I'm going to throw this javelin while he's playing the harp.
I'm going to throw the javelin at him.
But that's something that he did anyway.
But go to chapter 18.
I need to find a place in chapter 18.
I could have sworn it was verse 8.
Let me find it.
Give me one second because this is the important.
Here we go.
Verse 10.
And it came to pass on the morrow, chapter 18, verse 10.
It came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul and he prophesied
in the midst of the house.
So this doesn't seem like somebody who's demon possessed if he's preaching.
He's prophesying.
He's speaking God's word.
That's what prophesy means.
So when the evil spirit is upon him, he's prophesying in the midst of the house.
And David played with his hand, as at other times.
And there was a javelin in Saul's hand.
And Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I'll smite David even to the wall with it.
And David avoided out of his presence twice.
Now, before I explain what I believe this is, go back to Judges.
Keep your finger in 1 Samuel 16.
I just want to show you all the evidence here.
Go to Judges, chapter number 9, because I want to show you
another instance in the Bible where almost the same thing is mentioned in the Old Testament.
And this is the only other mention I could find in the Old Testament of an evil spirit
in this kind of a fashion.
It says in verse 23 of Judges 9,
Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem.
And the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,
that the cruelty done to the three score and ten sons of Jerubel might come,
and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother which slew them,
and upon the men of Shechem which aided him in the killing of his brethren.
So we see Abimelech was a wicked man.
He had killed his own brethren so that he might be king.
He was Gideon's son and he had killed all of Gideon's other sons.
And three years later, because God wants to punish Abimelech
and bring the blood of his brethren upon his own head,
he sends this evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem
that they will end up eventually killing him.
Of course he's killed by the woman who throws the millstone that lands on his head.
And so and then you know he's wounded and then the other guy kills him.
You know the story hopefully.
But you see here that God is using this evil spirit in chapter 16
pretty much for the same thing what he was doing back in Judges.
And that is he's using it to punish someone who's disobedient, right?
So God sends this evil spirit to punish Saul.
Saul's doing a lot of wrong things.
Saul is in sin right now.
So God sends an evil spirit to trouble him or to punish him.
Now is this a devil?
Is this of Satan?
No.
It's from God.
It's of the Lord and it's fulfilling God's will.
You see God does evil.
Now evil does not mean sin and this is where people get confused.
The Bible even says in the book of Amos
is there an evil in the city and the Lord has not done it?
You know the Bible says that God does good and he does evil.
Now God cannot sin.
God the Bible says God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
And the Bible says in hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie
promised before the world began.
So God can't lie.
He has no darkness in him.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth.
He is righteous.
Only righteousness is in him.
He will not break his word.
He will not lie.
He will not sin.
He is perfect in every way, okay?
But the word evil does not mean sin.
The word evil means to harm someone else.
It means to hurt someone.
And so when God talks about doing evil toward people he's talking about harming them.
Like in the book of Jonah at the end of Jonah chapter 3 it says
and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way
and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not.
So what was the evil that God said he was going to do to them?
He said he was going to destroy Nineveh.
Now would God have been wrong to destroy Nineveh?
No.
That wasn't sinful for God to destroy Nineveh.
God had every right to destroy Nineveh.
He said I'm the Lord.
I kill.
I make alive.
The Lord is my name.
He has the right to kill anyone he wants.
Especially people that are as wicked as the Ninevites.
He had every right to destroy that city.
By destroying them he would be doing evil unto them because he's harming them.
He's hurting them.
But that doesn't mean that it's a sin.
For example, if someone were to break into my house and I were to kill them,
that's not a sin.
The Bible tells us that we have the right to do that.
But I would be doing evil to that person.
I would be harming that person.
But I was within my rights to do so.
If I were to go to a battlefield where I'm defending my nation or defending my town or
something from a foreign invader and I killed someone.
I'm doing harm or evil to them but I'm not sinning.
I'm not doing wrong.
David fought a lot of righteous battles where he's harming people but he's not in sin.
This evil spirit is a spirit that's sent to torment and trouble Saul.
Now there are angels that God sent throughout the Bible to do harmful or evil or negative
things.
Not sinful things.
Not wicked things or ungodly things.
But for example, you remember the Passover?
He sent an angel to kill all the firstborn of the land of Egypt.
So it wasn't some demonic influence.
It wasn't some demon or Satan that was going through and killing the firstborn.
No, it was God's angel.
The angel of the Lord came through as a destroying angel and killed the firstborn of Egypt.
You'll see the same thing in Revelation chapter 9.
In Revelation chapter 9, God sent an angel of the bottomless pit who opens up the bottomless
pit and lets all these locusts out of the pit that are basically tormenting people for
five months and sting them like a scorpion and they're all wishing that they were dead
and being tormented.
And the Bible says that those locusts had a king over them, which is the angel of the
bottomless pit whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue have this
name Apollyon.
Now a lot of people say Apollyon is Satan.
No, you've been reading too much Pilgrim's Progress or something or Left Behind series
because Apollyon is not Satan.
Because this is what's so silly about it.
Read a few more chapters and the angel of the bottomless pit lays hands on Satan, chains
him up and throws him into the bottomless pit.
So is he chaining himself up and throwing himself into hell?
Obviously not.
God sends the angel of the bottomless pit who has the key to the bottomless pit, opens
it up, lets out the locusts and he's directing the carnage.
He's leading these locusts from hell to basically destroy unbelievers by tormenting them and
torturing them and so forth.
But, because his name means destruction, that's what Abaddon and Apollyon means, destruction.
But, he later lays hands on Satan and throws him into the bottomless pit in chapter 20.
So it's not Satan, it's an angel of God.
He's punishing the bad people.
He's not punishing anyone who's righteous.
So God has angels who do negative things, do you understand?
It doesn't mean that they're devils or that they're Satan or that they're following Satan.
They're not fallen angels who are following Satan.
They're just evil spirits from the Lord that he sends out to do whatever he is bidding
to punish people or to cause people to hate each other like Abimelech and the men of Shechem
that they might kill him and punish him for what he's done.
And so God intercedes in a positive way on this earth through his angels and he also
intercedes in a negative way.
Like where we see him causing a war between Abimelech and the men of Shechem.
We see him causing Saul to be in torment and anguish.
No one can deny that the evil spirit's coming from God here.
It says it three times.
Now, I hope that helps you understand it.
I hope you're not confused about that.
I might be going a little bit too deep here, but you know the evil spirit is just an angel
of the Lord, a spirit of the Lord that he sent just to punish Saul.
Just to make his life miserable.
Because when you're living in sin, your life's going to be miserable if you're saved.
And so look what happens though, because this is an important truth later in the chapter here.
One of the servants has this idea.
They say to him, look, an evil spirit from God troubled thee.
So they understood that this is God doing this.
And they say in verse 16, let our Lord now command thy servants, verse 16, which are
before thee, to seek out a man who is a cunning player on a harp.
And it shall come to pass when the evil spirit from God is upon me,
that he shall play with the sand and thou shalt be well.
Now, is this good advice?
Okay, you're living in sin and you have an evil spirit from God troubling you?
Here's what you need, music.
That'll make you feel better.
Get the right music and play.
That's not going to help anything.
He needs to get right with God.
He needs to stop living in sin.
He needs to confess his sins to God.
Instead of making excuses for himself, he needs to admit that he's been wrong.
Confess it to God, turn over a new leaf, start doing the right thing,
and then the evil spirit's going to stop troubling him.
Because notice, he's not just continually troubled by this evil spirit.
It comes in chapter 16, it comes in chapter 18, it comes in chapter 19.
It's not just a continual non-stop thing.
If he would do what's right, he'll be fine.
But he's getting bad advice that says, oh, music will help you.
You just need somebody to play a harp for you, then you'll feel better.
Then you can get some relaxation and you won't feel so bad.
Now, you say, well, Pastor Anderson,
how can you say that was bad advice when the advice worked?
Because when we look at this, it says in verse 23,
and it came to pass when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul,
that David took a harp and played with his hand.
So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.
But here's the problem.
What about in chapter 18?
In chapter 18, David comes and plays the harp, and guess what?
It doesn't make the evil spirit depart.
And guess what?
It just makes things worse.
And then in chapter 19, the evil spirit comes upon him again.
He calls David.
David plays with the harp.
Doesn't help him.
He just tries to kill David.
And so we see that, yes, music can make you feel better, right?
Can music make you feel better?
Yeah, I see it right here.
But is that the right way to feel better?
No.
And people today, we live in a generation that's obsessed with music.
And not only that, they're obsessed with listening to music.
And I already touched on this on Sunday night, so I don't want to spend all night on it.
But we live in a generation where people listen to so much music.
The gas station, the grocery store, it's just always blasting.
They get in the car, they turn it on.
Every TV show has it in the background.
Everywhere you go, you're just music, music, music, music, music.
And then you go home and turn on your CDs and listen to music.
And I used to be that way.
I mean, I used to literally, from the time I got up to the time I went to bed, man,
I was listening to music all day long.
And it was the wrong music, by the way.
But I was listening to all kinds of music.
And a lot of times, you're sad and you're down.
So what do you do?
You turn to music.
You know, oh, it's like an escape.
And you can listen to music.
And it's so soothing, it makes you feel better.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
You know, isn't that the truth?
Music has an effect of, you know, making you feel better.
Okay, now you can turn to drugs to make it.
Or you can drink, right?
Drink, you know, drown your sorrows, is what they say.
And, you know, Southern comfort, right?
It's called comfort.
It's alcohol, okay?
You can go to music and music can comfort you.
But you see, instead of getting that comfort,
sometimes you need to go to the root of the problem.
It's like, let's say you had a really bad pain in your body,
just extreme pain.
Oh, just take this painkiller.
Well, maybe you should figure out what's wrong with you.
You know, let's say you have this horrible,
oh, this horrible pain in my abdomen.
It's excruciating.
Oh, man, you need a major painkiller.
Take the painkiller.
Oh, I feel great now.
You know, I'll let your dad two days later or something,
because you had a real problem that you're not dealing with.
You know, the painkiller is just masking the symptoms
of the intrinsic problem.
Well, it's the same thing with our problems.
You know, people today have depression
or they have anger problems or they're upset.
You know, these are spiritual problems,
just like Saul's problem is a spiritual problem.
If you have all this anger that you can't get rid of,
or if you're depressed and down and gloomy all the time,
those are spiritual problems.
The spirit of the Lord will give you joy and peace
and all these other things.
And so you have a spiritual problem.
But instead of getting at the root of the spiritual problem,
a lot of people just turn to Christian music
to listen to it to make them feel better.
Not get the sin out of their life,
not trying to correct things in their life
that are causing them to have that problem.
You know, not reading the Bible, not praying.
The Bible says the Holy Spirit's our comforter,
but instead people often turn to music.
Now, music will provide a temporary fix,
but it's not a permanent solution to the problem, is it?
And what's interesting is that
I think this is probably one of the only times
you'll see people listening to music in the Bible.
It's very rare, a couple times.
And let me ask you this,
was Saul listening to the wrong music or the right music?
I mean, did he bring in ACDC?
You know, did he bring in?
Did he bring in a hip-hop group, you know?
He brought in David.
David was a righteous guy.
You know that David's music was honoring to God.
He was the sweet psalmist of Israel.
He was a musician who loved God.
He was filled with the Spirit as he played.
So even though he's listening to the right music,
that is not what he needed to be doing.
He needed to be reading his Bible, getting right with God,
straightening things out in his life.
And by the way, I'm a strong believer in singing, not listening.
That's why at our church, you'll notice,
we don't have special music.
You know, in a lot of churches, like you come
and it's just like duet after trio after quartet after choir.
It's just, it's a performance.
It becomes American Idol Baptist.
You know, it becomes Star Search.
Everybody gets up there and they get their moment in the sun.
And I remember we went to church and this lady was just talking about how,
you know, because she's saying this operatic.
And she said, you know, she said, this is great because she said,
I'm singing to a bigger crowd in church than I were at the opera house.
Because, you know, who goes to the opera?
So she's like, I got a much bigger crowd here.
I mean, here I'm singing to a bigger audience and I'm thinking to myself,
I didn't want to listen to you sing if that's your attitude.
Like you're just looking for the biggest crowd.
The opera house where there's a couple of old people,
and a couple of people from another country or something,
or do I get a big crowd at church?
And you know, you know, if you've been to churches where they have a lot of special music,
people are up there and they're hamming it up, aren't they?
They're in the spotlight.
I mean, they're ready to shine, you know?
And they got the, you know, they get in the Backstreet Boys mode,
you know, and they get their legs out there.
You know, they have these boy bands.
I've been to church where they have these boy bands.
So they have like five guys up there.
And it's like, you know, they got their legs out this far apart
and they got the microphone in their hand.
It's like, hey baby, you know?
And they're like the new kids on the block or something, you know, in sync up there.
And look, a lot of it is a very carnal, fleshly, listen to me, appetite for music.
I remember, I remember one time we were gonna,
we were going somewhere and there was gonna be some singing.
And there was a young lady in the car with me and she started singing in this voice.
I said, you know what?
I said, why don't you quit singing in that self-glorifying voice?
Why don't you just sing like a normal person?
You know what I mean?
And this self-glorifying, just look at me, I'm the star, you know?
Look at me shine.
Instead of just singing in a normal voice.
You know, it's like when you go to the sporting event and they do the national anthem, right?
And I don't really go to sporting events very often,
but every 10 years when I go to one, there's that, you know, they sing the national anthem.
And, you know, to me, I'm more interested in the song.
You know, you think it would be about, you know, the country or, you know,
they want to honor the nation or, or they want to sing the song about America.
And it's a solemn time and people take their hat off and whatever.
Okay.
But it just becomes all about the performer.
You know, it's like, they can't just sing the notes of the song.
It's like, it becomes like, you know, you know, instead of just, oh, say, can you see
by the dog?
You never hear it sound like that.
Do you?
You know, it's like you're tuning in a radio or something.
And they can't just sing the song.
It's like, it's not about the song to them.
It's not, it has nothing to do with America.
It's about, look at me, look at me, everybody.
See what I can do.
Look at the talent.
And I don't think that that belongs in the house of God.
That spirit does not belong in the house of God, you know?
And that's why I like what the Bible says in the midst of the congregation, I will sing
praise unto thee.
Not I'll listen to praise unto thee, I'll sing praise unto thee.
That's why we do singing where everybody sings.
And I love it whenever I've taken my children to other churches, like on a weeknight service
when there's other preaching going on on a Tuesday night or something, and they'll have
special music.
Whenever it's a hymn that they're singing, sometimes they're singing some goofball song
you've never even heard of, you know, some newfangled contemporary song that they cleaned
up and sanitized for your protection.
But whenever they're singing one of the hymns, my children will just start singing along
just instinctively.
Because that's just how they've been brought up.
So we'll bring them in, and let's say the special music is a hymn, what a friend we
have to do.
They'll just start singing it.
What a, and then I'll just start singing it with them, you know?
And I would love to just start a movement across America of just every time somebody
gets up to sing special music, if it's a hymn, like if it's someone that you know,
that everybody just starts singing along, drown them out.
Hey, shine now.
Hey, sorry to spoil your little moment in the sun.
You know, but we're gonna sing too.
And there's a hundred of us, and there's one of you!
You know, just sing it out.
Because we all ought to be singing, and I love to go to a church of participants, not
spectators.
I wonder if that has anything to do with why 80 to 90 percent of the people from our church
go soul-winning.
You know, because it's just a participating kind of a church.
It's not a church where you watch everybody else do it.
You come and you sing, and sing out loud.
Sing the praises of God.
Praise the Lord!
Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!
And God commands us hundreds of times to sing praises to him.
He never says, buy an iPod.
You know, and I'm not saying, hey, Brother Segar, I'm not saying don't buy an iPod.
You know, but what I am saying is this.
And I, you know, I own an iPod.
But what I'm saying is this.
I don't turn on music on my iPod and think I'm praising God.
I pull off the hymnal and sing praises to God myself with my own throat.
And I don't have the best singing voice in the world.
And you know, other people have a worse singing voice than me.
Other people have a better singing voice than me.
But God wants to hear you sing.
You should make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
You should be singing the hymns and spiritual songs seven days a week, not just in church.
Praise God seven times a day I'll praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.
And so, you know, my iPod is filled with Bible preaching and the Bible on CD and so forth.
You know, not that there's anything wrong with listening to good music.
But I'm sorry, I just don't have time for it.
I don't do it.
You won't catch me sitting around listening to a bunch of music.
I don't have time for that.
You know, I'm too busy singing praises to God.
That kind of gets it out of my system.
You know, and also playing.
I encourage you to learn how to play an instrument.
That's very biblical as well.
Praising God on an instrument of ten strings or another instrument.
And so we see here that Saul is getting some bad advice.
They're not telling him to fix anything about his life or to fix his spiritual problems.
It's just, oh, listen to this music and you'll feel better.
And that's what he did.
And it worked for a little while, but it wasn't a permanent solution.
It's going to be the same way in your life.
Don't run away from your problems and just, oh, listen to some music.
Oh, take a painkiller.
Oh, get on an antidepressant.
Oh, you're depressed?
Take an antidepressant.
That's not going to fix the problem.
You need to fix the thing that's making you depressed.
Because being filled with the Spirit does not make you depressed.
You know, this is better than an antidepressant.
Take the hymnal and on your way to work every morning,
just sing the hymns on the way to work and then see if you're depressed.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine.
You think you're going to be depressed by the time you get to work?
Singing songs about the blood of Jesus?
Singing songs about being saved?
I've been in a bad mood many times.
I've been down and sad and the Bible doesn't use the word depressed,
but it talks about being in heaviness, which is what depressed means.
Jesus began to be very heavy, the Bible says, when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But you know, singing the hymns will cure depression.
You know, prayer will fix it.
Reading your Bible.
Hey, if you're depressed, go soul-willing and get somebody saved
and see if you'll not come away rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with you.
You think you're going to go get somebody saved?
You're like, oh yeah, I've got somebody saved.
Rejoicing in heaven, right?
Whatever.
Obviously, you're going to be excited about it.
And that's not a temporary joy.
That's the joy that no man can take from you when it comes from being filled with the Spirit.
The fruit of the Spirit is love.
What's the next one?
Joy.
Did you get that?
The fruit is, you want to be not depressed?
What's the opposite of being depressed?
Joy.
How do you get joy?
Being filled with the Spirit.
How do you get filled with the Spirit?
Be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5 18, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Did it say listening to psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to be filled with the Spirit?
No.
It said speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
That will bring joy.
That will cause you to be filled with the Spirit.
And when you're listening to the world's music and singing their garbage music,
I wonder what spirit you're filled with.
The spirit of this world.
The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
And I'm not saying that you're possessed of the devil.
I'm saying that you are singing the devil's music.
And you're participating and fellowshipping with devils.
And that's what the Bible teaches.
And so let me just wrap it up with this.
It says in verse 19,
Wherefore, Saul sent messengers unto Jesse and said,
Send me David thy son, which is with thy sheep, with the sheep.
And Jesse took an ass laden with bread, and a bottle of wine, and a kid,
and sent them by David his son unto Saul.
And David came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly.
And he became his armor bearer.
And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me.
For he hath found favor in my sight.
And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul,
that David took an harp and played with his hand.
So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.
Now, David was a man who was after God's own heart.
David was a man whom God loved greatly and chose to be the king of Israel.
And one thing about him is that he was a very musical man.
He was called the sweet psalmist of Israel.
He was the human author.
Obviously, God is the author, but he was the human instrument God used
to pen down a huge amount of the Psalms.
He was so skillful on the harp that when it came to looking in the whole nation
for someone to play the harp, Saul's servants chose out of the whole nation,
Hey, David is great at playing the harp.
And so I'm not against music.
And I don't want you to interpret what I'm saying is that I'm against music.
I just think that we should be more of a participant in music
than just listening to music.
And I think that we need more people to learn how to play piano.
We need more people that will learn how to play other instruments,
learn how to play organ, learn how to play whatever instrument you like.
My favorite instrument is the harmonica.
And I play my harmonica all the time.
And I, and I play praises unto God on my harmonica.
Okay.
And also singing is something that everybody can do.
And even if you don't have a great voice, you will develop a better voice by singing.
Learn how to play a musical instrument.
Be like David, be a musical person, but don't get into the world's music.
And don't just get into listening to music.
You know, we live in this technological society that has kind of warped us in some ways.
It used to be, if you wanted to listen to music,
you had to be a king or something that could hire a guy to come play for you.
You know, the average family couldn't bring in like,
uh, let's hire a band to come play to us tonight for two hours.
You know what they did?
They would all gather around.
The family would all gather around a violin or an organ or something,
and they would have to do their own music.
Okay.
And what do you think please God more?
Looking down and seeing a family gathered around singing.
Gathered around, maybe they don't sound great, but they're singing from their heart.
Or just some paid professional on a plastic CD.
You know, I'll stick with singing the praises of God myself.
And let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, dear God.
And we thank you for these stories in the Bible that we can learn from.
We see Saul, he started out as a great guy.
He's starting to really go downhill fast.
And instead of people telling him what he needs to hear,
telling him he's in sin and he needs to change.
Instead, they're just putting a CD in his hand saying,
oh, this is going to fix the problem.
Father, help us not to be so foolish and help us to be filled with the Spirit
and speaking to ourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Help us to be like a David and not like a Saul.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
All right, let's sing one more song before we go.