Samuel chapter 16 the Bible reads in verse number one and when David was a
little past the top of the hill behold Ziba
the servant of Mephibosheth met him with a couple of asses saddled
and upon them 200 loaves of bread and 100 bunches of raisins
and 100 of summer fruits and a bottle of wine
and the king said unto Ziba what meanest thou by these and Ziba said
the ass is beef for the king's household to ride on and the bread and summer
fruit for the young men to eat and the wine that such as be faint in
the wilderness may drink now let me just bring you up
to speed quickly in the story here of course
Absalom has rebelled against his father and has taken over Jerusalem
first he declared himself king in Hebron and then when David realized that the
hearts of the men of Israel were with Absalom
then David and his entourage and all the people that were loyal to him
crossed the book Kidron they left Jerusalem
and now Absalom has come in and occupied Jerusalem
now this man Ziba that comes and meets up with David and his men
and brings all these gifts the bread the summer fruits the wine etc
was a servant from the house of Saul and this is going back to a story several
chapters ago where David had asked the question is
there anybody left that is from the lineage of Saul that I
may show them the kindness of God for Jonathan's sake and for the oath
that I've made with Jonathan and of course there was this lame
young man named Mephibosheth in the in the haste about fleeing from
the Philistines the the nurse had dropped this little
boy and injured him and he was lame on his
feet he could not walk properly for the rest of his life
and so when David brings in this lame man Mephibosheth
Mephibosheth is very fearful because he doesn't know is you know is David just
trying to clean house on all of Saul's family just to make sure there's no
threat to his throne but of course David shows him mercy and
kindness and is a blessing to him and he told him that he could have all
the land that would have pertained to his father
and he also told him that he would eat at his table all the days of his life
that he would be you know in the royal you know family as
it were he'd be able to be there and dine with him and so forth
and that Ziba his servant would till the land and take care of everything
obviously Mephibosheth can't really effectively run things because he's lame
on his feet so the servant Ziba comes he brings
all these gifts and he's doing kindness unto David in
his hour of need but he actually has a wicked ulterior
motive I believe if you study this passage carefully because look at the
next verse it says in verse three and the king said
and where is thy master's son and Ziba said unto the king
behold he abideth at Jerusalem for he said
today shall the house of Israel restore me
the kingdom of my father so Ziba here is accusing Mephibosheth
of wanting to take the kingdom for himself now of thinking to himself
well since David's on the run and Absalom has
illegitimately taken the throne maybe this is a good opportunity for me as a
descendant of Saul to get my throne back and and today the
Israel is going to restore me to the throne
this is what Ziba is accusing him of and remember whenever we read the bible we
always need to be careful to not just take everything that a
person in the bible says as gospel because a lot of times the bible is
recording the words of someone who was lying this servant here
tells this story we don't really know if it's true because it's just saying this
is what Ziba said it's not god saying it it's not the holy spirit saying it it's
just telling us hey this is what Ziba said
and a lot of people get confused on this but every word of the bible is true
and this verse is true in the sense that it's true that Ziba said that
but what Ziba said here i do not believe is true
now look at David's reaction David believes the story
because in verse four then said the king to Ziba
behold thine are all that pertained unto Mephibosheth and Ziba said i humbly
beseech thee that i may find grace in thy sight my
lord okay so now Ziba is being granted all the
possessions of Mephibosheth so basically Ziba makes this accusation
and then David says okay well in that case everything that belonged
to Mephibosheth now belongs to you oh i just humbly beseech thee that i may find
favor you know he's just yeah giving these formalities but the
reason that i believe he's lying is that number one
this is not a very likely story that this lame
Mephibosheth actually thinks that he's going to be able to just
rule over Israel number two David had been very kind to him and he's very
gracious with it why would he do this and thirdly actually Mephibosheth is
going to show up later in the book and he's going to contradict what Ziba
is saying so then at that point you have to ask
well who do we believe you know do we believe Ziba or do we believe
Mephibosheth but but Mephibosheth actually shows up
with physical evidence see when Mephibosheth shows up at the
end of the story he has not taken a bath he's not
washed himself taking care of himself anointed himself
or trimmed his beard or his hair or anything
since David has left and so he shows up dirty and looking ratty and and and
unkempt and he says look at me you know i have not
washed my face i haven't done anything to take care of myself or groom myself
since the day that you left and obviously someone who's trying to make a
play for being the supreme leader of the land and taking
over the kingdom is going to make them self-presentable
and he was in mourning and he was not making himself presentable
which shows that Ziba is lying and when David hears Mephibosheth tell him that
and when he sees the physical evidence of of Mephibosheth's appearance
then David just says look you know i've said unto you and Ziba divide the land
you know basically he's just angry that there would be this fighting or
feuding over the land but but clearly Mephibosheth has done no wrong i mean
when you read the story when you look at the evidence
you know Ziba's lying what can we learn from this well the bible often warns us
about the flattering tongue and and also we have to be careful
sometimes when people give us gifts they could have an ulterior motive now it's
wonderful to get gifts and and you know of course i don't want to be
down on gifts i love getting gifts everybody loves getting gifts
you know i love giving gifts you know so you don't want to just think oh man
i'm never going to give pastor anerson a gift because he's going to think that
i'm that i'm a ziba you know that i'm out to
get him or something but and obviously you know the greatest
gift of all the gift of god is eternal life
through jesus christ our lord but we just we have to be careful
that just because someone gives us a gift or just because someone gives us
compliments and someone tells us how great we are
and is very polite to us we need to be careful that we do not just from that
point on just think to ourselves hey this person
can do no wrong this you know and just trust that
person implicitly but that's the mistake that
sometimes it's easy to make somebody gives you a gift you're thankful you
ought to be thankful when somebody gives you a gift
somebody compliments you you're thankful great but we need to be careful not to
let our guard down and just assume that everything that
that person says is gospel and every and and it's it's a
problem today in churches when christians just think
that they can trust everyone just because they're from church
and this is how people get in trouble now first of all
when it comes to your children do not trust people with your children
okay you know in this day that we're living in
as it was in the days of lot you know in in modern america today there's so
much perversion and filth and smut in our world
you should not let your little kids out of your sight you need to keep them
under watch either of mom or dad and keep a close eye on them
and a lot of churches that i've been in you know they just want you to drop your
kids off with complete strangers just stick them in a sunday school or a
nursery with people that you don't know from
adam but it's okay because they're from church
and then not only that sometimes they would even want us in other churches
to go on out of town retreats and drop our children off for overnight
babysitting with people that we'd never even met
but they're from church now even if i had met those people even if i'd gone to
church with them for years i would still not drop my kids off with
them overnight because of the fact that there are
too many perverts and weirdos out there in 2015 to just be dropping your kids
off with whoever you should be very very
discerning about who you leave your kids with
you know and i i honestly i leave my kids with my mother
that's about it i don't leave my kids with any strangers or anything
or any church members or friends or anything you know it's just you can't be
too careful and they say that one out of every four
girls will already admit to saying you know i've been
molested by the time they're 17 years old isn't that horrible
isn't that terrible that that girls by the time they reach adulthood
one out of four have been molested and and that's just the ones who are
who are you know courageous enough to say that they've been
molested i mean there are probably others who are blocking it out
don't even want to remember don't even want to think about it it's not that
they're lying when they say no it's just they don't even think about it
because we our minds are designed to block out horrible events so that we
don't even remember them or think about them
and then others are probably just embarrassed or ashamed and that's how a
lot of these perverts get away with perpetrating their crimes
is that they they'll try to shame the victim or the victim will feel scared
or ashamed but the bible's real clear that it's not
the victim's fault when a molestation takes place because the bible says
it's as if a man rose up and slew his neighbor that's what it's like it's
one person is the is the perpetrator and one person is the victim
okay and so with this kind of thing running rampant in our country
today you know one in four girls that this is
happening to we can't be too careful and churches are
often the places where a lot of molestation takes place
simply because of the fact that people are trusting at church
and predators and pedophiles are looking for a place
where they can get access to children and be trusted
and if you look at people who are molested the vast majority of time
it's by someone that they know someone that's trusted
it's not someone that they're meeting for the first time usually it's someone
who's been grooming them and they've met them either through
church or through a family friend or relatives
and you know you know whatever extended family and they
they groom that but over time they build the trust
and then they come in and work evil and this happens all the time in schools
also this is a reason to homeschool your children because you drop your kids
off at the at the public fool system and who knows what's gonna happen
to them and just i mean all you have to do is
just google you know bus driver molested kids or school teacher molesting
kids or school janitor molesting kids oh professor irons they do a background
check yeah but there's always that first time
you know how do you can you do a future check and by the way
most of these perverts get away with it for years before they ever get caught
so the background check's not going to show you and then not only that even the
ones who have been caught and arrested and sentenced
and you know they went through that revolving door of of you know you
of going to prison even though you know you get 10 years for some financial
crime or whatever you know you go through three or four
years for being a pedophile they ought to be killed they ought to be executed
you know rapists should be killed and especially child rapists should be
executed speedily if our country were just that's what
would happen but instead they put them in prison where they can get together
with a bunch of other pedophiles and learn the tools of the trade
and come out and and and uh have seven devils in them worse than the one that
they had when they went into prison and then go out and do it again but even
then you're reading the news about oh this guy was working at a school and
he'd already been convicted and it just didn't show up on the background check
because you really think that all the government's computer systems are all
just always accurate and always perfect i
mean they never make any mistakes they run such a tight ship
and they do everything and it's it's so it's it's so uh much of a well-oiled
machine i mean do you really believe that no the government screws up
everything that they touch right amen so how do you expect this
background check to just be gospel and even if it were gospel it can't tell
you what's going to happen in the future you know i remember uh my wife told me
that when she was a kid there was this catholic priest in her town
that she believed was a pedophile because she'd heard the stories from the
boys in her town that had gone on these overnight catholic
church camping trips with this pedophile priest
and she believed to be a pedophile my wife told me that she told me about this
story well then after we've been married for
years and years it was in the news and you'd think well why would a german
priest getting in trouble for being a pedophile
make the news in america well here's why because the current pope at the time was
a german pope ratzinger okay and rat what did he call
himself benedict i guess if my name were ratzinger i'd
probably call myself pope benedict instead of like pope rats
whatever so you know ratzinger so then he
basically uh turned out that ratzinger the the pope
before this pope okay was the guy who was like that
pedophile priest's boss or what he was the next one up you know the
the archbishop or the cardinal or whatever you know
position he had and he had helped sweep it under the rug or whatever when
people were charging this guy with being a pedophile
that pope had helped protect this guy and sweep it under the rug
so then like 20 years later when the guy finally got
busted actually after doing it for 20 years
i mean he was doing it when my wife was a kid and he just got busted a few years
ago then when he finally got busted
it was a big scandal for the pope because it was like wow you know
ratzinger was helping you know corroborate with this guy to
make sure he didn't get into trouble and you know that's all the pope is they
just take one of these pedophiles you know the pedophile priest becomes
the pedophile bishop pedophile archbishop pedophile cardinal
pedophile pope yes the pope's a pedophile
okay and you know oh with this current pope this current pope
is constantly praising homosexuality and acting like
oh man who am i to judge yeah atheists are going to heaven yeah homosexual
is great and you know pope benedict ratzinger he
was supposedly the more conservative pope
he's like more fundamental catholic you know
protecting pedophiles hanging around with a bunch of pedophiles
you know what it doesn't make any sense folks the whole religion is is warped
and wicked it's the biggest cult in the world
worshiping a man the pope but then this current pope makes that guy
look fundamental because this current pope is like a super liberal pope
so it's almost like they rolled out the the strict guy
who's real strict and whatever benedict you know and then he retires and then
they bring in the real liberal it's like the hegelian dialectic
is what they're doing you know the problem reaction solution you know
antithesis synthesis that's what we see with benedict
end of francis it's all by design and the person who's behind it
is the devil that's who's pulling the strings at the roman catholic church and
in all these wicked false religions
but all that to say this don't trust people from church with your
kids okay because it's not just in the
catholic church obviously the catholic church is filled with them
because the bible talks about false prophets being perverted
so obviously every catholic priest is a false prophet so obviously they're
going to be perverted okay plus just the whole thing of you know
taking a vow of celibacy and then you go and just dorm up with a bunch of dudes
that appeals to them anyway all the little
the altar boys and whatever that they do but beyond that though
the bible says that there shall also be false prophets among you
that will creep in and he says that they have
eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin
beguiling unstable souls and who's more unstable of a soul than a child
cursed children the bible says and so we need to be careful not to trust
people with our and then you know it's just important that i bring that up
every once in a while simply because of the fact that it's
such a big issue in our day that i you know and new people are constantly
coming and i just want to make sure everybody knows
you know where we stand on that and don't get offended if you're saying
oh yeah you know little johnny will come over to our house and spend the night
if somebody says no thanks don't get offended because honestly people are
just trying to protect their kids and it's nothing against you personally
because it you know it's always the people you don't suspect
so even if i don't suspect people i still am going to keep my guard up
and my motto is suspect no one trust no one
you know i'm not going to trust people i don't go around suspecting everybody
but i just don't trust people with my children now i would not
most of you in here i wouldn't leave a suitcase full of a million dollars cash
at your house and just stare watch this for me
overnight
so here's the so why would i drop my kid off with you when my kid is more
valuable than a suitcase full of a million dollars
okay because the the money is is worthless it's vanity
you know naked came i out of my mother's womb and naked shall i return thither
but when it comes to my children though that's something i actually care about
and so i don't want to trust my kids with anybody and you need to be careful
and just watch your kids keep an eye on them and and don't just leave them
unattended it's really important that you do that
especially when they're real young you know and and and you need to also
make sure you talk to your kids and let them know hey if anything weird we always
tell our kids you know if anything weird happens tell us
let us know we're not you're not going to get in trouble tell us about anything
that's that's a little bit weird or out of place
because then you can catch it early before it turns into something
you know worse you know and and by the way that aids the judgment of god movies
got some great tips in that little black and remember that little black and
white video put out by the englewood police
department that was great that's some good tips
every child should be played that video in the school system right now
in fact i don't think it's gonna happen but they ought to
so all that to say this people sometimes flatter you
and give you gifts and and then you just think oh well that person would never
harm me because they've given me gifts and they've
said nice things to me and they've been so good to me but honestly we need to
keep our guard up we need to be sober be vigilant
because our adversary the devil as a roaring lion
walketh about seeking whom he may devour and so we need to always be aware of
that this zyba seems like a really nice guy
he's bringing all these great fruits and and bread and everything
and he's there to save the day in the hour of need but you know what he's
actually evil because when you make an accusation
like that first of all he's accusing him of a crime that's worthy of death
because treason is punishable by death treachery
and he's accusing him of treason that could get him killed
i mean think about it that could get mephibosheth killed when you're saying
hey he's trying to take the kingdom and he's trying to rebel and do a coup
d'etat you know that could get him killed and you know the bible says if
you accuse someone of something that has a certain punishment associated with it
that's the punishment you deserve for making that false accusation
you accuse someone of murder and they didn't really commit murder then you're
to be put to death if you're a false witness in a trial
that's what the bible teaches okay so very serious wickedness that zyba is
doing here if he's lying which i believe he's lying i think it's pretty clear
look at verse number five and when king david came to procure him
behold thence came out a man of the family of the house of saul
whose name was shimmyi the son of gira 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 shimmyi when he cursed
come out come out thou bloody man and now man of belial
the lord has returned upon thee all the blood of the house of saul
and whose stead thou hast reigned and the lord has delivered the kingdom into
the hand of absalom thy son and behold thou art taken in thy
mischief because thou art a bloody man now nothing could be further from the
truth the blood of the house of saul david
did not harm anyone of the house of saul saul died in battle saul was killed by
the philistines well i mean he killed himself
but first he was wounded mortally by the philistines
and saul's sons died in battle with him jonathan and his other sons
the only son that was left david's been treating him well and had him at his
table he didn't kill anyone at the house of
saul but this false railing accusation is coming from shimmyi
not only that he's throwing rocks at him cursing him
and when the bible says cursing him it is not uh
what we a lot of times we think of oh cussing
because the word cussing okay is actually a slang that comes from the
word cursing he just took out the the r there and
shortened it to cussing and basically to the world cussing is
when you use a word that is not on the approved list
you know of hey these words are acceptable and these words are not
and you know the biggest problem with that list is that some words in the
bible are on that list there are words in the bible that
literally will be censored from television
you know they'll go ahead and show you promiscuity and one-night stands and
people going to bed together after the first date
and they'll show you sodomy and they'll blaspheme christ
but then someone to use a bible word like bastard i mean that's a bible word
or dam or hell or and it's like oh you know bleep it out
censor it and everything like that or hey we need to rate this for mature
audiences no the bible says the words of the lord
are pure words bible says every word of god is pure and
honestly i think that it's part of the devil's agenda
to take biblical words and to label them as cuss words when they're bible words
i mean think about that he's getting people to condemn
words in the bible why would the devil not want us to condemn words that are in
the bible let me tell you something if you condemn words that are in the bible
you're not right with god period well but we need to respect society
and blah blah people aren't comfortable look i understand respecting society i
i i'm with you you know what when in rome do as the
romans do paul said you know unto the greeks i
became as the greek under the barbarian i became as a barbarian
unto the jews i became as a jew he said you know i've become all things to all
men that i might by all means save some and
you know obviously we don't want to just go out to
fend but here's the thing if people are offended by biblical words though
that's something where we should basically bastard is a bad word
and then they hear it in the bible it's like oh man you know listen to the mouth
uh on god he's god he's the one who made your tongue he
decides that that we'd be going to hell without
jesus i mean isn't that just a pretty basic answer of baptist doctrine
and when i said we'd be going to hell without jesus this girl went
he just said a bad word he just said hell
but here's what's funny i went to that church for years and the pastor never
said hell for years now the bible says hell 54 times
but i went to that church for years and my dad finally i i talked to my dad
about it and my dad said i'm gonna i'm gonna confront the pastor
why have we been here and he politely confronted him but he
said i want to ask him why we've been here for years and the word hell's never
come out of his mouth and my dad walked up to him and said why
have you never preached on hell i've been here for two years you never
talked about hell you never mentioned hell
and he said well i know i should but it's just it's just so negative i just
don't like to
well who asked you what you like preach the word
be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long
suffering and doctrine god didn't say hey preach what you like
no he said preach the word he said rebuke
reprove you got to be negative sometimes when you preach you can't just preach
only the positive and so you can see how demonic this
is where a pastor never mentions hell his
church member thinks hell is a cuss word is afraid
to even say it in the context of hey jesus saves from hell
wouldn't even say it what what kind of a a church is that
i'll tell you what these churches have been so sanitized
of anything negative that now you can't even preach on hell without people
freaking out in these churches and you know i'll
bet you a whole bunch of the people in that church weren't even saved looking
back you know because i talked to a lot of
them and they didn't really know the gospel
i mean it's ridiculous so this you know here here's the way i see it
if you're going to be so prim and proper that you're so polite and prim and
proper that you're more polite than god and
you're more polite than jesus you're probably too polite
because jesus is the example and the bible is the standard for what's right
and wrong so if you're going to tell me what's
right and wrong it needs to come from the bible
okay you can't just sit there i mean i've even i've even heard a story about
the pastors reading the passage he got to a verse and he skipped the verse
because he said it was inappropriate for children good night
who shall we teach doctrine they that are weaned from the breast
you know precept upon precept line upon line
from a child we want our children to know the holy scriptures
which are able to make them wise unto salvation through faith
which is in christ jesus and so don't ban words that are biblical words and
say that they're cuss words you're blasphemous if you say
that god's word is a cuss word okay so when the bible used the word
cursing here's what a curse is cursing is when you wish evil upon
someone that is what a curse is so a curse would be and and here's why
here's where our word cussing came from because the fact that people
when they would curse someone a common curse would be
go to hell so then they say oh hell is a curse word
or cuss word well no there's nothing wrong with the word hell
obviously we should not tell people to go to hell
okay unless obviously they're a reprobate or something which is very
few people you know you might tell them to get aids and die or whatever
but anyway you know the bible says you know there's
that there is that there is a time to love and a time to hate and you know
that's a whole nother sermon but the bottom line is that cursing is
when you wish evil upon someone and the bible clearly tells us that when
someone curses us we are not to just return
cursing for cursing so basically somebody curses us and what would be a
common curse to say go to hell damn you would be another one and that's
that's part of where that gets classified as a cuss word
they might just curse you by telling you to die or whatever you know
whatever evil or ill that they wish upon you
but you see we are not justified the bible is clear in a lot of places
to curse those who curse us just because someone curses us
that does not give us the right to curse them
so if somebody curses you you shouldn't just have a knee jerk of just
returning railing for railing and cursing for cursing okay
because here's the thing just because someone curses you number one
it does not mean that they're a reprobate or an evil person
it could just mean that they did wrong in that one instance by cursing you
okay and number two the bible says that we're to overcome evil with good
and that therefore our enemies we're supposed to
bless our enemies and and love your enemies pray for them that despitefully
use you and curse persecute you and when the bible says love your enemies
talking about your personal enemies people who've done you wrong people
who've harmed you now this guy comes up and starts
cursing david and not only that he's throwing rocks at him
so this is pretty extreme he's also lying about him and making false
accusations at him and he's being cursed here because he's
wishing evil upon him that all the blood of the house of saul
would come back upon him which of course he did not shed that
blood so this is a completely unjust curse but it says in verse number
nine then said abishai the son of zariah unto the king
why should this dead dog curse my lord the king let me go over i pray thee and
take off his head and the king said what have i to do with
you brother davis you're saying yeah to that no
you know what have i to do with thee he says
ye sons of zariah so let him curse because the god
because the lord hath said unto him curse david who shall then say
wherefore hast thou done so and david said to abishai and to all his servants
behold my son which came forth of my bowels seeketh my
life how much more now may this benjamite do it
let him alone and let him curse for the lord has bidden him
it may be that the lord will look on mine affliction
and that the lord will requite me good for his cursing
this day now why would he say well the lord told him to curse me
i think the reason he said that is because david knows that he's done wrong
david has a guilty conscience because david knows that he
well i shouldn't say he had a guilty conscience because he did confess it to
the lord and repent and he's gotten things right with
the lord but david knows that he's done wrong
and david knows that he's being punished for his sins
and we're going to get to that later in the sermon tonight you know just a very
crystal clear point on which david is receiving
punishment for his sin with bathsheba so here
shimei is just completely off base to curse
david about the saul thing because david was completely innocent
but david has committed another crime that is unknown unto shimei
because he had committed adultery with bathsheba and killed uriah the hittite
that's why these bad things are happening to david and so david
just sees this cursing and rocks being thrown at him
as chastisement from the lord for the sin that he has done and the wrong that
he has done and he knows that god is going to punish
shimei more severely if he does not return cursing for
cursing see the bible says that when your
enemy falls you're not supposed to rejoice
because then maybe god will turn away his wrath from him and the bible says in
romans chapter 12 well let's go to romans 12 keep your
finger there in second samuel 16 we'll come right back to it
but go over to romans chapter 12 quickly it says romans chapter 12
verse 19 dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto
wrath for it is written vengeance is mine i
will repay saith the lord therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him
if he thirst give him drink for in so doing thou shalt heap
coals of fire on his head so david's saying
that by not returning cursing for cursing here
and by blessing in response to cursing he's heaping coals of fire on on shimei's
head and it says be not overcome of evil but
overcome evil with good back to second samuel chapter 16
so he's saying you know my own son is is cursing me
how much more may this benjamin might do it
and it says in verse 13 and as david and his men went by the way
shimei went along on the hillside over against him and cursed as he went and
threw stones at him and cast dust and the king and all the people that
were with him came weary and refreshed themselves there
and it's so amazing to me how all throughout the life of david
you see david over and over and over again
i think more than anybody in the whole bible
loving his enemies and not returning evil
for evil when people i mean think about all the people who've cursed david who've
tried to kill david and he turned the other cheek think
about with saul and all the other enemies
david is above reproach in this area when you look at him
where he's constantly loving his enemies and blessing those that curse him and
and he's he is the example for that in the bible
and then it's funny because then people will turn around and take the words of
david in psalms where he does talk about where it is
appropriate to curse certain people and what's known as the imprecatory
psalms there are 18 i believe psalms where he's cursing the enemies of the
lord and cursing wicked and perverted evil sick people
and people will take those words and and they'll say
well david was wrong about that no david and then they'll try to point to matthew
544 as if matthew 544 is some new
revolutionary teaching that jesus just came on the scene and
taught love your enemies and it was just unknown to the old testament no
because all throughout leviticus that's taught he said if you're
he said in leviticus that if your enemy's ass falls in the ditch or
oh no he said a bad word you know if your enemy's ass falls in the ditch
or your enemy's ox falls in the ditch you lift it out
you help your your enemy even that's what the bible
the bible teaches to love your enemies and david was doing that before it was
cool i mean david was doing that in the old
testament long time before matthew 544 jesus is expounding and
teaching that which the old testament is already
taught okay that wasn't a new teaching people
have misunderstood and perverted that scripture that it's something new
they'll do that with a lot of things in matthew 5 because they don't understand
matthew 5 but what the reality is is that david
did love his enemies david did bless those who curse him this is a great
example and many times he kept his cool and did
not return evil for evil but david understood that those that
hate the lord and those who love violence those who are
perverted reprobate sons of belial they do need to be cursed i mean the
bible says if people preach another gospel let them be accursed
he didn't say bless them he said bid them not godspeed
he that bid at them godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds
so there is a time and a place for these things
and if we want to know what the time and the place is we could study the life of
david we could study the teachings of christ
and we could study the book of psalms and when we lay out all the evidence
we could get a correct view but sometimes people want to
overly simplify things in the bible now some things in the bible are simple
salvation simple the gospel is simple but you know there are some things in
the bible that are deep the bible says that there are the deep
things of god that god reveals to us by his spirit now
the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of god
for they have foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they're
spiritually discerned so of course the atheists who are not
even claiming to believe the bible and of course homosexuals will love to
quote you know verses like judge not and love
your enemies and twist their meaning to say love pedophiles
don't judge any homosexuals for being the sick pervert there
look don't let atheists tell you what the bible says
they don't know the bible it's impossible for them to know the bible
because the bible is a spiritual book and you have to be saved to understand
the bible and if you're not saved you're not gonna
say so of course uh liberal atheist hippie sodomites whatever
are gonna scoff it at my teaching this are you contradicting yourself no you're
just not able to understand the bible and every atheist fool will tell you oh
the bible's filled with contradictions here's what they're really saying i
don't understand the bible i'm too stupid to synthesize it all
i'm too stupid to figure out how they can both be true
and that's what they're really saying but it's all true
and there's no contradiction and we look at the life of david
and we look at the book of psalms and we look at the teachings of christ
they all show us the same message and you know what
in my personal life i've never been confused on this
i've never been confused i've never been conflicted
because it was always really obvious to me when people did me wrong
stole from me attacked me smote me whatever
it always made sense that i'm not supposed to curse that person i'm
supposed to pray for that person and love them and and pray for them to
be saved okay that always made sense but then when i
see like a child rapist pedophile some dude comes here and drag or
whatever and i know that the bible says he's a hater of the lord
because the bible says that all those men who burn in their lust toward
another man are haters of god and the bible says do
not i hate them oh lord that hate thee and i grieve with them the rise up
i hate them with perfect hatred i count the mine enemies
okay so those that hate the lord that's different than my personal enemies
when it says love it's those that have done you wrong which is the situation
here then there are the enemies of the lord
the enemies of all humanity the sons of the devil
the sons of belial okay big difference so in this passage we see this with
shimmy i now let's see what ends up happening to shimmy i in the end
because if we go to first kings chapter two we can kind of find out what's going
to happen to shimmy i now let me just point out something if
you want to do a little further study on shimmy i
uh shimmy is brought up in the book of zechariah
the bible talks about people mourning when jesus christ will be pierced
it says they'll look on him whom they've pierced and that scripture was
fulfilled in john 19 the scripture was fulfilled
you know as it was written they'll look on me whom they've pierced
and in zechariah when it talks about uh jesus being pierced it says that
people would be mourning and he said the house of david apart
you know the house of shimmy i apart and house of levi apart
so why would he bring up those names david shimmy i
levi those type of people the reason why is because they represent the three
tribes that predominantly made up the southern kingdom of judah because
the southern kingdom of judo was predominantly made up of
those of the tribe of judah those are the tribe of benjamin
and those of the tribe of levi now the reason why
is because if you remember the benjamites
were remember he said here take two tribes or take 10 tribes
to uh jerebo and the son of nebat take 10 tribes
okay well the two tribes left behind would be you know judah
and a lot of the benjamites also were part of that southern kingdom
but then the levites were scattered all throughout
but since the house of god was in the southern kingdom of judah in jerusalem
the levites who want to stay true to the lord and wanted to follow the teachings
of the lord are going to come down into that southern kingdom
whereas most of the 10 tribes stayed up in that northern kingdom
and worshiped those golden calves that were set up by jerobo
obviously there were some people from the other 10 tribes who came down into
the southern kingdom but the vast majority of people living
in that southern kingdom of judah were of judah benjamin and levi that's
why when paul wants to show that he's a hebrew of the hebrews
he says hey i'm of the tribe of benjamin you know just to show you
that i'm of a legit tribe that can trace its ancestry back
you know at that time they could judah benjamin and levi
so that's why it talks about them kind of being segregated out
how you know those of judah are getting together in mourning
those of benjamin are getting together morning those of levi are getting
together in mourning a lot of people will wrongly try to
ascribe that scripture in zechariah to the second coming of jesus christ
and say that's what it's about but here's the thing it would be impossible
at the second coming of christ for the tribe of
you know judah to be separated out and weeping
and then the the house of shimmy i be weeping over here and the house of levi
since they've become so intermingled that no
jew quote unquote can tell you even what tribe they are anymore
so how could they break out into the the house of shimmy i and the house of david
house of levi when those distinctions no longer exist
it doesn't make any sense so shimmy i and the reason i bring that up is that
shimmy i becomes a representative of benjamin the tribe of benjamin because
he was one of the chief benjamites he was a well-known man of benjamin he was
an important man of the tribe of benjamin just like david
was important in the house of judah so let's see what happens to shimmy i in
the end it says in verse 36 and the king sent
and called for shimmy i and said unto him build thee in house in
jerusalem and dwell there and go not forth thence any whither now
this is king solomon telling shimmy i build a house in jerusalem and don't go
anywhere it says in verse 37 for it shall be that
on the day that thou goest out and passest over the brook kydron
thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die
thy blood shall be upon thine own head and shimmy i said unto the king
the saying is good as my lord the king had said so will thy servant do
and shimmy i dwelt in jerusalem many days he said well why is king solomon
making this pronouncement on shimmy i where he's telling him look
you need to build a house in jerusalem you can't go anywhere
you're going to stay right here and as soon as you cross the brook kydron
you will die and and shimmy i agrees to it he says okay
no problem now why would he make that rule and why would shimmy i agree to
that well because flip back to verse 8
this is david speaking to solomon giving him some final instructions before he
dies and behold verse 8 thou hast with thee
shimmy i the son of gira a benjamite of behirim
which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when i came to mayonnaise
but he came down to meet me at jordan and i swear to him by the lord saying i
will not put thee to death with the sword now therefore hold him not
guiltless for thou art a wise man and knowest what thou oughtest to do
unto him but his whore head bring thou bring bring thou down to the grave with
blood so basically david saying look i turned
the other cheek with this guy i swore unto this guy that i wouldn't put
him to death but this guy you know what he's like you need to deal
with this guy because he has done you know he's he's
basically someone who cannot be trusted he's someone who's evil
now what ends up happening is solomon makes this pronouncement which actually
makes sense because when solomon becomes king
there were actually a lot of people who were trying to challenge his kingdom
throughout his his reign especially toward the very beginning and the very
end and so basically this guy has been in
the past a treacherous guy a subversive guy a rebellious guy who
doesn't think that you know the house of david
is legitimate even though it is even though it's ordained by god and anointed
by god and so the rationale behind this is well
i'm going to keep you right here in jerusalem where i can keep an eye on you
you know to make sure you're not crossing the brook hydron
and going around and and maybe maybe getting together with other nations
and forming some kind of a coalition that could come in and overthrow the
government and bring in the house of saul or what
have you bring in the benjamites into into leadership
so he says you know you're going to build a house in jerusalem and i i'm not
going to put you to death you know he's honoring that uh ruling of
his father but he says i'm just going to have you
live here where i can watch you and keep an eye on you and shimmy i says okay no
problem but see solomon was very wise and
solomon just knew that when you make rules like that with
people and you tell them like you can't go over that river
and and we're going to agree on this that the day you go over it you're going
to die he knew that over time people forget
stuff or or just kind of they relax on well i know i wasn't supposed to but you
know it's been a few years everything's fine
so he told him you know don't do it and it says in verse 38 go
back to verse 38 at the end it says and shimmy i dwell in jerusalem many days
and it came to pass at the end of three years so
for three years this guy abides by it came past at the end of three years that
two of the servants of shimmy i ran away unto akish the son of mayakah
king of gath and they told shimmy i saying behold
thy servants be in gath and shimmy i rose and saddled his ass and went
to more cussing and went to gath to akish to seek his servants and shimmy i
went and brought his servants from gath and it was told solomon that shimmy i had
gone from jerusalem to gath and was come again and the king sent and
called for shimmy i and said to him did i not make thee to swear by the lord
and protested unto thee saying no for a certain on the day that thou goest out
and walkest abroad any wither that thou shalt surely die and thou
saidst unto me the word that i've heard is good
he made the agreement why then hast thou not kept the oath of the lord
and the commandment that i have charged thee with the king said moreover to
shimmy i thou knowest all the wickedness which
thine heart is privy to and thou didst to david my father therefore
the lord shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head
and king solomon shall be blessed and the throne of david shall be established
before the lord forever so the king commanded benaiah the son of
jehoiada which went out and fell upon him
that he died and the kingdom was established in the hand of solomon so
what's the bible teaching us here that god has a way of dealing with our
enemies we don't have to take things into our own
hands we don't have to take vengeance ourselves
if we trust the lord god will bring their wickedness upon their own head
that's why he said vengeance belongeth unto me saith the lord
i will repay therefore if thine enemy hunger
feed him if he thirst give him to drink you'll
heap coals of fire on his head because god
will avenge and recompense we don't have to take things into our own hands
okay here he ended up you know making digging his own grave here
by making an oath unto the lord and then violating it
by crossing the brook hydron and going after his servants and so forth
so let's go back to second samuel and quickly finish up here in chapter 16
so that's what's going on in that story with shimmy i
it says in verse 15 and absalom and all the people the men of israel came to
jerusalem and hit the fell with them and it came to pass when hushai the
archive david's friend was coming to absalom
that hushai said in absalom god saved the king
god saved the king now this is david's friend
and this is the guy who was loyal to david and went with david
and fled with david and david told him go back and you know basically he told
him go back and be a spy go back and defeat the good council of
hit the fell give absalom the wrong advice and be a
spy and send me the message and tell me what's going on
so this guy is an infiltrator now he's a good guy because he's infiltrating the
bad guys but he's a spy now what's he doing more
flattery now look what's the bible teach us at the
beginning of the chapter what do we see lies flattery
sedition okay what do we see here same thing now it's from the other side
so again what's the bible showing us repeatedly
that when people come to you and praise you and say a lot of nice things to you
you still need to be on your guard absolom falls into the trap absolom
gives into this and thinks that hushai is actually loyal to
because absolom is skeptical at first in verse 17 he's suspicious
absolom said to hushai is this thy kindness to thy friend he's like wait
aren't you friends with david is this how you treat your friend
why when it's not thou out with thy friend and who should i send to absolom
nay but whom the lord and this people and all the men of israel choose
his will i be and with him will i abide and again whom should i serve
should i not serve in the presence of his son as i've served in thy father's
presence so will i be in thy presence so he's
lying it's not true but look at verse 20 then said absolom do
a hit the fell give counsel among you what we shall do
and hit the fell set on absolom go in unto thy father's concubines
which he had left to keep the house and all israel shall hear that thou art
a port of thy father then shall the hands of all that are
with thee be strong so they spread absolom a tent upon the
top of the house and absolom went in unto his father's
concubines in the sight of all israel now does that sound like a pretty wicked
thing to do first of all lying with his father's
concubines is wickedness in the first place
it's a violation of the commandments of god but number two to do the thing in
the sight of all israel now obviously they don't actually see it taking place
because he puts a tent thank you for putting that tent up at
least but you know he puts up the tent and he goes in unto his father's
concubines in the sight of all israel this is a wicked thing to do a hit the
fell is telling him to do something that is wicked
that is wrong okay now here's the thing about that
in verse 23 this is where people get confused in this story so i want to make
sure we don't misinterpret this in verse 23 it says and the council of a
hit the fell which he counseled in those days
was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of god
so was all the council of a hit the bell both with david and with absolom
so the bible is clearly telling it wasn't just with david but that it was
also with absolom so a lot of people would look at that
and say well wait a minute did god wanted him to commit the sin
god wanted him to you know uh lie with all these concubines in the sight of
all israel this is what we have to understand
it's never god's will for us to commit sin okay
and to say that it is god's will for us to commit sin is false doctrine
okay a lot of times people will justify their sin and say well i just think it
was god's will that no it's not god's will for us to commit sin
what did the bible say this is the will of god
even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication
what's he doing here committing fornication
he's had what what about the guy in first corinthians five what was he doing
committing fornication and it said that he had his father's wife okay
these are the dad's concubines he is he married to these women is is
you know are we supposed to be married to 10 different women he's not even
married he's just basically going to bed with 10 different
women i mean this is wicked publicly committing this shameful act
but people say wait it says here that when a man inquired
at a hit the bell it was like inquiring at the oracle of god what the bible is
saying here and i want you to understand the
distinction here it's not saying hey that's what god want whatever a
hit the fell tells you to do that's what god wants you to do
that's not what he's saying what he's actually saying is
that when a hit the fell gives counsel it's always the right advice
just like god would have the wisdom to know
what is the right course of action if we ask god
you know how to win he's always going to be able to tell us how to win
it's saying here that this guy never gets it wrong i mean this guy
if you ask him for advice if you seek counsel from the bill
he will give you the right advice now that doesn't mean
that he's giving you godly advice or righteous advice
but here's the thing what a hit the fell is advising
is a strategy that will work he tells him look
if you go in under your father's concubines here's what's going to
happen then you're going to be abhorred in the
side of your father everybody's going to know that there's
no going back now if he didn't do that if he didn't lie
with the concubines people might think well let's see how
this plays out and maybe there can be some kind of a
reconciliation and things are going to be fine and then
david comes back maybe the newness with absolom ways all of his campaign
promises remember he made those campaign promises
if i were king then i'll do this and i'll fix this you know
yeah basically once once they get a few years into it and realize
that it's not panning out the way they wanted you know then they might start to
long after david and say oh man we miss david
you know it's like the this stupid billboard that george w bush you know
miss me yet you know because like like he was
better than obama or something like we're in bush's fourth term folks
with obama but anyway that's another sermon but anyway
you know basically you know the miss me i saw a really funny one though
it showed king george the third of england it was like miss me yet
you know that was a good one for those of you who get it
but anyway what what he what he wanted to do was say look
we want to make sure that there's no going back
so we want everybody to burn their bridges behind them so if they see you
going in under the concubines then they are going to be basically
in this thing and there's no going back and they're going to be perfectly loyal
that's the strategy and it was a strategy that would work
now the next thing that hit the fell councils
in the next chapter he gives him good counsel
he gives him the right counsel and then hu shy the spy
comes in and gives bad advice gives a bad
strategy and then they end up going with hu shy's bad strategy
and they end up losing and being killed now here's the thing it hit the fell
knows that he's always right everything he says is always right so
when he when it hit the bell gives the advice in the next chapter
and they don't follow it you know what it hit the bell does he goes out and
kills himself because he knows we're gonna lose it
hit the bell's like we're doomed i don't want to face david when he comes
back he just knew if you're not following my
advice you're an idiot you got it wrong and he kills himself that's what's gonna
happen in the next chapter okay so that's what it means i just want
to make sure you understand what it means when it says
that when a man acquired a council from a hit the bell
it was like inquiring at the oracle of god in the sense that
you know that you're getting the right advice i mean this guy was the guy that
you go to when you need advice this guy is a smart
guy but here's the thing just because you're a smart guy
doesn't mean that you're righteous and you know what it's better to lose with
integrity than to win by being a wicked person and
that's why the bible even says too that the children of this world are
wiser in their generation than the children of light
sometimes the people of the world will have more wisdom
and they'll know maybe cunning ways to do things like that
unjust servant in luke chapter 16 who you know is basically cooking the books
oh take it it says 100 change it to 80 you know he's cooking the books and
and basically uh for his own gain and the loss of his boss that's what the
bible is saying here so it's not saying that he's telling him
to do something that's godly what he's saying is he's giving him the right
advice now this is also a fulfillment of prophecy this is the last place we'll
turn flip back if you would to second samuel
chapter 12 second samuel chapter 12 because the
lord actually prophesied that this is going to be something that
he allows to happen and that he basically he's going to give
he says that he's going to give them into the hand of
someone else his concubines look what the bible says
in second samuel 12 11 does say it the lord behold i will raise up evil against
thee out of thine own house that's absolom and i will take thy
wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbor
and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of his of this son
for thou didst it secretly but i will do this thing before all israel and before
the sun now again you say well it says here god's
doing it but what's god doing god gives them over god gives
the 10 wives over to add some and then absolom commits this wickedness and god
allows it to happen but it's a very important distinction
though that it's not god's plan or god's will
that people do wicked things and that it's not god
who is actually committing the wickedness god does not
commit sin but he will often deliver people into the hand of others who will
sin for example and we can see this all
throughout the bible but you know god delivered the children of
judah into the hands of the babylonians and what did the babylonians do they
came in and they killed and they raped and they pillaged
does that mean that god is for those things and god's for killing and raping
and pillaging no but god did deliver them over to have
that done unto them and then god punished the babylonians for doing it
now look god delivered the concubines into absolom's hand
but god's going to punish absolom yeah for doing it so you have to understand
it's it's a lot like romans one what does romans one teach that god
gives people over to vile affections through the lusts of their own heart
so we have to understand god is not the author of confusion
god is not the author of the filth of romans one that it deals with in this in
the latter part of that chapter god gives people over and then through
the lusts of their own heart they commit these wicked things
god just gives it up and gives it over and that's what god
it's sort of like when the bible says that the lord delivered up jesus
right the lord delivered up jesus and then it says the jews with wicked
hands took him and crucified him the lord delivered him up but it was the
jews who slew him with wicked hands okay so we can't just excuse the jews
well it's just because you know i've even heard some people say well the
jews did the right thing by killing jesus
they were slaying the lamb kill the passover amen
i mean that's what people have said bizarre to you know he said you with
wicked hands have slain him amen well but it was god's will that he'd
be killed so they were just fulfilling god's will
here's the thing a lot of times people do wicked things and fulfill god's will
in the process but god could have fulfilled it that
another way and it's not god controlling the actions of the wicked and
it's not god who says hey it's my will that you do
wicked things and you say well i don't understand the distinction
well you know study the bible because it's there
the distinction is there and the bible is careful to make that distinction in
many places so what are some of the main lessons
from this chapter first of all don't believe everything you hear don't just
trust people blindly we saw that both at the beginning and
end of the chapter and then secondly if people are wicked unto us and curse us
we don't have to recompense evil for evil we
should bless those that curse us and let the lord deal with it because he will
bring their wickedness back around on their
own head and then thirdly what we learned from this chapter
is that if we go out and do evil and commit wickedness
it's going to come back around and get us david committed adultery
secretly he Uriah wasn't publicly as humiliated
as david was when his son publicly committed adultery with his concubines
and humiliated him in front of all israel and
not only that but just tenfold do you notice how david reaps
tenfold what he sowed you always reap what you sow but you reap
more than you sow you sow one seed you can get a whole tree out of it
so our wickedness will come upon our own head if we do evil three important
lessons from this chapter let's buy our example word of prayer
father we thank you for your word lord in these stories and and some of the
things in these stories are a little bit of a strong meat of the
word we have to do some digging and studying to understand them lord
but thank you for giving us understanding through the new testament
and through other scriptures that can help explain some of these deep concepts
in places like romans 1 romans 12 the book of acts lord
help us to understand these things lord and to keep studying our bibles and
learning and not to just take an overly simplistic
view of things in the bible where we just uh we we just think well if
you can't explain to me in five seconds i don't want to hear it
lord help us to to be diligent to study to show ourselves approved
and in jesus name we pray amen