You
If you would...
Dear Father, thank you for this church and for the opportunity that we have to sing praises unto you.
I pray that we would be edified by the service, Lord, and help us to pay attention to the words that we are singing, Lord, in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
For our next hymn, if you would, turn in your hymnals to hymn number 143.
Blessed assurance.
We'll go ahead and start there right on the first.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, oh what a...
my soul
We'll go through some announcements.
If you don't have a bulletin, please raise your hand.
Usher would be happy to bring you one.
On the front is our memory passage of the week,
Galatians chapter one, verse eight.
Just remember that with these.
If you can quote the whole chapter,
word perfect from memory to an adult non-family member
at the end, you will receive a prize.
On the inside is our service times listed.
Sunday morning at 10 30 a.m. Sunday evenings at 4 30 p.m. And our Wednesday evening Bible study at 7 o'clock
Our soul winning times are listed there all those meet here at the church building
nursing home ministry schedules listed below that and our year to date statistics for soul winning.
We're creeping up on a hundred for the year after today and just want everyone to keep working hard
on that. I understand today that there was a man in his 80s that got saved so praise the Lord for
that. That's a huge blessing. Usually people that are that old don't really want to change their
beliefs kind of stuck in their ways but you know the word of God is powerful and anyone of any age
On the right is our expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for Miss Whitney Reed.
Also upcoming events March 9th. We're going to have a men's preaching night for the evening
service and there's going to be a 10-minute time limit for those sermons. Immediately after we
will have another potluck fellowship so please bring something to share for that. March 15th is
Miss Whitney Reed's baby shower here at the church and there's some more details on the back of the
April 19th is our Easter soul-winning marathon in OKC.
May 16th to the 18th, the King James Conference
at Sher Foundation Baptist Church.
May 31st, the Durant Oklahoma soul-winning marathon
teaming up with Steadfast Baptist Church.
June 28th, fellowship event at the Tinker Air Show here
in town.
August 27th through the 31st is the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship and
October 6th through the 11th is the Bahamas missions trip
So lots of great events coming up if you'd like to give to our church
There is some information there and on the back is our prayer list
Please make sure you keep in everybody's requests in prayer to the Lord
And if you have anything to add please email us or any updates that you have email us
And I'll make sure to get that reflected in the bulletin. That's gonna be it for announcements this evening
We'll go and go to our third song
All right for our third song if you would take your hymnals and turn to hymn number 150
My faith has found a resting place
Him number 150
We'll go ahead and start there right on the first my faith has found a resting place
Not in devised nor
I trust the ever-living one is good for me, shall plead
I need no other argument, I need no other argument
Jesus died and that he died for me.
Enough for me that Jesus saved this is my fear and doubt.
A sinful soul might come to him.
He'll never cast me out.
I need no other argument.
I need no other...
That's the thing
first Samuel chapter number 27 first Samuel 27
Good evening First Samuel 27 the Bible reads, and David said in his heart,
I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me
than that I should speedily escape into the hand of the Philistines.
And Saul shall despair of me to seek me any more
in any coast of Israel, so shall I escape out of his hand.
And David arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him
King of Gath, and David dwelt with Achish of Gath.
He and his men, every man with his household,
even David with his two wives,
Ahinoam the Jezrelitus, and Abigail the Carmelitis,
Nabal's wife, and it was told Saul
that David was fled to Gath,
and he sought no more again for him,
and David sent to Achish
If I have now found grace in thine eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country that I may dwell there, for why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with thee?"
Then Akish gave him Ziklag that day, wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day.
was a full year and four months, and David and his man went up and invaded the Gershites,
the Gershites, and the Gurgisites.
the Amalekites for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land as they'll
go as to sure even unto the land of Egypt and David smote the land and left neither
man nor woman alive and took away the sheep the oxen and the asses and the
camels and the apparel and returned and came to Akish and Akish said with or
against the south of Judah and against the south of the
Jeremiah lights and against the south of the Kenites and David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings to gath saying
Lest they should tell on us saying so did David and so will be his manner
All the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philxines and Akish believed David saying
He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him therefore. He shall be my servant forever
It's about our heads forward a prayer rather than having me. Thank you for this day
at all, but I think it was the right call just with the crazy ice and temperatures that we had
But we're in first Samuel chapter 27 a little bit of a shorter chapter this evening
And really this chapter kind of highlights King David. Well, he's not the king yet in position
But David who we know is King David. He starts to get a little bit backslidden in this story
And I think we can get some lessons about
how someone becomes backslidden
and just some insights that we could see
to a backslidden Christian.
Number one, I want you to realize
that getting backslidden starts in the heart.
It starts in the heart.
First Samuel 27, verse one, notice what it says.
It says, and David said in his heart.
I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul.
There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines,
and Saul shall despair of me to seek me any more in any coast of Israel,
so shall I escape out of his hand."
And here we kind of see David start to lose some faith.
He kind of starts to get discouraged.
And a little bit backslidden there where he starts saying things in his heart and he's kind of convincing himself that what he's saying is true.
But that's not necessarily the case because all throughout the story so far, we've constantly seen God delivering David.
and God keeping David safe from Saul, even though Saul's been coming after him, and God has just
constantly been blessing David, you know, causing him to defeat Goliath, the Philistine,
and causing him to escape out of the hand of Saul and just blessing him. But here, David's now
saying in his heart, man, someday I'm going to perish by the hand of Saul. And he kind of starts
to lose faith a little bit here and lose hope. Go to Romans chapter number 12, as you're turning there.
I want to read Jeremiah 17.9.
The Bible says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it?
And what is your heart?
It's kind of your inner thoughts.
It's kind of just the thoughts that kind of pop up and just your emotions, your feelings
about a situation.
And what you have to realize is that your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions are
And I constantly want to repeat this because the world wants to tell you,
you're validated in your thoughts.
You're validated in your feelings and in your opinions.
But the Bible says that the heart is desperately wicked.
You could have a feeling and a thought and you could be so convinced of it
in your heart and it feels so real to you that does not make it so.
That doesn't make it real, that doesn't make it right.
What we have to do is trust God.
And consistently, God has delivered David.
He's blessed David, but now David in his heart says,
someday Saul's gonna get me.
And that's just his own sinful flesh speaking.
That's not necessarily true.
Romans 12.
Verse 2 says, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
See every single person needs to continuously have their mind and heart renewed by the Word
of God.
Because the default setting of the human heart is desperate wickedness and extreme deception.
So, it's like the most deceitful thing in the world, yet the message is constantly from
this world.
Follow your heart, trust your heart, do whatever your gut tells you, trust in your feelings
or someone will express an emotion about something and it'll be like, oh, you're a valid girl,
you're validated in that feeling and it's like, no, you need your mind renewed constantly
and I need my mind renewed constantly and how does that happen?
It happens through the Word of God.
For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,
but to think soberly, according as God have dealt to every man the measure of faith.
God tells us to think soberly, and there's this temptation when you're dealing with a situation to think emotionally.
And, you know, I can't really fault David on a human level here for just getting sick
and tired and kind of just exasperated with the situation of constantly being hunted
down.
I get that.
And he's saying, like, look, I'm just in my heart.
I'm thinking that someday, you know, Saul's going to get me.
And so there's nothing else good for me.
There's nothing.
that I could do except for
going to the land of the
Philistines. You know, he's kind of
just made a self-fulfilling
prophecy saying it's over, it's done.
This is just how it has to be.
But the truth is that we need to
make sure in our lives when we're
making decisions when we're judging
situations that we sit down and
think soberly.
You know, you need to kind of detach yourself from whatever situation and all the emotions
that you're feeling and just come to the Word of God and just don't think about it so emotionally
and just say, what is the right thing to do in this situation?
What does God want me to do?
What do I know as a fact?
And you know, me looking as a person outside, it's like fact.
God helped David kill Goliath.
Fact God has preserved David's life up into this point fact God is on his side
God has promised that he's gonna be the king God is saying he's gonna preserve his seed
It's like if we just look at the facts David has nothing to fear here
But when someone gets back slidden it's when they start listening to the things that their heart tells them to do
Every single person, your heart is going to try to draw you away from the things of God from time to time, if not all the time.
Because we are naturally, by default, sinful people.
You're in Romans, keep your place in Romans 4. We're about to come to Romans 4.
But as you keep your place there, go to Mark chapter 7.
Mark chapter number 7.
Jesus said this and he said that which cometh out of the man, that defileeth the man, for
from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness,
and defile the man here's what you have to understand is that no one by default is a good person.
Not David, not me, not you. Your heart is desperately wicked and from your heart.
Comes all of these thoughts and all these wicked things and if you just live a life where you're just following the thoughts that pop into your head, you know, people now it's kind of known as like intrusive thoughts is kind of a new buzzword intrusive thoughts.
What's intrusive thoughts? It's called your center. It's called your heart is wicked and you're going to think sinful things sometimes and you have to realize that. Hey, that's the flesh speaking.
That's the heart speaking, but we need to go to the word of God and renew our mind and say, Hey, I'm feeling this way.
I'm desiring this.
I'm thinking these thoughts.
But even though I'm feeling that way,
I'm going to recognize that that's wrong.
That I'm wrong for feeling that way.
And I'm going to decide to conform to God's word.
It's not like because people think like, oh man, it's just
they'll they'll see a godly Christian.
They'll see someone walking in the spirit.
And they'll think, oh, it must be nice.
It just comes easy for this guy.
Oh man, he's just, how is he just so consistent?
How does he just go soul-winning every single week?
How does this lady just read her Bible every single day?
And they think like there's something different
about people that serve God.
And let me tell you something,
there's nothing different about us.
That's right.
We all have the same sinful flesh and the same temptations and the same laziness in our hearts
and the same wanting to just be a lazy bum from time to time. Everyone is like that.
Let me tell you the difference though is that one person has a feeling, has an emotion,
and they just let that control their life.
They are just run by their flesh their flesh says that they want something they feel a certain way and they're just like yes
Sir, whatever the flesh says
There's other people who have that same exact temptation and it's just as strong for this person as well
But they say like hey my feelings are not valid
My desire right now is not valid. It's not right and I'm gonna kill the flesh right now
I'm gonna crucify the flesh and I'm actually gonna do what the Bible says regardless of what I want to do
I will just tell you right now up front that sometimes I do not want to come to church.
Sometimes I do not want to go soul winning.
Sometimes I do not want to read my Bible, but guess what I do?
I just do it anyways, because I'm not going to listen to my heart.
And you know, every single person has been backslidden.
Every single person has had like feelings of not being as fired up for God as they used to be right?
But I can honestly say since I've gotten saved that I've never ever ever had a period where I just stopped going to church
I've never had a period where I just stopped reading the Bible.
I've never had a period where I just stopped soul-winning.
Now, do you think that there's just something special inside of me
where I just have like such an easier time to do these things than other people?
No, we have the same flesh.
But I'll tell you what it is.
It's someone who actually reads the Bible
and renews their mind and tells their flesh, no.
Go to Romans chapter number four.
Romans chapter number four.
Also, what I think is happening
in David's mind right here is that he's losing hope.
He's listening to his heart and he's losing hope
because as you're turning there,
let me remind you of the verse we're talking about.
And David said in his heart,
I shall now perish one day.
by the hand of Saul.
So notice it's just this kind of nebulous thing
just hanging over his head.
Just one day I know that I'm gonna get killed.
One day I know this is over.
Therefore is nothing better for me
than that I should speedily escape
into the land of the Philistines.
He's kind of just given up hope
and he's made this self-fulfilling prophecy in his mind
saying this situation will never change.
This situation will never get better and I'm sick and tired of it and so I'm just giving up.
I'm just going to go to the Philistines and we could get like that in our lives,
but notice what Romans 4 verse 18 says, speaking of Abraham,
I love this verse that says,
who against hope believed in hope
that he might become the father of many nations.
According to that which was spoken,
so shall thy seed be.
You know what that means?
It means that hope didn't make sense.
There was no light at the end of the tunnel.
There was not something that he could hang on to and say,
well, you know, here's this silver lining
that I could see how things are going to end in this situation.
It's just like, it was hopeless.
Nothing made any sense whatsoever.
But even though it was that way,
yet he still had hope anyways.
That's epic.
I mean, that is just an awesome person
who, against hope, believes in hope.
Keep reading. Notice what it says in verse 19,
He considered not his own body now dead
when he was about in 100 years old,
neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
I mean, I could understand how you might feel a little hopeless
as a 90 year old woman saying like,
yeah, I'm probably not gonna conceive at 90 years old,
but yet they still had hopes.
It says in verse 20,
he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief,
but was strong in faith, giving glory to God
and being fully persuaded
And therefore, it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Let's just stop reading there.
But the whole point of showing you that passage
is just how against hope, he believed in hope.
David here actually did have many reasons to be hopeful,
but yet he still kind of chose this pessimistic attitude,
this defeatist attitude, this self-fulfilling prophecy
of someday Saul's gonna kill me.
Someday it's gonna be over.
And so he's already, by doing that, here's the thing,
he's taken himself out of the fight by doing that.
Instead of just trying God, and testing God, and saying,
hey God, I'm still going to do what's right,
I'm still going to walk in the way that you want me to,
and let's see if you preserve me from Saul.
He takes himself out of the fight.
And this is what happens sometimes with people,
is they get so in despair about something in their life.
You know, maybe it's their marriage,
and they just think this situation is never going to get fixed.
This situation is completely hopeless,
and they give up, and then because they've given up,
now there's no chance.
You know, when you give up in marriage and you get divorced,
how are you going to see God come through and fix that situation
and bless you in that situation?
Sometimes you just have to say,
hey, against hope,
even though I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel,
even though I don't know how the situation is good
or how it's going to get fixed or if it's going to get fixed,
I'm just going to believe God anyways.
I'm just still going to do what's right anyways.
And then at least now you have a chance.
Now you can put God to the test and see
what a mighty work God can do in your life.
You know, you could think about this with finances
or just relationships or your job
or finding a wife or anything like this.
You could just get this despair, which is like, I give up.
But when you give up, you lose.
When you give up, now you do have no chance whatsoever.
But just against hope, believe in hope
because David's fears were not founded.
But guess what?
David's a sinner just like us and he got back sitting here.
Go to, if you would, Romans 10, Romans chapter number 10.
You know, if you feel like you're lacking in your faith, if you kind of feel at times
that despair and that hopelessness, you know, what is the answer to that?
Romans 10 verse 17 says right here, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the
word of God.
If you lack faith, if you are feeling hopeless, if you are feeling in despair and like giving up,
but you're not reading the Bible, that needs to be the first thing that you do.
It's like people will have this despair, they'll have depression in their lives, they'll have
misery in their lives, and they don't do the thing that's actually going to help them.
You know, they'll turn to alcohol, they'll turn to drugs, they'll turn to prostitutes,
but it's like what actually is going to help you is reading the Bible.
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
People that are dealing with despair and depression and hopelessness, get in church.
Read the Bible and it's just like sometimes and I feel for these people because we all go through bouts of
Sadness and depression all those things. I preach the whole sermon on that
But like this is kind of my philosophy is like if you're not reading your bible every day
Praying every single day
Soul winning every single week being three to thrive
Getting good food, good exercise, sleeping well.
If you're not doing all of those things first,
don't tell me that you need to start taking some drugs
to help your situation.
It's like, why don't you actually start doing
some things to help your life
before even trying anything?
You're just like, oh, let's just take all these SSRIs,
all these mind-altering drugs.
It's like, that's a weak faith right there.
You need to hear the word of God.
You need to read the word of God.
Go back to 1 Samuel 27.
But you know, the Bible talks about how we should take heed
lest an evil heart of unbelief is found in us.
Hebrews chapter three talks about.
So don't think that, you know,
we ourselves couldn't get backslidden like this.
If David could get deceived by his heart,
if David can become hopeless and kind of give up here,
we could do the same thing.
We need to make sure we're taking heed to these things
and reading the word of God.
Number two, lessons about backslidden people,
getting backslidden affects other people.
Getting backslidden affects other people.
Look at verse two, it says in David arose,
and he passed over with the, notice 600 men
that were with him unto Akish, the son of Mayok,
king of Gath, and David dwelted Akish at Gath,
he and his men,
Every man with his household, even David with his two wives,
and Hinoem the Jesrealitis and Abigail the Carmelitis,
Nabal's wife.
And it was told to all that David was fled to Gaff
and he sought no more again for him.
So notice he decides, hey, I'm going to the land of the Philistines.
I'm giving up and who goes with him all those people that were surrounding David?
You know this decision that he made to give up and quit and just go ahead and reside in the land of the enemy
That affected all of his wives all of the men that were following with him
It wasn't just him that was affected go to Exodus chapter 20 Exodus chapter 20
But the truth is, is that when we get backslidden,
I don't care if you are married, single,
have a bunch of kids, have no kids,
you affect other people when you get backslidden.
You harm other people.
And by the way, the converse is true.
When you're on fire for God, when you're here at church,
when you're doing things which are right,
you're blessing other people.
You're encouraging other people.
You know, no one just lives on an island.
Your actions affect other people.
Exodus 20 verse 5 says thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
So notice even your actions your sins can have a direct impact on the descendants that come after you
You know what like we were talking about this morning different nations rejecting Christianity you look at a nation like India
It's like let's just be honest if you're born in India
You're way more likely to be going to hell when you die than if you were born in the Bible Belt in America
Not because of your skin color or anything like that.
It's because one's going to have a lot of exposure to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
and one isn't.
And so the sins of the Father's idolatry
can be visited upon the children for many generations to come.
And just even a more immediate application of that
is that your sins that you commit directly affect people around you all the time.
Let me give you an example.
I was talking to some of you guys last week about the driver that drove off the road on route 66 by Lake Overholzer and the police had to pull out that truck there was a dead body inside of the truck.
Well, the news updated that situation this week and it turns out that it was a drunk driver.
Some guy was driving drunk with his buddy in the truck and his stupid drunk retarded self drove off the road and killed his friend.
And he swam out of the truck and survived and his friend sat there and drowned to death in the icy river.
Why? Because one person was drinking alcohol.
And you think, oh, I'm just having a fun time.
I'm just enjoying myself.
I'm just blowing off some steam, drinking alcohol.
Next thing you know, your friend, quote unquote, is choking on water in an icy river and is dead.
And, you know, thank God at least this guy had enough integrity to turn himself into
the police.
I will at least give him that.
But what a wicked thing to do.
And people will always love to downplay drinking alcohol.
Talk about Jesus made, you know, Jesus drank wine,
it's not a sin to drink alcohol.
Let me tell you what, it is a sin to drink alcohol.
And beyond just being a sin,
it's extremely stupid and reckless and selfish.
And there was a life lost a week ago here in Yukon
that didn't have to be if alcohol wasn't involved.
You know, that's a sad thing,
but I'm telling you, getting back slidden,
you say, oh yeah, you know.
I'm just going to go out and get back to the world, I'm going to start drinking alcohol.
That could affect other people.
That could affect your friend that's riding in the truck with you.
It does have an effect on other people.
Go to Hebrews chapter 10, Hebrews chapter number 10.
Obviously, they're not walking in the spirit.
They're just listening to their heart.
You know, the consequences of sin isn't really on these people's minds at the time.
I'm sure that that was never even close to what that driver was thinking about,
but it doesn't change the reality from it being what actually happens.
Look at Hebrews 10 verse 24.
It says, and let us, I love this phrase,
consider one another.
to provoke unto love and to good works.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together
as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another
and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
What is a big reason why you should not get back slidden?
It is consideration of other people.
Because when you get back slidden, you know what you're doing?
You're not provoking other people unto love
and unto good works.
You're provoking other people to get back slidden with you.
You know, people, by nature, are followers and if you're the person in the church who's,
you know, friends with people and people like you, you have friends or whatever, you have
family, you have someone looking up to you in your life and you quit, you know what that
makes them want to do?
Makes them want to quit as well.
And one of the examples he gives right away is not
forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.
You know, that's one way that you should be
considering other people.
And it makes a big difference when someone's here
and someone's not.
Look, I notice those things.
I think about those things.
I pray for people when they're gone.
I don't want people to get back slidden.
I don't want them going down this dark path
because it ends up hurting you.
But not only does it hurt you,
it hurts other people as well.
And when less people are serving God,
when less people are preaching hard,
when less people are soul winning,
you know what, you're kind of,
you're smashing the fire out in other people.
Whereas when you say, you know what,
I'm gonna go soul winning this Saturday
and I show up and there's soul winners here,
that fires me up.
When I see new people preaching the gospel,
getting the first person saved they've ever had in their life,
that pumps me up.
I'm telling you it does.
If all the statistics I get excited about, hitting this target number of
salvation, hitting this target number of baptism, I get excited about that stuff,
but what's way cooler to me is when someone gets their first salvation.
Because now we have a new soul winner.
Now we have someone who could join the efforts and as long as they're alive on this earth, they could do that.
How many salvations is that going to add up to for a whole lifetime?
A lot of people, right?
So that one salvation to me just gets me so excited.
And you know, I want to encourage you and I want you to encourage each other to,
if you've not had a salvation in your life, make this your year.
Start going out soul-winning.
Join us on Saturdays say hey, I'll just be a silent partner. No problem
We'll just let you watch gospel presentation after presentation after presentation to where you can learn it
I could give you sheets on how to outline your Bible. I could send you sermons
I've made all these first-person videos on our YouTube channel of me actually winning a real person to Christ
You can see the real gospel presentation that I do look. It's not hard to learn
You can learn how to go soul winning, but you know what?
You gotta have that desire, and where does it come from?
It comes from considering other people.
Loving other people.
You know, it's this way with, you know, marriage too.
When you quit on your marriage, you know what it causes
other people to wanna do?
Quit on their marriage.
When they see Christians failing in marriage,
makes them wanna give up.
When you give up on just anything spiritual,
it can dampen the fire in other people.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter five.
You know, this is why again,
churches should be practicing church discipline.
It's not out of hatred or anger for the offender,
but really it's out of love for the congregation.
It's out of considering other people
and how they would be affected by allowing sin
to go unfettered in a church.
Look at 1 Corinthians 5-6, your glorying is not good.
Know you not that a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump.
Purge out there for the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened for even Christ our Passover is
Sacrificed for us. You know it talks about uses this carnal example of leaven. I've never made bread
I've seen my wife do it many times
I know she gets that little sourdough starter which I believe is the leaven and it doesn't take much and it leavens the whole lump
Okay, it just it doesn't take much to make a loaf of bread
Just like how it does not take much of these sins to destroy a church
and to cause other people to be discouraged.
When it's like, oh yeah, this guy who I thought was some
reputable member in the church, oh, it just turns out that he's committing adultery.
Oh, it just turns out he's drinking alcohol and no one's doing anything about it.
No one is batting an eye at that.
Wouldn't that kind of make people, you know, backslidden in their heart as well
and see that sin is not as severe as it really is?
Go to 2 Samuel chapter 12.
2 Samuel chapter 12.
And you know, David himself becomes very acquainted with this idea in his life of his sin affecting
other people because not only is he like dragging all these people into the land of the Philistines
in this chapter, but later he commits a much more grievous sin of committing adultery and
murder.
And notice what happens in verse 9, it says,
So notice a direct
result of David's sin causes the sword to never depart from his house.
Constant warfare, constant violence surrounding him because thou hast despised me
and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
Thus say it to the Lord, Behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house
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 this Son.
Talk about a brutal punishment.
The sword not departing from your house,
then your wives are going to be lined with,
with other people in public,
in front of people.
I mean, that's intense.
That's terrible.
That's wicked.
But it's a result of a sin, verse 12.
For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun and David said unto Nathan
I've sinned against the Lord and Nathan said unto David the Lord also hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die
How be it because by this deed thou has given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme
The child also that is born unto thee shall surely die
The last part of David's punishment was the fact that his soon to be born child. It was obviously his wife was pregnant
But that child would die
And, you know, obviously that's kind of the coup de grace of the punishments that he received.
But the point is that when people are getting back slidden, when people are sinning,
they're not thinking about these things. They're not thinking that these things are going to happen to them.
But while you're sober, while you're in church, while you're thinking soberly, while you're reading the Bible,
you need to cement it into your heart that God will punish His children
and that the punishments that He meets out are often way more severe than anything you'd want to sign up for.
You you think you're just playing around with sin. You think all I'm just having a beer
You think all I'm just going for a drive with my friend. We're just a little buzz next thing
You know your friend is dead
Right. Oh, you think oh, I'm just gonna fool around just gonna have some fun with this girl
It's just gonna be a one-time thing no problem next thing
You know the sword's not departing from your house next thing. You know your wife's are being lined with with other men
Next thing you know your baby is dead
Is that what you want for your life? Of course not.
You know, I don't want to see Christians just constantly being chastised, constantly having these terrible consequences,
having life-long consequences, oftentimes, when it could be avoided by you just not getting backslidden to begin with,
by you not listening to your wicked heart, by you actually listening to the Word of God.
Go back to 1 Samuel 27.
Backslidden Christians often make alliances with the wicked.
Verse 5 says,
And David said unto Akish,
If I have now found grace in thine eyes,
Let them give me a place in some town in the country
that I may dwell there,
For why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with me?
It's like, what is David doing talking to this God,
this Philistine, calling himself his servant?
You know, asking all these favors from him.
It's like, these are supposed to be the enemy.
The Philistines are not your friend, are not someone you should be hanging up with.
But notice what it says in verse 6,
And the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months.
And David and his men went up and invaded the Gesheites and the Malachites.
For those nations were of old inhabitants of the land as they'll go as to Sher even unto the land of Egypt.
So notice how David, he went from being the boy that killed Goliath
being the one that was stacking four skins like Saul wanted him to do and
just killing all these Philistines, being like a tear run to them to where now
he's dwelling in their land for over a year. Now he's kind of working this deal
out with them and trying to have affinity with them and being friends with
them and let me tell you whether on purpose or inadvertently this is what
happens to people when they get back slidden.
When their heart is far from the things of God, when their mind is not being renewed by the things of God,
you'll see Christians who were on our side,
they were standing with us, and then they get back slidden, and then they find themselves living with the Philistines.
And they find themselves making affinity with them, and blessing them, and being friends with them.
But go to Psalm chapter 1, if you would, Psalm chapter number 1.
You know, David clearly does not belong with these people.
He's David, right? He's supposed to be God's people.
But Psalm 1 verse 1 says this,
These things are very connected the person who's reading the Bible day and night
Meditating in the word of God, you know what they're gonna do. They're not gonna be standing in the way of centers
They're not gonna be sitting in the seat of the scornful
They're not gonna be walking in the path of the wicked
They're gonna be separated from those people and you could tell a lot about a person by who their friends are
Someone who loves God's word look who delights in the law of the Lord
Someone who's reading the Bible. Someone who's meditating it day and night. They're not walking in the council of the ungodly
They're not standing in the way of sinners. They're not seating sitting in the seat of the scornful
So what does it tell you about a person when all of a sudden now they are?
When you see a someone who is obviously on the right side, they're still saved and not saying they could lose their salvation or anything,
but when they were doing right and all of a sudden now they're friends with the wicked, the scornful, they're getting bad advice,
they're around all these evil people. What does it tell you about that person? They've ceased to delight in the law of the Lord.
They've ceased to delight in it. They've ceased to read it. They're not meditating in it day and night
They're backslidden. They're far from God and now here they are hanging out with the Philistines
And it's like if David could do this then this could be a danger for any Christian
You know, it makes me think of like the ex-new IFB rejects
This stupid Facebook group which my like one of my favorite things in the morning is just to open up that group
Just so that I could just block immediately the latest loser who's joined it
And it's just like, every once in a while I just hop on there and be like,
oh, okay, you know, two more losers I could block because I don't want to walk in the way of these people.
I don't want to talk. I don't want to be around their counsel. I don't want to be around scorners.
I want to be separated from backslidden Christians.
I want to be separated from the wicked. I want them to get right with God.
And look, some of these people, I don't even think some of these people are just like rotten to the core.
Some of these people, I think they've just been led away with the error of the wicked.
Because some of these people, I knew that they were fighters.
I knew that they were on the right side.
I knew they were on the right path.
And it's like, how is this happening to you?
There has to be some sort of backsliding going on
in their heart.
There has to be something going on
where they're ceasing to delight in the law of the Lord.
Maybe they're just bitter about something.
They're envious, obviously.
And it's causing them to team up with the wicked,
where it's like, you got this group
of people who have been kicked out
of all these new IV churches for oneness, modalism.
which is a damnable heresy.
It's like, who hurt you?
Where on the doll did you get hurt?
That's caused you to team up with oneness heretics.
What is caused, who hurt you on the doll
where you quit a church and you join,
this actually happened,
you join in the efforts of sodomites
protesting steadfast Baptist church.
I knew someone who was an evangelist, who later typed on Facebook about all the hours
and hours that they spent on the phone with our sodomite protesters in cahoots with them
trying to destroy steadfast Baptist church.
Who hurts you bro?
It's insane and you see this group. It's just like oh persons kicked out for railing. Oh, this person's you know a flat earth or
Oh, this person is denying the Trinity all these different wicked people and then you see another name
You're like, why are you with this person? Why are you teaming up with them? What is happening to you? What is wrong with you?
I'll tell you what it is your backslidden
I'll tell you what it is, you cease to delight in the law of the Lord and you don't want
to go down that road because if David could go down that road from literally killing Philistines
to teaming up with them, living in their land, look, it could happen to save Christians.
It does happen to them.
And it's sad and I definitely will continue to cut those people out of my life because
I don't want their suckiness rubbing off on me.
I encourage everyone to do the same thing.
You open up the app, you go to the reject group and you just block everyone.
That way, they can't see anything you say, you can't see anything they say, just get them out of your life.
And quite honestly, the only reason I'm talking about this is because people send me so much stuff from this group.
Guess what? I don't see anything in the group because I have them all blocked!
And the only reason I find out is people send it to me.
So just block them. Get them out of your life.
Go to 2 Corinthians 6, 2 Corinthians 6.
2 Corinthians 6, this is the advice that David needed at this time.
Verse 14.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
And what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord have Christ with Belial, or what part have he that believeth with an infidel, and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols, for ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, sayeth the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.
God wants us to be a separated people.
He does not want us having fellowship with the Philistines of this world,
the reverberates of this world, the sodomites of this world,
and beyond that he doesn't even want us having fellowship with Christians involved in grievous sins,
like those listed in 1st Corinthians chapter 5.
God wants some separation here, and again it's just like I look at this reject group
and I see a lot of mixing of people that are saved and some people who are just pleading.
Complete heretics, some people who have been living in wicked sin and kicked out of churches,
railers, and it's like, what do you guys have in common?
It's like what you have in common is hatred of Pastor Anderson.
What you have in common is you have no life.
What you have in common is envy and idleness.
I mean, I saw this one pastor's wife.
Someone told me that she just immediately clipped my sermon
last week right after I got done preaching it.
And it's like, what did you do?
Did you like get out of your husband's boring service?
And you just like, oh, anchor Baptist church.
Let's just listen to what Pastor Oz said.
And you made a clip of it like within an hour.
And you made like a gigantic post about it within an hour.
I mean, what are you doing with your life?
Why don't you just block me?
Why don't you just stop listening to us?
You can't.
Because you're envious and you're blinded by hatred.
And you have nothing else going on in your life.
You've got nothing else to live for.
You're not even interested in your husband's preaching, apparently.
You're not interested in your husband's ministry, apparently.
Since the second you get out of church,
you're tuning in to Anchor Baptist Church.
What a freak.
What a psycho ex-girlfriend.
And I've never even dealt with this person in my life.
I'm just like, who are you again?
It's insane, but this is what happens to backslidden Christians.
If David's hanging out with Philistines, you're going to see Christians in our life hanging out with weird people too,
and teaming up with weird people too, and don't be like them.
You know, look at them as an example of what not to be.
Go to 1 Samuel 27.
1 Samuel 27.
You know, can two walk together except they be agreed?
How is David walking with Philistines?
I mean, they have different gods.
Why are they in affinity?
There's something obviously wrong with that picture.
Number four, backslidden Christians
often get into grievous sin, verse nine.
And David smote the land and left neither man nor woman alive
and took away the sheep and the oxen and the asses
and the camels and the apparel and returned and came to Akish.
Now, this is crazy because God never told him to do this.
I mean, God never said to go do this.
This is just something that David does, leaving neither man nor woman alive.
And later on in the chapter, the Bible is going to tell us his motivation for doing
this and it wasn't something good.
You know, so here's David all of a sudden descending to a serious wicked sin here of
just murdering people.
And this is often what happens to Christians when they get back slidden is that they obviously,
You know, they start by just skipping church.
They start by just skipping soul winning
or not reading their Bible.
But oftentimes people go down that road
and over the course of time,
they find themselves in serious sins,
in major sins, even sins like murder.
You know, you got Christians today involved in abortions.
You got Christians today involved in IVF.
You know, someone can get back slidden going down that road
and they're literally involved in murder.
Now, go to, if you would, Galatians chapter number five, Galatians chapter number five.
There were times in the Bible where God said, hey, go wipe these people out.
Man, woman, child, ox, ass, suckling, all those things.
And here's the thing, that obviously is not a sin.
God's telling them to do that.
That's a commandment of God.
Sin is often contextual. What do I mean by that?
Well, how about this?
Saying the name of God.
What if I say,
Oh God.
Well, if I'm talking to God
or about God
or I'm praying to God,
that would not be a sin.
There would be nothing wrong with that.
But what if I stub my toe and yell,
Oh God.
Now that has become a sin.
Right? Because sin is often contextual.
Here's a couple other examples.
What about the physical relationship?
If you're married, there's nothing wrong with that.
Same exact act, you take that outside of marriage, wicked sin.
Why? Because sin sometimes is contextual.
How about this? Preaching a sermon.
If you're a man doing it in the right context, it's great.
If you're a woman getting into preaching a sermon, that's wicked.
Okay? How about killing someone?
Well, if you kill someone in self-defense, it's fine.
If you're enacting capital punishment, you're a lawful authority, it's fine.
When God is telling the nation of Israel, go wipe out these wicked sodomites.
Yeah, no problem.
But when you just take upon yourself to kill someone, that is a sin.
That's murder, that's wicked.
And this is what happens to Christians, they get back slidden
and they find themselves sometimes committing grievous sins
that they never would have imagined themselves doing.
Here's why, look at Galatians 5 verse 17.
and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary, the one to the other,
so that you cannot do the things that you would.
But if you be led of the spirit,
you're not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these.
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.
So these are the works of the flesh.
Like I've already preached in this sermon, we all have that same flesh.
human being's default setting is wickedness and sin,
and the only way that you can even escape that pattern
is by having the Spirit of God and by walking in the Spirit of God.
But when you stop doing that, when you get back slidden, when you
start just living in the flesh, all of these sins are on the table.
And that's sometimes something that shocks Christians
that do stay in church is they'll see someone get backslidden
and they'll see them commit a very grievous sin
and they'll question, like, were they ever saved?
Well, here's the thing.
If someone leaves us to become a Mormon,
it definitely shows they were never saved.
They didn't lose their salvation.
They never believed right to begin with.
But if someone quits church and becomes a drunk,
that does not mean that they're not saved.
If someone quits church and a woman goes and gets an abortion,
that does not mean that she's not safe.
It means that they're walking in the flesh.
And that should scare us because you've got to realize
that all these sins are on the table for all of us
if we're walking in the flesh.
Don't have this prideful attitude that says like,
oh, I could never do something like that.
Absolutely you can.
Because you're a sinner.
But look what it says, verse 22,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such,
there is no law.
And of course, this is all what we're striving for and all things that we want to have in
our lives.
But notice it's the fruit of the spirit.
That's why it says in verse 24, and they that are Christs have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lusts.
Right? So there's a couple things to think about while you're sober, while you are in church, while you're not backslidden, is think about, hey, what are the unforeseen consequences of me going down this road and getting backslidden?
I guarantee you, it's worse than what you're thinking. It's worse than what you can conceive. Not only that, you might be thinking, well, I'm just getting backslidden. I'm just skipping church. I'm just going to stop soul winning.
But here's the thing, if you keep getting backslidden, you don't know where you're going to be down the road in a year from now.
or two years from now, you could be into a lot of stuff on this list,
and obviously, no one wants that for themselves.
That's why we have to walk in the spirit.
Go back to 1st Samuel 27.
1st Samuel 27.
And like one of the things listed on that list there was heresies and man, boy, do you see this with people that get backslidden?
You won't see them slip into damnable heresy because they're saved, you know, they're not going to start preaching that you could lose your salvation or that you have to do works to be saved.
Otherwise, that just shows that was a Judas from the beginning who was never saved.
But boy, do you see people who get backslidden start preaching false doctrine.
Start preaching heresy.
Why? Because they're getting up there just in the flesh.
They're getting up there with just the carnal mind.
They haven't been renewing their mind with Scripture.
They're just going up and it's just like,
welcome to Opinion Baptist Church.
Turn to 2nd Opinions chapter 1.
Let's talk about childbearing tonight.
You know, that is terrible, but it shows a backslidden heart.
Number five, backslidden Christians live a deceptive life.
Look at verse eight. It says,
So notice, who is he going and invading and fighting against?
It's all these enemies of God.
It's not the Israelites, but this is going to be important in a few verses.
Verse 9 says, And David smote the land and left neither man nor woman alive, and took
away the sheep and the ox, oxen and the asses and the camels and the apparel, and returned
and came to Akish.
So he goes out, he invades all these people, he kills all of them, doesn't leave any of
them alive.
Now he's coming back and he's giving his report.
Verse 10 says, And Akish said, Whither have you made a road today?
Hey, where you been?
What you been doing today, David?
and against the south of the Jeremiah lights
and against the south of the Kenites.
He's being a little deceptive here.
Notice how the previous verse told us all the people
that David was attacking that David was killing.
But yet when he goes and gives his report,
he kind of says, oh, you know, I've been around Judah.
I've been invading Judah today.
Why? Because he's trying to seek refuge
with the Gittites, with the people, the Philistines here.
He's trying to seek refuge with them.
He's trying to get favor with them.
that he's going and attacking other nations
that could possibly be Confederate with the Philistines,
they're gonna be like, whoa,
this guy's still an Israelite at heart.
He still wants the best for the people of Judah and Israel.
We gotta not protect this guy.
We can't let him live with us.
So he kind of is deceptive while presenting himself saying,
oh yeah, I was going against Judah.
I was in the south of Judah
when really he was still attacking the enemies of God.
He's still in his heart
is wanting to fight the Lord's battles.
He's just backslidden.
And verse 11 says this is important and David saved neither man nor woman alive to bring
tidings to Gath saying, notice, lest they should tell on us, saying, so did David, and so will
be his manner all the while while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines.
He did not want any survivors because he didn't want these survivors coming up to Akish and
saying, hey, he wasn't attacking Judah.
He wasn't attacking Israel.
And by the way,
he's probably going to do this to your nation.
So you probably shouldn't be protecting him
and giving him the stronghold
because he's wiping all of us out.
You know, he killed all the witnesses here
so that he could present this story.
And notice the result of it.
It says an akish believed David saying.
He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him.
Therefore, he shall be my servant forever."
So Akish kind of has a false sense of security here.
He's saying like, okay,
he's not on good terms with Israel anymore.
This guy is safe.
He's gonna be my servant forever
because he's believed this deception
that David has presented to him.
Now, one more place we're gonna go
is First John chapter number one.
But this is kind of what Christians do when they get back slidden, is there's a temptation there to live a very deceptive life,
to present yourself one way to one group of people in a completely different way to another.
And we talked about hypocrisy a few weeks ago. Everyone is a sinner and does this to some extent, okay?
But there should not be this colossal difference between the person that you are at church.
the person that you are around Christians and the person you are at work
and the person you are around your family.
You know, at that point you're kind of just living this deceptive double life
and you just need to be honest with yourself that you're backslidden and change.
Don't sit here and just have these two lives.
Just realize like, hey, this is wrong, this is bad, I should go back to Israel.
I don't want to hang out with the Philistines anymore.
I don't want to have to pretend like I'm their friend because I'm not their friend.
And that's what I want.
Some of the people that have been burned recently to do and have become envious is like, dude,
you don't want to be around these freaks.
I know there's a part of you that loves God.
I know there's a part of you that wants to keep fighting and doing that which is right.
I know there's still a part of you that wants to be a part of a good church
that's focused on the Great Commission.
I know that part is there.
And it's like, you need to just choose to get right with God and go back there.
Get away from the Philistines.
Get away from the motorists.
Get away from the railers.
Get away from the envious pastor's wives.
Get away from those people and go back to the land of Israel and be David again.
Do the right thing.
Notice what it says in 1 John 1-8, it says,
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Some people live a double life because they're deceiving themselves.
And there's kind of a spectrum here.
Obviously, there's some people who just say,
oh, I have no sin.
It's like that person's extremely deceived, right?
But then there's other people where maybe they're sinning
or maybe they're doing something very wicked,
but they justify it in their mind.
And that person is also deceiving themselves.
And that I think is what David is doing here
is he's not being honest, he's being deceptive,
but he's trying to justify it in his mind by saying,
well, if I don't lie to Akish here and I get kicked out,
Saul is going to kill me.
All these what ifs, right?
And so people will do this,
they'll get backslidden,
they'll get around a bunch of wicked people,
they'll be around a bunch of railers,
around a bunch of gossips,
but they'll justify it in their mind somehow.
They'll make some sort of excuse
of why it's okay for them,
but really what you're doing is
you're deceiving yourself.
When you are backslidden
and you want to get right with God,
there has to come a point
where you just look at the scripture,
you look at your life and you just say,
I have sinned.
That's what David did when he was confronted about his major sin with Bathsheba is he finally just came to the point where he said
I have sinned and guess what that's the difference between
David and Saul
Because David and Saul both committed
Seriously grievous sins
I mean, David just wiped out all these cities.
God didn't tell him to do that.
Just murdered a bunch of people.
Saul did something worse when he said,
fall upon the priests of the Lord,
telling people to kill God's people, right?
David goes and commits adultery.
David commits murder of an innocent man.
Like these men were both sinners.
These men both had serious issues.
But what was the difference though,
is that one had the humility to say, I've sinned.
and to actually change and to actually seek God.
The other one, Douglas heels in, stayed bitter,
stayed sinful, didn't try to seek for repentance,
didn't admit he was wrong.
You know, he just kept doing the same things
over and over again and God destroyed him.
And it's like at the end of the road of Saul and David are two different destinations and it's the same thing for Christians.
Those that choose to get backslidden and just harden their heart, they don't ever get right, they just stay out of church, they don't read their Bible.
The end of that is a destructive lifestyle.
God will punish that person severely whereas the other person you may have sinned a lot in your past
I may have sinned in my past. We may in the future sin
But as long as you just stay on the right path as long as you just pray and ask for forgiveness and just confess it to God
Look God's going to be faithful to forgive your sins. The Bible says you just have to admit it to yourself and to God
Go to Hebrews 11. I'm sorry. There actually was another scripture here Hebrews 11
Hebrews chapter 11. Let's read this in conclusion here. It says,
But now they desire a better country that is a heavenly where for God is not ashamed to be called their God
For you have prepared for them a city. We're gonna kind of end the sermon where we started about how
Where does all this start? It starts in a person's heart
And the Bible saying here that if these people had been mindful of the country that they came out of they might have had
Opportunity to have returned and it's like how does someone how does a Christian?
get back slid in is that they start becoming mindful of the things of the world, right?
They either get discouraged and hopeless and just quit and throw in the towel or they become mindful of it and saying like
maybe there's something there to be desired, maybe there's something there
that's a better life living in the world and when you are starting to be mindful of the things of the world, you give yourself the
opportunity to return to that. How do you prevent that is to get your mind in the things of God?
is to get your butt in church and be around other people who could consider you
and provoke you to love and to good works.
That's going to keep you on the right track.
Last verse I'll read is James 1-8, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
David's kind of out of crossroads here.
Is he going to stay in the land of the Philistines?
Is he going to go back to Israel?
Look, if a person is backslidden listening to this sermon,
you need to just make a decision.
And let me tell you what decision to make.
Go back to Israel.
Go back to the things of God.
Go back to church.
Come back to church.
Okay?
Read your Bible.
Come back to soul winning.
If you haven't gone soul winning in a long time,
let's go soul winning again.
Okay, if you've given up on the things of God, come back, make a decision, don't be
a double-minded man, half of your life in the land of the Philistines, half in Israel,
make the right decision, come back to the spiritual things.
Let's pray, Lord.
We thank you for our church.
And thank you for the word of God.
I just pray that the people in here would not be mindful of the things of the world,
that you would just help establish our hearts and the things of God.
I pray that we would continue to read the Bible,
not based on our motivation or how we're feeling each day,
but that we would just do it out of discipline, knowing that we need it.
We need our minds renewed.
I pray that you bless us as we go our separate ways.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right, with that, we'll go ahead and sing one last song
to conclude the service.
If you would, take your hymnals
and turn to hymn number 161.
Our great savior.
Hymn number 161.
We'll go ahead and start there right on the first.
Jesus, what a friend.
And for sinners, Jesus, love your heart.
With that, you are dismissed.