Amen.
We're back in 1 Chronicles, we're in chapter number 15, and a couple chapters ago, if you
remember, they tried to bring the ark back to Jerusalem and they didn't do it correctly.
They tried to bring it back on a cart, kind of like the Philistines sent it out on a cart,
and they were all getting the emerods, and so they decided to get rid of it.
They kind of got rid of it in their own way and tried to honor God somewhat, and they
did the best they could, I think, but God was not pleased with the way that the children
of Israel decided to bring it back, and the way David brought it back, and obviously they
didn't read the Bible before they brought it back because there's a certain way that
they were supposed to bring it back and did not do that.
And a man lost his life because of that.
Because they reached forth to grab the ark, and God made a breach upon him, and that breach
of contract, by not paying attention to what the Bible says, they broke the covenant of
the Lord, which God said, well, you know, your breach of contract is going to cause
me to make a breach upon you.
And so I don't think that he did that by accident, I think he did that on purpose, and probably
wasn't a pretty sight, you know, I'm sure the music all stopped, you know, just everything
just stopped, and then it was probably a horrific scene.
And David was afraid of the Lord that day, the Bible says, so then the last chapter we
were just in, it kind of, we went through David's wives that he married in Jerusalem
and the children that he had, and then about him inquiring to fight against the Philistines
in the battles that he fought against the Philistines, showing that David, before he
got into these battles, he made sure to pray to the Lord before he did those things.
And so now we're coming back to David bringing the ark back, and so he's preparing to do
it the right way this time.
So number one tonight, I want to look at David prepares to bring the ark back the correct
way, so verse number one, the Bible says, And David made him houses in the city of David,
and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent.
Then David said, None ought to carry the ark of God, but the Levites.
For them hath the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister unto him forever.
So David must have read the Bible, because now he understands who's supposed to bring
it back, and that it's only supposed to be carried by the Levites.
And so he definitely has read the Bible, he definitely understands how to do it right
this time, and he was afraid of God, so he wanted to make sure to do it right this time,
but he still wants to bring the ark back.
And so he didn't just, because of what happened, because of the failure last time, David didn't
give up in bringing the ark back to the city of David, he still wanted to fulfill that,
but this time he's doing a way more responsible job.
And he did kind of fail as a leader in that moment, but what a good leader's going to
do is they're going to fail, and then make sure that they do it right the next time.
They don't just blame, he's not blaming everybody else for his failure, and you can see that
in this chapter, he kind of takes the bull by the horns, and even seemingly kind of takes
the lead over the Levites, and tells them what they're going to do, and how they're
going to do it, and divides them up, and he definitely oversees this project way more
carefully than he did before, and the first thing he says is, hey, we're going to do this
the right way, and the only way we're going to do it is the Levites are going to carry
this thing back, and he was really upset with how Uzzah died, and he's determined
here that he's not going to let anybody else die on his watch.
So verse number three, the Bible says, and David gathered all Israel together to Jerusalem
to bring up the ark of the Lord into his place, which he had prepared for it.
And so they haven't even brought it back yet, David's read the Bible, he's read the instructions,
if you're a man in here, and you've just charged, oh, I don't need those instructions,
I'm sure every man in this room has probably done that at least once, where you thought,
ah, I can figure this out, and you just don't want to read all the instructions.
If you do that, you're making a gigantic failure, because the way that they have all this stuff
packaged together, you're going to miss a step, you're going to have to go back and
tear it apart, and then do it over again because you were just too proud to read the instructions.
So you should just read the instruction manual, especially if you're getting something from
IKEA or something that's a little more complicated, I built something for my wife the other day
that I got for her as a gift, and it said, 80% put together, and I was like, yeah, okay,
like four hours later, and I had the instructions, and I was using the instructions, and it still
took a long time, but 80%, yeah, I don't know about that, it was a lot less than that.
But what's David doing that's smart here?
He's preparing, he's reading the instruction manual, this is how we need to do it, and
then he builds the places that it needs to go into first.
So he's doing everything in an orderly fashion so that there's no problems, and then he's
going to gear up and get his guys together that are supposed to carry it.
He's going to appoint who needs to do the things.
And even down to the music, he's going to get everything right.
And so he's got everything preparing beforehand instead of just doing everything on the moment's
notice and by the seat of his pants, which is another thing that we should not do, especially
when it's something really important.
If you're doing something really important, you can't just always fly by the seat of your
pants or dress or whatever.
You have to prepare yourself to do things and to do it right and orderly, because you
can skip a step and your project, whatever you're trying to do, can turn into a total
disaster.
So this time David is prepared, and any big move takes planning and preparation.
Brother Sean's about the move, I'm sure he prepared himself before.
He's not just going to throw everything in a U-Haul and hope it all fits.
He probably figured out what size of U-Haul he needs.
Are you using a U-Haul?
Okay.
He probably didn't get the smallest one and thought he's going to cram everything in there.
And if you've moved a few times, which I have, and you learn after screwing things up a few
times that you need to prepare yourself a little bit.
So I bought a fridge, it's sitting in the back room there, notice it's not plugged in.
I didn't prepare very well for the arrival of the refrigerator.
I didn't know how big 18 cubic feet was, or however, not cubic feet, but whatever that
fridge is, it's 18 cubic something or other.
See, I didn't even read the instructions, right?
I just like went on Costco and I was like, that looks like a good one.
And I was like, yeah, it looks like it fits up the stairs, I don't think that's the biggest
one.
And so the guys got it here, which they were late, and of course if you're late, they just
leave and say we'll deliver it the next day, but they were like an hour and a half late.
So I was sitting here for hours waiting for this thing to show up, and they go to get
it up the stairs, and it gets stuck, and they can't get it up the stairs.
I was just like, oh man.
And then I was like, they were going to try to leave that fridge upstairs that's already
up there, and they're like, oh, we can't get that down.
I was like, what goes up must come down.
If we got it up there, and we did when we moved into this building, then surely it's
going to come down.
I said, I don't care if we have to throw it down the stairs, I said, that thing is coming
out of there.
I said, I don't care if you have to saws all apart and destroy it, it doesn't work anyway,
so it's coming out regardless.
And so they did, they made sure they got it out.
So I'm just going to have to buy a small refrigerator to put it upstairs.
So never fear, I'm going to get a small refrigerator to go up there.
And that one, we'll just have two refrigerators down here.
So it all works out together for those that love God and are the called according to His
purpose in this case, but it's just a refrigerator, it's not the Ark of the Covenant, all right?
So it might be similarly shaped, we might have been carrying it kind of the same way
when we were trying to, I was over there trying to help them, it's like these two tiny guys
trying to carry this refrigerator up the stairs, I'm just like, let me help.
So anyway, but I didn't prepare very well, and so I thought that would be a fitting teaching
moment for me in this sermon.
But anything in the ministry, though, done for the Lord, it's important to know what
the Bible says and to go by what the Bible says.
And a lot of times you see in churches where they're practicing things that are not in
the Bible and not in the New Testament, and that's one of the reasons why a lot of people
like churches like our church, because they got tired of all that stuff, they got tired
of all the extra added things or things that are still in the Old Testament that they bring
into the New Testament, and they'll call it something that it's not, and they'll say,
well, there's some kind of precedence for it in the Bible, like baby dedications.
We don't do baby dedications here, and I've turned a couple people down on the baby dedications.
I'll do a private one where I pray with people, and nobody ever wants to do that.
It's always some spectacle that they wanna do.
But if you think about where they get it from, they get it from First Samuel chapter one,
verse 11, where it says, and she vowed a vow, and it's talking about Hannah, and said,
oh Lord of hosts, if thou will indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid and remember
me, and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man child, then
I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come
upon his head.
So this is the verse that they use to say, to dedicate children unto the Lord.
So this is a vow that she's making, though, to give him to the service, and so he's no
longer gonna live with her for the rest of her life.
Is that what you're doing when you do a baby dedication?
Like okay, he belongs to the pastor now, and now he's gonna serve, I'm gonna put a little
ephod on him, as soon as he's weaned and potty trained, he's mine now, and he's gonna
just help me around the church.
Because that's essentially what Samuel was given to, and he obviously became a prophet,
and he had lots of hats, he became a judge, and all those things.
But you can't take that verse and say, well, now we need to have baby dedications in church.
And people just, they want some kind of ceremony, and look, I'm not saying it's evil or something,
but you can dedicate all your children to the Lord in some ceremony in front of a church,
but are they all always going to serve the Lord all the days of their life because you
brought them up as an infant and did some kind of special ceremony in front of the church?
I mean, you might as well just do baby baptism, too, because it's essentially the same thing.
And I know, if you've ever done one before, I'm not mad at you, or I'm not trying to belittle
you, but we literally had an evangelist that that was a big hang-up for them because I
didn't want baby dedications at our church.
I'm just like, okay, he's like, oh, I did baby dedications with all my children.
It's like, okay, so what?
I mean, I'll do them, I'm just not gonna do them according to some pageantry that you
want to do so that you can look cool in front of everybody or whatever.
Whatever your reason to glory in your flesh that you want to do or glory in your child
in front of everybody, I mean, I just think it's ... I'm just not into that pageantry
stuff and I just don't think that's what the Bible's saying to do.
Is that what it's saying to do, or is it saying to dedicate your child and give them to the
high priest?
It was a special vow that she made.
Are we even supposed to vow vows?
I mean, besides our marriage vows?
And people would even dispute that.
But then they'll also use Jesus being the purification that it calls for in the law
where if a man child is born, they're supposed to bring them to the temple and make a sacrifice
for them, and Mary and Joseph do that, and so they're saying, yeah, that's like a baby
dedication.
And it's like, no, that's not a baby dedication, that's something that the law in the Old Testament
called for.
Does it say to do that in the New Testament?
No, because the Levitical priesthood has done away in Christ.
What else?
How about altar calls?
Alter calls is something that are done, and it started in churches that aren't even Baptist
churches, now all kinds of churches do it.
It used to be called the crier's bench or something where you would pick a couple people
that need to repent or something and you'd stick them over on some bench and then the
pastor would just scream at them for like a long time and make them feel bad or something.
But it became this thing where people come up to some platform, and usually they have
stairs on them, and the Bible says to not make stairs for my altar.
So man-made stairs were never part of the altar.
You were not supposed to make stairs on the altar, period.
But every altar, quote unquote, altar that you see in churches today have stairs leading
up to them or they have some sort of platform that you have to walk up, which would be one
stair, right?
Even one stair still nullifies that as being an altar.
And the other thing is that altars are where you burn animals and drip their blood on them
and stuff.
So it's symbolically an altar to people so that they can come up and cry.
And then in Malachi it says specifically, you know, he's upset because people are crying
at the altar.
They're shedding tears at the altar and God's upset about it.
So I mean, it's really kind of ridiculous and especially since the priesthood has been
changed and of a necessity a change in the law also.
So are there altars in the New Testament?
No, because that's been done away in Christ, so why would you have an altar call at your
church?
So I'm just trying to make this point that, hey, in the Old Testament David here had a
problem.
Somebody got killed because of it.
Now, nobody's going to get killed because someone comes up to an old-fashioned altar
on the sawdust trail or whatever and bows down in front of everybody and shows their
hiney to the whole congregation or whatever and, you know, gets saved for the 15th time
or rededicates their life for the 25th time or whatever it is that they're doing up there
or whatever it is or just having the preacher judge how great his sermon was based upon
how many people come up to it.
That's just not in the Bible.
So why don't we just have things that are in the Bible and like where the Bible's silent
then we have room to work there, but if the Bible specifically condemns those things then
we shouldn't have them in New Testament churches.
How about faith-promised missions?
Faith-promised missions was a big deal at one of the churches we went to and Matthew
537 says, but let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, or yes, yes, no, no, for whatsoever
is more than these cometh of evil.
So they have these missionaries come to the church, they probably have like enough for
like three or four days, a missionary for each night, and they come with their slideshows
and show you a bunch of sad pictures of missionaries and the children that they're going to go
reach and they're playing in their mud holes or whatever and the sad things that they show
and they play the sad music, here am I, I will go, you know, all that stuff and at the
end you're supposed to promise how much you're going to give weekly to faith-promised missions
and this is always something that's above the tithe.
So it's not something that's with the tithe, it's something that's above the tithe and
you're supposed to promise that you're going to give that every week.
Well what if you get in a car crash and you lose your job or you have no ability to pay
your faith-promise, so you've just promised to God that you're going to pay every single
week four bucks or whatever, you know, four bucks, twenty-five bucks, twenty-five hundred
bucks, whatever it is, you've made that promise and God expects you to keep those promises.
So you shouldn't promise things to God that you can't keep.
That's why, like even when people say, yeah, pastor, I know I've missed a lot of church
but I promise I'm going to be there this Sunday and they don't come, that's bad, just don't
make that promise, just stop, like, I would just stop somebody from saying that, don't
tell me you're going to be here.
It's almost a guarantee that you're not going to be, you know, so just don't say things
that you don't mean and say things that you, you know, you can't predict what's going to
happen.
So making faith-promise missions, that's an unbiblical thing to bring in your church in
the New Testament.
Street preaching, also not biblical, but yeah, we get criticized when we criticize them about
street preaching and usually street preaching involves them holding signs that aren't Bible
verses that say repent or perish or, you know, you're going to hell or whatever it is that
they say and then they just sit there and scream at people and tell them they're going
to hell, that's like their street preaching.
That's generally what it is.
These Portland street preachers, we've clashed with them before and I just don't want to
have anything to do with them because they're just total idiots and they just want to antagonize
people and get them fighting with them.
But we went to this, we went to this Christian concert one time, this was before the church
even started.
Ollie, were you there?
With Timo, were you there?
Yeah, you were.
Was Toby Mac, right?
Didn't we go to the Toby Mac concert?
Yeah.
We didn't go in, we didn't pay for the tickets.
Huh?
Oh, CJ, okay.
So you look a lot like CJ, sorry.
So but we went with a group of people and then these street preachers were standing
outside and they were telling everybody that went inside the concert that they were going
to hell.
But, you're going to hell, you're a whore, like, I mean, they were just saying all kinds
of crazy stuff.
I'm just like, wow, like that's really going to win them over, you know, and we're sitting
there just trying to talk to people and ask them if they're saved and whatever.
And there was a lot of people that were saved, and then a lot of people that weren't interested,
they wanted to go to the concert.
So it wasn't very effective, but I'll just never forget how those street preachers were
treating people and, you know, the Bible says in Matthew 12, 17, it says that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet saying, behold my servant whom I have chosen
my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him and he shall
show judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.
So if Jesus didn't street preach, then should we street preach?
Because isn't that what he's saying?
You won't, he won't strive, that means fight with people.
He won't cry, it's not talking about weeping, it's talking about crying out loud in the
streets, and neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.
So Jesus did preach, and he did preach loud, but he didn't do it in the streets.
So he was not a street preacher.
But yet people will say, I'll go street preaching because that's what Jesus did.
No he didn't, the Bible says he didn't, what are you talking about?
And you know, obviously we believe in door to door soul winning and going door to door,
and obviously we can get people saved in parks and whoever we run across, whatever,
but some churches, they just say we're going to go out and hand out tracts.
Does the Bible say to do that?
Is it wrong?
No.
But if you're just handing out tracts and you're not talking to people, that doesn't
really take a lot of boldness.
You know, do you want one of these, you know, you can be pretty much a weenie and hand out
a tract, but some people are too scared to do that.
But that's not exactly bold biblical gospel preaching, is it?
You know, we believe in confrontational gospel preaching, where we go and just say, hey,
you know, if you were to die today, would you go to heaven or would you go to hell?
Are you 100% sure that you'd go to heaven?
That's confrontational.
It's like, hey, you know, you're asking them a question to which they're having to think
of, yeah, I don't know, I don't know if I would, or yes I am, or whatever.
And then if you just hand somebody a piece of paper, the chances are they're just gonna
throw that in the garbage, or they're gonna throw it on the ground, in most cases.
Walking up at the door hanger and hanging it on somebody's door doesn't take a lot of
boldness, especially if you run away as soon as you see somebody on the porch.
Which is generally what a lot of these churches do when they say that they go soul winning.
They're handing out tracts, they're putting door hangers out, but you know, we're supposed
to preach boldly, we're supposed to be bold as a lion, and preach the gospel.
Another thing that happens in Baptist churches or other churches is that you'll have a lot
of divorce and remarriage, and the pastor is okay doing it.
The Bible specifically condemns that practice.
But yet I've gone to a church where there was a lady in our church that was married
to an unbeliever for years, and she was always praying that he would get saved and whatever,
which is great.
But then the deacon's son ends up, he was single, and she ends up divorcing her husband
based on 1 Corinthians 7, or whatever, if the unbeliever wants to depart, or whatever.
She ends up divorcing him, and the pastor remarries them at our church after she divorced.
He's specifically defying what the Bible says.
He's specific, like, I will not marry a divorced couple, someone that's been divorced, I won't
marry them.
That's not because I hate them, because I don't want them to have a happy life, or whatever,
I can't go against what the Bible says.
So look, wrath is going to be upon me from God for doing that, so why would I do something
that God has already specifically condemned in the book?
It's just ridiculous.
So that is like, I mean, I'd be more afraid of doing that than any of the things I've
mentioned before.
And then you've got like, you've got pastors even recommending people to get divorced over
something that's not even something that the Bible says to get divorced for.
The Bible says for the cause of fornication, and that's before someone gets married.
So people will say, well, I think that could be adultery, or whatever, but that's not what
I believe, so I believe that it's fornication before someone gets married.
Or if they're married and they say that they were a virgin and they lie about that, then
you can annul the wedding, whatever.
The other thing that you see happening today is feminism getting promoted in church.
And why is that getting, look, all the stuff that's getting promoted in the modern churches
is stuff that's just popular in society, and it's spilling over into church, where husbands
and wives are supposed to be submitting to each other.
This is a teaching that's happening in churches today.
It's like, that's not what the Bible says, though, folks, it's just not.
And this is an unpopular thing that I'm about to say, but I want you to turn to Ephesians
chapter five real quick, and let's just look at what the Bible says.
It's always like, I mean, feminism has just bombarded our society.
This shouldn't be an uncomfortable passage of text to anybody.
It should just be, okay, well, that's what the Bible says, okay, well, let's just go
by what the Bible says.
But Ephesians chapter five verse 19 says, and for a little bit of context, I can't
get into the whole chapter, but for a little bit of context, look at verse 19, it says,
speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Now at this point, is it talking about husband and wives yet in the passage?
No, the next verse is, the next verse says, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands
as unto the Lord.
But if you connect verse 21 to verse 22, then you have a contradiction in the Bible, because
if you're saying that you submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God, then you're
saying that husbands and wives helps to each other, right?
In verse 21, it says, submit yourselves one to the other in the fear of God.
But then you go to verse 22 and say, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as
unto the Lord.
So if you're supposed to submit yourselves to each other, because this is where people
will take this, they'll take verse 21 and say, hey, husbands and wives are supposed
to submit to each other.
That's garbage, folks, that's not what the Bible says, that it's talking about, that's
a different subject, it's talking about things in the church, it's talking about believers
just submitting themselves one to another in the fear of God, it's not talking about
husbands and wives yet, it changes subjects, right, in verse 22, and then starts talking
about something else, it's talking about wives.
Submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.
What does submit mean?
Let me just give you the definition of submit, it says, accept or yield to a superior force
or to the authority or will of another person.
I mean, it's pretty simple, right?
So the person that you're supposed to submit to is somebody that has a superior force or
authority.
They're the authority over you.
So when you get married, wives, your husband is the authority in your life.
Just like when you lived at home, your dad was the authority in your life.
And then when you go to the marriage altar, I don't know everybody if they had a similar
process that like, when I do a wedding, usually the dad, if the dad's involved, will walk
up with the bride and then they say, who gives this woman to be married to this man?
And then the dad will say, I do.
And then, or her mother and I do, whatever.
And then they switch places, they shake hands and switch places, and then they stand next
to each other, and then the authority becomes the husband.
That is like, you know, that's the picture of what the Bible teaches.
That's why that's in the marriage ceremony.
So the wife, the woman is always supposed to have that covering if, you know, obviously
everybody is from different walks of life and different situations, I understand that.
But generally, that's how it's supposed to work.
So the dad is the authority, then the husband, once they get married, is the authority, and
then you're supposed to submit to the authority just like you would your dad.
Now it says, in Ephesians 5, 23, it says, for the husband is the head of the wife.
So it's another way of saying the boss, right?
Even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body, therefore
as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
You know, and people will be like, oh, you're just a chauvinist, you're just, you know,
you're a misogynist for saying that, that's not right, that's not true.
That's what the Bible says, if you're a Christian, that's what you should believe.
What are you talking about?
Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.
Yes, husbands are supposed to love their wives, but you're supposed to love your husband too.
But submitting to your wife, that's not part of the deal.
That is not what the Bible says, and you know, you're contradicting things if you think that
verse 21 is talking about you submitting to each other, because that doesn't make sense.
Anything with two heads is a freak, quoted by Pastor Jimenez, by the way.
It's a freak.
You can't have two heads, there can't be two bosses in the home, it can't be 50-50.
Someone has to be able to make the decision.
Someone has to be able to say, hey, this is how things are gonna be run, this is where
we're gonna live, this is how the children are gonna be schooled, this is the church
we're gonna go to because this is why, and it's not up to the children, it's not up to
the wife what church you go to, it's up to the husband.
This is what we're gonna watch or not watch, this is what games we're gonna play or not
play, this is what car we're gonna drive or not drive, and look, people are upset about
this saying it's a benevolent dictatorship, what's wrong with that?
What is actually wrong, you know, dictatorship, it has a bad connotation to it.
So what?
It just means that someone is in charge.
It's not like, oh, this is a banana republic regime where Che is in charge or something.
That's not what that means.
A benevolent dictatorship just means that somebody's in charge and they do it with,
benevolence means with love and benefits, right?
It's not just like, do what I said or this is gonna happen to you.
That's not what it's talking about.
But somebody has to be in charge, and look, we cannot let feminism creep into our churches
and take over and have these weird ideas being preached, and I'm just sick of all the false
accusations that are out there, just saying stuff like, because I'm friends with Pastor
Anderson that I beat my wife now.
Literally there's people that have said wife beater to me in comments on YouTube.
I'm like, okay, well, first of all, I think that I'd probably wake up with my skull cracked
with a cast iron skillet if I ever hit my wife, but to just sit, that's a railing accusation.
And let me just tell you this, if I saw somebody beating up a woman, they're gonna get stopped
one way or the other.
I'm not gonna just go, oh, yeah, go ahead and beat her up, she deserves it.
Are you kidding me?
Obviously, people that say that to me do not know me.
And I still believe everything I've ever preached when it comes to this issue.
So go ahead and lie about me all you want, Matt Racine, and call me a wife beater,
you piece of garbage.
The only thing you've ever done is talk about men that are better than you.
That's all you've ever done.
And you're gonna sit there and call me a wife beater,
you piece of garbage.
And look, this guy, you guys probably don't even know who he is,
but he's just some fake tough guy that just likes to run his mouth on the internet
about Jack Hyles.
I mean, he gets a chance to preach at his church,
and the first thing he does when his pastor's away
is preach a sermon against Jack Hyles
and bring up rumors and things that were not proven,
which just seems to be the sign of the times,
where people like to just bring up rumors and it's just true.
Nothing ever has to be proven,
it's just true because somebody said it.
And look, I just get tired of it.
And I'm sick of fake tough guy, keyboard warriors
that wouldn't say that to my face,
they wouldn't even say it 10 feet away,
they wouldn't say it 20 feet away from me.
They're just fake tough guys, and they just like to rail
because they're cowards and keyboard warriors.
But that's the age that we live in, isn't it?
Where people can just say things from behind fake names
and fake, yeah, they're just phony.
And some of them will be bold like that.
Yeah, you can say that from up in Montana
where you've gone back to hide in your compound
or whatever you're doing,
but you won't say that to my face.
Come to my church and say that to my face.
You won't do it because you're a coward
and a piece of garbage.
Anyway, so David's preparing.
Preparation, preparation, preparation
to bring back the ark, and how do we know
that we are doing things right in our church
and in our daily lives?
Well, the Bible says, that's how.
Thus sayeth the Lord, that's how.
Thus, what sayeth the scriptures?
That's how we know when we're doing something right.
And in case, look, just to go back a few seconds here,
the Bible says, they that sin rebuke before all.
So if you're gonna get mad at me about saying something,
hey, if somebody just rails and says something
that's just completely not true about somebody
against a pastor, then that person
should get called out publicly.
So don't get all mad about it.
But how does David prepare to bring back the ark?
The right way?
Well, he obviously sought out the book of the law
and read it, just like the Bible says he was supposed to.
Number two, planning and organizing
helps keep things in order.
So look at verse four in our text, it says,
and David assembled the children of Aaron and the Levites.
So David, was he meddling?
I mean, aren't the Levites the ones
that are supposed to be in charge of the tabernacle?
Well, they are, but again, did they do it last time?
Did they say, uh-uh, David,
you're supposed to let us carry that.
They didn't say anything, did they?
David didn't just say, I don't care what you say,
we're doing it like this.
No, they didn't pipe up and say what they're supposed to.
And just because people are in charge of things
doesn't mean they're always gonna do the right job
and do the right thing.
And so I don't think he's meddling
because he's really just overseeing
and making sure it's all taken care of.
Because he is the king, after all.
And he's just organizing it.
So and if you remember, the children of Aaron
are allowed to move the ark,
and the kothites are the ones,
they're also allowed to move it.
So they could have said something,
but they didn't say anything.
But now it's gonna give us this list,
the sons of Kohath, all these people that he,
the sons of Merari, these are people that are Levites.
The sons of Levi, the sons of Gershom, verse seven.
And then I'm gonna skip through some of these names.
Ramon did a good job on the fly of naming all these guys,
but I'm gonna skip down to verse 11.
It says, and David called for Zadok and Abiathar,
the priest, and for the Levites, for Uriel,
Esiah, and Joel, and Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amenadab.
So David called for Zadok.
Now remember, Zadok is the one that's going to actually
carry the priesthood from then on.
But Abiathar is the only one that survived
the slaughter of Saul when he killed all the Lord's priests.
But God prophesied that his line would end.
And I think Abiathar ends up betraying David later on
and going against, I think he ends up being
taken out of the priesthood by Solomon eventually,
and then Zadok's line takes over, and so on and so forth.
So now verse 12, it says, and said unto them,
you're the chief of the fathers of the Levites.
Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren,
that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel
unto the place that I have prepared for it.
So here David is still just lining people out,
he's organizing, he says, hey, you're the chief
of the fathers of the Levites, sanctify yourselves.
And sanctify just, it means that they're supposed
to clean up themselves the way that they're supposed to,
according to the law of Moses,
before they're going to do this.
So it means to set yourself apart, to be holy,
to be special, just like God said to do.
So they're probably gonna have to go back
and read the Bible, figure out exactly
what they're supposed to do, to wash themselves
and put on clean clothes and all that stuff,
and whatever else they're supposed to do, sacrifice animals.
So, and then it says, and then he says
to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel
unto the place that I have prepared for it.
So again, preparation, David's preparing,
and then he's organizing, he's sending the right people out.
Who's in charge?
Zadok and Abiathar.
They are the priests of the Lord,
and they're the ones that are in charge
of setting forth all the things of the Levites.
Everything, because they kind of have,
you know, they have the furniture,
and they're in charge of everything inside the sanctuary,
but really, they have the oversight of the whole tabernacle.
So that is their job, and so David isn't doing their job,
he's not taking over the jobs
of actually killing the animals and sprinkling the blood,
he's not doing that, he's just straightening them out
and telling them what they,
hey, do what you're supposed to be doing, basically.
So, and it says, for ye did it not at the first, verse 13,
the Lord our, so because ye did it not at the first,
the Lord our God made a breach upon us,
for that we sought him not after the due order.
So this is a very important statement,
I think one of the most important statements
in the whole passage here, and he recognizes this,
but notice how he says, for because ye did it
not at the first.
So he is placing some blame on them, isn't he?
He said, ye did it not at the first,
the Lord our God made a breach upon us.
And David ultimately is responsible,
so he puts himself back into the sentence that says,
for that we sought him not after the due order.
So he doesn't completely take himself out
and leave off blame from himself,
because he says we, so he said ye,
and then he says we.
So, yes, he's ultimately responsible
because he's the king, he's the leader,
but he said ye because they should have said something.
They should, you know, just like when Uzziah,
the King Uzziah, goes in and he tries to sacrifice
to the Lord, he has the incense in his hand,
and like all these priests just show up,
and they're like, uh-uh, you're not doing it.
And they face off against the king
and they don't let him burn the incense.
Well, and then he becomes leprous
because he tries to fight against them,
and then he stays in a several house
for the rest of his life.
And, you know, he was a good king,
but he just kind of overstepped his bounds.
And David was wise here not to try to overstep his bounds,
but they didn't also stop him from doing it wrong,
and David should have known to do it right,
but really it's not his responsibility in reality.
But overall it is, and he's making sure now
that it is done right, which that just shows
how good of a leader he is.
And God is a God of order.
When the Bible spells things out to do in order specifically
that's how he wants it done.
It's not like, hey, let's just do it out of order
and do it however we want.
You do it how he said to do it.
When you get saved, you get baptized.
Then you partake of the Lord's Supper.
That's my rule for the partaking of the Lord's Supper.
Now, people can do whatever they want.
They can choose whatever they want.
Once they're here, I don't police the Lord's Table,
but I do warn people, hey, don't take
the Lord's Supper unsaved.
Don't take the Lord's Supper before you've been baptized
because the Bible in the New Testament
puts things in order.
It doesn't say, day they were saved
partook of the Lord's Supper.
It says, they that were saved were baptized.
So, why would you do something out of order
that you're not supposed to do?
Why would you get baptized then get saved?
A lot of people do that though, don't they?
They're called Presbyterians, they're called Catholics,
they're called anybody else that baptizes babies.
It's like, well, just in case they get saved later on.
It's like, no, that's not how it works.
That's why you can't take Acts 838 out of your Bible.
That's why it needs to be in there.
So they can say, oh, you have to believe on Jesus first,
then you may, then you may get baptized.
You get saved first.
So that's why God, when he created the world,
he didn't make man on the first day, did he?
Because it's kind of hard to not have anything to eat,
and especially if the earth was without form and void,
he kind of has to make it have form.
He has to put the trees on there.
He has to put the fruit on there.
The sun has to come up and give light to things.
He has to make the sea and all those things.
He did it in a specific order so that when man is made,
hey, he's got some freshly ripe oranges on the tree
that he can eat or whatever, you know, apples, whatever,
and there has to be food for them.
And then, you know, he makes the animals,
he names the animals, so on and so forth.
So God doesn't do things out of order.
Because God is smart, he does things in order.
And he wants us, especially when it specifies in the Bible,
you must do it this way, then we must do it that way.
And I'm not gonna have you turn there,
but in 1 Corinthians 14, it gives a lot of rules
about speaking in tongues with other tongues.
It gives rules about women being silent in the church
and not being able to preach behind the pulpit.
It gives, you know, specific rules about preaching
that two people can't be preaching at the same time.
It says it must be done by course.
And it says if someone's speaking in tongues,
which it's talking about when someone's just preaching
and they're preaching in a language
that other people can't understand,
that someone has to be there to interpret.
It can't just be, because it wouldn't edify anybody
if nobody understood what somebody was saying.
So in 1 Corinthians 14, 40 it says,
let all things be done decently and in order.
And in verse 37 it says, you know,
hey, acknowledge that the things that I write unto
are the commandments of the Lord.
So when God puts things in order,
when the Apostle Paul is writing this passage
in 1 Corinthians 14, which it seems like he has to write
a lot of instructions to this church
because they just can't seem to get anything right,
he's like, hey, let all things be done decently in order.
Not just the things that I'm telling you here,
but hey, just everything done in church
should be done in an orderly fashion.
It even makes the point, it's like,
hey, everybody's got a psalm,
everybody's got, you know, they got something to preach.
You know, that's what, that would be crazy
if just someone just got up and just pushed me out of the way
and said, I got something to say too.
You know, sit down, pastor.
And then we just sang, someone just came up
with a guitar and started just playing
while I was preaching and then just like, get out of here.
I got a psalm.
I got a piano special, you know.
That's not orderly, that is not decent.
So verse 14 back in our text,
I don't know if I had to turn anywhere,
I don't think I did, but verse 14, our text says,
so the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves
to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel.
So they did what David said.
And the children of the Levites
bear the ark of God upon their shoulders
with the staves they're on as Moses commanded
according to the word of the Lord.
Bingo, they got it right.
And then nobody died because they did what God said.
They put it on their shoulders, the staves,
as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord.
Perfect.
And David spake to the chief of the Levites
to appoint their brethren to be the singers
with instruments of music, saltries,
and harps and cymbals sounding
by lifting up the voice with joy.
So they had music going along with this,
bringing the ark to the city of David.
And one of those things is called a saltry.
It's kind of like a triangle-looking box
that has strings on it.
It's kind of like a little, almost looks like a ukulele,
but it's not really quite shaped like that.
But it's probably a little bigger, I don't know.
Yeah, that's what the internet said, okay?
I just looked up a picture of it, okay?
Who knows what they, you know, exactly how they sound,
I don't know, but they do have people
that modernly play those things.
So, but it's kind of like a little guitar, basically.
And cymbals, what are cymbals made of?
Anybody know?
Brass, thank you, brother Alex.
So, and then there's harps,
which is another stringed instrument.
And let's see, the horn instruments will come later here,
but so it says, so the Levites,
verse 17, appointed Heman, the master of the universe,
the son of Joel, no, just Heman,
and his brethren Asaph, the son of Barakiah,
and the sons of Merari, their brethren Ethan,
and the son of Cushiah.
And with them, their brethren of the second degree,
Zechariah, Ben, and Jaziel,
and Shemariah, Shemariah Moth,
and Jehiel,
and Unai, Iliab, Benaiah,
Masaiah, Mattathiah,
and Eliphilah,
and Mykoniah,
and Obed-Edom,
and Gial, and the porters.
So, I painstakingly read that to you,
just so I could read Obed-Edom.
Obed-Edom is the place, I'm sorry about that,
I know, I was like bee-speaking tongues up here.
But anyway, Obed-Edom is the guy who's holding the ark
for about three months before they brought it back
to Jerusalem.
And he is also part of the party that's bringing it back,
and he is blessed greatly by God,
because when the ark rested there,
he was, God blessed him tremendously.
So, he's one of the porters,
and it says, so the singers,
Heman, Asaph, and Ethan were appointed to the sound
with symbols of brass.
And so, then it kind of goes on and just tells
who's doing what with the different sounds,
and I'll skip down to verse 22.
I'll actually skip down to verse 21,
and then it says, and Mattathiah,
Eliphilah, and Mykoniah,
and Obed-Edom, and Jehiel,
and Azaziah, with harps on the sheminith to excel.
And I looked at that sheminith,
and apparently it's like some musical tone,
or for a sound possibly for brass.
I'm not 100% sure that that's correct,
but that's, when I looked it up on the internet,
you know, everything on the internet's true.
That's what Abraham Lincoln said anyway.
So, anyway, I just, yeah, if I'm wrong about that,
forgive me.
But it's some sort of a musical tone.
It says, with harps on the sheminith to excel.
It's some kind of tone that you play, apparently.
But I don't know why, if it's with a harp,
I don't know why it would be for brass.
So maybe that was some NIV person that was saying that.
So, anyway, take that with a grain of salt.
So, then it says, there's other doorkeepers,
Elkanah and Barachiah.
Let's see.
So, and then Obed-Edom in verse 24 at the end of there
is also a doorkeeper for the ark,
so he's a porter and a doorkeeper, apparently.
And verse 25, so David and the elders of Israel,
and the captains over thousands,
went to pick up the Ark of the Covenant
out of the House of Obed-Edom with joy.
And it came to pass when God helped the Levites
that bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord,
they offered seven bullocks and seven rams.
So, everything's kind of going to plan.
He's got all the singers and everything going well for them.
And one thing I just want to mention
is that there's no drums mentioned in here.
You'll never see drums mentioned in the Bible
as something that they use.
In all the Psalms, it never mentions it.
It doesn't, you know, the heathen nations usually
are the ones that use drums.
Any time these people get together and do hallucinogens,
they're doing drum circles, that's what heathen do.
But you don't see the people of God using drums,
they use trumpets to do trumpet blasts
to say that war's coming,
or that they're going out to war.
That doesn't say to signal with drums.
And I think that we should stick to what the Bible says
to use for instruments.
And God's music should sound different
than the world's music.
I'll just kick that dog while I'm walking by it anyway.
And, you know, nobody comes into the parking lot,
you know, bumping how great thou art,
you know, that's of the world, do they?
People hear God's music and they don't want to,
that's not on the top 100.
That wasn't, there was nothing ever
from Casey Kasen's top 100,
if you even know who that is,
that was hymns, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Ever.
You're never gonna hear it bumped on,
you know, because God's music,
that isn't something to bump to.
Because you're not gonna get some big bass line
that you can bump in your,
with all your subwoofers in your car,
that is just like, oh, it's how great thou art.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
It's not gonna happen.
Because that's not God's music.
And why does the world love that?
Because it appeals to the flesh.
So, and people are always just like,
especially when it comes to skillet,
like those skillet videos that we made a long time ago,
they still get a lot of comments on them,
which is just bizarre.
But it's just because people get mad
because they're following some rock band
where dudes that wear eyeliner are their heroes,
and they talk about Jesus sometimes between the songs,
but none of their songs talk about Jesus.
Jesus is not mentioned in their songs.
Like, I started reading the lyrics of their songs
because I was like, am I wrong about this?
Like, they sure seem to get really mad at me
about this video.
They're like, you don't know, these guys
are the most godly guys they get.
It's like, and then I finally got the goods on the guy
where he brings, like, I was trying to find
where he, like, preaches the gospel, supposedly,
and he's like doing some interview with
the people that ring the bells, the Salvation Army,
some Salvation Army guy, and he's like,
yeah, you gotta just repent, you know,
you gotta repent of your sins.
I was like, aha, gotcha.
So he's like one of those repent of your sins guys,
and his parents were Baptist.
He rebelled against his Baptist parents,
and now he wears eyeliner, and his big claim to fame is
that he tours with Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath,
and, you know, that was from his own lips,
and people were always like, you carefully clipped that
to make him sound bad.
Well, first of all, he looked bad
because he's doing the interview in a bathroom,
and then number two, you know, they were like,
what is your greatest accomplishment,
and his greatest accomplishment was touring
with all these satanic rock bands, Megadeth,
and it's like, they're satanic, like,
well, you know, we gotta be like the world
so that we can get them saved, you know.
How are the atheists gonna get saved?
Well, not by being what they are,
and then like, yeah, okay, but do you think if they sung
songs of the faith that people,
that those bands would tour with them?
No, because they're not singing songs about the faith.
They're not singing songs about the Bible.
They're singing songs that sound
like they could be uplifting to heavy metal riffs,
and that is not Christian music.
God's music sounds different than the world's music,
and that's why we're so careful about the music
that we play here and the music that we sing here,
because our music should not sound like the world's music,
so we don't listen to Christian rap at this church.
We don't play it at this church.
We're not gonna play, Mary, did you know,
the hip hop version?
We're not gonna have canned music up here
where people get up and it sounds like the world.
We're not gonna do that,
and I'm not gonna spend all my time as a pastor
going through everybody's canned music
that they wanna get up here and sing on karaoke night
every single time we have church.
Look, I'm not saying that some of that music
hasn't blessed me over the years,
like where someone gets up and sings a song,
and it's for the Lord or whatever,
but it gets to be exhausting.
The pastor spent more time doing that
than probably anything else of one of the churches
we went to, and it's just like,
dude, just cut out the canned music,
which is sing congregational,
and you could save hours of your time
not having to worry about that garbage.
Anyway, let's move on here.
David, let's look at number three.
David pictures Melchizedek the high priest
and the king of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look at verse 27.
It says, and David was clothed with a robe of fine linen,
and all the Levites that bear the ark,
the singers, and Chena and Niah,
the master of the song with the singers,
David also had upon him an ephod of linen.
So David is wearing this ephod,
and we've seen him in this before,
but I've just never mentioned it,
but an ephod, of course, we went through Exodus,
and the priests wear those.
The high priest wears a special one
that has the curious girdle,
and he's got the ouches with all the,
the high priest has a different looking one
than everybody else.
But David is wearing a linen ephod,
so he's not wearing the fancy one
that the high priest wears,
but he's still wearing one.
But David is not a priest as far as,
he's not a Levite, so why is he wearing this?
Well, I mean, he is.
Jesus is called the son of David, right?
So David pictures him in a lot of ways.
Now, if you remember the colors
of the actual high priest was supposed to wear
was that they wore the gold, blue, purple,
scarlet, and fine twined linen.
But the righteousness is, that linen was white,
the whitest white you could get, fine twined linen.
Now, one of the purposes that David used
to put the ephod on is when he would ask the Lord things,
because in the Old Testament, you couldn't just go to God.
Nobody ever, people couldn't just go to God
for like we can today,
so they had to go to him in certain ways.
They had to inquire of prophets.
They had to, you know, they had to go to the high priest,
or they had to go, yeah, they had to inquire
by the prophets or the priest,
or sometimes God would answer people by dreams,
and so on and so forth.
So in first, I'm just gonna read this verse for you.
First Samuel 28, verse six, it says,
and when Saul inquired of the Lord,
the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams,
nor Urim, nor by prophets.
So when Saul's inquiring of God,
he's not just going to him himself,
and so he's obviously trying to go to some priest by Urim,
because that's the little, the jewels that they had
in those little pouches on the high priest's garments.
So, but God would not answer Saul's prayers, remember?
He wouldn't answer God when he inquired of him.
But David did inquire of him by the ephod that he had,
and remember, Abiathar escaped,
when Saul killed the priest, Abiathar escaped,
and found David, and David's like,
I knew I should have, you know,
I knew that Doeg the Edomite was there,
and I got those priests killed.
But anyway, he had his own, he had his own priest with him.
And so, because he had his own priest with him,
he had the ephod, so he had that guy that could,
he could inquire of God by,
and he had his seers with him, he had Nathan and Gad.
But not at this point,
I don't think he had those guys yet, but anyway.
And firstly, I'll just read these for you,
because we don't have a lot of time left,
but if you want to write these down.
First Samuel 23, verse nine, it says,
And David knew that Saul secretly
practiced mischief against him.
And he said to Abiathar the priest,
Bring hither the ephod.
Then said David, O Lord God of Israel,
thy servant has certainly heard
that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah
to destroy the city for my sake.
Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand?
Will Saul come down as thy servant hath heard?
O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee,
tell thy servant, and the Lord said,
He will come down.
Then said David, Will the men of Keilah
deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?
And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up.
Then David and his men went,
which were about 600 rows, and departed out of Keilah,
and went whithersoever they could.
And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah,
and he forbared to go forth.
So there's one instance where he brings out,
so David puts on the ephod,
and he asks God specific questions.
So one aspect of David wearing the ephod
is that he inquires of the Lord by wearing this.
Now the Bible doesn't really spell out
that this is permissible,
but God answers his questions, so obviously it is.
And David isn't even king yet,
but he is anointed by Samuel at this point.
But God still answers his prayers, doesn't he?
God still answers his questions.
And then he does it again,
it doesn't say when he goes to the Battle of the Philistines
he does inquire of God again,
but it doesn't specifically say he puts on the ephod,
but I believe he did.
In 1 Samuel 30 verse seven it says,
And David said to Abiathar the priest,
a Himalac son, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod.
And Abiathar brought thither the ephod unto David.
And David inquired at the Lord, saying,
Shall I pursue after this troop?
Shall I overtake them?
And he answered him, Pursue,
for thou shalt surely overtake them,
and without fail recover all.
So there's two instances where David puts on the ephod,
the, you know, it's like a vestment that goes over,
it's made of fine twine linen,
and he inquires at the Lord specific questions,
because again, in that time you just couldn't
just ask God questions and he's gonna answer you
directly like that.
So he had to have that on specifically to inquire apparently.
So that's just how it was.
And so why is he putting it on
in this particular part of the story?
Why does he have it on while he's leading?
Why isn't the high priest leading all this?
It's just kinda interesting, but I believe it's because,
well, number, and I will just have you
turn to Exodus 19 real quick here.
Turn to Exodus 19.
The Bible says in Exodus 19, if you have time to turn,
I'm just gonna start reading it when I get there, verse five.
It says, Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and deed,
and keep my covenant, then I will,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me
above all people, for all the earth is mine,
and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests.
So a kingdom has a king, right?
And God, of course, was the king,
but in the time of David,
David is the king of Israel, isn't he?
And he pictures the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the son of David.
That says a kingdom of priests.
So there are priests that are specifically set aside
that are Levites that do all the service of the Lord,
but he's also saying, hey, if you'll keep my commandments
and all this, you shall be a kingdom of priests
and an holy nation.
These are the words which thou shall speak
unto the children of Israel.
So when David puts on this ephod, he is a priest, isn't he?
Because he's one of the children of Israel,
and he's obeying everything that God said,
and he literally is the king.
So he does kind of have the right to put this ephod on
and partake in this, but he's not a Levite.
But I guess you'd say he's a small p,
like the small priest.
He's not like one of the head priests or something,
but just like we're all priests, right?
We're all priests in the holy nation,
the spiritual Israel today.
We're all kings and priests unto our God,
and David similarly was the same thing,
but he actually was the king, the law of the land,
and he was a priest, if you'll go by Exodus 19, verse six.
He said, you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests.
So I would just say that he does have the right to wear it
because of that, because I was trying to figure out
how does he have the right to wear this,
and that's the only thing I could really figure there.
But make no mistake, though,
there's a picture of future events here,
and there's a shadow picture of the future fulfillment
of Jesus Christ being the high priest,
and then he's also the king of kings and lord of lords.
So the Bible doesn't specifically talk about
in the Old Testament how that's gonna work out,
but in Hebrews it talks about how it's evident
that the Lord sprang out of Judah,
of which tribe Moses spake nothing
concerning the priesthood, but here he is,
and he's a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek, right?
So David is basically just leading the worship here,
and he's jumping up and down,
and he's dancing to the Lord with all of his might,
and let's see, verse 28 back in our text says,
Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant
of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the cornet,
and with the trumpets and the cymbals making noise
with salt trees and harps, and it came to pass
as the ark of the covenant of the Lord
came to the city of David, that Michael,
the daughter of Saul, looking out at a window,
saw King David dancing and playing,
and she despised him in her heart.
So, and I just want to finish just giving you
this principle of the Bible.
So, obviously this is a great victory, you know?
David does everything right, the children of Israel,
you know, in second Samuel it records this,
and saying that David, you know,
every six paces they would do a sacrifice,
and in the end all of Israel brings the ark up,
and at the end he gives everybody a flagon of wine,
a good piece of meat, and a big hunk of bread or something,
and sends them home, everybody's all happy,
he's blessing the people, and as he's about to go home
and it says, and bless his home, he's met with,
you know, his freaky wife that's, you know,
freaking out on him, right?
And she's a little spoiled princess apparently,
and she just, you know, hates him in her heart.
I mean, she hates her husband in her heart
because he was dancing, you know,
in front of, you know, the Lord with all of his might.
She despised him in her heart,
but I'm sure that's not what he was waiting to come home to.
You know, I don't know, I probably shouldn't ask this,
but like, I'm sure everybody's been in this situation
where you're a guy, okay, and you think,
oh, everything's cool, I'm coming home,
and it's like all of a sudden, you know,
your wife's mad at you for some reason,
and you didn't even, you're just completely oblivious
as to why, and you're like, what did I do, you know?
And it's just like, then you gotta figure it out
or whatever, but I'm sure the same thing has happened
where your husband's mad, whatever,
with your, at a wife or whatever,
but this has happened to me, and maybe I'm just oblivious
because I'm a man, but I've had this happen to me before,
okay, so I can kind of sympathize a little bit
with David here, not that my wife hates me in her heart
or something, I'm just saying that, you know,
there's been times when I thought,
oh yeah, everything, hey, what's up?
And then it's like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble, you know?
But the point I wanna make, though,
is that David has this great day, everything's going great,
and this big spiritual victory happens,
but in the Bible, you see this principle
where some great victory, there'll be some big defeat
that also happens right afterwards.
And so I feel like this is one of those times
where David, everybody's blessed,
everybody's got all aplenty,
David's done everything that's right,
and then he comes home and his home life is not right.
And it's like, what did he do wrong?
Well, I mean, apparently she thought
that he took off too much of his clothing or something,
he was sweating when he was dancing and jumping around
or whatever, and his answer to her
wasn't the greatest answer in the world either,
so he wasn't really exactly being very loving back,
but that point ruined their marriage.
And so obviously we should have grace in men,
we should have grace when our wives
are upset with us over something,
but you also shouldn't hate your husband in your heart.
You shouldn't despise them for things,
and we should be forgiving to each other.
But you also have these instances
happening at different times in the Bible,
and just because you're spiritually doing great,
it doesn't mean that everything else in your life
is going great, and is automatically gonna be great.
Because we're sinful, and not everybody's
on the same page at the same time all the time.
And so our relationships in our lives,
not just husband and wives, but any relationships
in our lives, can go bad because maybe
they're not spiritually having the same day.
She obviously isn't because she's looking out the window
hating her husband in her heart.
Everybody else is having a good time, but Michael.
And then he comes home to bless his family,
and she's like, eh, David, eh, eh, eh.
She's nagging him out the door.
And she just ruined that great spiritual day.
But I'm just saying that this happens in the Bible a lot.
Moses, same situation.
God appears to him in a burning bush.
And then he's like, go Moses, only you can
lead the children of Israel into the promised land.
And Moses is like, yeah, okay, cool, whatever.
And then his wife, God is gonna kill him,
and his wife circumcises their son,
and then throws the foreskin at him
and calls him a bloody man.
It's like, oops, you know?
And then if you think about like Elijah.
Elijah kills all the prophets of Baal.
There's a big showdown, and there's this great battle
that takes place, and then Jezebel happens.
And Jezebel says, you're gonna be dead
by this time tomorrow.
He's like, ah, you know, he just takes off running.
He's afraid, he goes on this big journey,
and God just like has to kind of talk him down
and pull him out of his depression.
But all those things are like great victories
where these great things are happening,
these great spiritual battles are happening,
and then like some little thing happens
and ruins everything.
But how do you pull yourself out of those things?
Well, sometimes in the Bible, great triumph
is followed by some big personal defeats.
And this is a theme, think of Jephthah.
He defeats all these armies, and he comes home,
and he's like, the first thing I see, I'm sacrificing.
And it's like, it's his daughter.
I mean, it was a dumb thing for him to say,
but he probably wasn't expecting that to be,
probably thought it was gonna be some lamb or something,
but it's his daughter.
So big spiritual, you know, big personal defeat.
Big stupid thing he does.
But how do we pull ourselves out of situations like that?
Because this can happen in our daily lives.
You can have a great spiritual day and you come home,
and then it's like chaos at home.
Or you can have a great spiritual day,
and then like, you know, something else goes wrong
in your life, and like, why is this happening?
Like, I thought that everything was going great,
like why, you know, and you might think like,
what's the point of being on this spiritual high,
or this great spiritual plateau that I'm on,
and then like everything, you know,
this other stuff is going wrong.
How do you fix that?
Well, I would just say this, that you have to not quit.
You have to continue, and in all these cases
that I mentioned, these guys move forward with their life.
Elijah did come down from the mountain.
He did what God said, and that got him back
in the ministry doing the things he was supposed to be doing.
Moses did, he's just like, right after this happened,
he just like goes to the elders of Israel,
they believe him, and then they follow him
out into the wilderness.
And, you know, I don't know about Jephthah,
I mean, but he was still a great man of God,
but when it comes to David, he still was a great man of God
after this happened with Michal.
Yeah, his marriage failed with her, and that was terrible,
but it's not like he just let this defeat him
from being a godly man for the rest of his life.
You know, he did screw up, and look,
we're gonna have some things in our life that go wrong
just because we live in a sinful world.
And not everything's gonna work out perfectly.
Our health isn't gonna work out perfectly all the time.
Our jobs aren't gonna work out perfectly all the time.
You're like, I'm serving God, why is this happening to me?
It's just the way things are.
But we have to keep trucking, we have to keep going,
we have to keep living.
You can't just let small things,
and sometimes it's not even small,
we can't let the things that go wrong in our life
dictate how we're gonna serve God.
That's what I really wanna say.
We can't let that happen,
because you can have a series of things,
and that stuff will pull you out of church.
That stuff will make you wanna quit.
Elijah wanted to quit, he's like, just kill me.
Just kill me now.
Moses said the same thing multiple times.
He's like, kill me, you know?
And you can get to where you feel like that.
And sometimes it can just be a small thing.
I'll tell you, some of the small things
are what make me wanna quit sometimes.
I can go through huge battles, and I'm like, I'm cool.
But then some small thing happens,
and I'm just like, I wanna be done.
You know?
I don't know, I don't know if anybody else
has ever felt like that, maybe I'm just,
you guys are, I'm on the couch right now.
But it is true though, sometimes it's the little things,
they say that term, the little things kill.
And sometimes it could just be that one last pebble
that just kinda makes you wanna quit.
I'm not saying I'm gonna quit, or I wanna quit.
Every once in a while, everybody wants to quit.
So, but we can't let ourselves get to that place
when you get low, when you get down, don't blame God.
Don't say, well, if I wasn't serving God,
I would be doing this and doing better.
Don't talk to yourself like that, that's rubbish.
Stay positive, be of good cheer.
Cause Jesus said, I have overcome the world.
So, think positive, if you're just down
on your problems all the time, and you think there's,
oh, everything's just so bad, you keep living that
every single day, and it's gonna make you a negative person,
it's gonna make you feel negative, it's gonna make you,
it's gonna make you feel like giving up, you know?
And the more you just think about how bad things are,
that's what's gonna be what you are and how you are.
And look, we should be positive,
as much as we possibly can be.
Yeah, we have hard days, yeah, we have hard years,
we have hard times, but don't let that,
look, we're children of the king.
And he loves us, and even though we fall in hard times,
he still takes care of us.
We have more blessings in our lives
than we actually wanna give credit for sometimes,
and I think that we need to remember that,
especially this time of year.
So, anyway, let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for the Bible,
we thank you so much for all the blessings
that we have in our life.
Lord, I pray that you'd help us to be a people
that have a positive outlook,
and Lord, that we would be of good cheer,
we would take those versus the heart,
and I pray that you'd just bless us
as we go our separate ways, keep us safe,
all those people that are sick and at home
that couldn't make it, pray that you'd just bless them,
help them feel better, and Lord, I pray
that you would help us to win more souls this weekend.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.