(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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