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Now, in 2 Samuel chapter number 3, beginning in verse number 1, the Bible reads, Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David, but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker. Now we talked about this last week. We saw Abner was the captain of the host for the house of Saul. Saul and his son Jonathan, which was his mightiest son, the one who loved the Lord the most and was the greatest leader, had been killed in battle on the same day. Several of Saul's other sons had been killed the same day. And this weak son of Saul that happens to be left, Ish-bosheth, is the one that's reigning, but he's pretty much just being propped up by Abner. And Abner was the main general underneath King Saul, the captain of his host. And so now Abner is kind of the one who has the real power. Ish-bosheth is just kind of the figurehead. And if you remember, David has been anointed king of that southern kingdom of Judah. And I want to spend a bunch of time reviewing from last week, but I have to kind of set the scene here just so that we can understand the story, because these are not really super common Bible stories that we're constantly hearing about. This isn't exactly David and Goliath. But yet the Bible teaches that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. And so we need to learn what we can from 2 Samuel chapter 3 tonight and understand the lay of the land. The whole nation of Israel had been ruled by the judges for about 400 years. But then if you remember, they rejected God's system and said, give us a king like all the nations around us. That's when they had King Saul for 40 years. Well, when King Saul dies, he doesn't really have a clear successor, and here's why. Because he died losing a battle. The Philistines come in and invade, so he ended his life failing, okay? His greatest sons that would have been the leaders, they're all dead. So there's this guy, Ish-bosheth, but then a lot of people are looking to David and saying, well, you know, David has been the greatest warrior. He's the one who slew Goliath. He's the one who led us into battle back when we were winning, so maybe David should be our king. And of course, Samuel the prophet had already anointed him king. It was the Lord's will that David be king. So what happened is the tribe of Judah breaks off from the rest of the nation and just on their own anoints David to be king over them. And so for seven years, David is reigning over just the tribe of Judah. And the rest of the nation is without a king for a while. You know, they're under Ish-bosheth for a while. Abner is kind of the one that's keeping things together in the rest of the kingdom. That's where we're at in this story. So there's a war going on between David and his men and the men that are following Abner and the house of Saul because they want to bring Judah back under their yoke and basically have the whole kingdom be united. So that's where we're at. And we see from verse one here that David is the one who's winning. David's men are mightier and so on and so forth. Now look what the Bible says in verse two. It says, and unto David were sons born in Hebron. And Hebron is the name of the city that he's reigning from. This is before Jerusalem had become a capital city. So Hebron is kind of the capital city of Judah at this time. And so it says, sons were born unto him in Hebron and his firstborn was Amnon of Ahinoam the Jezrelitess and his second, Kyliab of Abigail the wife of Nabor the Carmelite. And the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. And the fourth, Adonijah the son of Hagith and the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital and the sixth, Ithrium by Eglah, David's wife. These were born to David in Hebron. Now what do you notice here about these sons that are being born? They're all from different women. Do you notice that? Because David here has six sons born in Hebron with six different women. Now there was also another woman that we know that he was originally married to, her name was what? Michal. So his original wife that was given to him by King Saul when he was a young man was Michal. And of course he'd been separated from Michal because when King Saul started hunting his life and so forth, he's been estranged from his wife. So he went out and took a different wife. And then since he's taken a second wife, he figures, hey, let's take a third wife. And then he took a fourth, and then he took a fifth, and then he took a sixth. Here at this point, he has seven wives because there's Michal, the one that he was originally married to, he's not with her, but he has six more women listed here as his wives and he's having children with them and so on and so forth. Now some of the things that we can learn from this is that sin takes you further than you want to go. You know, we might think to ourselves, well, you know, I'm just going to dabble in sin, but what happens is when you start sinning, you end up sinning more than you probably originally thought that you were going to sin. And here's the thing, when he took his second wife, that's already sin because the Bible clearly tells us that a man should leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife singular and they too shall be one flesh. So the Bible is crystal clear that a man is only supposed to have one wife. But once you go beyond that and have a second wife, why not have a third? Why not have a fourth? You know, that's the mentality that people have today and this is why we should always be very careful to draw the line where God draws the line and not to go over that line because once you cross the line from what God says, it becomes a slippery slope where anything goes because honestly, if someone were to say, hey, it's okay to have more than one wife, then at that point, really, you could just say, well, there's just no limit. Why not have seven? Why not have 700? That's what his son is going to do, King Solomon, right, 700. So the bottom line is that sin is a slippery slope once we go outside the parameters of what God has authorized. You know, just to give you an example, when we think about clothing, okay, the Bible talks about not showing our nakedness and that we should wear clothing and cover our nakedness. And if you study the Bible, you'll find that the Bible defines the nakedness in a few places. For example, in Exodus chapter 28 verse 42, it talks about how the priests should wear linen britches. Now what's a modern word for britches? Pants, right? And we still say britches sometimes, talk about somebody being too big for their britches, but we would use the word pants. But the Bible used the word britches, so it talks about the priests in the Old Testament would wear linen britches or pants, and it says that they should reach from the loins unto the thighs in order to cover their nakedness. That's what it says in Exodus 28, 42. Now I've heard some people say, well, you know, it's from the loins to the thighs, not inclusively. Well, that would be a speedo, okay, and I don't think God would even call, that wouldn't be britches. That would no longer be able to be defined as britches, because if it's not going to cover the thighs at all, it's just going to stop at the beginning of the thigh, pretty much you have no fabric there. So I believe that when the Bible says, from the loins unto the thighs they shall reach, that it would cover the loins and cover the thighs, that's going to be the reach of that garment. That's the only way that it could be defined as britches or pants, okay. So if I look at that scripture that says, hey, tell these guys to wear britches, and then he's going to give an exact reach that says from the loins to the thighs they shall reach, I think God's trying to tell us in that scripture, hey, that's your nakedness. That's what you need to cover when I tell you to cover your nakedness, cover your loins, cover your thighs. Elsewhere, there's a scripture that talks about a person's buttocks, that's the word that the Bible uses, and it says that that's their nakedness, you know. So that's another thing that, you know, if you're going to wear pants that go from your loins to your thighs, obviously that's going to be covered, okay. And then also in Isaiah 47 verse 3, we don't really have as strong of a verse there, but it's a supporting verse. I think Exodus 28 42 is the strong verse from the law, but I think Isaiah 47 3 could be a supporting verse when it talks about, you know, uncovering the thigh and then it says thy nakedness shall be seen. So if it's going to say, uncover thy thigh, thy nakedness shall be seen in the same breath, knowing what we already know from Exodus 28 42, you know, God's telling us that we should be clothed in the sense that we should have our loins and our thighs covered. And that not to have our loins and our thighs covered is defined in the Bible as nakedness. Now the world doesn't define that as nakedness. The world is fine with short shorts and speedos and whatever else, bikinis and all these different But the question is, where does God draw the line of what nakedness is? Now I bet you're to guess that the vast majority of people would draw the line somewhere. You know, for example, there was a guy in Berkeley, California that was arrested because he went to the University of California in Berkeley wearing nothing but a backpack. Now he wasn't technically fully naked, right? Because he did have a backpack on. He was wearing a backpack, but anybody would pretty much agree, hey, this guy's naked. Hey, this guy's not dressed right, okay? So the question is, where do you draw the line though? And people have their arbitrary lines that they draw and they might have their opinions or what they think. But I'd rather go to the Bible and say, you know, what does the Bible say about our nakedness and not just leave it up for grabs and therefore I make sure that when I wear a pair of shorts, what we would call them today, you know, pants that don't go all the way to your ankles. If I wear a pair of shorts, I wear shorts that cover my thigh, that go down to my knee. I don't wear short shorts, well, but what if you're playing basketball or, you know, particular sport? What if you're boxing, you know, then you got to wear, no, I'm going to, if I'm going to be in public, if I'm going to be in mixed company, if I could be seen by a woman other than my wife, then I need to cover my nakedness. And so I need to wear shorts that, you know, and you shouldn't even have to say this, but you know, pulled all the way up also. You know, you'd think the discussion would just be about the thighs, but we have to talk about the Lloyd's, you know, pull it all the way up to your waist, okay? And also I'm going to make sure that I wear something that goes down to the knee. You know, and for example, if I were to play some kind of a sport that, say, required me to wear something shorter than that, I'm just not going to play or I would seek for a modification of what, you know, for example, in Muay Thai, which is like boxing, you know, it's kickboxing, they have these real short shorts in Muay Thai, right? But you know what I did is whenever I would do sparring and they required us to dress out in the Muay Thai shorts, I would just wear the, like those bicycle type shorts down to my knee underneath the Muay Thai shorts so that I'd make sure that I was, you know, being covered and that I wasn't out there in the short shorts and so forth. And it was allowed. But if it hadn't been allowed, then I would have just abstained. I mean, it's that simple, folks, because what we believe should be important to us and we should strive to follow, you know, the guidelines that God has laid out. And God says it's a shameful thing for us to just go out and expose our nakedness. Now you say, why bring this up? Because what will happen is sometimes you'll have Christian people who have a different set of rules. Like when I was in Christian school, here's what they said, fingertip length shorts. You know, and hopefully you're not shaped like an orangutan, you know, or I guess that would be good if you're shaped like an orangutan. But you know, basically these girls would be checked for their shorts at Christian school when we'd go to camp and stuff like that, you know, and they're kind of like going like this and stuff. See? It's fingertip length. You know, they're shrugging their shoulders. Fingertip length. So that's like halfway up their thigh. But let me ask this. On what authority can they say fingertip length? Because once you decide I'm not going to go by what the Bible says of going to the knee, well, you might as well go above fingertip length. Well, just keep it modest. According to who, though? So, obviously, yeah, there is modesty, but also there is a guideline of covering your nakedness. And I believe that every man and every woman should keep their loins and their thighs covered when in public. And so women should wear skirts and dresses that go to their knee. And men should wear pants or shorts that go to their knee and that cover their nakedness. And the reason I bring that up is just to show you another example of where when you don't go by God's rule, pretty soon all the clothes are going to come up. I mean, if you think about it, if you teach your kids, kids, just keep it fingertip length. You know what they're going to do? They're going to grow up and be like, well, where's that in the Bible? And then they're going to be like, well, who's to say I can't wear this bikini to the beach or this bathing suit to the beach? I mean, everybody else, nobody else considers I'm naked. You know, maybe my parents are just a little old-fashioned or whatever. But that's why instead of just having arbitrary rules, like think about Islam has this arbitrary rule, four wives. You max out at four wives. You know, don't let it bother you that Mohammed had what, nine or something? But they say, well, he's an exception. I mean, I guess when you're the big time prophet of God, you get a few extras or whatever. But you know, they have this arbitrary limit of four, but it's like, well, wait a minute. No, God's limit is one. And God's limit is that we keep our loins and our thighs covered. And if we would actually teach our children things that make sense from the Bible and say, kids, here's the standard because it's in the Bible, not just, well, it's our rule. Because then they're just going to grow up and say, well, I don't like your rule and just do what they want to do. Now, if you want to have rules for your kids that are not biblical, that's okay because, you know, we all have unbiblical rules for our kids because we just have rules that we make up because God has given us that authority to run our homes. But you can't expect your kids to follow those things lifelong. You know, biblical principles are timeless truths that are lifelong. And so what we see here is David has gone off a slippery slope. First he had one wife. Next thing you know, he has two. Now he's up to seven. Okay, this guy's going down the wrong path in that area of his life. And by the way, when you read David's life, you see that he never really had true love in his life with women because of the fact that, you know, the polygamy is not the path toward marital bliss and marital happiness. And everybody who ever practiced this in the Bible, because a lot of people will foolishly say, oh, people in the Bible did it, therefore it's okay. Well, people are doing a lot of crazy stuff in the book of 2 Samuel. That doesn't mean God said it was right. God is giving us a lot of bad examples in the Bible. He gives us good examples and bad examples, both. But these are some bad examples. And every single person you'll find in the Bible who had more than one wife, you can't give me a good example of it. It always went badly. Think about it. If you think about Jacob, they hated each other, they're fighting with each other, there's all this strife and anger and friction. If you think about at the beginning of 1 Samuel where we have Elhanan and he has, you know, Hannah and Penina and they're enemies, they hate each other, they're fighting. And in this story there's going to be more strife and hatred between wives and so forth. So again, it's not God's will. It's never been God's will. And we need to take heed, obviously this isn't hard for us to take heed to because our culture rejects polygamy anyway, which is good, but we just need to take heed to not cross lines that God has drawn in any area of our life. Because once you do, it's a slippery slope. Plus, not only that, the sins that we commit in moderation our children will take to an extreme because here's David committing a sin of having multiple wives, but you know, he's not taking it too far, he's not going too crazy with it, but who's really going to go crazy with it? His son Solomon is going to multiply hundreds of wives because what we do in moderation our children will often do in excess. You know, you look at a guy, for example, like Eli. When Eli was a man, the Bible tells you he's a gluttonous man. And because Eli was a gluttonous man and did not restrain his physical appetites, his sons grew up, they were gluttonous also, but then they also wouldn't bridle in any of their appetites. So they were committing fornication and were total sons of Belial, according to the Bible. So we need to keep sin out of our life for these reasons. Let's keep reading the story here. It says in verse 6, and it came to pass while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David, that Abner made himself strong for the house of Saul. Now what that means is that after a while Abner is getting sick of playing second fiddle to these weak leaders from the house of Saul, so he decides that he wants to just rule on his own. He's starting to think along those lines like, you know what, these guys are not getting it done, and so I think I'm just going to make myself strong for the house of Saul. Even though I'm not a physical relative, maybe I can just kind of take the kingdom and become king. He's thinking along those lines. He's making himself strong for the house of Saul. It says in verse 7, and Saul had a concubine whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Ayah, and his Bosheth said to Abner, wherefore has thou gone in unto my father's concubine? Why did you go in to my father's concubine? Now you say, what's a concubine? A concubine is a woman that you're sleeping with. That's what a concubine is. It doesn't mean that you're married, it's just a woman that you're sleeping with. So Saul had a woman like this that was a concubine. This was not his official wife, this was just a woman that he slept with. And basically Abner, in order to strengthen his position in the kingdom, decides that he wants to inherit this concubine. And basically that's going to give him claim to some rights. Now this might be hard for us to understand, the culture and everything, but if you study the Bible you'll see this elsewhere. This is exactly what Adonijah tries to do in the book of 1 Kings, where he tries to take David's concubine because he wants to become king and he wants to just kind of show his authority in that way and throw his weight around that way. And again, look, this is something that is again sinful and wrong. It was sinful and wrong for Saul to even have this concubine in the first place. And then, you know, Abner is doing wrong by being with this concubine. These are people that are committing sin. And the Bible is a book about people who are sinful people and do wrong. So we should never look to the Bible to try to justify sin in our lives by saying, well, look at all these people in the Bible did it. Yeah, but there's people in the Bible murdering and stealing and doing all kinds of things. That's not the point. Whenever we see people commit these kinds of sins, they get punished for it. That's the whole point of reading these stories. You say, why does God put all these stories about people that are having concubines and they're, you know, they're being with multiple women and they're killing each other. Why would God give us these stories? Because that's what the world is like. Do you think that we live in a world where people don't have a concubine? Do you think that we live in a world where polygamy does not exist? Do you think that we live in a world where murder and stealing doesn't... We live in a world filled with sinful, wicked people. And so the Bible tells stories about real people and the type of situations that actually exist in the world today. It's funny because I've even had some people say things like this to me and you've probably had people say things like this to you too. They'll say something like, well, you know, I don't believe in God. I don't believe in the Bible anymore because I just look at all the bad things in the world and it just makes me not believe in God. Have you ever heard people say things like that? Like there's so much pain and suffering and so many bad things. You know, I just can't believe that God would allow all that. I just don't think that there even is a God. I just don't believe in the Bible anymore. But what's so foolish is that the people who are saying that have probably never read the Bible. Because if you read the Bible, the Bible actually depicts the world as a very bad sinful place. I mean, that's how the Bible portrays it. So the more that you see bad things in the real world, that actually just confirms what the Bible is saying. Because a lot of people live in this delusion that, you know, everything's nice and everybody's wonderful and people are good and, you know, there's no evil in the world. There are people who kind of go through life naively thinking those things. But you know, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that the world is filled with sinful people, that there's all kinds of murder and adultery and stealing and concubines and, you know, it's the real world. And that's why the Bible is so relevant to us today because it depicts the type of situations. And you know, just because we don't call it a concubine anymore, let me tell you something. If you're a woman that's living with a guy that you're not married to, that's what you are. You're his concubine. Now, he'll tell you like, oh, you're my girlfriend. And oh, you're my, you know, oh, you're my sweetheart and all this. Because the word concubine sounds kind of derogatory, doesn't it? Like no woman grows up and says, I just want to find a guy and just be his concubine. You know what I mean? No, you know, you want to be his wife, right? But do you want to be a concubine? No. So people don't use that word. Maybe if we use that word again, maybe we should bring that word back and then people would start to realize kind of how things are really going in the world. And by the way, you know, if a woman respects herself and respects her body, she should wait until she's married to have that physical relationship and not just basically have that relationship with a guy who is not willing to put a ring on it and make it official and make that commitment, you know, that's just going to use her and then cast her aside when he's done with her because she's just a concubine. And even a temporary concubine at that, I mean, it's worse than a concubine. I mean, at least these concubines at least were there for life and at least they're, you know, being provided for for life. I mean, you know, it's worse than a concubine today how women are treated by men. And so, you know, have some self-respect ladies and have some dignity and say, you know what, I'm going to value my body, I'm going to value my life and my and my status here and I'm going to wait until I'm married to have that relationship. And even if you've already made that mistake in the past, you know, from here on forward, you should have some dignity and respect for yourself and keep yourself clean and pure from here on out until you get married. OK. But anyway, this concubine is basically just basically a political pawn at this point. Right. I mean, it's just like, oh, I mean, is Abner just head over heels in love with this woman? He's just strengthening himself for the House of Saul. I mean, isn't that what it's saying? Just I mean, he's just this is a totally selfish, self-centered relationship that's just for his own personal gain. He's going to go in and basically, you know, be physical with this woman. So Ish-bosheth, you know, says to him, he says, you know, wherefore hast thou gone in unto my father's concubine? You know, what are you doing? Because he kind of sees which way the wind's blowing that Abner is trying to take power. So look what Abner says in verse eight. Then was Abner very wroth for the words of Ish-bosheth. And by the way, when you point out people that do something wrong, they'll get mad. You know, you should be mad at them. But honestly, when people do wrong, they have a guilty conscience, they'll often get mad when you point out the wrong that they've done. So basically, Ish-bosheth has a legitimate point here, doesn't he? Hey, why are you going in unto my father's concubine? And so Abner lashes out at him. He's very wroth with him because people don't like to be rebuked. And so he's very wroth with him and said, Am I a dog's head, which against Judah do show kindness this day unto the house of Saul thy father, to his brethren and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hand of David, that thou chargest me today with a fault concerning this woman? So do God to Abner and more also, except as the Lord hath sworn to David, even so I do to him, to translate the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the throne of David over Israel, and over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba. And he could not answer Abner a word again because he feared him. So again, we see this, Ish-bosheth, this guy's got a weird name, Ish-bosheth is a very weak man. You know, he comes and confronts Abner, but he can't really back it up. And he kind of cowers away in fear when Abner gets on him, okay? So he kind of skulks away in fear. And Abner says, well you know what, if that's how it's going to be, if you're not going to be allied with me, I've done stuff for you, and now you don't want to get behind me, well then let's just turn the kingdom over to David, because that's what God said to do anyway. Now if he already knew that that's what God has said, why has he been resisting the will of God for the last seven years and causing all this bloodshed of people dying and fighting a war over this? So Abner's not a good guy, is he? So it says in verse 12, Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, saying, whose is the land? Saying also, make thy league with me, and behold, my hand shall be with thee to bring about all Israel unto thee. So he's saying, look, here, let's negotiate. I'll bring to the table the rest of the tribes and get the kingdom all behind you, but you have to make a league with me. You're going to treat me good and take care of me in return. So it says in verse number 13, David said, he said, well, I will make a league with thee, but one thing I require of thee. That is, thou shalt not see my face, except thou first bring Michal, Saul's daughter, when thou comest to see my face. And David sent messengers to Ishbasheth, Saul's son, saying, deliver me my wife Michal, which I espouse to me for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. And Ishbasheth sent and took her from her husband, even from Faltiel, the son of Laid. So here, you know, he's already moved on to the six other wives. But he says, you know, well, you're not going to see my face unless you bring me my original wife. You know, you guys took my wife away from me and I want her back. So you know, I don't even, I'm not even going to negotiate. I don't want to talk about this until you, you bring her with you when you come to talk to me. Okay. So that's what David said. So these guys, you know, they see which way the wind is blowing. And so Ishbasheth and Saul and Abner are basically saying, okay, you know, we need to give him his wife back. Well, she's already been married to another man, you know, because Saul had taken her away from David and married her off to someone else, which is a wicked thing to do, right? So now they have to go get her from this other guy, Faltiel, the son of Laish. And her husband went with her along, weeping behind her to procure him, then said Abner unto him, go return, and he returned. So this guy's crying about it, but you know, he's just, okay, whatever, they took his wife away from him. Now, when you read this, at first maybe you read this and you kind of feel sorry for this guy, like, poor guy, you know, here this guy, you know, he's just kind of caught up in all this, he's married to this woman, and now his wife's being taken away. And I believe that they even had children together, you know, if you study it, it's a little bit ambiguous. I think that the, you know, the five children were, you know, had together, it's a little bit ambiguous, I don't want to open that can of worms right now. But anyway, these people were married, they had children together, and Dave was like, give me my wife back. So, okay, you know, he gets his wife back. Now, here's some things that you have to understand about this, is that, you know, number one, there's nothing new under the sun. Just like there are people today that have this weird relationship status, it's complicated on Facebook or whatever, you know, there's, yeah, there's been stuff like that in the past too, okay. But when we read this story, what you have to understand is that this guy, if you just want to feel sorry for this guy, you know what, he shouldn't have been marrying someone else's wife. Okay, so if we, and I know that this story might seem confusing and complicated, and you know, people who read this might just be like, what is going on with this story? I mean, this guy's married a bunch of wives, this guy's got a concubine, this guy's sleeping with a different guy's concubine, you know, this guy's marrying a woman and then taking away from her and the kids and blah, blah, blah, but you know what, though? If we would follow God's Word and follow God's rule, we wouldn't get into these bizarre situations. You know what I mean? I mean, when I read this, the lesson I take away from this is just that when you step outside of what God has ordained and what God allows and God's plan and God's perfect will, you get into all these crazy situations, and a lot of people come to you with these complicated situations, well, I don't know what to do, Pastor Anderson, I'm in this weird situation, and sometimes I can't even wrap my mind around the situation they're in. It's hard to wrap your mind around this situation, but you know what's simple to wrap your mind around? Just getting married to one person and being faithful to that person for the rest of your life, and that's the only acceptable relationship that God allows. Just getting one man and one woman to just get married and be faithful to each other until death, that's what the Bible teaches. And all this other stuff, it leads to confusion, doesn't it? I mean, I can see how people can get confused reading this, so I'm a little confused about some of the children and things that are brought up. So the bottom line is that we need to stay with God's original plan and His original intent, and a lot of people say, well, but maybe God's okay if I, yeah, but what was God's original intent? He said a man leaves his father and mother in cleaves to his wife and they too become one flesh. End of story. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. This guy, Faltiel, is not the victim because he should not have married David's wife. You know, and even if you say, well, they're divorced or whatever, even though there's no mention of a divorce, but let, you know, even if they, well, the Bible says, whosoever marrieth her that is divorced, comitteth adultery. That's what the Bible says. Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery. Now, most people in our nation don't believe that today, but it doesn't matter. That's what Jesus said. That's what the Bible teaches. And so this guy, Faltiel, is in an illegitimate relationship here. He's with someone else's wife. He said, well, but yeah, Saul made him do that. No, nobody can make you do anything. Well, Saul ordered him to do, no. You know why this guy married that wife? He's looking for personal advancement probably in the kingdom to be the king's son-in-law. So he takes this wife, Michal, even though she'd been with another man and been his wife. You know, the Bible is just giving us an illustration here of here's a guy who marries a divorced woman and, you know, or not even really necessarily divorced, but he's being cursed as a result. He loses his family. He loses that investment of his time and life and his emotion and children and whatever. So that's what's going on with that story where he's weeping and wailing, but at the end of the day, it's like, go home, buddy. And he walks away. What else can he do, right? So that's the last week. I mean, how would you like to be this guy? And this is your only mention in the Bible, just for all eternity. You're the guy who's married somebody else's wife. You're crying and told to go home and you turn around and you went home. But anyway, all right. So let's keep going through the chapter here. Verse 17. And Abner had communication with the elders of Israel, saying, Ye sought for David in time past to be king over you. Now then, do it. For the Lord has spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David, I will save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines and out of the hand of their enemies. This guy knows a lot about the Bible all of a sudden. You know, this guy has been fighting the will of God for the last seven years. Now all of a sudden, for his own personal advancement, he's like, Oh, well, this is what the Lord said, guys. The Lord said we're supposed to all be following David and that David's going to deliver us from the Philistines. Come on. No wonder. No wonder we haven't defeated the Philistines for the last seven years, because we're not following David like God told us to. So then it says in verse number 19, Abner also spake in the ears of Benjamin, because Benjamin is the tribe of Saul. They're the ones who are the most loyal to Saul. Abner spake to Benjamin, and Abner went also to speak in the ears of David and Hebron, all that seemed good to Israel and that seemed good to the whole house of Benjamin. So Abner came to David, to Hebron, and twenty men with him. And David made Abner and the men that were with him a feast. And Abner said unto David, I will rise and go, and will gather all Israel unto my Lord the king, that they may make a league with thee, and that thou mayest reign over all that thine heart desireth. And David sent Abner away, and he went in peace. So everything seems like it's going pretty good as far as, OK, war's over, we're all going to get along, Abner is going to get some benefits, and the nation's going to be united, it's all going to be under David. But look what the Bible says in verse 22, Behold, the servants of David and Joab came from pursuing a troop, and brought in a great spoil with them. But Abner was not with David and Hebron, for he had sent him away, and he was gone in peace. When Joab and all the hosts that was with him were come, they told Joab, saying, Abner, the son of Ner, came to the king, and he had sent him away, and he is gone in peace. Then Joab came to the king, and said, What hast thou done? Behold, Abner came unto thee. Why is it that thou hast sent him away, and he is quite gone? Thou knowest Abner, the son of Ner, that he came in to deceive thee, and to know thy going out and thy coming in, and to know all that thou doest. Now look, is Joab here really concerned about David's safety, and concerned about Abner being a spy? No. What's really going on? Well, last week, if you remember in chapter 2, in the battle, while they were fighting, Azzahael, the brother of Joab, was chasing after Abner, he's a very fast runner. And Abner said, Leave me alone, man, I don't want to kill you, man, because if I kill you, you know, then I'm not going to be able to face David and Joab, because you're related to them. Azzahael wouldn't let it go, and chased him down, and finally, you know, Abner turned around and stabbed him underneath his fifth rib, and killed him, okay? So Joab wants to avenge his brother. Now here's the thing, his brother was slain legitimately in battle. And his brother was the aggressor, I mean, his brother's chasing Abner, and Abner's trying to end the battle, he's trying to retreat, he's trying to call off the troops, and he's saying, look, turn aside, it's over, I don't want to kill you, let me go. But yet, I mean, he had to, at that point, defend himself, so he kills him. So now Joab wants payback, vengeance, that's what's really going on. It says in verse 26, when Joab was come out from David, he sent messengers after Abner, which brought him again from the well of Cyra, but David knew it not. So basically Joab sends a messenger to Abner saying, oh, there's some more details that we need to talk about for this treaty. But David doesn't know about it, because Joab's just looking for an excuse to get together with Abner. And it says in verse 27, when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly. So this guy comes back to Hebron, Joab meets him at the gate of the city to make sure David doesn't know about it. He goes out there, meets him at the gate of the city, and basically just stabs him. Just kills him. Not a fair fight, not a battle, not warfare, but rather just sneak up on him and just assassinate him. And it's vendetta, and he kills him. So it says in verse 27, he took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly and smote him there under the fifth rib that he died for the blood of Asahel, his brother. And afterward when David heard it, he said, I and my kingdom are guiltless before the Lord forever from the blood of Abner the son of Ner. Let it rest on the head of Joab and on all his father's house, and let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper, or that leaneth on a staff, or that falleth on the sword, or that lacketh bread. So Joab and Abishai his brother slew Abner, because he had slain their brother Asahel at Gibeon, and watch this last phrase there, in the battle. But they just sneak up on him and assassinate him. Now, let me explain this to you as you turn to 1 Kings chapter 2. First Kings chapter number 2. Let me explain to you what's going on here, because in this story, in a sense, and I know this is a complicated story, this part of the Bible is kind of a strong meat of the word, but let's think about this and understand God's word tonight, and try to learn what God wants to learn from this passage. In this passage, Abner is murdered, because when you sneak up on somebody and just stab them, you say, well, he killed my brother, but that was in a battle, and the guy was defending himself and so forth. Now think about this, is Abner a good guy? No, Abner's not a good guy. We've seen all kinds of bad, Abner's sleeping with this concubine, Abner has started this whole war that's caused all this destruction and everything, but that doesn't really change the fact that Abner in this situation was assassinated and murdered, okay? So what should David have done at that point if his right-hand man Joab has basically murdered an innocent guy, he's murdered a diplomat, an emissary that's been sent, what should David have done at that point when Joab has murdered an innocent man? What should happen? He should be punished, right? I mean, what would happen if somebody murdered someone today? You'd say, well, hey, they should be executed, they should be arrested, they should be punished, they should be put to death. That's what happened. It was premeditated murder. He sends messengers, bring him back, meet him at the gate, stab him, okay. So this is premeditated murder. So here's what David says. David says, well, you know, me and my house are guiltless from the blood of Abner, and he basically just curses Abner, or I mean, he curses Joab for having done this, but does he execute him or bring any punishment to bear? He just curses him and says, well, I'm free of the blood. But here's the thing. Is David really free from the blood of it when his lieutenant, his right-hand man, kills an innocent person and he lets him get away with it and lets him continue being the captain of his house for the next 33 years. So I mean, do you see how David is delinquent here in this punishment? Well, what happens is 33 years later, okay, 33 years later, David is on his deathbed. And before he dies, he wants to kind of make things right. You know, when you're on your deathbed, right, you're thinking about your last will and testament. You want to tie up loose ends in your life. So David is telling his son Solomon, who's going to take over, you know, hey, I want you to treat this guy well and do good things for this guy, and then here's a guy that did wrong that never got punished, and you need to take care of this guy, Solomon. So look what he says. This is David on his deathbed. He's given his last wishes unto his son Solomon. It says in verse 5 of chapter 2 there, 1 Kings. Moreover, thou knowest also what Joab, and keep in mind, this is 33 years later. That's why we turn so many pages in the Bible. Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me. Now did he really do it to David? He says what he did to me. Here's what he means by that, because he basically is responsible for it. He's brought this reproach on David because it was done under David's watch. It's David's soldier that did it. He says thou knowest what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jethur, because later he's going to kill another innocent guy, by the way. It says, whom he slew and shed the blood of war in peace. Do you see that? It's saying, look, it was peacetime, and yet he slew this guy. Not in battle, but in peace. And put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Do therefore, according to thy wisdom, and let not his whore head go down to the grave in peace. That word whore means white-haired. H-O-A-R, it means white or gray in color, so he's an old man. He's saying, you know, don't let his gray head go to the grave in peace. This is a guy who killed innocent people, and he needs to be punished. But show kindness unto Barzillai, because he's given all his last wishes. Well, flip over the page, let's see what Solomon does. Verse 28. 1 Kings 2, 28, King Solomon, this is after David's dead, and it says in verse 28, Then tidings came to Joab, for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom, and Joab fled into the tabernacle of the Lord, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. So this is something that people would do back then. They would go to God's house as like a sanctuary, and they would grab the horns of the altar, because the avenger of blood in those days, there wasn't the same system we have of police and courtrooms and stuff. So basically, you know, if you went to the house of God, it was sort of like going to the city of refuge. It was a place where you were safe from the avenger of blood. No vigilante justice could happen to you if you're in the tabernacle or at the city of refuge. So he goes in and takes hold of the horns of the altar, basically hold up there, trying to get a fair hearing, and not to just be slain. So it says in verse 29, It was told King Solomon that Joab was fled unto the tabernacle of the Lord, and behold he's by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, fall upon him. And Benaiah came to the tabernacle of the Lord, and said unto him, Thus saith the king, Come forth. And he said, Nay, but I will die here. And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me. And the king said unto him, Do as he hath said, and fall upon him, and bury him. That thou, watch this, that thou mayest take away the innocent blood which Joab shed from me and from the house of my father. Now this is a principle, and of course he does slay him and so forth. Well let's keep reading, it says in verse 32, The Lord shall return his blood upon his own head, who fell upon two men more righteous and better than he, and slew them with the sword, my father David not knowing thereof, to wit Abner the son of Nur, captain of the host of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jethur, captain of the host of Judah. Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed forever, but upon David and upon his seed, and upon his house and upon his throne shall there be peace forever from the Lord. So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell upon them and slew him, and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. Now go back to 2 Samuel chapter 3. So we don't have the time tonight to go into great detail on this, but there's a principle in the Bible that when innocent blood is shed, it has to be avenged. That's what the Bible teaches. And in fact, in the law of God, obviously the Bible says, who so shedeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed from the image of God, may he man. And so the Bible teaches the death penalty on first degree murder, premeditated murder, you know, if it's just, if you're fighting, if it's an accident, if it's not premeditated, it's not the death penalty. But if it's premeditated murder, the Bible teaches the death penalty. And the Bible teaches that if that punishment is not carried out, then the land is not cleansed from that innocent. There's basically a curse on that land or a dark cloud that would hang over that land or that family because it's just something that's never really been made right. You know, that's what the Bible teaches. And in fact, in the law of God, and I wish we had time to, of course, you know, turn to all these passages. There's so much, it would take, you know, hours to really go through all this and see it all. You know, you've got to read the Bible on your own, but let me just kind of briefly give it to you. I've done other sermons on this, but the Bible teaches that even if they found a dead body out in the field, according to the Mosaic law, they would find that dead body in the field. They didn't want innocent blood to be shed in their town or in their city or in their area and not to be dealt with. So if they found a dead body in the field, and they have no idea who killed this person, then they were supposed to measure what's the closest town. And they would find the closest town to that dead body, and then they would call the elders together of that town, and they would have to come and swear before the Lord and say, Lord, we don't know who shed this blood. We don't know who killed this guy. We had nothing to do with it. We don't know who did it, okay? And then they would sacrifice an animal sacrifice unto the Lord, basically just to make an atonement and ask God to forgive their town, you know, that this happened in their town, that they would basically not be cursed because, you know, nobody wants to be cursed by God, right? So basically they'd say, you know what, God, please just forgive us. We didn't have anything to do with this. If we did, we'd deal with it. If we did, we'd bring justice. But we don't know anything about it, Lord. And so just don't be angry at us, Lord, it's not our fault. And they would wash their hands of it, okay? They would wash their hands symbolically to say we had nothing to do with it. Of course, you know, that's what Pilate would later try to pull that, you know. But what the Bible teaches is that authority, listen to me, government is responsible for carrying out justice when premeditated murder takes place. And a government that will not carry out justice when innocent blood is shed is a government that is under the curse of God. Think about that. Because he said, look, you have to measure to the city that's closest. Then you basically take the governors of that city, the elders of that city, the leaders of that city, the people whose job it would be to carry out justice, the judges of that city. And they have to wash their hands and make a sacrifice on the Lord and pray for God to be merciful to them for this having happened in their area, in their town. Look, we have government today in America, don't we? We have a federal government. We have state government. We have city government. We've got police and sheriff and all these different governments. And listen to me, anyone who is a part of these governments and allows innocent blood to be shed and doesn't do anything about it, I mean, there's just a curse of God inherent with that. And I mean, even 33 years later they're saying, you know, we don't want this hanging over our head. We want to be cleansed from the blood of these innocent people that were killed, of Abner and this and that. But we don't want anything to do with it. And so Joab is put to death. But you know, the thing that comes to mind to me is abortion. I mean, think about that. How can God bless our country? How can he bless our country when 3,000 babies a day are being murdered? That's innocent blood that's being shed. How can God bless? I mean, if God back then said, hey, you have to punish the murderer or else the blood's not purged, you know, the curse is going to be there. Well, it's the same today, my friend. God looks down and he sees innocent blood being shed in the United States of America today and it's not being dealt with. The perpetrators of these crimes are not being punished. They're not being put to death. They're not being arrested. They're suffering no consequence. And therefore that blood is not purged. Okay. And all throughout the Bible we see this, especially in the life of Manasseh. Manasseh shed a lot of innocent blood. Remember he got right with God, he was sorry, but still the land had to suffer because it was never dealt with, all the innocent blood that had been shed by Manasseh. And so our country today has shed a huge amount of innocent blood and continues daily to shed innocent blood. And here's what everybody wants to do about it that's in leadership is basically wash their hands and say like, oh, well, I'm free. I don't have anything to do with that. But here's the thing, if they're not doing anything to stop it or to punish it, then they do have something to do with it, biblically speaking. And see, we can honestly, like the members of Faithful Word Baptist Church, we can honestly say it's not our fault because honestly we're not in authority. I mean, do I have any authority to punish any criminals today? Have I been given any authority by any person in this city, state, or country that said Stephen Anderson has the right to go punish criminals? So therefore is it my fault if they're not being punished? I mean, am I an elder of the city of Tempe? No. Am I a part of the Tempe government? No. But you know what, these people that are in government and just want to turn a blind eye and they don't, they're not fighting it, they're not, you know, they're part of it. And God will require that blood of them. And so therefore these politicians that are saying, hey, we're pro-choice, and hey, it's a woman's right to choose, you know, they're all guilty of murder before God, and they're guilty of this innocent blood. They're under the curse of God today. And by the way, a lot of these Republicans even that'll say they're pro-life and everything, but they're not really fighting it, they don't really care about it, it's just a slogan unto them, and they go back and forth between, you know, the Mitt Romneys of this world. You know, they'll go back and forth, oh, I'm in Massachusetts? I'm pro-choice because I'm in Massachusetts, and that's what the majority wants. Oh, I'm going to run for president? I changed my mind. Now I'm pro-life because I'm running for president. And then all the stupid zombie, he robbed me, he's stupid, pro-life. He's a Satan-worshipping Mormon, there I said it. Look, he's a wicked person who is pro-choice, and look, pro-choice, pro-murder, pro-death, pro-bloodshed. Okay. And then when it's convenient, he'll just switch on a dime and then everybody just believes him. He's not doing anything to bring people to justice. He's not doing anything to stop the massacre and the bloodshed and the slaughter. He doesn't care about it. It means nothing to him. Why? Because he's a lying devil, that's why. And the Bible clearly teaches how this kind of stuff should be handled, and he holds leadership responsible. Look, even if we were to just forget bloodshed and murder, leadership's always held responsible by God. It's held accountable. I mean, God talks about how the pastor of the church is held accountable. I mean, if I just allowed just fornication to run rampant in the church, God holds the pastor accountable. The Bible teaches that. It says that we, as those that rule in the house of God, must give an account to God, it says. We must rule as those that will give an account to God. And so I am responsible before God for, by the way, for the preaching that comes with the house of God. If I run into a guest preacher and he got up and started preaching lies and preaching work salvation, you know what, I'm responsible for that. And I should be held accountable for that. And I can't just say, well, I'm not the one who said those lies. But if I put the guy in the pulpit and he's lying, then I'm responsible for it, okay? And if people are committing fornication in the church and it's a common report, 1 Corinthians 5, and we all just know about it and everybody's just fine with it, and I'm allowed it, I'm responsible. And by the way, Dad, you're responsible for what goes on in your home. Joshua said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And you can't just say, well, I can't control my teenage daughter and she's bringing a boyfriend home. No, you are responsible as a father for what goes on in that home. It's time to take charge of your wife and children and be the boss in your home. And you know what? You say, well, I just don't have that authority. I'm just not the boss. Yeah, but in God's eyes, you are the boss because the Bible says the husband is the head of the wife. The Bible says that the children are to fear their father and mother and obey their parents and the Lord, for this is right, and that they honor their father and mother. God put the husband in authority, and also the mother is in authority over those children. And God will hold leadership responsible today. And everybody today wants to just shirk their responsibility. People in our government want to say, oh, it's not my fault, not my problem, everything that goes wrong. They don't want to say the buck stops here and take responsibility. But we need dads and husbands that will take responsibility for their home, pastors that will take responsibility for their church, and governors that will take responsibility for governing and for the job that government has of punishing evildoers. That's what the Bible says. And so we see a lot of shirking of responsibility with David just saying, oh, well, you know, here's Joab, but he's still going to work for me, he's still a free man, you know, that's not the way. But on his deathbed, he wanted to get it right, didn't he? So he fixes it by having his son Solomon fix it and do what he failed to do. Let's quickly finish up, we're about out of time. And I hope this is helping you to kind of make sense of kind of a difficult chapter in the Bible here in Samuel. But it says in verse 31, David said to Joab and all the people that were with him, rend your clothes and gird you with sackcloth and mourn before Abner. And King David himself followed the beer. The beer there is an old word for the coffin itself, it's called the beer. And it says, they buried Abner in Hebron, and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner, and all the people wept, and the king lamented over Abner and said, Die, Abner, as a fool dieth, thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters. As a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou, and all the people wept again over him. And when all the people came to cause David to eat meat while it was yet day, David swears, saying, So do God to me and more also, if I taste bread, or aught else, till the sun be down. And all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them, as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people. So what do we see in the chapter? David's mourning, and notice what he says when he mourns over Abner, because he doesn't think it was right for this guy to just be assassinated. And he says, you know what, his hands weren't bound, he wasn't in a fair fight, he wasn't arrested, it was just murder, it was just assassination. And by the way, let me just bring this up, and sometimes people will accuse me of getting political when I preach certain things, but honestly, I don't give a rip about politics. I haven't even voted in years and years, and I'm not going to vote. So don't accuse me of being political. But let me tell you something, biblical truths need to be applied to all areas of life. Okay, so I'm not going to shirk from preaching biblical truths, just because somebody accused me of getting political, or I'm not going to shirk from applying biblical truths under the world we live in. Listen to me, if we're not going to apply biblical truths to the world that we live in, why are we even having preaching in the first place? Because we could just come to church and just read the Bible together, and just no comment. No comment. We could just take turns, we could have brother Jesse come up here, we could have Dominique come up here, we could have brother Josh come up here, and we could just one after the other just take turns reading chapters from the Bible. Is that what God wants to do? No. God wants us to preach the word, and to give the sense and the understanding of it, but he wants us to apply it to the world that we live in, and to the lives that we live. We shouldn't just talk about it all as theory. Yeah, let's just memorize the story of David and Abner and Joab. Don't you think God wants to learn something from these stories and apply it to our lives? Like hey, if you're sleeping around, if you have multiple wives or whatever, you're going to have all these problems, and people die over it, and people hate each other, and you're not going to be happy, you're going to be miserable. God's trying to teach us something today. It's funny, I heard about something this week that I think ties in with what we're reading in this chapter. That there's this big popular movie going to come out called American Sniper. Anybody hear about this movie that's coming out? And they said, oh man, this is going to be the blockbuster, this is going to be the movie of the year glorifying somebody who shoots people in the back. Glorifying somebody who hides somewhere in a building and shoots people that are walking around and not even necessarily fighting. And you can sit there and say, oh no, that's not true, everybody he shot was in combat and blah, blah, blah. You know what, that's not the way our troops fight anymore. They're fighting in cities. They're fighting in city streets and in buildings, and I saw a picture of this guy in the news, and again, was I there personally with this guy? No. Do I know this guy? No. But from what I saw from the photographs and things that were shown, the photograph that I saw of this guy was that he was laying on a mattress in a bedroom of a high building pointing a rifle out a window and just picking somebody off in a city street. That's what I saw. Now, if that picture was wrong, then get mad at the person who posted that picture on a news article. You know, I'm just going off the information that I have, but I'll tell you this, the movie industry glorifies violence, and it isn't right, and it desensitizes people to blood and gore and violence through the video games and through the movies. We as Christians should not be hard-hearted, just desensitized to human suffering where we enjoy watching people get blown away and blown apart. It's sick, and the Bible says, him that loveth violence, God's soul hateth. That's what the Bible says. Let's not love violence and just want to see people blown apart and shot. And you know, everybody said, oh, this guy is a brave warrior. You know what? Sorry, not brave when you're laying on a mattress in a bedroom shooting people out the window. You say, well, that's not how it was. He was in some other barricade shooting people far away, picking them off. And so you say, well, no, it was only the evil terrorists that he was killing. Oh, the people that are defending their country from a foreign invader? I mean, what in the world? What if foreign troops were in our country and we started fighting back against foreign troops? Now we're the terrorists. You think that that could never happen? You think that it could never happen that foreign troops would be in our country? It's happened before. And you know what? Every time there's any kind of a civil war in any country, foreign troops are always brought in. And there's already been a civil war in this country before. I'm not saying it's going to happen again, but it could. I mean, you never know what's going to happen. What kind of foreign troops are going to get. But you know what? Foreign troops come in, OK? And people are fighting against foreign troops in their country. And some guy's a sniper that just picks them off and he's called a hero because he shoots people from far away. And this is glorified and this is the movie of the year that everybody wants to go see. You know what? Count me out. I won't be seeing it. I have no interest in it. I don't want to read his book. I don't want to watch his movie. I don't want that to be my kid's hero, somebody who's a sniper. You know, at least, you know, a lot of people in the Bible fought people in a fair fight. You know, and this whole thing of just glorifying a sniper. And I'm sure he only shot the right. But he's the most deadly sniper in American military history. Basically, he's shot more people. He's killed more people. And you can sit there and say, oh, but it was honorable. It was in battle. Which foreign country were we? I mean, I don't know. Who knows about this? Does anybody know a little bit about this guy? OK. OK. Was this Afghanistan or Iraq? What was this? It's Iraq. OK. So this guy. Oh, you've been to Iraq. OK. Where are you? I've been to Vietnam. I've been to Iraq. I didn't do it. I've been in the army 24 years. I disagree with some of the stuff you say. If you read to me Psalms 144. OK. Well, I'm not interested in going to Psalm 144 right now. If you disagree with me, that's fine. You're entitled to your opinion. But let me say this. We've got other guys in our church who've also been there, who've been to Iraq. There's a guy sitting behind you that's been to Iraq. Do you agree with what I'm saying right now? Yeah. Well, so. How many groups did he save? Guess what? Oh, how many of our troops did he save? Because that's all that matters is did he save our troops? What were our troops doing over there in the first place? What were our troops doing in a foreign country that never attacked us, huh? What were they doing over there invading a foreign country? I don't believe in that. Amen. Do you believe in 9-11? Who here believes the official version on 9-11? Look around. Look around the room. Are you looking around? Look around. Wake up. Who believes the official story on 9-11? OK. Who believes 9-11 was an inside job? Look around. Now, you told us before the service that God led you here. Maybe this is what God wanted you to find out, that 9-11 was a fraud and that our country actually has the satanic world government located in New York. It's called the United Nations and our country is taking over the whole world for Satan and Israel. That's what's really going on. And honestly, I'm sure that a lot of troops over there have their heart in the right place and they think they're fighting for America and for freedom and they're fighting for good things, but I'm sorry. It's wrong. And you know what? They tell the troops, like, oh, we need to go fight these horrible Muslims because they put homosexuals to death. Is that what they told you? Yeah, so that we can bring faggotry to the Middle East. Let's bring all the faggots to the Middle East so they can all be like Tel Aviv. Look, the bottom line is, my friends, I am not pro-war and I'm never going to be pro-war and the Bible is not a pro-war book. And this aggressive, we're going to take over the world and put a military base in every country is not biblical and I want nothing to do with it and I believe in self-defense and I believe in defending our nation, but I do not believe in invading foreign countries because of phantoms and boogeymen that our own government has created for the profit of the military industrial complex. That's the true story. That's what's going on. You know what, honestly, if you want to promote a pro-war position, I mean, you're in the wrong place. I mean, nobody here wants to hear it. You know what I mean? Honestly, and look, I love you, my brother, and I'm sorry that the sermon is offending you, but honestly, this is where I stand and this is where our church stands because of the fact that being a sniper and saying, well, you saved lives. You know what else saved lives? You know what else saved American lives? Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That saved American lives, right? Because then we didn't have to, yeah, and it also murdered and massacred hundreds of thousands of women and children and that is a sin. You can sit there and say, oh, it saved American troops' lives. Yeah, but it's not right to murder women and children to save American troops' lives. It just isn't right and you can sit there and justify nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki and you can justify firebombing Dresden and killing 137,000 people in one night in Germany with no military target, no military objective, just firebomb them to scare them and, well, but at least we ended the war. But you know what? The ends doesn't justify the means. You know how God teaches us that we should win battles? By having the Lord on our side and fighting according to rules of honor and decency and not just, well, we have to torture the terrorists in order to win. No, we do what's right, God will bless us if we win. And you know what? God's not blessing America. You know, God blessed us more when we followed the word of God in this country and we love God. And our leaders don't love God. Our leaders are murdering. Let me ask you this. Did the government in Iraq, do they institutionalize the murder of 3,000 babies a day in Iraq? So why are we over there straightening them out? Oh, so we could, you know what? If we go over there and invade Iraq and invade Afghanistan and put up our own puppet government so that what? So that women can start aborting their children? Is that what we're doing over there? So we can bring in homosexuality and bring in rock and roll lifestyle and bring in adultery and fornication? Oh, so we can get the women out of those horrible burkas and put them in a pair of short shorts. Put them in a pair of short shorts and get them on, you know, our TV and Hollywood garbage. They can watch all that and rot their brains and become a bunch of atheists. We're not bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to these people. How many times are we reading the news? Some soldier is being told, hey, you can't bring the New Testament here. You can't give out, oh, you're giving out Bibles in Iraq and Afghanistan? No, you can't do that. You could probably hand out condoms in Afghanistan and Iraq and that'd be just fine because you're spreading our wonderful American way of life. No, our American way of life is going down the toilet. It does not honor God anymore. And I'm not. And by the way, hey, I won't fly the American flag anymore. Do you see an American flag up here? I don't fly it. I don't fly it in my house because I'm not proud to be a part of the country that leads the world in dope, abortion, homosexuality and divorce and everything that's filthy and wicked. It's not right. God bless America. How can God bless America when our leaders won't punish abortion? They won't punish sodomy and they promote it. And they push it and endorse it and take our tax dollars and wants to, look, they want our government today, the commander in chief of the armed forces wants to take my tax dollars and pay for some dude to have an operation to change his gender. It's called Obamacare. But I'm supposed to think that his sniper's shooting all the right people and that he's only going to torture the right people at Gitmo or whatever. I want to close, didn't he say he's going to close Gitmo or something? I want to close Gitmo. But dude, how long have you been in office? Yeah, you haven't closed it yet. You lying devil hypocrite. And look, honestly, if anybody wants to come defend our country to me, you know, see me after the service, I'm willing to listen to your argument. If you want to tell me what makes our country godly or why God should bless us, when we promote sodomy, murder babies, invade foreign countries for the new world order to bring us all into a global government under the United Nations. And when basically our morals are getting worse every single day in this country. And we go out door knocking and it's just more and more, I'm an atheist. I'm an atheist. I'm an atheist. I'm an agnostic. I'm an agnostic. I don't believe in Jesus. I don't believe in the Bible. And I don't want to go to church. Our country is a joke anymore. And you know what, thank God our citizenship is in heaven. You know what I mean? I'm not proud to be an American, I'm proud to be a Christian. I love Jesus. And I don't love what our country has turned into. I'm sorry. And you know, our country used to be founded on the Bible and so I do appreciate the heritage we have. And you know, the freedom that we have today, it's not because of the people that are in charge now. It's a vestige of the past and it's going away every day. And you know, it has nothing to do, my freedom to stand up here and preach right now. You know, it's amazing. It was that sniper who even gave me the freedom to preach right now. That's what people try to tell you. That sniper in Afghanistan and Iraq and wherever, whatever foreign country he was invading, you know, he's the reason why you even have the right to even get up and say these things, Pastor Anderson. And you get up and attack our country and you know what, it's these soldiers in Iraq who even gave you the right to do that. No, you know who gave me the right to do it? God. Because I've been endowed by my Creator with rights. I don't need some government, I don't need Thomas Jefferson to give me rights. God gave me rights. And you know, some guy fighting in a foreign country, and you know what, okay, 3,000 people died in 9-11, that's how many people we killed yesterday in an abortion clinic. Oh wow, why are we still talking about 9-11? How many years, how long? Oh, remember 9-11? No, remember yesterday in the abortion clinic. Never the day before. Never the day before that. I don't remember 9-11 anymore because I'm so busy thinking about all the people that have been slaughtered between now and 9-11. A thousand times as many people have died. Oh, remember the 3,000 that died in 9-11. How about the million dead Iraqis? And what about, okay, and here's the thing, even if somebody only cares about our people, what about the 5,000 troops that died in Iraq? So let's go slaughter 5,000 of our troops and a million of them just because we don't want 3,000 to ever die again. And by the way, Iraq didn't attack the trade center according to anybody's theory. I mean you can sit there and say like, oh I believe the official version of 9-11. If you believe that, it still had nothing to do with Iraq. The Saudi Arabian terrorists were not from Afghanistan nor Iraq. And by the way, that's not even who did it anyway. You know, see me after the service for some 9-11 truth films. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and God, we just pray that we would wake up, Lord, and just realize that there's a lot of innocent blood being shed today, Lord, and it's being shed in abortion clinics and it's being shed on battlefields, Lord, that are not even really battlefields. They're city streets where people are being shot in the back and gunned down from helicopters and hotel rooms, Lord. Help us not to get so desensitized that we think that our government can do no wrong and we think Obama is wonderful, Lord. And God, I pray that Obama, if it would be your will, Lord, would pass off into eternity tonight, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.