(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] announcements real quickly if you do not have a bulletin just raise your hand and one of our ushers can get one for you if you need a bulletin just put your hand up we'll get one for you the verse this week psalm 16 11 that will show me the path of life in thy presence is fullness of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore and that's a good verse there we like that if you open up your bulletin you'll see our service time sunday morning service 10 30 am and we do invite you of course to be with us on sunday morning on the lord's day for church and sunday evening service at 6 p.m and of course we're glad that you're here for the wednesday evening bible study if you notice we have our soul winning times there we have special soul winning times this week which are reflected there but we'll talk about that uh here in a minute in fact if you just look across the page there we want you to remember that this is a big week it's a big weekend for us here at verity baptist church and this is our family and friend day and that is our family friend day sunday is on sunday this sunday september 15th at 10 30 a.m and of course we're going to be celebrating our church's 14 year anniversary and 14 years ago my wife and i started verity baptist church in our living room with just a handful of people and the lord has blessed us of course over the last 14 years and we of course want to celebrate this time so we want to invite you to be here of course for family and friend day and we want to encourage you to bring somebody with you you should in your bulletin have one of these cards and we want you to use this card to invite somebody to church maybe you have a neighbor or a co-worker a friend a family member that you've been thinking about inviting to church and this is the time to invite them if you have someone you've been thinking about this is the best service to invite them it's called family and friend day they can't get offended for you to invite them to family and friend day all right this is how you do it just walk up to your co-worker not while you're supposed to be working all right on your break or you know it's your neighbor or your family member whoever it is and tell them hey they're doing this thing at my church it's called family and friend day you're my friend i consider you my friend and i'd love for you to come and join us for family and friend day we're gonna have lunch afterwards how are they gonna be offended at that you know what i mean i mean if you tell them you're my friend they want us to invite friends so i'm inviting you um they're not gonna be offended at that let them know we've got special things going on of course special music from the vbc choir and orchestra uh free lunch after the service we're gonna be grilling out here after the service for everyone that's in the service we have the anniversary mugs that we give out every year to the families and then candy suckers for all of the kids so make sure that you're here for family friend day invite somebody family friend day you say i have no family or friends i'm a hermit i don't know anybody all my friends are online okay whatever then just invite a stranger all right when you're going through the drive-through you're going through the checkout um then just give this to somebody say hey i'd like you to come want to invite you to family and friend day but invite somebody use this card also of course we have a big soul winning push this uh weekend starting thursday september 12 at 6 p.m we're gonna meet here and we're gonna have a real short meeting we're gonna get you partnered up and we're gonna send you out for about an hour or so of soul winning on thursday and on friday we'll do it again at 6 p.m and on saturday morning we'll have our big soul winning rally at 10 a.m i'll be preaching on saturday morning so i want to encourage you to be here we'd love to have 100 participation for the soul winning and i want to encourage you if you normally come on saturday or you normally go on thursday then go to your normal soul winning time and then go to one extra or two extra my family and i will be at all three of these soul winning times and we want to encourage you to be at them as well and then of course if you want to help us hopefully there won't be too many but whatever cards we have left over after soul winning we want to hand those out and if you want to help us with handing those out on saturday afternoon putting them on cards and things like that then you can sign up on your communication card that'll be this saturday september 14th at 2 p.m you're going to be meeting in the starbucks parking lot the address is there for you it's the one in the walmart parking lot we'll buy you starbucks all of that but then you can help us pass out whatever is left and we would appreciate your help of course with that if you look at the announcements there another big announcement is our spanish service that's on saturday september 28th at 5 p.m and we've got lots of people sign up for this already and we're excited about it but we're this is the first time ever that we're doing a spanish service and we'd love for you to be a part of this so you can join us on saturday september 28th at 5 p.m in the fellowship hall and this is open just so everybody knows it's open of course to all of our spanish speakers we have lots of spanish speakers here in our church we'd love you to be to be a part of this if you have friends or family that speak spanish and maybe they don't come to the english service of course our main service here then you can invite them to the service or if you'd like to learn spanish then you're also welcome to come to the spanish service and we're going to have a potluck a spanish-themed potluck on that day as well so make sure that you are ready for that and you can sign up on your communication card homeschool group they've got pe class on thursday september 19th and then of course there's other things there for you to look at if you look at the back of the bulletin birthdays and anniversaries for the month of september this week we had celine zuniga's birthday on september 8th and leah nel tesco's birthday on september 9th and yesterday was my sister's birthday miss michelle cruz on september 10th praise report money matters all of those things are there for you to look at and if you are a first-time guest if it's your first time here at verity baptist church we're so glad that you are with us we have a gift we'd like to give you as you walk out of the church building this evening as you go out the main doors you'll see a little table set up and on that table you'll see these little gift bags please grab one on your way out as a gift from us to you for being our guest tonight and also we ask if you are a guest that you please take a moment to fill out the communication card which is inserted in your bulletin if you need a pen just raise your hand and one of our ushers can bring you by verity baptist church pen we'd love for you to take a moment to fill out this card we'd love to have a record attendance and we'd like to send you something in the mail we'd like to send you a little gift but we need your info to do that so when we're done with the announcement we're going to sing a song when we're done singing we're going to receive the offering and as the offering plate goes by you can drop this card in the offering plate and i think that's it for all of the announcements so we're going to go ahead and take our song books and we're going to go to page number 100 as we prepare to receive the offering this evening we're going to sing day by day one zero zero 100 day by day and let's go ahead and sing it out on the first day by day and with each passing moment strength i find to meet my trials here trusting in my father's wise bestowment i've no cause for worry or for fear a whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what he deems best lovingly it's part of pain and pleasure mingling tall with peace and good page number 100 singing 100 singing out on the second every day the lord himself is nearly with a special mercy for each are all my cares he feign would bear and cheer me is a charge that on himself he laid as like singing out on the last help me lose not faith's reconciliation offered me within thy holy word help me lord when toil and trouble meaning and to take us from a father's hand one by one the days the moment's fleeting till i reach the promised land amen good singing we'll have the guys come up and help us with the offering at this time and let's go in and bow our heads and have a word of prayer how many father lord we do love you we thank you for allowing us to gather together tonight lord we pray that you bless the offering the gift and the giver we pray that you bless the time set aside for prayer and of course for the preaching of your word in jesus name we pray amen so so so so so amen all right well let's go and take our prayer sheets tonight we'll go through our prayer list if you did not get a prayer sheet on your way in just raise your hand and one of our ushers can get one for you if you need a prayer sheet just put your hand up and we'll get one for you and of course I want to remind you that the way you add a request to the prayer sheet is through your communication card on the back of the card there's a place for you to write down a request make sure you mark whether it's private or public if you mark private only I will see it if you're marked public we'll put on the prayer sheet if you don't mark it we'll do our best to figure it out but we usually don't add those requests we do add them in the order that they are received and they are removed after a couple of weeks so if you'd like for them to be there longer you'll need to make sure you fill out another communication card and I'm going to ask that you would pray with me I'm going to pray out loud and I'd like for you to pray in your mind and your heart let's pray together and take these requests the lord heavenly father lord we come to you tonight asking for these requests from our church family lord we begin with these requests dealing with health we pray for brother Darrell praying for his upcoming cataract surgery and for his dad's health and the help he is receiving through his health care providers and also brother Darrell praying that he would get closer to his health goals and lord we pray that you would help him we pray for miss kate and for her health and for complete healing and also we pray for brother warren and he's praying for the health of his two brothers also miss kimborello praying for her sister april who is suffering from many health ailments and praying for her health miss ermalisa praying for an upcoming surgery on september 17th and praying for speedy recovery also we're praying of course for miss cricket and for her continued and complete healing for her hip miss natalie praying for complete healing for her husband as he recovers in the hospital brother ron praying for his upcoming doctor's appointment dealing with his right foot pain and miss tammy praying for health and complete healing as well brother alan we're praying for his wife's nephews leo and zander who are recovering from a major car accident a hit and run and these are just two little boys and lord we're praying that you would help them and help them to get stable and help them to be able to recover completely and lord we pray of course that you'll be miss patricia at this time as she's dealing with this accident in her family and other family members as well we pray for jeffrey love praying for his for recovery from surgery miss maria praying for healing for peter sveta and natasha also miss christine praying for her health for the saboteur praying for his health and his treatment this dogma praying for relief of pain and lord we pray for these individuals we also pray of course for brother edgar and miss elena praying for little urezi and jonathan to continue to be healthy though they have cystic fibrosis and we pray for our missionary dave kabuntala for his wife angel who's still dealing with breast cancer and lord we pray for all of these individuals and lord we ask that you would heal them we pray that you would miraculously put your hand over them and that you would heal them if it's your will lord we pray that you would give wisdom to the doctors the nurses dealing with them we pray that you raise them up give them health and lord we ask that your will be done in their lives we also pray for the ladies in our church that are expecting miss rebecca miss angel miss laura beth asking that you give them all healthy pregnancies with no issues no complications and lord we pray for these that have requests for their friends and family brother warren praying for his brother's upcoming parole board appointment and brother montel praying for the upcoming trial for uh isabel and also brother sabato praying for his family and lord we ask that you would help in these situations that your will would be done in these situations and that you would be with them then lord we also pray for these that are asking for spiritual needs brother montel junior praying for his walk with the lord and miss christine and brother salvador also praying for their faith and their walk with you and lord we ask that you would help these individuals draw them closer to you help them to draw near to you then lord we pray for these that have physical and financial needs we're praying for brother montel for the his job interview on october 1st and also we're praying for evan smith and for just blessings on his new job at fedex and we're praying for miss christine for finances and brother salvador for his finances and work as well lord we pray that you would bless these individuals and that you'd open doors for them and that you'd help them to get the things that that you desire for them and then lord we pray for these that have requests regarding salvation miss natalie praying for her husband's not only health but his salvation brother ron praying for his mom and his family's salvation jeffrey love praying for the salvation of his friend gabriel and miss maria praying for roma and skylar's salvation miss christine praying for her family's salvation miss document praying for her daughter and her family's salvation and lord we know that these individuals have souls and lord we pray that you would help them with your holy spirit would work in their lives bring them to the place where they'd be willing to hear the gospel and lord we pray that soul winner would communicate the gospel clearly to them that they might be saved and then lord we pray for these that have unspoken requests brother nate miss andrea brother george my dad brother felix miss michelle miss ruby all having unspoken requests miss natalie having an unspoken request brother salvador miss dogma all having unspoken requests and lord you know what their petitions are you know what they're asking for we pray lord that you would please answer according to your will and that you'd make that apparent to them and then lord we pray for our ministries here we pray for the prison ministry that you would bless this ministry and help us to be able to minister to many prisoners throughout the country also we pray for the missions work being done in manila through pastor stuckey and of course also for the missions work being done subbu through our missionary tape kabuntala lord we pray that you would bless those uh those missions work and that you would bless these individuals their wives of course their families then lord we ask for the these upcoming events here at our church we pray for this spanish night that you would help it lord to be a good time a time to be able to reach out to spanish speakers and then we pray of course for our family and friend day this weekend lord we ask that you would bless every aspect of it lord we pray that you would help us to have a good amount of soul winners going out on thursday and friday saturday help us to see people saved and also invite people to the service lord we pray that you give us a great attendance on sunday morning we pray lord that you'd bless the choir the orchestra um the food and the gifts all the things that are going to go on that day lord and and the preaching of your word lord i pray that you'd help it to be a day that would help us to reach people see people saved and help us to grow as well and lord we just pray that you would continue to bless our church here in sacramento we pray that you'd meet with us tonight as we open up your word as we study another portion of scripture together in jesus name we pray amen please open up to psalm seven psalm chapter number seven if you do not have a bible please raise your hand and unless you could bring your bible psalm chapter number seven psalm seven we'll read the entire chapter as our custom psalm chapter number seven beginning verse number one oh lord my god indeed do i put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me lest he tear my soul like a lion rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver oh lord my god if i have done this if there be iniquity in my hands if i rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me yea i have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy let the enemy persecute my soul and take it yea let him tread down my life upon the earth lay mine honor up in the dust ceila arise oh lord and in anger lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies and awake for me to the judgment that thou has commanded so shall the congregation of the people confess thee about for their sakes therefore return thou on high the lord shall judge the people judge me oh lord according to my righteousness and according to mine integrity that is in me oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end but establish the just for the righteous god tried the hearts and reigns my defense is of god which saveth the upright in heart god judgeth the righteous and god is angry with the wicked every day if he turn not he will wet his sword he have bent his bow and made it ready he has also prepared for him the instruments of death he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors behold he travaileth with iniquity and hath conceived mischief and brought forth falsehood he made a pit and digged it and has fallen into the ditch which he made his mischief shall return upon his own head and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pain well praise the lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the lord most high let's pray heavenly father thank you for this evening god i thank you for your word and for our church as he please meet with us tonight give us tender heart to the message and be the pastor please strengthen him and in the spirit we love you in Jesus name pray amen amen all right well are we on my own we're there in psalm seven and of course we have been working our way through the book of psalms on wednesday night and tonight we find ourselves here in psalm seven and this is actually up to this point now we're only seven psalms into this study but up up to this point this is the longest psalm that we've we've seen it's 17 verses and of course there's much longer psalms than this but up to this point this is the longest one we've seen and what i think is interesting about the book of psalms is that it follows these themes of course as we've been looking at psalms we know that this is a song book these psalms are put to music and they were meant to be used in corporate worship but this is more than just a song book it's more than just a hymn book it is the hymn book of the nation of israel but it's more than that of course we know that this is the word of god holy men of god spake as they were moved by the holy ghost these are inspired words but not only not only is it scripture the psalms and not only are they music and songs and hymns and spiritual songs but also they are prayers and what we've been seeing and learning is that these are prayers and and they follow themes and i'll point that out to you here in a minute now as we've been looking at these psalms we've been looking at these superscriptions that are above the psalms and if you remember the word superscription means written above and it refers to those little headings that give us various classifications or titles instructions and information that we find about the psalms and if you remember we've talked about the fact that those headings that you find there in above the psalms that they aren't just added by the publisher of the bible but they're actually in the original language they're translated from the hebrew and here again we find another superscription that gives us some i think information that helps us to understand the psalm you notice there in psalm seven verse one it says shigian of david which he's saying unto the lord and then i want you to notice these this phrase concerning the words of kush the benjamite so what this superscription tells us is that this psalm the the context of this psalm has to do and is concerning if you look at the last part there of the superscription concerning the words of kush the benjamite so this psalm has to do with the words that this individual named kush said and the things that this individual said now let me just tell you up front we don't know who this kush the benjamite is this individual doesn't come up anywhere else in scripture it might just be a person named kush which is a little bit of an odd name but or it might just be some sort of a title that's being given or some sort of a name that's being given to to hide somebody else's identity maybe but what we do know is this and we're going to see it in the context of psalm seven is that this individual is an enemy of david and again we're going to see that in the context so just give me a minute to prove that to you but what we also know is this whoever this individual is they are a benjamite they're called here kush the benjamite i'd like you to keep your place there in psalm seven that's our text for tonight and we're going to walk through the psalm together but just by way of introduction go with me to the book of first samuel first samuel chapter nine just to give a little context to the context because the superscription gives us the context that this is a psalm of david uh which he's saying unto the lord and it's concerning the words of this individual kush kush the benjamite if you would go to first samuel chapter nine if you can find the one and two books they're all clustered together uh towards the beginning there of the old testament you got first and second samuel first second kings first second chronicles and go to first samuel chapter nine and look at verse number 21 now the first thing i want to just highlight for you and i know you know this because you're a smart crowd but we've got people that listen online as well and i want to make sure that i don't want to just take it for granted that people know this information and what we need to realize when when we see that these are the words that this psalm is concerning the words of kush the benjamite what we have to remember is that david had a long-standing enemy by the name of saul and saul was a benjamite are there in first samuel nine look at verse 21 saul answered and said this is saul speaking and this is when saul was chosen to be king of israel he said am not i a benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of israel and my family the least of all the families of the tribes of benjamin so i'm just showing that verse to you to to give you a proof text that we know that saul was a benjamite he was from the tribe of benjamin go to second samuel chapter 16 and i'm not going to take the time to go through and give you a ton of verses on this but if you know the story you know that saul was the first king of israel and because of saul's sin and rebellion and pride the kingdom was taken from him and he was told that the kingdom was going to be rent from him taken from him and it was going to be given unto a man that was better than he and of course david comes on the scene david kills goliath david does all these things that cause saul to become envious towards david and david never did anything wrong to saul he was never disloyal to saul but saul becomes envious to david and he begins to persecute him he begins to come against him so some people think that this kush the benjamite if you guys could help me in the sound room just i think there's a little bit of an echo if you could help me with that i'd appreciate it thank you so much some people think that maybe this kush the benjamite is referring to saul i'm not saying it is or it isn't but what i do believe is this that whether this is referring to saul or not it's somebody related to saul and the issue or the beef they had with david probably has to do with saul because saul became very envious towards david and of course we know that saul eventually was replaced by david so you see that saul is a benjamite go go to second samuel chapter 16 now do me a favor when you get to second time you'll put a ribbon or a bookmark or something there because we're going to leave it we're going to come back to it and i'd like to for you to get to it quickly second samuel chapter 16 now here's the thing some people think this might be saul but one thing that we need to remember is that yes saul was an enemy of david and he was a benjamite but there were other enemies of david that were enemies of david because they were related to saul and they just kind of took up the the mantle of fighting against david because of saul let me give you a couple of examples second samuel 16 look at verse 5 second samuel 16 verse 5 says this and when king david came to behirim behold thence came out a man of the family of the house of saul so notice here comes a man of the family of the house of saul we know that that is the tribe of benjamin because we've already seen that saul is a benjamite and notice the bible says whose name was shimiai the son of gira he came forth and cursed still as he came and in fact we won't take the time look at it right now but if you go down to verse number 11 david actually refers to shimiai as this benjamite he calls him this benjamite so we see that shimiai was someone that came out to curse david this one david is fleeing because of absolom absolom's rebellion and shimiai is pretty much kicking david when he's down and he's coming against uh david and so here we see a benjamite that was coming against david so it could be that this kush the benjamite is referring to saul or it could be that this kush the benjamite is referring uh to shimiai but that's not it let me give you another example go to second samet chapter 20 and look at verse 1 second samet chapter 20 if you remember when david comes back victorious from the rebellion of absolom the bible says in second samet chapter 20 in verse 1 and there happened to be there a man of belial whose name was shiba now notice so here we have another man of shiba and this man shiba is again i won't take the time to go to the story you can read this on your own but he's taking the opportunity of all the chaos of that absolom caused and david coming back to the kingdom and he's now trying to do the same thing and bring a rebellion and notice what the bible says and there happened to be there a man of belial whose name was shiba the son of bikrai look at the words here a benjamite and he blew a trumpet and said we have no part in david neither have we inheritance in the son of jesse every man to his own tent oh israel and of course shiba tries to bring a rebellion but notice shiba was a benjamite an enemy of david why was he an enemy of david because of saul because he thought that his family should still be in the kingdom and david replaced saul and we see that shimmy i same thing a benjamite we see that saul of course was an enemy so maybe this kush the benjamite is referring to saul maybe it's referring to shimmy i maybe it's referring to shiba or maybe it's just referring to some other benjamite that like saul like shimmy i like shiba came against david so keep your place in second samuel go back to psalm seven i just want you to understand the context here this is about this psalm is concerning the words of a benjamite the words of kush the benjamite and what we see is that historically the benjamites not the the entire tribe but individuals of the family of saul that were benjamites would come against david because they felt that david did something wrong by replacing saul and by uh becoming the king after saul was removed so with that in mind and with that understanding let's look at psalm seven and what i'd like to do is give you uh four different headings for this psalm and as as we break it up and outline it and maybe you can jot these things down and take some notes hopefully have a notebook with you or on the back of your course of the week of course there's a place to write down jot down some things i'd like you to notice number one david's persecution david's persecution we see this in verses one and two and notice again verse uh one the bible says oh lord my god in thee do i put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me now we already saw uh in the in the the superscription there that this is shegi on of david which is saying unto the lord concerning the words of kush the benjamite but now we see that the words of kush are an attack on david because david begins by saying oh lord my god indeed do i put my trust save me david again remember this is a song which the bible says there which he's saying unto the lord but there's also a prayer of david and he's praying to the lord he's saying i put my trust uh he says indeed do i put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and the them there is referring to kush the benjamite and probably also shimmy i and shiba and anyone else that's coming up against david and he says save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me and what we see here as we begin this psalm is this that this man kush whoever he was whether that's just some sort of a second name or surname for one of these men that we know was a benjamite that came against david or maybe was just another random guy what we know is this that this was a human adversary a human enemy of david and one thing that we need to remember as bible believing christians is this and this should not be surprising i'm always surprised by how surprised people are by these things but persecution should not surprise us i understand that we live in 2024 america and we think that you know we've kind of given into this prosperity gospel even though we're not charismatic pentecostals we have this idea that you know god's going to make us healthy and wealthy and rich and prosperous but we have to remember that in the bible the people of god have always suffered persecution now you don't have to turn here i'll just read this verse for you but if you'd like to jot it down the bible says in second in second timothy chapter three in verse 12 second timothy 312 it says this yay and all that will live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution the bible here gives us a promise you know we like to talk about the promises of god standing on the promises and when we when we sing that song standing on the promises of god my king or whatever when we sing those songs we're usually talking about the good promises you know like the nice promises that god gives us but here's a promise in the bible and it is this that if you live godly in christ jesus the bible says ye shall suffer persecution yay all and all that will live godly in christ jesus shall suffer persecution that's a promise of god and obviously we're all going to suffer persecution in different ways and and in different levels and in different heights but the bible promises that if you live godly you're going to suffer persecution and you know the reason that today most christians are just shocked when they see a christian going through persecution and they're just shocked because today when somebody sees somebody else going through persecution they just assume like oh they must have done something wrong but here's why they think that way is because the average christian today suffers no persecution and the reason for that is because the average christian is living a worldly life they're not living godly in christ jesus so no one ever comes against them no one ever fights them and we need to remember the fact that jesus said to his disciples he says look if the world hate you he says remember that it hated me before it hated you and he says look if you were of the world the world would love his own but if you're living godly in christ jesus if you're actually doing something for god accomplishing something for god doing great work for god then people are going to come against you and here david has this man kush the words of kush and he says oh lord my god indeed i put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me was his prayer so we see that this man kush whoever he is was a human adversary of david but then i want you to notice verse two here's what david says about this man he says lest he now he's talking about kush but he says lest he tear my soul like a lion rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver so david is praying to god he's saying oh lord my god he says save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me and then in that prayer he says lest he the word less means unless he unless who unless kush tear my soul like a lion now when we're talking about persecution and then david brings up this uh illustration of a lion that is going to tear his soul by rending it in pieces i can't help but think of the verse in first peter where the bible says be sober be vigilant because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour and what we can learn from this passage is this that though there was a human being we may not know who he is we know he has a weird name his name is kush kush the vengeance though there was a human being that was attacking and persecuting david what we can learn from that is this is that all our human adversaries are actually just agents of our real adversary the devil and we've got human beings all over the place that are attacking us and fighting against us and and and trying to stop us and hinder us but the truth is this that the they're they're tearing our soul they're attempting to tear our soul like a lion because really these human adversaries are just surrogates they're just proxies of our real enemy which is the devil the reason the reason that we have persecution look if you're running in the same direction as the devil you're never going to come and confront him do you understand what i'm saying if you're heading down the same road as a devil he's he's fine the devil doesn't care about you the devil doesn't care he doesn't care about the average christian why because the average christian is doing nothing to hinder him to hurt him to harm him to stop him he's the ruler of the darkness of this world and the average christian is just on the same course running the same course running the same direction as the devil and when christians are just going down the same direction the devil no problem but the minute that a christian starts hurting the devil starts affecting the devil starts hindering the devil or hurting his kingdom or hurting his work now he's going to get his sights on you and look the bible teaches this this is why when those devils uh were attacking in the first century in the book of ax they what they say they they said jesus i know and paul i know but who are you and that's what the devils would say about the average christian they would say well look i know who jesus is and i know who paul is because paul's been causing us a lot of problems but who are you and the truth is this that when you start living godly in christ jesus and you start doing something and accomplishing something for god what that's going to do is that's going to put you in the in the sights of the devil and some guy named kush might raise his head against you but he's really just a surrogate and a proxy for a real adversary which is the devil he he says david says lest he tear my soul like a lion and who we need to be worried about is our we need to be sober and vigilant because our adversary the devil as a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour so we see in verses one and two david's persecution and i would say the big takeaway is this don't be surprised don't be surprised when someone who's living for god gets persecuted and and by the way obviously nobody's perfect none of us are perfect none of us are the lord jesus christ nobody's sinless but when somebody's genuinely trying to do something and accomplish something for god the devil is going to get his sights on that individual and that should not surprise us so we see david's persecution verses one and two but then i'd like you to notice david's plea in verses three through eight david's plea and let me define that word for you plea because when i'm using that word it has several definitions i'm using the legal definition a plea is a defendant's answer to a legal declaration or charge when someone is charged i've never been charged with a crime but some of you have so you're very familiar with this someone is charged with a crime you know they they're brought before in a courtroom before a judge and they're asked the question what do you plea and and you'll say guilty or not guilty or whatever well here kush is saying some things about david the words of kush he's persecuting david i want you to notice that in verses three through eight we get david's plea now before that i want you to notice what they said what they said he did i want you to notice what what are the words of kush now we're not specifically told this is what kush is saying but in the context i think it's very clear because he's talking about the words of kush the persecution of kush he's saying deliver me from these words and then david gives his plea where's what's his plea look at it verse three he says oh lord my god he says if i have done this now kush is saying that david has done something but david's response is if i have done this if there be iniquity in my hands if i have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me now right there we get a clue as to what it is that kush is saying about david because david is saying look god if i've done this if there's iniquity in my hands if i have here's the accusation rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me so david says if i've done this if somebody was at peace with me they weren't messing with me but i just started messing with them i started fighting them if i rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me yay i have delivered him that without causes my enemy we'll come back that to that phrase in a second look at verse five then david says let the enemy persecute my soul and take it now get the context he just got done saying lord my god indeed i put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me why are you praying that david lest he tear my soul like a lion rending it in pieces but then in verse four he says if i actually did this verse three if i have done this if there be iniquity in my hands if i rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me verse five he says let the enemy persecute my soul and take it yay let him tread down my life upon the earth and lay mine honor in the dust sila the word lay mine honor in the dust is let him tread down my honor tread down my name here's what david is saying god if i've done this then don't stop him then don't do anything but he but he's saying i haven't done this and what david's plea is is a plea of innocence look down at verse number eight he says the lord shall judge the people and then he says this judge me oh lord according to my righteousness and according to mine integrity that is in me now here's what i want you to notice about this psalm is that this is a psalm of a prayer and it is a prayer of innocence david is saying i haven't done these things that they're saying i have but i want you to look at the themes and look at the context in fact just real quickly flip back to psalm six because if we wanted to give these psalms titles we could say that psalm seven is a prayer of innocence but psalm six was a prayer of guilt look at psalm six psalm six verse one to the chief musician of neganath upon shimonith a psalm of david notice how psalm six begins oh lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure now in psalm six we've already preached through psalm six and we learned about it but if you remember psalm six david had done wrong and psalm six is a psalm where god is where david is coming to god and he's saying rebuke me not in thine anger he says chasten me not in thine hot displeasure he wasn't saying don't rebuke me he just says don't he was saying don't kill me god don't take it too far so psalm six was david saying i messed up i sin lord you're going to rebuke me you're going to punish me but i'm pleading for mercy that's what he says in psalm six in psalm seven he's saying i didn't do this god and this is what i like about the book of psalms because in reality isn't this all of our lives sometimes we do wrong and we need to just confess our sins to god if we can confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteous that's psalm six but sometimes people accuse you of things and you're like i didn't do that well that's psalm seven and i think what's beautiful about these psalms is that god allows us to see in david's life these different highs and lows these different situations because the truth matter is this sometimes we've done wrong and we need to just get right and we should not be these people that aren't willing to confess our sins to admit our sins and to say hey god rebuke me not in thine anger chasing me not in thine hot displeasure but but here in psalm seven he's saying i didn't do these things and i and i and i bring that up to say this david is not saying in psalm seven i'm perfect i'm without sin he's not saying that because he just got done in psalm six saying lord i did it i'm sorry please forgive me what david is saying in psalm seven is not i'm perfect i'm innocent i don't do wrong what david is saying i've done lots of things god but i didn't do what kush that i did you understand that kush is attacking me kush is coming against me and i haven't done those things so we see in psalm six a prayer of guilt because when we're wrong when we've done wrong when we sin against god we should confess it forsake it and move on but sometimes there's false accusations there's accusations that come against us and here we see david's plea and in this instance now look did david mess up other times absolutely but in this specific situation david is saying judge me oh lord according to my righteousness and according to mine integrity that is in me so what are they saying that david did what they're saying is that he rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with him and that's what kush the benjamite is saying now what we can learn go back to second samuel if you would in verse 16 is that shimmy i and i'm not saying that kush is shimmy i it could be shimmy i it could be saul could be shiba could just be some other benjamite but what's interesting is that shimmy i actually said this exact same thing shimmy i brings this accusation against david look at second samuel 16 verse 7 second samuel 16 verse 7 and thus said shimmy i remember shimmy is a benjamite of the family of saul of the tribe of benjamin and thus said shimmy i when he cursed come out this is shimmy i cursing david he says come out come out thou bloody man so i want you to notice that shimmy i is accusing david and he says thou bloody man now let me ask you a question was david a bloody man it's not a trick question you guys are going to answer because you think it's a trick question i'm going to you're going to say something you're going to be wrong here's the answer the question yes david was a bloody man because david was a warrior and he was a man of war and if you remember david was actually not allowed to build the temple do you remember david wasn't allowed to build the temple you have to turn here in first chronicles 28 3 god said that david could not build the temple because thou has been a man of war and has shed blood so shimmy i says to david come out come out thou bloody man and you know that's true david you could make the argument that he was a bloody man because he was a warrior he was a soldier he was a mighty man he was a man of war so he was a bloody man but then notice what shimmy i says and thou man of belial so being a man of belial and i don't have time to go through this you can study this out on your own but belial is the devil and to be a man of belial or in other passages they're called the sons of belial this is what we call in the new testament a reprobate a son of the devil and so shimmy i he comes out with this accusation and he says thou bloody man he says that man so let's just look at it was david could you say that david was a bloody man i think you could because even god said hey you're a man of war and you have shed blood that's why you can't build the temple david was a man of war and a warrior so you could have made the argument he was a bloody man was was david a man of belial the answer is no the bible says that david was a man after god's own heart the bible says that david spake through the holy ghost the bible says that he was anointed with the spirit of god so absolutely not david was not a son of belial look at verse eight notice what shimmy i says he says the lord because remember the context and again i don't have time to develop the whole context but the context in which shimmy is cursing david is that absalom has risen against david and david is fleeing jerusalem because of absalom's rebellion and now here comes shimmy i to kick david while he's down and he says come out come out and when he's saying come out he's saying like get out of jerusalem get out of the kingdom thou bloody man okay you can make an argument he was a bloody man thou son uh thou man of belial that's not true he's not a son of belial verse eight then here's what shimmy i says he says the lord has returned upon thee all the blood of the house of saul so now we get the context as to what is it that shimmy i meant by thou bloody man because david has killed a lot of people so when somebody says that david like you're a bloody man they'd be like yeah what's your point like what do you mean i mean are you talking about goliath because i killed goliath are you talking about philistines because i've killed a whole lot of philistines the enemies of the lord but now we see the context in which shimmy uh shimmy i says that david is a bloody man he says the lord has returned upon thee so here's what he's saying to david he's saying this is happening to you because you're getting what you deserve because of all the blood of the house of saul in whose stead thou has right so what is the accusation that shimmy i is saying the accusation that he's saying is this that david the only reason you're king is because you killed the house of saul you shed blood in the house of saul and that's why you're the king because you he's either accusing him of killing saul or killing the descendants of saul and he's saying that's why you are reigning he says in whose stead thou has reign so here's the question had david shed the blood of of the house of saul in order to take the kingdom the answer is no absolutely not in fact there's major stories in the bible we'll look at them in a minute that say otherwise so here shimmy i is accusing david falsely accusing the lord has returned upon me all the blood of the house of saul in whose stead thou has reign and the lord had delivered the kingdom into the hand of absalom thy son and behold notice what he says thou art taken in thy mischief so he's saying david you did something wrong you killed and you persecuted the house of saul they were at peace with you and you did evil against them that's why you're the king now and that's the accusation not only shimmy i the benjamite makes but that kush the benjamite makes look at the last part of verse eight because thou art a bloody man and again in the context he's talking about the fact he's saying that david was bloody that he had he had shed the blood of the house of saul keep your place there in second samuel go back to psalm seven look at verse four this is the accusation if i have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me they're saying saul was at peace with you and you did him evil that's why you're the king now that's the accusation but notice that's what they said he did now let's look at what david actually did because david actually corrects it even in this psalm i want you to look at it he says if i have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me that's what they said he did but then david in these parentheses he says yay i have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy so david says they're saying that i did evil unto him that was at peace with me but david says here's what i actually did i delivered him and i believe that david is referring to saul that without cause is mine enemy so david said not only did i not do evil to someone that was at peace with me i actually delivered him that he was the one that without a cause was mine enemy and i delivered him well when did david do that these are famous stories but let's just look at them real quickly go back to first samuel uh go to chapter 24 first samuel chapter 24 if you kept your place there in second samuel or first sam you go to first samuel 24 first samuel 24 look at verse 11 notice what the bible says moreover this is david speaking to saul moreover my father now just so you get the context and i don't have time to go through the whole story but just so you get the context david is speaking to saul after david had an opportunity to kill saul in a cave david's hiding in a cave from saul saul comes into the cave by himself david has an opportunity to kill saul doesn't do it saul walks out the cave david walks out the cave and then david has this conversation with saul first time in 24 11 moreover my father he says see yea see the skirt of thy robe in my hand because david did not kill saul but he did cut off a piece of his robe just to prove to him this is how close i was to you i was close enough to cut off a piece of your uh robe and if i'm close enough to cut off this piece of your robe with a knife i could have done other things with a knife he says yea see the skirt of thy robe in my hand for in that i cut off the skirt of thy robe and notice what he says kill thee not now thou has now thou he says excuse me know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand and i have not sinned against thee yet thou huntest my soul to take it that's what david's talking about in saul 74 when he says not only have i not rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me he says i actually delivered him that without cause is mine enemy he says i've never done saul wrong i've never done anything against saul saul is just envious and petty and he's he's hunting me like a dog like a flea david says but david says i had the opportunity to kill you and kill thee not he said there is neither evil nor transgression in my hand and i have not sinned against thee he says yet thou huntest my soul to take it go to first samuel 26 first samuel 26 look at verse 8 not only does this happen once it happens twice david has the opportunity to kill saul two different times first samuel 26 verse 8 then said abishai to david god had delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day now therefore let me smite him i pray thee with the spear even to the earth at once and i will not smite him the second time here david has another opportunity to kill saul and abishai is even offering and saying let me smite him i pray thee what does david do look verse nine and david said to abishai destroy him not for who can stretch forth his hand against the lord's anointed and be guiltless i want you to notice what david says here about about saul and people make a big to-do about this and i and i think that they're just either stupid or they're evil people but when david says here that he was not going to stretch forth his hand against the lord's anointed people try to spiritualize that like david's talking about or or they'll try to act like we're saying that david's saying that saul was some sort of a godly guide he's the lord's anointed so even if he's doing wrong we can't call him out but but that's not what david is saying when david is saying that i'm not going to stretch forth my hand against the lord's anointed what does that mean the lord's anointed literally what it means is not that saul is special not that saul was some great man of god that you could never say something about what david is saying is that saul is the guy that god anointed as king he's saying saul is the guy that god chose to be the king what is david talking about he's talking about authority within our lives he's saying saul is the king i god anointed him and until and even we won't take the time to read the verses but in both instances he says david says his day is coming when god's going to judge him and he's going to die out in some field somewhere his day is coming but what david is saying is this saul is the king he is the one that god chose to be king and i'm not going to stretch my hand against the person that god chose he said but saul was wrong saul was backslidden saul did things that were wrong david says i understand all that i'm just not going to stretch forth my hand against the person that god has placed as the authority in my life he says who can stretch forth his hand against the lord's anointed and be guiltless now here's what's interesting is that david actually does the opposite he doesn't he doesn't shed the blood of saul the benjamin but then this guy kush steps out and says you've done evil against people that were at peace with you then shimmy i says the lord is returning this upon your head you bloody man you shed the blood of saul all of that is a lie those are false accusations and they're not true and you know what we need to remember is this go to matthew matthew chapter five not not not only do we need to remember that if you live godly in christ use are going to have persecutions but we also need to remember that people are going to attack us and persecute us now look sometimes are we wrong sometimes yeah that's what psalm six was about rebuke me not in anger chasing me not in thine hot displeasure but you know sometimes people just accuse you falsely and again i always think it's interesting to me how christians seem to be oblivious to this look you it's in the most famous sermon in the bible i mean the sermon on the mount is the most famous sermon in all of scripture and it's in the end you say well i didn't get that far into the sermon of mount it's in the introduction in the introduction of the most famous sermon you say well i didn't get that far into into bible reading i didn't get that far into the new testament it's in the book of matthew you say well math is pretty big i didn't get that far it's in chapter five i mean how far do you how lame you have to be to like you've not even read up to samuel uh matthew chapter five matthew chapter five look at verse 10 here's what jesus said in his introduction of the most famous so-called christians you know they have this in their walls and they have the most famous sermon in the bible blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake now why are they persecuted for righteousness sake but he's not righteous he's done wrong david's done wrong everyone's done wrong but why do they persecute us you know why for righteous not necessarily because we're righteous and we're sinless but because we're doing righteous things we're pursuing the kingdom of god the righteousness of god because remember they don't actually hate us they hate god and just like they are proxies and surrogates of the devil they're attacking us because they can't attack god they're just attacking us because we're proxies and surrogates of god to them so jesus said blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are ye when men shall revile you revile means like they look at you like disgusting and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake so this is what's happening to david they're just reviling him they're persecuting him they're saying all manner of evil against him for the sake of god against you falsely for my sake so look it shouldn't surprise us when we as christians get persecuted it shouldn't surprise you if you live god in christ jesus when you get pretty don't don't be the person who because of tribulation and persecution you quit the things of the lord it shouldn't surprise you when we're persecuted for righteous sake that doesn't mean that we're righteous and we're perfect and we do it all right but when we're doing and trying to accomplish something good for god they're going to persecute us not because of us because of god because of his righteousness sake their proxies for the devil and we're proxies for god so they're attacking us it shouldn't take you by surprise let me just say this go to matthew you're there matthew chapter 5 go to matthew chapter 10 not only should it not surprise you when we're persecuted but it shouldn't surprise you when your own family persecutes you and again I'm always kind of surprised because people are like well what if like your own family persecutes you I mean what if someone from your family persecutes you and I'm just think myself like you do or not knowing the scriptures well I didn't put this in your Bible Matthew 10 35 are you there look at it if the letters are read in your Bible I didn't paint them red this is what Jesus said for I am come to set a man at variance what does variance mean at disagreement at quarreling for I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter in law against her mother-in-law and a man's foes shall be they of his own household and people be like well this person's there that's their song and he's attacking them and I'm doing so that's what it says I mean literally Jesus says hey don't be surprised when a man is at variance against his father or a daughter against her mother or the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and don't be surprised when a man's foes shall be they of his own household and people get surprised let me tell you something there's no new thing under the Sun I mean Absalom was a long-haired rebel in the Old Testament who rebelled against his father and you know I know about a long-haired Absalom rebelling against his dad right now and people were like well I mean that's his son he has to be right was Absalom right look at the story of Absalom and David and tell me who was the man of God in that story who was right in that story and you say well there's this little pebble of truth that Absalom might have had well listen to me Absalom might have had a little pebble of truth to begin with but he took it too far he went too far and in the story Absalom's a bad guy David's a good guy no one's saying David's perfect I'm not perfect you're not perfect but it's real clear who God stands with and today people get this ideas and they're like well I'm just shocked that well do you read the Bible because you have Absalom coming up against his dad you Jesus is saying a man's foes shall be they of his own household go to 1st Peter chapter 2 1st Peter chapter 2 look at verse 18 real quickly and this stuff really pisses me off well you know let me just let me just explain something to you okay it's always interesting to me how somebody gets some beef against the pastor and they're like I need to go expose a pastor I need to go tell all these stories about how they're so wicked and then they're just like let me find the most faggot transvestite disgusting person and let me tell them their story do you know why to me why do you have to find some tranny to tell your story to when you decide oh okay my ally needs to be a filthy faggot you've told me everything I need to know I know everything I need to know about you because you think if I got in a beef with some of my pastor's friends and and I just had some problem my pastor's right I felt like I this really needs to be dealt with I need to expose this you think pastor man is gonna go find some man dressed like a woman a man with makeup on and and and and fingernails that are painted some filthy faggot let me go tell him the story cuz that's all we're gonna that tells me everything I need to know about you you're finding the enemies of God you're finding reprobates wicked atheists to bring your story out when then I don't I've heard enough I know what I need to know first Peter chapter 2 first Peter chapter 2 and then these whiny babies they're just like my mom's really mean my dad's mean you know what the Bible says the Bible says that you should not raise your hand against the Lord's anointed and you can take that clip and take a lot of contact oh you're saying that there's some guy no here's what I'm saying is that God has chosen some authority figures in your life and until God removes authority figures that's your authority until Saul was removed by God David says whether we like it or not that's the king and you know you men need to stop talking crap about your boss because that's the Lord's anointed in your life as far as your work is concerned you say well he's lazy he's stupid I don't like him then get another job and get another boss and get another Lord's anointed but until you do so stop putting your hand against them you're a wife and you're like I'm just I'm gonna rebel against my because my husband's an idiot my husband's lazy well nobody made you marry him and until he's dead and you can go marry somebody else he's the Lord's anointed that doesn't mean he's godly or special it just means that's who God chose and let me let you know a little secret that's what you chose you say my mom you know that God you see you can make the argument you can make the argument no God didn't choose my spouse I chose my spouse okay idiots you didn't listen to your pastor that's why you made that mistake whatever but can anybody make the argument that's not the the father and the mother that God chose for you and here's the thing about authority you know what God says God says that you need to submit to your authority and here's what he doesn't say and look I'm gonna give you an example this isn't about parents but it doesn't matter because it's just about authority in general first Peter 2 18 servants be subject that word subject means submit to your masters with all fear only to the good and gentle is that what it says servants submit to your masters with all fear only to the good and gentle that's not what it says you know what it says not only to the good and gentle but also to the forward the forward means they're difficult to work with they're not nice whatever you know if you're gonna sit here say my mom wasn't nice to me my dad wasn't nice to me you know the Bible says that you're supposed to just submit to your authority whether they're whether you think they're nice or not and the fact that you go talk to some transvestite tells me that you're a little bit of a pansy and you don't even know you know anyway go to Ephesians Ephesians chapter 6 well this stuff pisses me off because then people get this idea like well no I mean I would I would submit to my boss if he was smart but he's an idiot no you're an idiot you're rebellious you're not right with God well I would submit to my husband if he was mad nobody made you marry him I'm not saying your husband's not an idiot but you're a bigger idiot for marrying them and you should submit to it doesn't say wives submit to your husband's if they're good if they take you on dates if they buy you stuff on Valentine's Day it doesn't say that it says wife submit to your husband's period end of story and of course it says husbands love your wives of course it tells masters to be good to their to to their servants of course it says father's rebuked not your children or is it provoked out your children's right of course it says those things but it doesn't say this is what upsets me is that I get up and I preach hey that's provoked out your children to wrath and then you got a little teenager saying well I don't have to submit cuz pastor said that you're provoking me the Bible says you're supposed to submit period end of story Ephesians 6 look at verse 1 children obey your parents in the Lord if they're nice to you is that what it says children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor thy father and mother which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the earth and here's why it really pisses me off because I know people in fact I'm thinking of an individual right now that I know extremely well and they've actually lived in an actual abusive home I mean they if you heard their story like they actually have not trauma like well if you you know not everybody would agree that what I went through some I know if you heard this and everyone agree that's trauma that's traumatic while I can't believe you grew up in that home but you know this individual is a good Christian you know what this individual does forgives loves honors their parent and then some stupid little punk gets up and says I got spanked a little too hard well you know what I got spanked pretty hard too and both my mom and dad are here and I got spanked pretty hard and you know what I'll even say God bless them I got spanked sometimes and I didn't deserve it easy what do you say about that you know what I say about that I love my mom I love my dad I praise God for my parents I praise God that I had parents that love me enough to speak me and here's what the Bible says honor thy father and mother which is the first commandment with promise I want you young people to look at this verse is the first commandment which promise what's the promise here's the promise that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the earth you know that God literally says if you do not honor your parents he says if you honor your parents I'm gonna bless you and it's gonna go well with you and you're gonna live long on the earth and look you take us for whatever you want I actually believe the Bible and don't be surprised if you see these punks that rebel against their parents with their long hair and their little videos if you see them die or worse because let me tell you something there's worse things than death because God said that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the earth and nowhere in the Bible does it say honor your parents if they're nice to you honor your parent just you know obey your boss if he's good and gentle no not only to the good gentle but also to the forward and Saul was a really bad King and David said I'm not gonna touch the Lord's anointed and what he meant by that is that's who God chose that's who God chose as a king go back to Psalm Psalm 7 so we see David's persecution verses 1 & 2 and we see David's plea verses 3 through 8 then we see David's petition verses 9 to 12 notices petitions verse 6 arise o Lord in thine anger lift up thy self because of the rage of mine enemies and awake for me to the judgment that thou has commanded the first petition by God is this defend me Lord defend me in Psalm 94 in verse 1 you can turn there if you'd like it says o Lord God to whom vengeance belongeth o God to whom vengeance belongeth show thyself lift up thyself now judge of the earth render a reward so proud you know as Christians we need to remember that God said vengeance is mine I will repay saith the Lord and vengeance belongs to the Lord and we need to just plead a God to defend us and arise o Lord in thine anger lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies and awake for me to the judgment that thou has commanded look at verse 7 he says so shall the congregation of the people compass thee about now what is it that David is saying here and I believe that what David is saying here is this I think that when people see the attacks that we as preachers go through for the cause of Christ again not because we're perfect not because we're sinless but why are they attacking us because we're leading these churches because we're the Lord's anointed not in the sense that we're perfect or just man of God that never doing the wrong but just we're the ones that are ordained into this ministry but you know what I think is that when people just see us get attacked and attacked and attacked and David is the king and he's being attacked in fact it scares the followers and the fine and the guy and the followers are like I don't want to go in the ministry forget that and what David is saying he's saying look Lord if you defend me so shall the congregation of the people compass thee about he says for their sakes therefore return thou and I so what David is saying he's saying Lord can you defend me for their sakes for the congregation so they'll see and they'll compass thee about they won't be afraid to stand for you in verse 10 he says my defense is of God look you're always in a good place when you can say my defense is God so he says defend me and then he says judge me look at verse 8 the Lord shall judge the people judge me O Lord according to my righteousness and according to my integrity that is in me and Psalm 18 to 20 if you want to turn there he says the Lord reward me according to my righteousness according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompense me and again David isn't saying David isn't saying I'm perfect I'm sinless he's saying in this case God I didn't do what Cush was saying I did and and so God so David is saying judge me according to my righteousness according to the integrity of my heart verse 9 oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end Psalm 7 verse 9 but establish the just for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reigns my defense is God which save at the upright in heart verse 11 God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day that's it that's just a good verse for us to remember you're like God is angry with the wicked every day and this is good for us to know because here's the thing when we pray Lord vengeance you said vengeance is mine I shall repay saith the Lord you know we have to be patient because God is a patient God and we're praying these imprecatory prayers and we're praying that God would just do it tomorrow you know can you just do it tomorrow but you know it's in God's timing and sometimes the judgment of God may not come for months and years it may come and we're not even aware of it because God doesn't feel the need to have to explain anything to us you understand that so even though you might be saying Lord you know I'm not perfect I've sinned but I didn't do that and Lord take care of that and defend me we might feel like that takes a long time or we might not ever see God's judgment but we can have this confidence that God is angry with the wicked every day and that God judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day and you know what at the end God is the righteous judge and he's going to even it all out he's gonna he's gonna make it all work out so we see David's persecution versus one and two we see David's plea versus three through eight we see David's petition versus nine to twelve and then let me just give you the last section here verses 13 through 17 we see David's protection David's protection here's what he says Psalm 7 verse 12 if he turned not he will wet his sword he had bent his bow and made it ready he this is David speaking and he's talking about God he's says he God have also prepared for him and the him is referring to the persecutors the instruments of death he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors so here's what David is saying their judgment is coming when I don't know I know that God is angry with the wicked every day but I know this that God has prepared for him the instruments of death he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors so David is saying God's judgment will come for them but then David also says this in verse 14 behold he travaileth with iniquity and hath conceived mischief and brought forth falsehood and I I just want you to notice the terminology here he's using terminologies of birth travaileth has to do with giving birth conceiving has to do with giving birth brought forth has to do with giving birth and he's saying in the same way that a woman conceives and travails and brings forth a child these wicked reprobates he's talking about these individuals that are attacking him falsely and he says they travail with iniquity they conceive mischief they brought forth falsehood so he's talking about the wickedness of these individuals and then here's what he says about the wickedness of these individuals I think this is really interesting verse 17 David says he made a pit and digged it and has fallen into the ditch which he made and what he's saying is this not only will God's judgment God's judgment will come for them but he says their wickedness will come around onto them their wickedness will come around to them he says he made a pit and digged it and has fallen into the ditch now I don't have time to go through a lot of verses but this is this concept is brought up throughout the Bible let me just give you one example Proverbs 26 and verse 27 Psalms and then the book of Proverbs Proverbs 26 verse 27 this is also an Ecclesiastes but I won't take the time to go there for sake of time Proverbs 26 27 the Bible says this who so dig at the pit shall fall therein and he that roll of the stone it will return upon him that's what David is talking about in Psalm 7 15 he talking about his enemy Koosh made a pit and digged it and has fallen into the ditch when he made here's what he's saying the enemy they'll dig a ditch hoping that we fall into it but then they fall into it or they'll roll a stone hoping to roll it on top of us but then it will roll on them and what he's saying is this the evil that they attempt to do to us will actually come back on to them and when I read this verse I think of there's a pastor several years ago that was attacking me and attacking a lot of my pastor friends and what he was doing is just preaching all these sermons where he was pretty much just giving instruction because he was hoping that like our my church people or other of our new IP churches people were listening to his preaching and he was pretty much preaching these sermons where he was just giving step-by-step instructions on how to split a church and what he was hoping is that all our church people would be listening to sermons and then they would like split our church and they would cause all sorts of divisions so he preached this all these sermons about and and just like here's how you split a church here's how you go about it here's explain it what's what's funny I'm gonna say funny I don't even know if funny is the right word but what's interesting is that a couple years later I heard that his church split and I'm like well yeah when you spend multiple weeks teaching people how to split a church let me let you hoping that they'll split our church and then your church gets split you know what that is that's this who so dig at the pit shall fall therein and he that roll of the stone it will return upon him and you preach all these sermons hoping that very Baptist Church will split or some of the churches play and then your church splits because you know your wickedness will come back around you the Bible says that we reap what we sow look at verse 16 Psalm 7 16 his mischief shall return upon his own head and his violent dealings shall come down upon his own pate the word pate means his own head just a different way of saying head and here's what God promises is that your mischief and your wickedness will come upon your own head it's a promise of God it will return upon you this is why and look I've preached this a lot over the years but this is one of the reasons why I'm constantly to I'm telling these young men who are getting married because young young men who are getting married they have this tendency to want to go to war with their future in-laws and they just want to talk crap about their in-laws and they just want to fight and of course it's these girls talking crap about their own parents and then they're too stupid to realize like I'm just getting one side of the story here maybe this is being embellished maybe the but this is what I'm currently telling young men look your girlfriend is saying all these things about your her parents and you're just like God a war with them well let me let you know a little secret one day you're gonna have a daughter and you're gonna have a son-in-law and he's gonna come to war against you you know why because your mischief shall return upon your own head and maybe mate nobody's saying those people are perfect this is people are like well they're not perfect but they're a sinner and you're not but they're bad parents you're probably gonna not be the greatest parent no one's a perfect parent but you need to get it in your head that authority is authority period end of story God ordains the the the the authorities that are he puts them in their place and if God gave you a mom and dad you say well my mom is that my mom is that shut your mouth and honor your mom and love your mom and be respectful to your mom that's who God gave you shut your mouth about your dad you say well my pastor is this then go find a pastor you can respect but until you do don't talk crap about this pastor he's the ordained of the Lord again that doesn't mean I'm special or some superhuman or whatever it just means you're a member here I'm the pastor you don't like it find another pastor you go to work honor your boss don't talk crap about your boss be faithful and loyal to your boss don't steal from your boss you say but he's stupid and he's this and he's that don't honor those words out loud go find a boss you can respect and and go there but until you do see people want to talk crap about their boss then they're too lazy to go get another boss or go get another job or they don't have the skills or the value to go get another job my boss at McDonald's sucks well you suck so just be just honored look just decide this in your mind you need to just decide this God given authority is God given authority period end of story and you say I don't like this preaching then let that wickedness come upon your head then let your punk teenager come up against you because you're gonna reap what you sow because when you dig a ditch you're gonna fall in it and you roll a stone it's gonna roll upon you and nobody's saying I my wife and I do counseling with all sorts of people and we never sit there and say your husband's perfect we're like yeah we get it your husband's an idiot but submit your wife is a bad person but love her your boss doesn't know what he's doing and why is he the boss and you're the boy just obey him but he's not good and gentle he didn't say only to the good and gentle my dad called me a name one shot just shot your stinking mouth because one day it's gonna come upon your own head and you should not help people in their rebellion now notice how the psalm and Psalm 7 verse 17 I will praise the Lord and look I preach a lot on the subject of justice and judgment don't forget these verses the Bible says that you should not receive an accusation against an elder but before two or three witnesses and then what people call witnesses is silly to me if you're like well here are two witnesses and it's like they're not saying the same thing so how are they witnesses I will praise the Lord so this ends Psalm 7 verse 17 I will praise the Lord according to his righteous and by the way let me just say I preach this before but just because there's two witnesses doesn't mean a you know let me let you know a little secret there was two witnesses against Jesus too well there's two witnesses so it must be true okay so Jesus was a sinner whatever read the Bible Psalm 7 verse 17 I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord most high you say that's kind of a random way to end this chapter and you know when I was studying this psalm I thought that was a random way of ending the the the psalm too but then it just kind of clicked with me that you know sometimes we go through really difficult things and we get attacked our church gets attacked our families get attacked whatever and you know honestly sometimes I was talking to my wife about this recently and and I was thinking myself like man sometimes I think it'd just be nice to just be be like be a church member so or just just be an employee somewhere like were you just like clock in and you clock out you go home you have your day off and you just do your fun things or whatever like for some of us it never ends it's just attack after attack or whatever drama after drama you can't sit down to do anything cuz somebody's calling you about some issue or some problem you say well what do you do here's what you do you just praise the Lord I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness I will sing praises to the name of the Lord most high you know what the Bible says the Bible says in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you you know what it doesn't say it doesn't say give thanks for everything it says give thanks in everything there are some things that I can't be thankful for but I can be thankful in everything and no matter what's going on we can all praise the Lord and sing praises to the name of the Lord most high that's by our heads and have a word of prayer Heavenly Father Lord we love you we thank you for this psalm and just for these teachings Lord help us to be people that are just and in no way shape or form am I getting up here and saying that as a pastor I do everything right and don't sin or other pastors are perfect nobody's saying that but what we are saying is that when you have a God-given authority like a husband or a father or a boss then you need to not come against that authority period and Lord I pray you'd help us to learn these things I pray you'd help us to get these things especially young people because I don't want to see them so a bunch of discord in their lives and then reap it later and then find out oh I jumped on bandwagons and attacked people that I had no business attacking and now this is coming back on my head help us Lord to just try to be just people try to be neutral people if it doesn't concern us if it doesn't matter to us then just move on in Jesus name we pray amen all right we're gonna have brother Moses come up and lead us in a final song just want to remind you of course that this weekend is our big family and friend day weekend so just don't forget about that and the big thing is on Thursday tomorrow at 6 p.m. Friday at 6 p.m. and then on Sunday at 10 a.m. we have our big soul winning rally so just make sure you're here for that if you can be here try to come to all three times and appreciate your help with that and of course we'll have a big family and friend a special music from the choir orchestra the gifts the food all that stuff and we'd love for you to be here of course bring somebody with you all those things there's anything we can do for you please let us know we'll have brother Moses come up and lead us in a final song turn in your song books page number 319 page number 319 we're gonna sing just a closer walk with the page three one nine just a closer walk with thee and let's go ahead and sing it out on the first I am weak but thou art strong Jesus keep me from all wrong Oh be satisfied as long as I walk let me walk close to thee just a closer walk with thee granted Jesus is my plea daily walking close to thee let it be dear Lord let it be through this world of toil and snares if I falter Lord who cares who with me my burden shares none but thee dear Lord none but thee just a closer walk with thee granted Jesus is my plea daily walking close to thee let it be dear Lord let it be page 319 let's go ahead and sing it out on the last when my feeble life is over time for me will be no more guide me gently safely o'er to thy kingdom shore to thy shore just a closer walk with thee granted Jesus is my plea daily walking close to thee let it be dear Lord let it be great singing if you're a guest and if you have any questions about salvation church membership or baptism you can see pastor in the front and can I please brother Johnny closes in word prayer you you