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Leaning on the everlasting arms, oh how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way. Leaning on the everlasting arms, oh how bright the path grows from day to day. Leaning on the everlasting arms, leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms, what have I to dread, what have I to fear? Leaning on the everlasting arms, I have blessed peace with my Lord so near. Leaning on the everlasting arms, leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms. All right, great singing. Thank you so much for being here this evening. Just a few announcements before we sing our next song, which will be song number 248. Great song here, Now I Belong to Jesus. If you want to get that ready in your song books, 248. If you didn't get a bulletin, go ahead and raise your hand. One of the ushers can get one for you. Some important information on there as well as the pie baking contest rules and so we'll go over that in just a bit. Of course the services are as follows. Sunday morning is at 10 30, Sunday evening at 5 pm and then we have our Thursday night bible study at seven o'clock. We are currently going through the book of second Samuel or in chapter four this evening. You see the fall program schedule right there on the left and this coming Sunday is pumpkin Sunday. Now Mrs. Mejia, the pumpkins, you can speak because I'm asking you a question even though women are not allowed to speak in church. I'm just kidding. What is it from? It's from it's from grade zero to what or eight zero to what? To eighth grade. Okay so zero to eight. So zero to eight. Everyone gets a pumpkin from zero to eight and so we'll have those here this Sunday for for those who are from zero to eight and brother Ulysses will have those ready for you and then the following week on Sunday October 23rd is the pie baking contest and so let me just go over these rules real quick. All right number one pie must be at church by 10 15. Okay rule number two pie must have an accompanying recipe card with both ingredients and instructions. Number three church will provide numbers. You must number your recipe card and pie. You cannot have your name on the recipe card or pie. You know so there's no there's no respect for people around here. Okay we don't want people to we don't want to pervert judgment around here right and then for judging criteria it's got to look good appearance amen. If it tastes great but it looks as ugly as sin it's not going to win. Filling has to be I'm assuming that means it has to be half filling or the filling has to be good. Difficulty so it has to look complex I guess. Okay there has to be crust and just the overall impression we should be happy when we approach your pie and have just a great experience when we do so. Okay filling must be made from scratch no mixes no canned fillings pumpkin fruit etc. No no store store-bought puddings either no store-bought ice cream no store-bought whipped cream. You can't buy anything at the store okay I'm just kidding you could buy it I'm sure you can get some of the ingredients I don't know just these particular things here all right and so you have to grow your own pies in your backyard and do it all organic and whatnot. If you have any questions I don't know anything about bacon but if you have any questions about that you can see my wife for more details and of course there's going to be a first second and third prize winner to that may the best pie maker win please no bitter people thereafter. Sunday October 23rd we're looking forward to it it's going to be great and then there's going to be a ladies prayer meeting and cookie exchange on Saturday October 29th as DJ's baby showers on Sunday October 30th and then we have our annual thanksgiving banquet on Tuesday November 22nd and you see the location there and of course we're going to be announcing the uh the winners to the fall program on that evening it's going to be great and we've so far we've had a great fall program visitors have come people have gotten saved and baptized the attendance has been great and so let's keep it up and make sure you are keeping track of your points and filling that out on the quarter sheet on Sunday morning and just as a reminder okay as Christians we need to be as honest as we possibly can all right it's like well I typically go soul winning I don't remember what I did this week I'm not going to try to remember but I'm going to assume that I went soul winning I'm going to assume that I went to church I'm going to assume that I did all these things you know I just think I'm just that kind of person okay and so make sure you know just be honest if you didn't go so when you didn't go to church service you know you don't put points for that okay and so just just want to throw that out there just in case okay and let's see here okay no food or drink allowed in the main auditorium except for water and coffee oh by the way with the annual thanksgiving banquet you know invite your family and friends to that it's a great evening of course it's themed 1800s as far as the dress attire is concerned and we just have a great time for that and so we'll give you more information about that as we approach that uh no food or drink allowed in the main auditorium except for water and coffee make sure you're not loitering in the foyer fellowship hall during the preaching service and of course make sure you silence your phone during the preaching so as to not be a distraction during the service and there is another announcement on here that's not on the bulletin just a reminder about our sick policy if you or your children have had fever within the last 24 hours or are currently running a fever please don't come to church okay so basically if you find out that your child has a fever and you know it's for sure they have a fever but it's wednesday you know at 24 hours has if basically you need to wait 24 hours until you can bring them in okay don't say well you know they kind of got a low-grade fever i'll still bring them in don't bring them to church if they have a fever at all okay 24 hours be considerate if your child starts a fever while you're at church please keep them away from other children so be considerate if you have an inkling that maybe your child got a fever from you know one of the other children that the other parents brought when they're not supposed to bring them you know they're just you know that's kind of how it works you know just keep your child away from all the other children or just you know leave right after the service or do whatever you have to do um also it would be best to stay home if your if your children have an uncontrollable cough or they're vomiting okay now let me just make myself very clear because i feel like i have to clarify this okay because then you we get sometimes we get like two extremes in our church or just like if you even like everyone's like looking at you like you're not supposed to be here man like like calm down you know people are allowed to like clear their throat and stuff like that was that who was that you who just did that right now was that a cough i'm just kidding you know or people just have they cough right maybe they're choking maybe they have an itchy throat or something like that something wrong with that make sure you cover your mouth or whatever or maybe you are sick maybe you do have a slight cold and you're coughing but you're being considered you're coughing into your shoulder right and you're staying away from people we're talking about when you just have an uncontrolled how many know what an uncontrollable cough is how many would like a visual aid of what that looks like i'm not gonna do it okay yeah put your hand down not happening everyone knows what an uncontrollable cough is where you just it just looks like you've been you know smoking all your life or something like that and you're just you're really sick okay at that point you should probably stay home okay probably not all all the halls in the world probably can't help you out during church all right and so have discernment just know the difference between the two okay and of course now if you're projectile vomiting or you're vomiting at all that should obviously be an indication that you stay home and so i have to make that announcement every couple of months just to remind our people that if you have any questions you can ask me after the service but i think it's pretty self-explanatory all right go ahead and put out your your prayer sheet there uh of course pray for our church corporately for god's favor for the soul winning pray for the the the mission strips that we're taking to barstow we're going again this coming monday if anyone's interested in that they can see brother ulysses for more details pray for our missions trip to belize we're taking another trip to belize in november and so pray that god will prepare the hearts of the people we're going to speak to that we'd see a great harvest of souls there pray for church van for spiritual numerical growth for laborers and for new people so you know we want to grow the church but we don't want to just grow the church just to grow the church lord willing the goal would be that as people come to get saving get baptized we start training them to be soul owners okay and the great thing about that is is that over the summer we got a couple visitors that actually stuck around after they got saved they got baptized and now they're sowing they're going out there regularly so we that's the plan that we that we have and that's the goal that we want and so uh pray to that end pray for those in authority and then you see the the church families there and all the needs that are mentioned there at the bottom and then and if you have any additional prayer requests you can put that at the bottom if you want to make it uh anonymous you can put anonymous there and we'll make sure that it gets on the prayer sheet for the following week all right and that is it for the morning why don't you come on up and pray over these things all right please bow your heads in a word of prayer dear lord heavenly father thank you for giving us another day at church and lord just pray that um that we're thankful for all the blessings that you give us in our life lord thank you for the king james bible and our salvation thank you for all the souls that got saved over uh over the course of this week and the month and um of the time from this church being um started lord i just pray for church van i pray that a van is um that meets all the needs that we have for our church here um i pray that that that we there's an opportunity for us to purchase a van what i pray for the leadership in our church i pray for past me pastor manhia as he's leading our church um i pray that you're giving them wisdom discernment um and your guy and you're holding his hand guiding him as he's leading the flock lord lord i pray for the pastors in training i pray that um you're working in their hearts and and their families and preparing them for ministry lord i just pray for the fall program as we're um as we're in in the midst of the fall program i pray that a lot of people come to church a lot of people get saved a lot of people who um start wanting to get acclimated to the christian life still winning reading their bible uh growing in righteousness lord i just pray for the barren women i pray that that you open up the womb lord and um and and you you'd meet that that need there lord and then lord i just also want to pray for the general unspoken request lord i pray for this chapter um i pray that we can grow thereby closer to you learning um the truths that pastor me has prepared for us and uh lord just thank you for today and thank you for all the blessings that we have and the fellowship to follow will just be attentive to the preaching praise i will name amen all right open up your hymnals to song number 248 248 now i belong to jesus song number 248 now i belong to jesus song 248 everyone all together nice and strong jesus my lord will love me forever from him no power of evil can sever he gave his life to ransom my soul now i belong to him him now i belong to jesus jesus belongs to me not for the years of time alone but for eternity once i was lost in sin's degradation jesus came down to bring me salvation lifted me up from sorrow and shame now i belong to him now i belong to jesus jesus belongs to me not for the years of time alone but for eternity joy floods my soul for jesus has saved me freed me from sin that long had enslaved me his precious blood he gave to me now i belong to him now i belong to jesus jesus belongs to me me at this time the ushers will collect the offering tonight we'll be in second samuel chapter number three so so good evening we're in uh second samuel chapter four and the bible reads and when saul's son heard that abner was dead in hebron his hands were feeble and all the israelis were troubled and saul's son had two men that were captains of bands the name of the one was banna and the name name the other rakab the sons of rimon a bearethite of the children of benjamin for beareth also was reckoned to benjamin and bearethites fled to get him and were sojourners there until this day and jonathan saul's son had a son that was lame of his feet he was five years old when the tidings came of saul and jonathan out of jezreel and his nurse took him up and fled and it came to pass that she made haste to flee that he fell and became lame and his name was mephibosheth and the sons of rimon the bearethite rakab and banna went and came about the heat of the day to the house of ishbesheth who lay on the bed at noon they came dither into the midst of the house as though they would have fetched wheat and they smote him under the fifth rib and rakab and banna his brother escaped for when they came into the house he lay on his bed in his bedchamber and they smote him and slew him and beheaded him and took his head and gat them away through the plain all night and they brought the head of ishbesheth onto david to hebron and said to the king behold the head of ishbesheth the son of saul thine enemy which sought thy life and the lord hath avenged my lord the king this day of saul and his seed and david answered rakab and banna his brother the sons of rimon the bearethite and said unto them as the lord liveth who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity when one told me saying behold saul is dead thinking to have brought good tidings i took hold of him and slew him in ziklag who thought that i would have given him a reward for his tidings how much more when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed shall i not therefore now require his blood of your hand and take you away from the earth david commanded his young men and they slew them and cut off their hands and their feet and hanged them over the pool in hebron but they took the head of ishbesheth and buried it in the sepulchre of abner and hebron let's pray we thank you heavenly father for uh for this chapter dear god we thank you for the king james bible we thank you for our pastor please bless him as he preaches your word tonight in jesus name we pray amen amen okay we're continuing this evening with the book of second samuel and we're in chapter number four this evening and of course in chapter number three we essentially have abner defecting from uh ishbesheth and essentially going with david and promoting david campaigning for day for david but then of course later on uh he he's slain by joab and so abner is not necessarily a loyal person he's only going where you know he can benefit from so he's going to support whoever props him up or whoever gives him influence whoever allows him to have any type of power and just to bring us up to speed on what's going on here of course saul is already dead and abner who is the captain of saul uh saul's army there he basically puts up ishbesheth which is saul's son in order for him to be king but it's not because ishbesheth is a strong leader it's not because he has anything to offer the kingdom it's because he wants power and so he's kind of ruling vicariously through ishbesheth and just kind of taking orders from him but of course we see that abner is kind of making moves in the background he is uh trying to take some of saul's concubines uh for status uh for reasons of status in order to essentially give him more influence over the kingdom uh ishbesheth takes notice of this he kind of calls him out on him and then abner immediately turns on a dime turns on on ishbesheth and basically says well i'm going to go after david instead he campaigns for david but then joab still has in the back of his mind that abner was the one responsible for killing his brother okay so joab wants to murder uh uh abner here and he kind of does it in a very evil conniving way because of the fact that if you remember where they're typically where they're at in hebron this is a city of refuge and so uh if anybody who slew someone in self-defense or even accidentally were to dwell in that city of refuge they would essentially be protected by the old testament law that said that the that the avenger of blood could not take them so then what joab does is he conspires and he tells his men to call abner back because he wants to meet with him he takes them outside of the gate of the city and he slays them there essentially allowing it to be legal so to speak but you know david's not pleased with this he's not happy about this and he makes a public uh mourning type of a ceremony where he is he's essentially shows the kingdom and he's sad about this he's devastated over the fact that abner died and he kind of publicly is disappointed in joab but he still retains joab as his captain as a part of his kingdom and which is a bad idea because we're going to see that joab actually causes a lot of chaos a lot of trouble later on in david's uh life and in david's kingdom and so abner's dead and we know that ish beshath has no strength in and of himself and so now he's really nervous because he doesn't have anybody kind of leading him now and what we see here is what the bible talks about in verse in verse one of chapter three that the house of saul was waxing weaker and weaker we see this being played out look at verse number one of chapter four it says here we're going to look at the lame condition of saul's house okay it says in verse number one and when saul's son heard that abner was dead in hebron his hands were feeble and all the israelites were troubled now why is he why are his hands feeble well because of the fact that now he doesn't have anybody to kind of lead his army he's not a man of influence he's not a man of the people he's not necessarily a good leader over his soldiers they're kind of just doing that just because he's has this position of leadership but we see here that he relied upon it was very dependent upon abner so know that now that abner's been taken out of the picture now he's kind of scared because he doesn't really know what to do okay and the reason he's afraid is because he thinks well david's for sure going to come and take over he's a greater warrior than abner is and this is why he's troubled he's he's scared he's weakened by the news now one thing that we can learn from this on a practical level okay is the fact that you know the bible tells us be not afraid of sudden fear neither of the desolation of the wicked when it cometh okay and what that verse is essentially talking about is that sometimes you're just going to get bad news one day and you're just going to come out of left field right it's going to come out of left field whether it's a death in the family it's some sort of sickness you're going to get and the last thing you want is for your hands to be feeble okay strengthen your hands in the lord be strong in the lord and the power of his might and the bible specifically tells us don't be afraid of sudden fear that that means fear that can just come upon you unaware anxiety that can come upon you unaware and we obviously understand in a day and age in which we live bad news just comes all the time sometimes you know i've noticed just in my personal life i'm only 37 years old okay 37 years young should i say but i'm noticing you know the older i get the more bad news comes my way nowadays you know i remember being a kid is just you know growing up you just don't really have bad news and everything is just great like the world is awesome and life is great and not that it isn't great now but as you grow older you know more reality starts setting and you start seeing how the world really operates you start seeing how how a family can get you start uh noticing just you know just think woes that come upon you from just life and what i've learned is that you know we need to be ready for the sudden fears in our life right we're just bad news to just come upon you now don't take that to the extreme either though and then you know be overly anxious overly afraid you're just like what's going to happen tomorrow what's going to happen at the uh the these next two or three years whatever of biden's administration it's probably two years right two years of biden's administration what's coming down the pipeline you know we need to trust in the lord we need to uh don't lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths amen and the bible tells us that will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee you know for he trusteth in thee and so we need to recognize that we shouldn't be afraid of sudden fear because obviously bad things can happen overnight but you know what joy cometh in the morning though and at the end of the day we're still god's people we still have the word of god and just as quickly as the situation can turn bad just as quickly it can become good as well and so we just need to make sure that we fear the lord we fear god's word we're serving god and when sudden fear comes upon us just always have this in mind like god allowed it god allowed it and god's in control of the situation and so don't be like you know uh ish beshath where he gets this this sudden bad news and then his hands are like feeble he's just like kind of shaking and he's terrified you know what really ish beshath should have done is when he got the news and say man i'm no more burden of being the king i'm gonna go join david because he's he's the one who's supposed to be the king anyways and you know what david would have gladly received him into his kingdom because of the fact that he still honored saul and because ish beshath is the son of saul he would have honored him as well he could have been integrated into david's kingdom and lived happily ever after but instead he's afraid the israelites are troubled which is another principle that we can learn here is that when the leader's afraid the israelites are troubled so when the when the leader's hands are shaking then the followers begin to become afraid as well and this is a principle more so for leaders and you know the man of the house you know you need to learn how to take bad news or take calamities in your life and things that happen in your life that can affect your entire family we need to be able to express and show faith show strength that we believe in the lord that everything's going to be okay that we can instill faith in our family no matter what happens and so obviously ish beshath just kind of sucks as a leader this guy's just terrible for the job he's not doing good here and he's weakened okay by the news now look what it says in verse two it says in saul's son saul's son had two men that were captains of bands the name of the one was banna and the name of the other was recub the sons of a burethite of the children of benjamin for bureth also was reckoned to benjamin and the burethites fled to getaim and were sojourners there until this day now i'm going to make a couple comments in that in a couple uh verses in a couple minutes i'm not going to mention anything about that yet because that has significance in just a bit look at verse four and jonathan saul's son had a son that was lame on his feet he was five years old when uh when the tidings came of saul and jonathan out of jesrael and his nurse took him up and fled and it came to pass as she made haste to flee that he fell and became lame and his name was mephibosheth so what do we see here well mephibosheth when it says that he was lame it's not the way we would use the term today you know what i mean when we talk about someone being lame it's just like we kind of you know we're talking about like a loser or something right like you're lame like you're just basically a loser um i don't know what's a what's a good synonym for like the modern term of lame is is loser the only thing we got that's pretty much it right does that sum it all up okay i'm not asking for onomatopoeias here okay that's the sound you know what's it what's a good what's a good you know pathetic there you go that's perfect actually that's better yeah like lame would be like you're pathetic okay that's not what this is referring to he's it's basically referring to the fact that he's handicapped okay and the reason he's handicapped is not because he did anything you know to kind of mess himself up it was it was his babysitter his nurse who when tidings came that saul had died she was carrying him and she like she just tossed him you know she was just like whoa or like let him go or something and he fell in such a way that he became lame on his feet like he was handicapped thereafter and we don't know to what extent but obviously this is actually something that does happen i mean let me just tell you a personal story none of me but uh my my dad actually this happened to my father uh when he was a child you know he comes from a really large family about 12 9 12 kids you know really small hispanic family type of thing and he was one of the youngest and his sister was holding him one time and i think she was taking care of like him and my other aunt or something they're really small and the other one was like in a stroller or something and she was kind of pushing you know the other uh my other aunt with her foot just kind of bringing her back and pushing her forward but one time she pushed too fast and the stroller just took off and it was like on a hill so she panicked and she like you know let go of my dad you know and he fell on his head and uh he fell on his head and and you know she got in trouble for that or whatever but thereafter he actually had epilepsy because you know that can happen because of a head injury he ended up having epilepsy for pretty much the greater part of his life because of that uh that that trauma that he received to the head and you know later on probably when he was about 15 maybe you know late 40s early 50s it just completely went away because of the fact that the brain heals it just takes a really long time to heal i mean you think about it from the time that he was a baby up until you know he's in his 50s that's how long it took for him to to completely heal and he never had epilepsy thereafter he would have it like certain episodes so this is something that's i don't want to say it's like it happens all the time but it's it's because i i read the story and i'm like what a dumb nurse you know what i mean like how did she just let him go like that but you know i'm sure people have done that in times past children have gotten hurt or whatever unfortunately for mephibosheth you know he became lame on his feet because of it now as i'm reading this i'm thinking to myself what significance does this even play in this entire story other than the fact that he's just telling us that he has another son named mephibosheth and he's lame on his feet well i think it has more of a spiritual significance because we see in the beginning that ishbesheth's hands are feeble which means weak bruce stop or kyla no more they're learning how to sit in the front so they gotta behave in the church so you know you have ishbesheth who is essentially feeble in his hands and he's weak and then you have mephibosheth who's lame on his feet essentially saying that he's weak on his feet as well and i think what this is it's a representation of the house of saul the fact that it's just a weak house it's growing weaker and weaker and here's the thing is that go with me if you went to roman chapter number eight go to roman chapter eight i was actually just thinking about this right now there's a lot of layers of of meaning to the relationship that saul has with david what saul represents what david represents and we've talked about some of those uh throughout first and second samuel but one of the main ones is the fact that you know saul essentially represents the jews we know that david represents believers and one of the most glaring characteristics of that is the fact that the kingdom of god was taken from saul and given to a king that was better than him or as the new testament says the kingdom of god shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof right so we see that parallel there that saul essentially represents you know the jews david represents believers and just as saul persecuted david in like manner the jews persecuted date or jews persecuted believers and we see that as david's house grows stronger the house of saul grows weaker just like in the new testament christianity really began to take over and judaism began to die right even to the point where jesus went to a tree and he said henceforth shall no more fruit grow on thee forever and he cursed the tree and it's essentially the tree of judaism okay the religion of the jews that was not producing any fruit whatsoever it was a cursed religion and still is amen so we see that how he represents the jews and david represents believers but if you think about it you know saul represents the old testament david represents the new testament because hebrews chapter eight and nine talk about the fact that the new covenant is a better covenant right just as david is a better you know king than saul so that would mean that saul kind of represents old testament like the law you understand he kind of represents the law where he's kind of like slaying and david kind of represents the new testament which brings life but when you think about the law from a new testament perspective we know that the law slays and the law really has no strength and in fact the bible specifically says that it's weak look at roman chapter eight and verse number one says there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in christ jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit for the law the spirit of life is in christ jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death for what the law could not do listen to this in that it was weak through the flesh it was weak to the flesh god sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit so we see here that the bible says that the law is actually weak now why is it saying that the law is weak well because of the fact that the law can't save you it doesn't have the fortitude it doesn't have the strength to be able to forgive sins it doesn't have the ability to be able to redeem a person it doesn't have the ability to give anybody eternal life it is weak through the flesh and so when a person decides well i'm going to keep the law in order to be saved i mean they're essentially you know it's it's a fool's errand because it's never going to happen because the law is too weak to save you okay and in fact the bible specifically says when we were when we were without strength you know christ died for the ungodly and then it says but god commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners christ died for us and so we know that we all had to come to a point where we recognized that in and of ourselves we were weak the law showed us that we were weak that we could not save ourselves and in light of that we believed on jesus christ you know we came to the foot of the cross and sought jesus christ as a savior to be able to redeem us and so you know that's why it's so foolish when people think that keeping the law can save you you know first and foremost because most of them think it's like only keeping only ten commandments that save you when in actuality it's just like well how about all the law that the bible talks about right but let's just dwindle it down to those ten though no one would be able to even keep those ten everyone has broken those ten and in fact people who think like the you know like the rich young ruler was like i've kept all of these you know from my childhood and up they've broken it anyways because the bible tells us that whosoever keepeth the whole law yet offended one point is guilty of all people don't seem to understand that god god's standard for eternal life is perfection which is why we need the righteousness of jesus christ because he's the only one who's perfect okay and you know this message comes packaged in different ways when you think about it because they'll say you know you have to keep the law to be saved or you know well you don't have to keep the law but make sure you do you can't sin though if you sin then you're going to lose your salvation or you sin you know you're gonna you're gonna forfeit eternal life or something but folks sin is the transgression of the law so like when you sin you're basically showing that you're not keeping god's commandments okay and you know i've recently heard a bunch of people you know especially online they'll tell me i was one guy in particular said you know well you know the bible says that they would do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of god so how about that you know galatians 5 21 and people loved bringing up that verse and they'll say they're not they're not going to inherit the kingdom of god but what they failed to realize is that verse 19 of galatians chapter 5 says that the works of the flesh are made manifest which are these okay and he's referring to the flesh and people don't seem to understand that you know when we get saved our spirit is saved but this body is not saved yet this body is like it's it's it's sinful it's fleshly and in fact the bible specifically says that it's not subject to the law of god listen to this neither indeed can be so it's just like it's not subject to god's law but even if it were even capable a little bit it can't it's not subject to the law of god neither indeed can be okay and so yes our spirit is saved but the flesh is constantly giving in to the fleshly desires and if that weren't the case then there should be no command in the bible to tell us to do right because it would just come automatic but the truth is is that we we have two natures the old nature the new nature and you know think about this like one of the greatest christians of the new testament is the apostle paul and he specifically said for me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing and he even said you know i see another law on my members warring after the law and my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members and then he says you know oh wretched man that i am who shall deliver me from this body of death right and it's the same thing that he says in galatians 5 when he says that the flesh lusts against the spirit the spirit against the flesh these are contrary the ones of the other city cannot do the things that you would and so when people say well you know you're not going to inherit the kingdom of god because you know you're sinning well here's the thing they're only halfway right because of the fact that yes my flesh shall not inherit the kingdom of god because the bible says in first corinthians 15 50 flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of god so there's just like well then you know you're you're proving me right well here's the thing yeah we're saved and we're gonna sin all the days of our life and if the bible says that flesh and blessing not inherit the kingdom of god what are we gonna do well you know it's almost like we just like need a new body or something which is why we have the resurrection you see people think of the resurrection as oh that's when jesus comes back and saves me from biden or saves me from this corrupt world just takes me away so i don't have to deal with all this nonsense that's going on in this world folks the resurrection has nothing to do with your political party or how much you hate this world the resurrection has to do with giving you a body capable of standing in the presence of god okay you know our bodies right now they're corruptible and this is why the bible tells us that in the end times when the rapture takes place in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump we shall be changed the bible says it says that this corruption shall put on incorruption this mortal shall put on immortality and it shall be brought to pass the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory i mean we read it in philippians chapter 3 you know when we were studying philippians chapter 3 it says that he shall change this vile body and make it like into his glorious body and then he'll he'll subject it unto himself you know the resurrection is not just that jesus christ is going to rapture us the resurrection is the fact that he's going to give us a body that is completely absent of sin and it's not susceptible to the temptations of this world you understand so it's just like you know we sin all the days of our life here on this earth with our flesh god knows that okay that's why he's going to like give us a new body he's like well you know and what people have also failed to realize is like the resurrection is part of your salvation like that comes included with the package you understand what i'm saying you know the bible tells us in whom you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and whom also after that you believed you were sealed with the holy spirit of promise and sometimes people take that verse and think to themselves well you know that that's a great soul winning verse and it is but it goes on to say uh uh how does it go uh sealed with the holy spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of the purchase possession unto the praise of his glory and so listen listen how that's worded unto the redemption of the purchase possession so if we're if he's referring to our bodies being completely purchased he's saying it hasn't been completely redeemed yet because the holy spirit of god is dwelling within us until he redeems it on that day you understand so romans 8 tells us we're waiting to wit the redemptions of our body okay because there's going to come a day obviously our spirit is redeemed but you know he paid for the whole thing my friends he's paid for the whole thing the bible says that we're bought you know with the price that we're the temple of the holy ghost which you have of god and you're not your own so we're we're purchased completely but let me say this he hasn't redeemed the body as of yet so it belongs to him he just hasn't come to take it and when he comes he's going to change it okay which is why we need to be buried to signify a seed going into the ground coming out something completely different okay and so you know there's your resurrection doctrine for the month right but you know that's important because if you don't emphasize these things then people will tell you well you know you're not going to inherit the kingdom of god and then christians are like oh yeah don't say it in the bible oh man what should i answer for that well the answer is the resurrection this flesh will not this is not going to be in heaven and thank god for that amen you know this flesh is not going to be in heaven it's not going to be in the presence of god because it's it's such a lame model lame it's weak right there's no the bible says that we're listen to this in first corinthians 15 it says we're sown in weakness and we're raised in power you understand and so this body cannot be in the presence of god it's too weak it's susceptible to sin it's it's it's it's uh uh viable to temptation it just gives into those things so we need a resurrected body and obviously we don't know what that's like but we know that it's something that's like 2.0 5.0 or whatever it is you know it's better than what we have right now okay and so this flesh is weak we need something that's powerful well you know going back to because we're studying you know second sammy chapter four i started to chase that rabbit it's a good rabbit to chase though and i think it's important you know the house of saw and like matter is weak it's weak in its hands and it's weak on his feet okay now a secondary application that we can get to this get from this is the fact that just as saw represents judaism so to speak judaism was also weak in their hands and their feet because they weren't winning people to christ and feet typically represent taking someone to go preach the gospel you know the bible tells us how beautiful are the feet of them the priests glad tidings of great joy and so you know he's weak on his feet his his progeny is weak on their feet his progeny is weak in their hands whereas the house of david they're strong with their hands and they're strong with their feet just as new testament christianity is strong okay you know the the feet of judaism would cause them to compass land and sea to make one proselyte the only problem is when they are converted they make them twofold more a child of hell than themselves so they're actually doing more damage to the cause of christ by going out there and preaching in the name of god preaching in the name of the bible and the word of god then you know what they're doing you know they're obviously false prophets and so you know their hands are weak their feet are weak they're not doing very well so that's a great representation there now go back to second samuel if you would so that's the lame condition of saul's house okay and one of the reasons also why mephibosheth is mentioned is just to kind of help us to realize no one's going to take over after ishbesheth either mephibosheth is not qualified to take over he's lame on his feet and you know obviously even if he has a good heart and maybe he loves the lord physically he's not a good representation of a kingdom of a king you understand you know i'm sure god expects someone to be physically strong and able you know this guy is not necessarily it and so i think that's one of the reasons it's being mentioned here mephibosheth is being mentioned now look what it says in verse number five so it's going to mention those we saw in verse two and three we see here look what it says in verse five it says in the sons of roman and the bearethite rekha ben bana bana went and came about the heat of the day to the house of ishbesheth who lay on a bed at noon so he's taking a little siesta taking a little nap and they came thither into the midst of the house as though they had wood fetched wheat and they smote him under the fifth rib and rekha ben bana his brother escaped so this is pretty sad because ishbesheth is not necessarily a wicked person you know he's not a really bad person you don't see him doing anything wicked but he dies a horrible death i mean he he dies on his bed he's slain under the fifth rib now a couple things we can learn from this is that ishbesheth you know he's not a bad guy but he's obviously not a vigilant person either hey if your captain's not there if everyone is on you know kind of in disarray because of the leadership now's not the time to be taking naps during the afternoon you need to be paying attention what's going on and and you don't have your captains there no one's there to protect you security's not there or whatever you know you need to make sure you're not sleeping on the job okay which by the way a principle that we can learn from there is the importance of just being vigilant in the christian life and not going asleep spiritually when our world is in disarray okay and you say when is that well now i mean 2022 now everything is all jacked up right now okay and and here's the thing is that you know we got we got biden and as the president of the united states that's bad okay he's he's just destroying this country he makes he he makes for great memes and stuff though for sure he's quite quite honestly the funniest president we've ever had you know the guy's hilarious you know he can't form a sentence and and you almost think like he's making this stuff up you know what i mean he's like i got two words for you you know what did he say make america gray or what did he say oh made in america he's like made in america is like two words for you you know and it's just like what and then you know he walks off stage he doesn't know where he's going and he it's just like what in the world's going on uh he's kind of like lame you know he's just like so if that's our president then obviously is a representation of america and so it kind of shows you that you know we're not in a good condition spiritually we're not in a good condition spiritually so let me ask you this is this a time to be going to sleep as a christian this is a time when we need to be awake the most awake to righteousness and sin not for some have not the knowledge of god i speak this to your shame you know the bible tells us in eph and we're not talking about be awake as in like know what's going on in politics or you know make sure you get your vote in or make sure you do no we're talking about what talk about reading god's word we're talking about being in church talking about praying talking about soul winning talking about serving god this is what it means to be awake to be sober to be vigilant not paranoid not worried but serving god you understand now is not the time to just subscribe to every news outlet and subscribe to every you know conspiracy theory that's out there and subscribe to every youtube channel that is bashing whatever you know the liberals or whatever right now is the time to be involved in god's word to read the bible and to understand the word of god to understand doctrine he said well if i'm only reading the bible you know how am i going to be able to discern what's out there i need to be reading i need to be up to date on the news i need to be up to date on what's going on in the data what's going on with the economy no you don't you need to be up to date on god's word and recognize that if you take care of your walk with god god will take care of you and most of that stuff is just going to instill fear in your heart and it's going to you know you're just going to stretch that over things that you can't control so it's better to just be awake you know listen to god's word listen to preaching make church a priority make teaching and leaving your family a priority you know don't be like ishbesheth where obviously danger was imminent obviously his kingdom is falling apart he's like you know i think i'm gonna go take a nap you know it's noon you know it's a good time i'm looking at the sundial right there it looks like it's about one o'clock i think i'm just gonna go to sleep right now no because you might not you may never wake up and you know what he didn't wake up and so right now is the time to be awake a live awake and enthusiastic amen and and serving god but another thing that i want to point out here and this is very sad okay is the fact that he was murdered first of all by his own men but also by you know those who were a part of saul's household because they're a benjamin sauls of benjamin okay it's pretty sad you know is the fact that his own people turned on him essentially and you know this is a principle that we can learn that this happens sometimes you know that you know i think to myself the the worst people the people who could be against me the worst is often other christians you know obviously you have the reprobates and and and you know those who hate the lord or whatever but they're always going to be our enemies i mean that's like clear that's not hard at all you know i rather you know know that i rather i rather just be aware of the fact that reprobates hate me and they hate the lord because then it makes it easy for me to know who's you know an enemy of the lord who's not but when you have someone who names the name of christ or they're a christian or whatever it is and they become your enemy that's a lot harder understand of his own household now there's a couple ways we can interpret this or a couple applications should i say that we can gather from this you know number one as i was mentioning sometimes there's other christians like for example you know what would be considered of the house of benjamin for us well just independent fundamental baptist period right one of the most painful things is when you have independent fundamental baptists who who just hate you or they just don't want to be associated with you or you know they're just they just want to see you fall or they want to see you you know destroyed they want to see the new ifb come down or something even though we're independent fundamental baptists too like we're ifb the only difference is we're new only because of the fact that they named us that they would call us new ifb okay and we have a couple doctrinal differences but for the most part we pretty much do everything that they do with a couple of exceptions that shouldn't even be a big deal you know i've i've been asked by fundamental baptists online like hey do you have a bus ministry and i'm like i don't have a bus ministry at our church but you know i know the churches have bus ministry and people get saved through those bus ministries i was involved in bus ministry i was a bus captain i was a bus worker i was heavily involved and i enjoyed the time that i was there doing bus ministry when i was there but you know what i'm not gonna do that anymore and the reason for that is because you know sometimes people are violated on bus ministry and i don't think it's the best investment of our resources as a church to invest it into a bus ministry let me explain why churches have bus ministries i'm not saying all of them but in general let me explain to you why fundamental baptists have a bus ministry okay and again i don't want to paint all bus ministries with a broad brush because i'm sure there's churches out there that use it to evangelize they have policies they protect the children or you know they actually check on their salvation they care about the kids or whatever i'm sure they're out there but let me give you the reason why fundamental baptists have bus ministries it's it's pretty much for one reason only the biggest reason attendance the bus ministry is the reason why they they're able to boost their attendance so high okay you know you have these churches that run a thousand two thousand fundamental baptist churches let me just tell you the vast majority of that attendance is from the bus kids the bus ministry because they're they're standing out five buses six buses to pick up all these kids or whatever you know and they include that in their attendance so it's more so for an attendance thing okay now look i wouldn't even care if they actually check on those kids salvation and you know get them saved and try to reach their parents and all that which is exactly what i tried to do you know i i taught them about salvation we got them baptized we got them integrated into the church but you know that's not always the case i know for a fact that that's not always the case for a lot of people okay it's an attendance thing and so you know our church for example you know we don't have bus ministry but we're actually larger than your average independent fundamental baptist church without a bus ministry so think about that for a second okay because people like criticize sometimes i would get criticized like oh you don't do bus and it's like if you're if you don't do bus ministry are you even independent fundamental baptists it's like one of those things i'm i'm kidding you it's just like being a fundamental baptist is like part of that you have to have like a bus ministry but my answer to that is well our attendance is actually higher than most average the average independent fundamental baptist church with bus ministry with two buses you know i know of one in particular who's been around for like 13 years okay and they have a bus ministry and we still run more than them with their bus kids so what does that tell you you know and and here's the thing why have a bus ministry when you can just have the parents bring their kids to church like i don't want to pick up your kids you bring your kids right like why am i going to just bring the kids why don't you just bring the parents why don't you just invite the parents the parents have cars and they could they could bring their own kids and then you don't have to sing the stupid songs and and and play the stupid games and teach the 15-minute lesson or whatever they can be in church with their parents listening to the preaching of god's word i just think it's a better investment to just not have it okay especially now in california to have a bus there's all types of regulations all types of money you got to pay into that or whatever now again if there's a church out there who has bus ministry and they do it the right way and they're actually winning them to christ praise god hallelujah i'm for you but i'm just not going to do it okay same thing with sunday school class what's the point of sunday school class you know i was by the way i was a sunday school teacher i was a sunday school teacher i preached at at pastor shelly's conference uh last week it was a kids conference and and you know what i got to pull out my my arsenal of how i used to work with kids i know how to keep kids attention and stuff so i'm like throwing candy and and you know there's this lady you know like bah hit it right in the face i'm like that's what you get for not paying attention i was kidding because i told me i was like pay attention because i'm throwing candies you know people were getting hit and they're just you know but hey i mean the kids were paying attention but that's the kind of stuff you got to do for like little kids you know and in sunday school class that's pretty much what it was it's like a five minute lesson and then you have like 15 minutes of just like playing games singing songs taking blessings and most sunday school classes that i observed they didn't even teach a lesson they were just kind of there to be with the kids i hear old IFP people in our church laughing right now because they know it's true okay you know it's true sometimes they didn't even teach a lesson because they didn't even care about that stuff so you know what no no thank you i don't want to send a school class but you know you have preferences like this and then they're just like oh you're bad or whatever it's like why you know just because we don't practice sending school classes we don't have bus ministry we don't have nursery i can't believe you don't have a nursery well because the moms take care of the babies in our church isn't that who should take care of them shouldn't the wife shouldn't the mom like take care of her own kids and you know isn't she the nurse isn't she the nurse of that child isn't she responsible so you know we just have a different way of doing things but yet sometimes the benjamites they just want to chop your head off only because you're just a little different than them okay now that's one example you know have fundamental baptists who just hate on you or you could have literal family members who just would rather cut off your head and let me just say this that should come as no surprise to you when that happens okay because the bible specifically tells us that a man you know a man's foes shall be they of his own household and more specifically in john chapter 16 it tells us that there are people who will kill you people that kill if you think that they do god's service well guess what ban and recub they're thinking they're doing who david a service by killing ish beshath they're like oh let's kill ish beshath because then david would be pleased with us because this is his enemy and you know obviously they're idiots because they don't know what's coming down the pipeline once they bring that decapitated head to them they didn't learn from saul they didn't learn from that amalekai who did the same thing but you know sometimes your worst enemies can be those of your own household your flesh and blood whether saved or unsaved you know those often can be the people who criticize you the worst i'll be honest with you the the the the greatest pains that i've had in my christian life are not from the enemies of god they make this interesting i enjoy those wars i get pumped in those wars you know i have a great time fighting the enemies of the lord in that manner the greatest pains are those who are christians or those who are you know flesh and blood who hate on me or whatever and they criticize me that's painful you know and i'm sure everyone in our church can attest to someone in their family in their household who has shunned them you're like the black sheep of the family and it's one of those things that's just like i never would have thought that you would have turned against me but you know what the bible is true is it i mean the house of benjamin are the ones who killed ishpacheth think about how many interactions bana and recub had with ishpacheth prior to this probably shook hands hail the king you're the man and then while he's on his bed just smite him through the fifth rib and just take him out you know but you know what don't be surprised at that because that's going to happen more often especially with us as a first generation church you know when once we like go through a couple generations we got second generation maybe even third generation christians in our church it might happen less because we are a family like it's just kind of like we're the ones we know you understand but when it comes to a first generation church it's gonna happen all the time your parents are gonna get mad at you your sister's gonna get mad at you your brother's gonna get mad at you you know it's just it's just it you know and and so don't be discouraged when that happens don't lose faith when that happens just plow through that and and allow it to increase your faith in the bible to say wow you know i thought this was for someone else but apparently it's for me you know the the man shall be you know jesus christ said that that he shall set a variance a man with his father you know daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law although in some instances you don't need jesus christ for that just kind of happens naturally you understand brother against sister you know just families just turning on each other because of jesus christ jesus christ becomes a point of contention for a family sometimes you know and it's just like yeah jesus but not a church and you go to a hateful church this is jesus church talking about what do you think the bible means when it says that it's because of the doctrines it's because of the bible it's because of the church you attend and and you're like well what should be my response well number one don't be ashamed of your church don't be ashamed of jesus christ don't be ashamed of god's word you know it's just like what church you go to oh it's called fw uh bc what does that stand for it's a baptist church yeah but what does fw stand for uh you know it stands for first um what is what's that name again first works and it's like oh oh i feel like i've heard of that church isn't that that church is like yeah that's you know the response should be i go to first works baptist church like oh we've heard of that church yeah what'd you hear we've heard some bad stuff and just be like oh that's weird because this is a great church like yeah but your pastor though yeah he's he's a decent preacher you know i like where i go and my that's my pastor and these are the people i'm with and these are the people who i roll with don't be ashamed it's like oh you know first works you know just don't be weak don't be weak don't don't let your hands be feeble you know and be all ashamed of what church you go to what doctrines you believe you know you should you should stand with the truth you understand and so you know sometimes you're going to have these enemies and they're going to smite you under the fifth rib and try to take your life not literally but i'm saying you know from a spiritual perspective sometimes and again don't be surprised when it happens it's happened to me where i've had family members blood relatives just turn on me and it's just like we grew up together we were family like you know i love you you love me and then all of a sudden it's just like everything just changes and it's just like now i'm like your enemy or something you understand but you know the bible rings true and this is what happened to ish becheth and it was saul's house who did it okay so look at verse number seven now uh we're going to look at the loyal position of david's house we saw the lame condition of saul's house this is the loyal position of of david's house verse seven says for when they came into the house he lay on his bed in the bedchamber and they smote him and slew him and beheaded him and took his head and got them away through the plane all night this is very gruesome by the way it's like it's not enough to just kill him it's like they're sawn off his head to bring us a trophy as uh as uh as proof that they actually killed uh ishbe sheth verse eight and they brought the head of ishbe sheth unto david to hebron and said to the king behold the head of ishbe sheth the son of saul thine enemy which sought thy life and the lord hath avenged my lord the king this day of saul and of his seed wrong answer they basically just sealed their fate now why would they do this because they think david is as wicked as they are they are projecting who they are upon david verse 9 says and david answered recub and bana his brother the sons of roman the bearethite and said unto them as the lord liveth who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity when one told me he's like let me just tell you the story it's funny you mentioned this there's a similar story you know that this recently happened when one told me saying behold saul is dead thinking to have brought good tidings i took hold on him and slew him in zigzag who thought that i would have given him a reward for his tidings how much more when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed shall i not therefore now require his blood of your hand and take you away from the earth and david commanded his young men and they slew them and cut off their hands and their feet and hanged them up over the pool of hebron but they took the head of ish beshat and buried it in the sepulchre of abner and hebron so it's just like you know it's funny you mentioned this because the malachite did this with saul and jonathan and i killed him and the same thing's going to happen to you so what do we see here we see that david is a man of loyalty even to someone who no longer is present so he still holds you know strong to his integrity to like the oath and his loyalty to saul even though saul is not there anymore and then you know it's like what philippians chapter two says that you have obeyed in my absence you know now so much or in my presence now so much more in my absence so it's just like he was loyal to saul when he was present but he's now much more loyal to him even in his absence and it's not because saul is a great person it's because david's a great person it's because he doesn't care what saul did it's a matter of principle it's a matter of integrity and you know it's a matter of just being loyal to his house and and not being this wicked person but one thing that we can learn from this is that david takes vengeance upon the men who slew ishbesheth just as jesus christ said avenge not yourselves you know i will repay saith the lord vengeance is mine saith the lord i will repay and you know the lord is going to judge those who wrong you and you know i mean you know ishbesheth got slain under the fifth rib right but what happened to those guys first of all they were slain then their hands and their feet were cut off and then they were hanged over the pool in hebron to make made a public example i mean this is pretty extreme here so this shows us that you know in like manner jesus christ's vengeance upon those who wronged you is going to be like tenfold more than what you could ever do that's important you never take vengeance upon yourself and and and you know take vengeance on someone who wronged you who did you dirty who defrauded you who who you know who persecuted you or whatever leave that in david's hands leave that in god's hands you know he will take vengeance he will slay them he will take care of them you know and by the way you know here's another thing is that ishbesheth wasn't there to see it you know what let me just say this and a lot of us don't like this i particularly don't like this but you know thy will be done is that maybe god will strike vengeance on people when we're long gone you know what i mean ishbesheth wasn't there to see the vengeance upon his enemies but you know what it was important to david and you know what god will strike vengeance on the enemies of the lord and those who have wronged us and it might be in our lifetime please let it be our lifetime okay but it's not always the case you know because you know it's in god's timing or whatever whenever he wants to do that so uh you know ishbesheth didn't see it so it's a pretty sad chapter you know in a sense of like what happened to ishbesheth here but um obviously there's a lot of principles that we could learn from this but the main thing that we need to walk away with is you know how much integrity david has and the contrast between saw's house and david's house how saw's house is just weak it's feeble it's falling apart they're turning on each other you know just like the Sadducees are turning against the Pharisees kind of thing in the new testament it's just kind of going astray whereas david's house is just growing stronger and stronger under the leadership of a man who has integrity he's fighting the wars of the lord and he's still executing justice and righteousness he still has he's still a man of integrity amen and so that's pretty much it let's pray father we thank you so much for your word thank you for this chapter help us to glean wisdom from it lord and recognize that you're in control of all that takes place lord help us to have faith lord we'd like we'd like to see vengeance upon our enemies in our lifetime because we know that it will increase our faith but sometimes that doesn't happen and maybe it'll happen uh long after we we were dead and gone and uh if that's the case lord then so be it and your will be done lord but i pray that you'd help us to to strengthen the house of god and not allow our hands or our feet to grow weak and feeble and um help us to be like the house of david lord and we love you we thank you pray these scenes in jesus name amen all right we have one last song song number 90 jesus lover of my soul so song number 90 song 90 jesus lover of my soul everyone all together nice and strong jesus lover of my soul let me to thy bosom while the near waters roll while the tempest still is high hide me oh my savior oh safe into the haven guide oh receive my soul at last other refuge have i none hangs my helpless soul on thee leave i'll leave me not alone still support and comfort me all my trust on the estate oh my help from me i bring cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing thou oh christ art all i want more than all in thee i find raise the fall and cheer the fame till the sake and lead the blind just and holy is thy name i am all unrighteousness just foul and full of sin i am thou are full of truth and grace is let the healing streams abound make and keep me pure within thou of life of thee spring thou up within my heart rise to all eternity amen wonderful singing tonight you are dismissed