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

Amen, alright we're in 2 Samuel chapter number 8 this evening. Please bear with me, of course I lost my voice over the last couple days and today is actually the first day I got it back and I know it still sounds bad but it was actually worse yesterday and I remember just like ordering something at a restaurant and then the voice just goes out. That's not going to happen tonight unless I just start ripping face or something but I'm not planning to do that. I'm going to keep it pretty monotone tonight so you're just going to have to pay attention as best as possible. You're actually going to have some character tonight and just be interested in the regular Bible teaching, no I'm just joking. Tonight we're in chapter 8 and of course we're continuing with the exploits of David in his office and tonight we're going to talk about the preservation of David and let me just bring you up to speed on everything that's taking place here. Of course as of recent, what we've seen in the last couple chapters, David is really just building up the kingdom. He's executing great, he's making great decisions, executing justice. He retrieves the ark of the Lord back and of course then he has this ambition to build the house of God where then we then see that God doesn't want him to build it but he obviously provides the resources for him to provide for his son Solomon and he's going to be the one who builds the house of God. And then he just carries on you know he continues to fight the wars of God and just prospering Israel and just being a great leader and here in chapter 8 we see basically a continuation of the wars that he's experiencing and you kind of wonder you know this is kind of redundant. We know that David is fighting these wars. We know that he's dominating people all over the place. What's the purpose of just kind of reiterating his victories? Well we're going to see tonight what the purpose of that is and how God is preserving David by allowing him to prosper in these wars. First and foremost we're going to look at David's dominance in verse number 1. It says, And after this it came to pass that David smote the Philistines and subdued them, and David took Methagama out of the hand of the Philistines, and he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground, even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. So the Moabites became David's servants and brought gifts. So the first thing we're going to look at is the fact that he defeats and subdues the Philistines as well as the Moabites. Now what is interesting about this, well before we get into the spiritual application of what I believe this chapter is talking about here, you know we see first and foremost right off the bat that he's fighting against old enemies. So these old enemies keep coming up and he fights them again, he defeats them, he subdues them, but then we see in verse number 2 that he smites Moab. By the way, Methagama is simply another way of saying Gath. When you look at the parallel passage, which I believe to be in 1 Chronicles 22, 21, 22, you see the same exact story, but instead of Methagama it says Gath, which is the chief city of the Philistines. So he's not only conquering the Philistines, he's taking over a pretty valuable piece of land from them, he's taking away the chief city there, Gath. But then in verse number 2, we see that he smites Moab, and you kind of read this and you think to yourself, you know more information is given as far as what he does to the Moabites. You know, he's saving, he's taking two lines and he basically measures two lines to put to death and then one full line to keep alive. And you see that, you know, you kind of wonder, is he being cruel here? What is his beef with the Moabites? And we don't really know, but back in 1 Samuel 22, if you remember, when he's running away from Saul, he actually takes his parents and he puts them in the hand of the Moabites. So he leaves his parents in the care of the Moabites, and obviously he entrusts them with his parents, with their lives, with their well-being, and we don't really hear about what happens to them thereafter. So you kind of wonder, were they mistreated, maybe they were killed by the Moabites, we don't know exactly what, but obviously something took place where he saw fit to go against the Moabites, destroy them, and then essentially execute this cruelty upon them where he just takes three lines, one, he's like, you guys can live, the other two just put to death. So we see that taking place there, that he doesn't necessarily show them any mercy, he's destroying them. And here's the thing is that we might look at this and say, well, that's kind of cruel, but you know, the main theme of chapter 8 is that the Lord is preserving David, which essentially implies that God is advocating for everything that David is doing, and in fact he's allowing him to prosper, he's kind of opening the way for him to succeed in these battles, and so this is obviously something that is pleasing unto the Lord. And look at verse number 3, it says, David smote Hadad-e-zur, the son of Rahab, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates. And David took from him a thousand chariots and seven hundred horsemen and twenty thousand footmen, and David hawked all the chariot horses, but reserved of them four hundred chariots. Now this is pretty interesting. He goes up against Hadad-e-zur, and of course he defeats them as he's defeated the Moabites and the Philistines, but instead what he does, or the difference being here, is that he actually, what's known as hamstringing, he hamstrings the horses. Now this is actually pretty common for people to do in times past, when they defeat someone or subdue someone. In order to prevent them from kind of uprising later on, they would do what's called hamstringing. And here we see it says hawked, which is very closely related to the word hacked, they're essentially cutting the hamstrings of the horses. And the reason they do it, by the way, hawk, maybe that's where your name comes from, hawk, right? And you mean hack, okay? He's giving me this look like you just got this epiphany of what your name means now. And you say, why would he do that? Where's Pita when you need him, you know what I mean? He's being so cruel to these animals, why is he doing this? Why isn't he just making glue out of them or something? Why doesn't he just take them? Well, for a couple reasons, okay? And this is very, in my opinion, not only is this very wise to do, it's very smart to do, it's actually something that was commanded by God in times past. Because God commanded Joshua to do the same exact thing and the reason he told him to do that was because it would prevent the enemy from essentially uprising again and fighting against them in the future, understand? Horses were very valuable and if you had horses on your side, you essentially had the upper hand than just footmen, okay? You were more effective in war and in battle if you had a fleet of horses or whatever. And so to avoid helping the enemy to have the upper hand in the future, he's basically disabling them so that that doesn't happen. So it could be twofold, it could be the reason he's trying to disable his enemies so that they don't come back at him in the future. But also, David might be thinking back to what Deuteronomy says and he's not trying to multiply horses unto himself. So instead he's like, I'll take what I can but I'm not going to take any more than this because I don't want to multiply horses and you know what, I can't take care of these horses, you know, they're not my responsibility so just go ahead and just cut the hamstrings and let them die or whatever, you know. Which by the way, it kind of shows you the theme of the Bible, not the theme but one of the things you see throughout the Bible is that animals aren't really taken care of very well or should I say there's times when animals are not as esteemed as they are today, you know what I mean? Sometimes they're just, obviously many times they're killed for food, as resources, sometimes they're just killed to be made an example, okay, where animals are just killed or sometimes, you know, God permits this in order to impede the enemy from coming back again and having the upper hand and so this is a really good military strategy that he's hocking the chariot horses in order to prevent from them, you know, having the upper hand, fighting against them in the future. He says in verse number 5, and when the Syrians of Damascus came to succor, heir ad iser, succor means to help, you know, you think of Spanish, the word for help in Spanish is socorro, in fact, some Mexican ladies are actually called socorro, believe it or not, and you know, so that's the same exact word there, succor, when the Syrians of Damascus came to succor, heir ad iser, king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men, so the Syrians should have just minded their own business and it kind of shows you that you shouldn't inter-metal with business that's not yours, you know, you try to stand up for someone or help someone because you felt they were wrong or whatever and I don't believe this is referring to like defending someone who is in need or something like that, this is just, you know, something that essentially God's judgment on this nation by the hand of David and they're interfering with that judgment and then they get whooped because of it as well, okay, and he says in verse number six, then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus and the Syrians became servants to David and brought gifts and the Lord preserved David where the server he went. Garrisons is essentially referring to, you know, these military bases and just a troop of soldiers that are there to essentially just maintain the inhabitants, okay, make sure that no one comes in other than David and tries to take over and make sure the inhabitants are essentially, you know, they're put in their place and they're not trying to subvert the authority there. Now, what are some things that we can learn from this, okay, because when we read this we can't necessarily apply this today as far as like, well, you know, maybe we can go and just, you know, hamstring some horses of the reprobates out there or something like that, like what are some applications that we can get from this? Well, obviously, from a spiritual perspective there's a lot we can learn from David and his military strategy that he's using against the Philistines, the Moabites, and Hadad Ezer and as well as the Syrians. The first thing that I want you to notice is the fact that from a spiritual perspective if we were to put ourselves in David's shoes, spiritually speaking, okay, we being believers and the land being essentially our bodies, okay, you know, our land being the bodies and you think of the Philistines, you think of the Syrians, you think of Hadad Ezer, you think of the Moabites as being these enemies of our spirit, okay, essentially the flesh, they could picture the flesh and our job as David is to subdue the flesh, you understand? Now, think about this, you know, is this the first time that David has fought against the Philistines? I mean, he has a record of just constantly fighting the Philistines and even years prior he fought them and defeated them and he didn't say, all right, well, I'll never have to worry about those guys ever again. We see later on he becomes the king, I mean, even after he collected all those foreskins and even after he defeated them, years later, as the king, he's still fighting against the Philistines. Now, what is the principle that we can learn there? What we can learn there is that as Christians, we're never done fighting the Philistines of our flesh. They're always going to come back years later. What am I saying? You know, problems will always come back up over and over again this side of eternity and it's unrealistic to think that as Christians, just because we had victory over some specific area maybe years ago and it was a great victory, you know, we defeated the flesh or whatever may be, that somehow the Philistines are not going to pop up their ugly head later on. You understand? You know, the Bible says, abstain from fleshly lust, which is war against the soul. And you know, the Bible tells us that the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, these are contrary to one to the other, so you cannot do the things that you would. And sometimes Christians make the mistake of thinking, well, I defeated this bad habit, this bad way of thinking, this bad whatever, fill in the blank, five years ago, therefore I'm never going to have a problem with it ever again. And this is a message that many of the repent of your sins crowd throws out there where they say, you know, if you repent of your sins, you have victory over this sin. And they always claim to, oh man, you know, God delivered me from alcohol or whatever. God delivered me from pornography. God delivered me from, you know, drugs or whatever, you know, and that's not to say that maybe God didn't provide victory years ago because that's absolutely true. There is victory through Christ and through God's word, but you know what? You're going to have to fight heroin again. You're going to have to fight that way of thinking again later on in the future. And you're going to have to fight alcoholism, you're going to have to fight smoking pot, you're going to have to fight fornicating, you're going to have to fight pornography, you're going to have to fight whatever ideology that you defeated long ago, you're going to have to fight it again. And it's nonsensical to think, well, I defeated in times past, and I never have to worry about it because at that point, you know, he that stand to take heed lest he fall. It's you know, to have that mindset to say, you know, I'm never going to struggle with this again, you're essentially setting yourself up for failure once again, because, you know, the day that you no longer struggle with it is the day that you die, my friend. It's the day that you die, you go home to be with the Lord, and you're never in the presence of sin ever again, and hallelujah and praise God for that. But you know what? You're not there yet. None of us are there yet. I hope not, you know. Let me pop another one of these in real quick, and defeat this Philistine in my throat. You know, we have to, David's not like, oh man, these Philistines are still here. You know, he's like, I can't believe they're still here, I thought we dealt with this already. No, he's just like, well, let's defeat him again. Let's defeat him again. You know, whatever you defeated, whatever you overcame, whatever area you succeeded in 2022, I hate to tell you, this is going to come back around in 2023. It's not like, oh man, you know, it's time to move on to bigger and greater things. Yeah, that's true. But you also have to set up garrisons for the cities you've defeated to kind of subject the inhabitants there, you understand? And the worst thing you can do as a Christian, and I'm getting ahead of myself here, is have some sort of victory in your life, and then you don't set up garrisons. It's like, oh, this city's through. We just basically destroyed everything that needs to be destroyed in this part of my life. I overcame this, I had great victory, everything was great. And then you kind of just move on, and what happens? The inhabitants rise up again. Come back home, and then you have this problem once again, you know, five years later, ten years later, fifteen, twenty years later. You know, we need to make sure that we recognize that we're battling the flesh every single day, every single week, every single month, every single year, and we need to keep that in mind. You know, I've talked about this a couple times already throughout the last couple of weeks that, you know, we're always focusing on the wars from the outside and the wars that may come upon us, but you know, there's a constant war that we have to fight against the devil, against the world, against our own flesh, and you know, a lot of times Christians are really good with fighting the wars out there, but they're constantly losing the war that's right here. You know, they're not reading their Bibles, they're not praying, they're not in church, they're not taking care of just the basics of the Christian life, okay? And those are the most important battles, because those essentially determine whether you can fight those battles that are out there. The battles that are out there come every once in a while. You know, Satan, when he comes and fights, he comes in seasons. Well, you know, this body is with us throughout all seasons. You know, this is a war that you have to fight every single day, where you have to subjugate the flesh. And it's interesting that he talks about subduing the Philistines and subduing the Moabites and subduing the Syrians and subduing all these people and Edom because of the fact that's exactly what we have to do to our flesh. And in fact, the Bible is specific. Go to Romans chapter number 6, if you would, Romans chapter 6. The Bible will often describe these types of things from a spiritual sense as subduing or reigning over them, right? The Bible says in Romans chapter 6 and verse number 11, Romans chapter 6, verse number 11 says, You can fill in the blank there. Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, you know, laziness, rebelliousness, dishonesty, you know, whatever. Let not sin, therefore reign in your what? Mortal bodies. Because sin uses the physical body, right? It says, Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lustre of. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. So what does God expect of us? He expects for us to have dominion over our flesh, dominion. And in fact, in Colossians, I believe it's in chapter number 2, chapter 3, excuse me, he specifically says, He talks about fornication, adultery, all these things that the flesh produces, he says you need to mortify. What does it mean to mortify? You think of a mortician. Put to death. Kill, right? I remember years ago, my old pastor, my father-in-law, he preached a sermon about mortifying the deeds of the flesh, and he brought out a shank, or a knife, excuse me, brought out a knife, and every time he said he was mortifying, he was like, he was like, and you could tell he probably had some experience with that, just the way he was kind of doing it, you know? But he was like, mortify, you got to mortify, and you know what, it's true, you got to put to death the deeds of the flesh every single day, and have dominion over it. Don't allow yourself to be run by your body. On social media, in the powerlifting or whatever gym community, one thing that I see that just boggles my mind, I just don't understand it, or should I say, I didn't understand it up until recently, when I started lifting weights, man, you just feel great. You release all these endorphins, you feel better about yourself, and then you hit these PRs, and you just, there's nothing quite like lifting just a gang of weight off the floor once, and just putting it back down, you know what I mean, it just feels great. And then you know, you're tired, and then you just feel awesome, like not just physically, but even mentally, like it's good for your mind, right? So it would kind of boggle my mind when I'd see on social media these guys who are just like depressed, while they're lifting weights. You know, they're just like constantly depressed, they're just like, you know, let's go gym, and they're like at the gym, they just got finished doing their reps or whatever, and then they just sit there and they're just sad. And then you know, some girl broke up with them or some lame thing or whatever. It's like, you know, I don't use pre-workout, I use like her text messages or something. That's gay, bro. Like dude, what is that? I don't even use pre-workout. The only pre-workout I use is coffee. Or a Red Bull sometimes. But like even then, you know, they're just like, I don't use pre-workout, I just look back through our old messages or whatever, and then they can't stop thinking. And it's just like, dude, the gym is supposed to be so like you don't act like this. You know what I mean? Like why are you acting like this if you go to the gym? This kind of just contradicts it. But let me explain to you why they're like that. Because they think the gym is just answers all of life's problems. But it only answers like a really small percentage of it, which is like the physical body. But we're mind, body, and spirit. So obviously what they're lacking is Christ, right? They're lacking the Bible. They don't have the peace of God, the passive understanding, the joy. You know, I don't think back, you know, to all the hurts in my life as a motivation to do a deadlifting PR, you know? It's just like I just want to lift this off the floor and, you know, brag about it to Ulysses and to my wife. And just look at the recording of me doing it and be like, all right, that was good. Now it's time for the next one, you know? I'm not like depressed while I'm doing it. You know? It's weird. He said, why don't you like that? Because I'm saved. And I read the Bible every day. And I pray and I have purpose in life that's not just in the gym, you know, I win souls to Christ, I spend time with my wife, I spend time with my children, I spend time with my church family, and you know, that aspect does not have dominion over my flesh, you understand? But you know, there's people like that who just live dominated, they live dominated by their flesh, they live dominated by their depression, they live dominated by their discouragements or past hurts. You know, we as Christians shouldn't live like that. You know, in fact, the Bible specifically says we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, amen? And another way of saying conquerors is overcomers, which is what the Bible also talks about. And you know, obviously, people are dominated. And what that shows is that they're still alive, and they still have their flesh abiding with them. But even then, God expects us to be like David and subdue the flesh. But you know, it requires some fighting, though. You understand? It requires for you to put in the work and fight to make sure, you know, fight for your walk with God, fight so you can have the discipline and character to read the Bible every single day, fight to have a prayer life, fight to walk in the Spirit. You have to fight to, you know, keep your children in check and love your children, fight to keep your marriage together, fight to, you know, keep serving God. All this is a fight. You're like, man, I used to love serving God like a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. But now it's just such a drudgery. Well, maybe because you just thought the Philistines were just gone. But guess what? The Philistine of apathy and laziness is back. And you have to fight to get zealous over the things of God again, okay? Don't just give in and say, well, you know, I'm just giving the seven-year itch or something. It's like, dude, we've only been around for five years. How are you getting the seven-year itch when it's only been five years? You know, I'm just, you know, the newness wore off. Okay, then get some other newness on you then. You know, put on zeal as a cloak, the Bible says. If you're not zealous over the things of God, if your fire has died out for the things of God, don't blame God, don't blame the church, don't blame the Bible. That's you, my friend. You've allowed yourself to be dominated by apathy and laziness and the lack spirit. And you know, what you need to do is get your rear end out there and go preach the gospel, go get someone saved, go realize that you still have purpose. What you need to do is get your rear end and go buy your wife some roses, you know, get your rear end up and go make your husband a sandwich and love your husband and love your wife and take your kids out and serve in church and go read your Bible, go listen to some preaching. That's what you need to do. Yeah, but that's so much. Yeah, it's called a fight. But you know what? This is the Philistine, unless you want the Philistines to just dominate you. You know, if you just want to be dominated and ruled over by the Philistines, then that's on you, my friends. But you know what? That's not the way I want to live. I don't want to live being dominated by my flesh, by my past, by my bad habits, by any bad character that I possessed in times past or even as of recent. You know, I want to make sure that I keep my life in check and that I'm constantly working and fighting my flesh. Fighting against the Philistines, fighting against the Syrians. And here's the thing, folks. Let me just, let me let you young people in on a little secret, okay? Because here's the thing is that David fought, who's the first Philistine that David fought? Goliath, right? You know what? Young people are going to have Goliaths right off the bat. But it doesn't mean, just because he defeats Goliath, though, it doesn't mean the Philistines stop coming. And guess what? You're going to have nations that are greater and mightier than Goliath that are going to come down the road in your life. And so if you don't learn how to have victory over one particular area in your life, and you just kind of let that dominate you, it doesn't mean God's like, okay, or the devil's going to be like, okay, you know, just let him fight this one because he can't handle it. No, there's just like worse problems come down the road. Life gets harder as you grow up. Life gets more difficult, and it's just like, well, I just think everything's going to fix itself once I get married. Dude, it's harder. It's a lot harder. You say, why? Because then it's like you're responsible like to keep another person alive. And then you got to keep that person happy, you know, and then like you're living with that person. And then, you know, then you produce children together, and then you have these little people in your house that basically have your worst traits. Think about that. Hey, I'm giving you a reality check today, my friends, because sometimes when you ask any parent, it's true. You know, your kids, you're just like, they got that for me, and it's like the bad side of me. Now, that doesn't mean they don't get your good traits, right? They get your good traits too, but then they get your bad ones too. So then you got to train them. So then you got your spouse, then you got your children, then you got work, and then, oh man, the pastor wants me to serve at the church too. Well, no, no, actually God wants you to serve at the church. Then you got to preach the gospel, which means you got to learn Bible verses, which means that, and you got to be spirit-filled, and you got to know the Bible, and you got to read it. It's like, oh man, that's so much. Yeah, and then there's work. You got to pay the bills, and then you get sick, and then it's just like problems compound when you get older. You're like, well, I just won't get married then. Okay, then you'll just be some lame 30-year-old dude living in your mom's basement, some sigma. You'll be just some sigma, and then you'll take the route that says, well, all women are bad. There's no good woman out there, you know, and then all you're going to be doing is posting American Psycho, dude, memes all the days of your life, because you never learned to dominate yourself. Folks, I'm telling you, it's true. I tell the young people this because I care for you guys, all you guys in the back row over there. I'm being honest. You know, be thankful I'm telling you this. I don't want you to fall into the sigma trap. I can care less about the sigma. I care about the alpha and the omega, amen? You know, he said, what do you want to be? I just want to be a Christian. I want to be a disciple of the Lord. I want to be a man of God. Forget being a sigma. I just want to be a man of God. And by the way, these guys who post that stuff online, they're like orthodox. They worship icons and idols. They don't even got the right brand of Christianity, my friends. That's the sermon for another day. But what I'm saying is that, you know, David here is in, he's older now. He's older. He has a family. He has more responsibility. Now, he's actually the king, and the problems haven't gone away. In fact, they've compounded because not only is he fighting Philistines, he's also fighting Hadadezer. He's also fighting the Syrians. He's also fighting the Moabites. But you know what? If he didn't continue fighting as a child and as a teenager, he would have had a hard time fighting later on. Now, you say, well, I didn't learn these things until my adult years. Well, you better learn how to fight now because more problems are going to come along the way. It only gets harder. But if you learn this principle to just dominate yourself, you enjoy it. I enjoy these wars. Are they a little stressful? Yes. Does it get a little tiresome? Yes. Do I get a little weary? Absolutely. But you know what? I would have it no other way. I wouldn't have any other way. I like it just the way it is where I'm just constantly fighting the world, the flesh, the devil. This is what God's will is, my friends. And so he's smiting the Philistines. They're back. He's fighting the Moabites. But he's not just fighting them. What is he doing? Being strategic in how he does it. It's not like, well, I'm going to stop doing X, Y, and Z. Okay. What's the plan, though? Well, the plan is I'm just going to make myself not do it or something. Not good enough. What's your plan to succeed? What if you don't have a plan? What is a dream without a plan is only a what? A wish. You know why so many people fail in their New Year's resolution? Because they just have this great ambition, but they don't have no plan in place to actually execute it. So by January 31st, or how many days are in January? I don't remember. Is it 31? All right. Good. By the end of January 31st, they're no longer in the gym. They already quit on their diet. They didn't even finish reading that one book that they were trying. You know, they had like a stack of books they were trying to read. They didn't even get past chapter three of the first book. Yeah. Okay. You know, the blogs you wanted to start, you just, you know. Whatever goals you had is just like, because it's all based on just, it's like on a whim. You have to put a plan. He said, what was David's plan? Well, David, as soon as he conquered it, he's like, all right, hamstring all these horses. Like, what? Yeah, you heard me. Just go to the back of the legs and just cut them off. But why? Because I don't want them to come up later on. So one way that, you know, we can dominate the flesh is by not making provision for the flesh. Disabling your ability to sin, right? Disabling that horse in your life or whatever, you know, that one temptation, that sin that you might be struggling with, disable it to the point where even if you wanted to hop on that horse, it wouldn't take you anywhere because the hamstrings are cut. It's a handicapped horse. Now it may sound silly, but let me say this. Those who actually have hamstringed the horses are experiencing a lot of success in their Christian life. And those who mock the hacking of the hamstrings of the horses are always riding that horse, going places they shouldn't go, doing things they shouldn't do, losing battles, whatever. And so he hacked the hamstrings just making sure that they weren't able to, his enemies wouldn't be able to ride those horses ever again. So on a practical level, it's just like, what's that one temptation that's causing you to sin or whatever? You need to disable it. And sometimes, desperate times calls for desperate measures. Sometimes you've got to be extreme about it. But that's not the only thing he did. So he hamstringed the horses, removed the temptation, because here's the thing, a lot of times people are like, I just got to stay away from this sin, I just got to stay away from this sin. But really what it is, you got to stay away from the temptation. If you make it the goal to just stay away from sin, you're going to eventually sin. That's how it works. Because if sin is right here, you're just like, I just got to stop, just not sin, just not sin. Because temptation is right here, and you make it your goal to not just be around temptation. Even if you move a little bit to the left, you're not going to be involved in sin. Just stay away from temptation. Remove the temptation from sin, and you will be a happy camper. Now, what are some practical examples of this? Well, I'm not going to talk about dieting, because none of us are dieting right now. This is the holiday season. Like when people preach on, like one of my pastor friends preach on like, you know, don't eat this. You know, I hate those sermons. Like what? Don't preach that now. This is not profitable, my friend. Like no one's going to obey that. I'm not going to obey it, you're not going to obey it. I think the best approach is, you know, indulge during the holiday seasons, but have the discipline to get back on track thereafter. Just don't make every month a holiday season, amen. But who knows, maybe there's people who, you know, they can't even do that, so maybe they have to do that. They have to discipline themselves at all times. But you know, what's a practical way? Well, there's so many. I mean, I'm not going to go through a whole list of them. You know what your struggle is. You know what you're enticed with. You know what you struggle with. And what you need to do is figure out what is that one step before I commit that sin? What is that one thing that brings me to that particular sin? Find out, identify what that temptation is, what causes you to be tempted, and then essentially go five steps back from that. Maybe it's your phone. If you're a single guy and you have a phone and you're struggling with temptation, you're struggling with pornography, this is what you do. You take your phone that your parents shouldn't have allowed you to have in the first place. You take your phone, and every night you turn it off, and then you go lock it somewhere. Or you give it to your parents. Say, I want you to keep it until 10 o'clock the next day or something. But then I can't check Instagram. Well, you know, I'm sorry, I know you're just such a great influencer on Instagram. You have so many DMs, people just asking, what must I do to be saved? Just asking you all kinds of Bible questions. They're just going to have to wait until the following day. I know you're just blowing up. You know what I mean? Maybe you just need to throw your phone in the field. Turn off your phone and throw it in the field and put Apple Finder or something the next morning to go look for it or something. Or you just need to give it to someone and say, hey, don't give this to me until the next day or something like that. That seems a little extreme. Yeah, hamstrings and horses, I mean, whoever had that job, he's just like slit, he's like slit. I mean, how many yells did you think, I mean, it wasn't just like, I mean, that's a lot of horses. Horses are allowed, period. Imagine when they're just in utter pain. How much blood there was. I mean, the guy who's doing it, it's not a pleasant job, but you know what, it paid off in the long run, though, okay? But you know what, maybe, here's the thing is that Moab never really dominated David. Philistine never really dominated him, but he's making sure they don't in the future, though. So it may not be something that you have opened the door to, but you know what, you should keep that temptation that doesn't necessarily exist as of yet, that sin that doesn't exist as of yet, at bay too. Maybe you're a virgin and you've never opened that door to that particular sin of fornication. Well, you want to keep it that way. You say, well, you know, if I've never had that temptation, then I'm not going to struggle with it. Well, that's one that pretty much everyone will struggle with, even if they've never been involved in it, if you're in the right place at the right, or the wrong place at the wrong time. Okay? You say, what do you mean? You know, just being alone together with the opposite gender is not the best idea. And I know, I'm 37, who am I, what do I know, you know, I'm just a pastor here, just like, what do I know, you know, it's just, maybe I don't know much, but I mean, I do know this, I'm a red-blooded man. And I hope that every man in here is also a red-blooded man too. If you're not a red-blooded man, then get the hell out of my church, because you're probably some fag or something. Because every man has that struggle, when they're, you know, with a woman who's maybe, you know, an attractive woman, and, you know, the moonlight just shines bright, or, you know, you're in the right scenario, bad things can happen, my friend. You say, well, not me, well, take heed lest you fall. Maybe it's not the best to, like, drive alone in a car with the opposite gender. Like, well, that happens to other people, but it won't happen to me. You know how many people have said that? And by the way, learn to take advice from the pulpit. Like this is me giving you advice. Well I don't like it. Well, I mean, I know you don't. I hate advice, especially when it goes against what I'm, like, you know, that I'm doing that's not necessarily pleasant. But if you're a wise person, you'll take it though. If you don't want to be considered a fool, then take it, and don't do it. Because here's the thing, you've never struggled with the Philistine before, but you don't want to start struggling now though. You don't want to open that door where something potentially bad can happen, and then you have yourself a whole new set of problems because you didn't subdue that particular foreigner, you know, in your life. So he subdues them, he hamstrings the horses, and then in verse number six it says that he puts up garrisons. And I think this is one of the smartest things that David did other than hamstringing the horses. Because he's like, he defeats the city, takes care of all the horses, and he could have just said, all right guys, let's go to the next city, everyone out. But instead, he leaves a military base there, essentially an occupation there. And the job of the occupation is to keep the inhabitants in check. Don't let anybody else come in, and don't let these people who live in here get out of hand. That's basically their job. So while he's not present, he has a presence there through the occupation that is essentially keeping them in check. So he does this to the Syrians, and we see later on in verse 14 that he also does it in Edom. It says, and he put garrisons in verse 14 in Edom, throughout all Edom put he garrisons. And all they have Edom became David's servants, and the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went. So what is the main thing that God, or that David did in order for God to preserve him? Well, what he did was he essentially set up these occupations, and from a spiritual perspective, what does that look like? Well, when you have a specific victory in your life, you gain ground, so to speak, you remove that temptation, now it's time to replace that bad habit with a godly habit. And you say, well, how does that look? Well, you know, maybe replace bad habits with more church. You know, I don't understand why people just don't like going to church sometimes. Like all the time. I mean, I think church is great. I'm so tired though. Join the crowd. And look, I understand, you know, especially if we, you know, I have little ones, you know, it's rough sometimes. It's hard with little ones, especially with bringing them to church. It's difficult. But let me just say this, let me let you in on a little secret. I don't know if you know this. They actually don't stay little forever. Did you know that? This isn't The Simpsons where like Maggie just stays a baby forever. I know that's like really old, but you know, that's not how I could relate to you. Like your kids will actually grow up one day. Yeah, but we plan to have more children, we're going to have more little ones. Yeah, but then like the bigger ones actually take care of the little ones though. It actually gets easier the older the kids, the more kids you have and the older they get because then the older ones, you just kind of let everyone, you know, you just delegate all that to the other ones. So this is actually just the season. And I've said it before and I'll say it again and obviously right now a lot of people are sick, so I'm not getting on people who are sick because I don't want you to be here if you're sick. If you're running a fever, you know what I mean, then stay home, okay? If you're projectile vomiting, stay home, right? But here's the thing, if like your hair hurts or something like that, you know, oh man I want to watch the World Cup. Screw the World Cup. Who gives a crap about the World Cup? Who cares about a bunch of dudes kicking a ball on the other side of the world? Now I'm sure there's people in here that care deeply about that, but if you're missing, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with soccer or anything like that, or football, sorry for offending you. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, you play it, that's great, whatever, you know, but if you're missing church for it though, that's different though, okay? You know a good way to set up a garrison is make it a habit to just always be in church. Always be in church. And here's the thing, it's always a win-win when you're in church. It's not like well if I go to church I'm going to miss out on this. Whatever you're missing out on is not worth what you gain from coming to church. Coming to church is actually an investment not only in your personal spiritual life, but in your family's life. You will thank me later when you made it a habit to be in church at all services and you dragged your kids to church, you're whole, they're crying, you're giving them snacks, you're trying to keep them there, I'm telling you when they grow up you no longer have to tell them to go to church, that's just what they do because you raised them to be in church all the time. You'll thank me later. Pay now so that later you don't have to worry, oh man are my kids going to stay in church, you don't have to worry about it because you've already made that a habit in their life. Obviously there's outliers to that, but in general if you just make church a part of your family's life where it's just like there's no question we're going to be in church, you know what's going to happen when they grow up? Not only are they going to take their own butts to church when they get married, they're going to take their families to church as well. Set up that garrison, set up that occupation, set up the occupation of Bible reading, of listening to preaching throughout the day, throughout the week, set up the occupation of praying, set up the occupation of memorizing scripture, maybe you just struggle with your thought life. You struggle with ideologies that are just not biblical. Some of you ladies might struggle with feminism. You just like to do your own thing, go like, man, I'm telling you what to do. Well, you know, you better cast down that imagination. Every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and set up a garrison to say you know what, my husband's the boss, I'm going to keep her at home and God will honor me for honoring my duty as a wife and as a mother. I have this some lady just today slipping into my DMs telling me, because I posted all my stories like when a woman says they're a pastor and this is a guy just like laughing and she's like to imagine, you know, that someone would have something against a woman trying to serve God and serving God is based upon what gender you are, you know, just basically saying like, oh, you're basically saying if, you know, I'm a woman, I can't serve God. Well, who's telling you that you can't serve God? But in her mind, the only way she can serve God is by preaching in a church behind a pulpit. And I said, what's wrong with serving God? By serving your husband, by being a keeper at home, by raising children, what's wrong with that, you know, and what's wrong with serving God by preaching the gospel outside of the church walls? Why do you have to be the pastor? But you know, feminism also infiltrates the churches too. And sometimes women have to be reminded that that feminism is wicked as hell, it's anti-God. And you know what, women, you need to make sure, ladies, you need to make sure that you cast that down, that you're constantly reinforcing the right way of thinking, and don't allow yourself to be influenced by the Philistines of this world, by the Syrians and by Hey Dad Ezer and all these banshees out there that are trying to tell you how to run your home, how to run your man, whatever, it's wicked. Hey, this is a male run church. This is a man run, if you don't like it, then go to Joyce Meyer's then. You know, this is a no Jezebel club, amen? No Jezebel club, no feminist club, and then you're just degrading women. How is it degrading to say that a woman's place is in her home serving her husband and being a blessing to her children, raising their children? I mean, the woman, the wife, has such an awesome responsibility in the home. My house would fall apart if I didn't have my wife. You know, it would be in complete disarray, I'd just be buying clothes every day because I don't do laundry. I'm like, how do you use this machine? Do that thing! You know, it's just like, I'd be pushing buttons, I'm like, I'm just going to go to Target real quick, get some new sweats, wear it for about five days, get some new ones, you know. Dude, my house would be in complete disarray. You laughing, but I'm not joking though. You ask my wife after the service, she'll tell you it's true. I need her. She plays a vital role. And you know what, she's one of the greatest influences in my children's life. I set the course of our home and what direction we're going in biblically, but I need her to be the boots on the ground training my children every single day. She's the reason why they're able to read, do math, the reason why they're learning. Not just academics, but also just life knowledge and life skills. I mean, that stuff is important. And you know what, I paint my wife Wellie, man. She's my greatest employee. She's not my employee, but you know, she basically has access to all the money, you know, whatever she wants to buy, whatever she wants to do. I don't make her wear a uniform. She can work whatever hours she wants. She's free to do whatever she wants, whatever she wants, as long as my operation is, you know, good. And so, you know, don't undermine the importance of having the wife at home under her husband, you know, leading her children, loving her husband. And let me just say this, because, you know, sometimes young men will hear this and they're just like, yeah, man, get on them women, submit, you know, they love, they just, they thrive on that. But you know, that means it requires free, it's just like you want a Sarah, but you got to be in Abraham too, though, you know what I mean? It's like you have to be someone who actually works and has character and not lazy and not playing video games, not a Sigma, because Sigmas hate women. So you have to be a man of character, a man of discipline, a man of God in order to attract a woman who does that, okay? Where was I going with that? Does anyone remember? What? It was good. I'm just saying, you know, that there's ideologies out there that we have to constantly fight, you know what I mean? And you know what? Sometimes with the young ladies, we got to reiterate this with the young ladies too, because sometimes they can get themselves a little independent spirit sometimes, a little, you know, snapping of the fingers and then, girl, I mean, I don't know, apparently he knows what I'm talking about. I don't even know if girls do that anymore, maybe they don't. Back in my day, they did or something, but you know, they can get like an independent spirit like that and there's nothing wrong, obviously, with being a hardworking young lady, but you know what? You need a husband and if you're not married, you should be under your father's authority. And after your father, then it's your husband and you should desire to be a wife and not be, you know, like some of these young ladies out there who you can't even call a young lady. You know, they're a woman, but they're not necessarily a lady. Tear down that garrison and set up a new one, okay? And I know that's not glorious, but who cares what the world thinks? It's glorious in the eyes of God. Anyways, so he, you know, he's doing a great job here and this is a great example for us as Christians, you know, and by the way, okay, let's get on the guys real quick. I got some time real quick. You know, you know what this world pushes a lot, especially nowadays is like these faggoty, effeminate dudes, emotional, faggoty, faggot, just effeminate, soft dudes, emotional as the day is long, just like, you know, I saw a post that's like November 19th was national mental men's mental health month and no one said anything about it. What? How many know what I'm talking about? Did anybody know that November 19th was national men's mental health month or day or something like that? No one knew that. I didn't know that either. I'm like, why are dudes struggling with their mental health like that? And then, you know, because they just like live depressed, but obviously there's obviously physical reasons for that, okay, spiritual, physical reasons. But here's the thing, the main thing I think what it is, is they're just weenies. Like their pose doesn't get as many likes as they thought it would or something. Like a girl rejected them or something. Dude, growing up, it's just like rejection was just part of life sometimes. That's what you got to do to find yourself a girl, you just get rejected, you just, you know, you shake it off. These guys like want to kill themselves when some girl rejects them. And then the girl like lives rent-free in their head or something like that. They talk about gym crushes, like what is this? This world is weird. But it's just constantly pushing for these guys to just be these softy, effeminate, just like without stones, these spiritual eunuchs. And it's just like no wonder you can't get a girl, it's probably good that you don't because you probably destroy that marriage because you're such a wimp. Got no stones, it's like you can't even deal with the pressures of just being alive. It's just like dude, life has pressure, pressure's good for you, man up. You know, it's just like oh man, you know, she left me for another dude or I'm just, I'm looking at these posts, I'm like why are guys so weak, effeminate, wimpy? And then why are they posting that? Why are they showing people that they are? Like if that's you, it's like alright dude, you got to work on it, but don't show the world that, that's what you are. Like let me just make a post, set up my phone, and just, it's like, and then after he's done, he's like, and then he like, you know, put a little caption on there, I thought you loved me, or you know, stupid, novellas, soap operas. You know, young men, work out, eat good, serve Christ, love your parents, there's something more fulfilling than just, if you're single and you're not in a relationship or something, then you just go to church, you're just winning people to Christ, you go home, you kiss your mom and your dad, you hug them, you spend time with your brothers and sisters, your physical brothers and sisters, then you come to church and you talk to your brothers and sisters in Christ, you sing the hymns, you go lift weights, you go work, and you just enjoy your youth by doing that which is honest and godly. You read the Bible, you learn it, you glean from the preaching of God's word, and you're content with that. You know, you just, you learn to trade, you go to work, and you do those things. But now it's just like not the thing to like love your parents. Now it's just like, I hate you mom, I hate you dad, it's like what is that? They're just constantly bitter towards their parents, hating their parents, because their parents raised them, they gave them life and they fed them for so many years, they bought them clothes, they live in America, and it's just like, why don't you give me the iPhone 14 dad, we can't afford it. I remember growing up, I remember being a kid, I told my mom, mom, I want a tank. Yeah, you're right. Like a tank, like a literal tank. I was like, can you buy me a tank? And she's like, no. She's like, you will never have a tank. She's like, why do you even want a tank for? I'm like, well then, because I could take it to school, like I was, you know, I could drive it to school and drive it back, and she was just like, no, that's stupid, you're not having a tank. And I was like devastated about it, but you know what, it's not like I was bitter at my mom like, I hate you mom, didn't give me a tank, I didn't go in my room and just yell at my pillow, and just like punch the air or something, because my mom didn't buy me a tank. You know, yeah, while you're looking for, you know, the Playstation, I wanted a tank. At your age, I wanted a tank, not a stupid phone or, you know, I mean, what do they have nowadays? What are teenagers looking for nowadays, Gio? Everyone's waiting. Playstation 5? Is that what you want? I'm just kidding. I didn't want a Playstation 5. I think when I was like, you know, that age, I wanted like a bow and arrow or something like that. I think I wanted a samurai sword. I never got it, but you know, I'm just saying, you know, teenagers just are bitter towards their parents. You know, you do well just to forgive your parents for whatever hurt they did in your life and then go give them a hug and kiss them, yes, kiss them, you know, give them a kiss on the cheek and sit on dad's lap and give them a great big hug because guess what? There's going to be a date when you can't do that anymore. And you know what? There's plenty of adults that just live in regret and wish they had another opportunity to love their parents instead of being bitter towards them. I'm 37 years old, I still hug my mom and give her a kiss on the cheek and rub her arm and rub her back because guess what, there's going to be a time when I can't do it anymore and I don't want to live in regret thinking, man, I wish I would have did that before, but I was just too cool. I was just too bitter and too cool to do it to my mom and my dad or whatever. Oh, you'll see how cool it is when they're actually gone and you can't do it anymore. And then you come out of that immature state and you realize, oh, so stupid. I should have told mom and dad that I love them. But you know what this world is pushing today is to be this little brat, arrogant, effeminate, feminist little brat, TikTok generation. We need to get rid of all that. Those Philistines suck. Those Philistines suck, hey dad, these are sucks. Syrians suck, the Moabites suck, they need to be taken over and replaced with garrisons. We need to set up an occupation in those ideologies and reinforce biblical thinking and biblical roles and biblical behavior in our homes and man up and woman up, amen. And so we won't finish the chapter because the rest of it is pretty self-explanatory. David's fame among the heathen. By the way, one thing I do want to point out is that David, you know, when it came to Tawai, king of Hamath, that's like a heathen nation, he didn't subdue them. He was actually cool with them. And what this shows us is that not every foreigner was an enemy of the Lord. There are certain ones that were enemies of the Lord, but certain others that God just wanted David to be a light unto. Because at the end of the day, God wanted Israel to be a light unto the nations to win the nations over so that he can become their God as well. Obviously he's the God of the whole world, but we're saying, you know, on a personal level where they get saved and believe on the Lord. And Tawai, I believe, was one of them, you know. And in like manner, you know, not every unsafe person out there is a reprobate. Not everyone who is even, you know, they don't claim the name of Christ, maybe they have some sin point, doesn't mean they're like a reprobate. Sometimes God just wants us to be a light unto them so we can win them over. And you know, they can start serving God, they get saved, they start serving God and do all that. And then of course, towards the end, we see his cabinet. But you know, the major takeaway from this sermon is, you know, David's strategy on how to, you know, possess these nations is great. And it's so good on a practical level. We can learn so much from David. So you know, overcome those Philistines in your life. Overcome those Moabites, those Syrians. And make sure you hamstring those horses and set up those garrisons and go and take over some more thereafter. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for David's example. I pray, God, that you would help us as your people, Lord, to apply these principles. Lord, help us to salvage some of this generation, the believers, from going down the same road as others would, Lord. Help us to conquer the Philistines in our personal lives, the Moabites, the Syrians, Lord, and to set up a strategy for success to hamstring, spiritually speaking, the horses and set up these garrisons, Lord, so as to not make provision for the flesh in the future. I pray you give us success in Jesus' name. Amen.