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to God be the glory great things he hath done so loved he the world that he gave us his son who yielded his life and atonement for sin and open the life gate that all may go in praise the Lord praise the Lord let the earth hear his voice praise the Lord praise the Lord let the people rejoice oh come to the father through Jesus the son and give him the glory great things he hath done Oh perfect redemption the purchase of blood to every believer the promise of God the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives praise the Lord praise the Lord let the earth hear his voice praise the Lord praise the Lord let the people rejoice oh come to the father through Jesus the son and give him the glory great things he hath done great things he have taught us great things he hath done and great are rejoicing through Jesus the son but you're in higher and greater will be our wonder our transport when Jesus we see praise the Lord praise the Lord let the earth hear his voice praise the Lord praise the Lord let the people rejoice oh come to the father through Jesus the son and give him the glory great things he hath done let's have a word of prayer heavenly father thank you so much for this day and thank you for our church pray that you would just bless this service that the singing and fellowship and preaching would all be honoring to you we love you in Jesus name we pray amen for our second song we'll go to song 120 Jesus Savior pilot me 120 Jesus Savior pilot me 1 2 0 Jesus Savior pilot me Jesus Savior pilot me over life's tempestuous sea unknown waves before me roll hiding rock and treacherous show chart and compass come from me Jesus Savior pilot me has a mother stills her child thou can't touch the ocean wild boisterous waves obey thy will when thou says to them be still wondrous sovereign of the sea Jesus Savior pilot me when at last I neared the shore and the fearful breakers roar twix me and the peaceful rest then while leaning on thy breast may I hear thee say to me fear not I will pilot thee good singing thank you so much coming to steadfast Baptist Church if you need a bulletin you can lift up behind nice and high and ushers would love to come by and get you a bulletin on the front we have our bio memory passage John chapter 1 we're on verse 41 and any child of the age 18 or under that's able to quote the verse is welcome to get an ice cream treat immediately following the service we have our service and soul winning times there as well as our church stats and I'm just gonna gather is there any soul winning that you forgot to report your captain that I can capture right now or or anything like that all right keep up the good work on soul winning we also have the list of expecting ladies continue to pray for all of them we also have a prayer list we go over that on Wednesday nights this night we're gonna mention we have the nigera family continue to pray for their health miss Lucy her mother's tumors brother Cameron Hall's leg miss Ashley holders husband's interview the Pendleton family and specifically Matthew Pendleton his brain cancer we're praying for the Zermanos friend Cody and Isaac's salvation brother Carrasco's baby Leilani kidneys health the illies we were praying for just health and for their pregnancy also brother Goodwin his brother-in-law has a court case we'd pray for him also the Conley's raster prepare for John and Earl bonds health and then the Alberto Hernandez also is asking if we would pray for his safety during night shifts so he's been taking some night shifts I think that's all I have for the bulletin their requests we can say a quick word of prayer as a church family for our various requests Thank You Heavenly Father so much for this evening for giving us this opportunity to come and worship you I pray that you would just bless all of our expecting ladies help them with their pregnancies and their deliveries also with the health of their baby I pray that you would also bless our church family struggling with health we understand that a lot of people have a lot of different illnesses and I pray they give them grace you give them healing that you would give them comfort during these times of tribulation and affliction I pray that you would also bless our church family with favor that you would help them in their jobs and in their relationships and that those that need to be saved that you give a great opportunity to a soul winner they would stir up their hearts you would fill their mouths with the gospel and boldness and that they could help to get these friends and family members saved and we just thank you so much for what you've given us and in Jesus name we pray amen upcoming events so we have the Sharif port Louisiana marathon September 24th we were in the process of making a video for that today with other details we're gonna be meeting at Kings Highway something like that watch the video okay and so we're meeting there there will be a caravan as well should be a sign-up sheet so if you'd like to carpool it's about three hours depending on what part of a DFW coming from that could be a little less a little bit more but it's about three hours away and it's definitely receptive soul winning so I encourage you to participate if you are able another announcement is about a conference that we're having so instead of having the FBBF in the fall like we typically do we're having a conference called the heritage of the Lord conference and so we plan to do this in 2020 but due to kovat and all the other weird stuff it was gonna be hard to get into guest preachers and we just you know it just wasn't gonna be a great conference per se so we postponed it but I believe that this year it's gonna be a good year to do that and so the the goal of the conference is for it to be youth focused it's gonna be focused on the youth and we've already made some invitations for our conference that we can hand out the invitations are gonna be more aimed at people that you actually have a physical react like conversation with so you go to the door and you get someone saved or something you give an invite or your family members your friends or neighbors people you know we're not gonna leave them on every door but just when you have an actual conversation with someone or you have some kind of a touch-off so we should have those I don't know exactly a week or two and so we'll have about three weeks to hand these out the conference is gonna be October 6th through the 9th so that is the 6th 7th 8th and 9th and we're gonna have some guest preachers so it's a Thursday night is kind of when it's gonna start and pastor Roger Menes from Verity Baptist Church is gonna come out here and preach for us that Thursday night and we're gonna have ice cream after the service Friday pastor Bruce Mejia from First Works Baptist Church is gonna be coming out and preaching for us and we're gonna have pizza and I was gonna probably have a potluck dessert so I'll just bring our own favorite desserts and then Saturday morning we're gonna have our kids spelling the event so we'll have that we'll have a soul winning time that day and then we're planning on doing a trampoline park event for the kids as well and then I'll be preaching both services on Sunday there's gonna probably be other events and stuff like that that will kind of let you know as we get a little bit closer but I just wanted to give you kind of the big picture of what we're gonna be doing and we're gonna really try and encourage you know the kids I don't know exactly how we're gonna fit in the building but but we might just have all the kids set up here you know for the conference and they can you know it again the sermons are gonna be geared towards the youth and we're gonna have activities for the youth probably do a bunch of sword drills and have a lot of prizes and and we'll have a lot of fun stuff and so hopefully it'll kind of encourage encourage the children I know that sometimes our church is a little more adult focused and so I like to you know have some events where we kind of encourage the kids and do some stuff for them and really you know it's an opportunity for us to serve our children and to love on our children and do good for them and help them to have some fun and so I definitely highly encourage you try to participate and bring your kiddos and so I'm looking forward to it what if there's how about you kids you decided to raise your hand if you're excited for kid all right we got Liam all right we got one on skit yeah I think they'll be really excited they don't know what I'm talking about but they'll be excited when it happens so I'm really excited about this and if you have any questions you can always contact me we are gonna put a video out there about it as well just so you have some more information and hopefully we'll get the invites pretty soon I'm gonna do my best this week to get the spelling bee words list out so that you can start prepping but everyone's gonna have the same amount of prep time because I haven't even made it yet so it's not like anybody's getting any special privilege here as soon as I make it I'll try to get that out and release so your kids can start studying but it is still gonna be based on the King James Bible so it's gonna be King James Bible words so probably still gonna be some of the words from last year maybe a little bit different just a little mixed up but and we plan on having the same age group category so it's five to eight nine to twelve and then thirteen to eighteen now I know those teenagers get nervous about participating but since it's like very low participation you're like almost guaranteed to win so you know you need to get in there and participate and I'm really excited about it and it's a lot of fun and so if you again if you have any questions just let me know also in November we're gonna be going to Matamoros again now I do have dates but I'm not gonna give them yet because I'm confirming I might get a special interview for our documentary and so I'm trying to like kill two birds one stone with this trip so as soon as I figure that out it's probably gonna be like a week or something I'll give you the exact dates but I just want to put that plant that seed in your mind it will also be doing the Matamoros trip again down into Mexico and that's really receptive soul wing it was a lot of fun and they have one of the best restaurants in the world like on sorry yeah okay so you know it's it's epic who went to the lock on sorry yeah some people did hope that guy did yeah the green go over here and we got some you know hey everybody liked it okay so it was a lot of fun and also we've been working on our documentary a King James Bible documentary and it's going really well so I'm really excited about it we're hoping maybe you know at towards the end of the year we might get to a place we're almost done but we've already done a ton of the filming so we're really kind of mostly in post-production work and we're trying to put a lot of money into it we're trying to like get some really nice graphics and audio and all kinds of cool features and stuff like that so I'm really excited about this and well we're gonna put it to a lot of good use so I'm really excited about a lot of projects we have coming down the pike and it'll be a pretty excitable thing to share with people and to spread information on and I told somebody this and I so mean it I think that even amongst our crowd even amongst our church you're gonna learn like over a hundred new facts with this documentary so I'm really excited about the information I feel like it's gonna be a lot of new information even though it's on a topic that we're all familiar with and we already believe and I hope that it'll strengthen your faith and also arm you to share you know why we use the King James Bible and encourage other people to get on the only Bible in English the King James Bible so that was just a few announcements I'm really excited about all those things if you want we'll turn in your hymnals we're gonna song sing song 100 now day by day song 100 again that song one zero zero day by day day by day and with each passing moment strength I find to meet my trials here trusting in my father's wise bestowment I've no cause for worry or for fear he whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives on to each day what he deems best lovingly it's part of pain and pleasure mingling toil with peace and rest every day the Lord himself is near me with a special mercy for each hour all my cares he feigned would bear and cheer me he whose name is counselor and power the protection of his child and treasure is a charge that on himself he laid as thy days thy strength shall be in measure this the pledge to me he made help me then in every tribulation so to trust thy promises Oh Lord that I lose not faith sweet consolation offered me within thy holy word help me Lord when toil and trouble meeting there to take guests from a father's hand one by one the days the moments fleeting till I reach the promised land as the offering plates go around please turn your Bibles to 2nd Samuel chapter 18 that's 2nd Samuel chapter 18 we'll read the complete chapter entire chapter this evening 2nd Samuel chapter 18 the Bible reads and David numbered the people that were with him and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them and David sent forth the third part of the people under the hand of Joab and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zoriah Joab's brother and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite and the king said unto the people I will surely go with you myself also but the people answer thou shall not go forth for if we flee away they will not care for us neither if half of us die will they care for us but now thou art worth ten thousand of us therefore now it is better that thou succor us out of the city and the king said unto them what seemeth you best I will do and the king stood by the gate side and all the people came out by hundreds and by thousands and the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai saying deal gently for my sake with the young man even with Absalom and all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom so the people went out into the field against Israel and the battle was in the wood of Ephraim where the people of Israel were slain before the servants of David and there was there a great slaughter that day of 20,000 men for the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured and Absalom met the servants of David and Absalom rode upon a mule and the mule went under the thick bowels of a great oak and his head caught hold of the oak and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth and the mule that was under him went away and a certain man saw it and told Joab and said behold I saw Absalom hanged in an oak and Joab said unto the man that told him and behold thou sawest him and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground and I would have given thee 10 shekels of silver and a girdle and the man said unto Joab though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in my hand yet would I not put forth my hand against the king's son for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai saying beware that none touched the young man Absalom otherwise I should have wrought falsehood against my own life for there's no matter hid from the king and now thyself wouldest have set thyself against me then said Joab I may not tarry thus with thee and he took three darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak and the 10 young men that bear Joab's armor compassed about and smote Absalom and slew him and Joab blew the trumpet and the people returned from pursuing after Israel for Joab held back the people and they took Absalom and cast him into a great pit in the wood and laid a very great heap of stones upon him and all Israel fled every one to his tent now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar which is in the king's dale for he said I have no son to keep my name in remembrance and he called the pillar after his own name and it is called unto this day Absalom's place then said Ahimez the son of Zadok let me now run and bear the king tidings how that the lord had avenged him of his enemies and Joab said unto him thou shall not bear tidings this day but thou shall bear tidings another day but this day thou shall bear no tidings because the king's son is dead then said Joab to Cushai go tell the king what thou has seen and Cushai bowed himself unto Joab and ran then said Ahimez the son of Zadok yet again to Joab but howsoever let me I pray thee also run after Cushai and Joab said wherefore what thou run my son seeing that thou has no tidings ready but howsoever he said let me run and he said unto him run then Ahimez ran by the way of the plane and overran Cushai and David sat between the two gates and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate under the wall and lifted up his eyes and looked and behold a man running alone and the watchman cried and told the king and the king said if he be alone there is tidings in his mouth and he came apace and drew near and the watchman saw another man running and the watchman called unto the porter and said behold another man running alone and the king said he also bring a tidings and the watchman said me think of the running of the foremost is like the running of Ahimez the son of Zadok and the king said he is a good man and cometh with good tidings and Ahimez called and said unto the king all is well and he fell down to the earth upon his face before the king and said blessed be the lord thy god which had delivered up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king and the king said is the young man Absalom safe and Ahimez answered when Joab sent the king's servant and me thy servant i saw a great tumult but i knew not what it was and the king said unto him turn aside and stand here and he turned aside and stood still and behold Cushai came and Cushai said tidings my lord the king for the lord had avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee and the king said unto Cushai is the young man Absalom safe and Cushai answered the enemies of my lord the king and all that rise against thee to do the hurt be as that young man is and the king was much moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept and as he went thus he said oh my son Absalom my son my son Absalom would god i had died for thee oh Absalom my son my son let us pray father we thank you for this opportunity to be in your house tonight and uh to be here for the evening service i pray that you fill pastor Shelley with your holy spirit and uh please let us take heed to what he preaches to us and we just thank you so much for your son's ultimate sacrifice and for jesus paying for it all and for the free gift of salvation and for the free gift of eternal life and we pray these things in jesus name amen amen we're in second samuel chapter 18 and we're still in our little drama here between David and Absalom now David and Absalom have kind of become a little more settled in their positions and now we've kind of been set up for the conflict between these two men and their armies and their generals and it starts out here in verse number one of chapter 18 and David numbered the people that were with them and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them and David sent forth a third part of the people under the hand of Joab and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zeruiah Joab's brother and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite and the king said unto the people i will surely go forth with you myself also but the people answered thou shall not go forth for if we flee away they will not care for us neither half of us die will they care for us but now thou art worth ten thousand of us therefore now it is better that thou sucker us out of the city and the king said and then what seemeth you best i will do and the king stood by the gate side and all the people came out by hundreds and by thousands now we have this story of David being taken out of the city left the city flee the city and we don't know exactly how many people are with him but the bible gives us an indication here that there's approximately thousands of people as signified by verse one he said captains of thousands notice it's not ten thousands notice it's not hundreds of thousands it's simply thousands so arguably it's somewhere between two thousand and nine thousand people somewhere in that kind of range has kind of been out there with David which is really a remnant in connection with the fact that the children of Israel are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in general probably maybe not millions in regards to the army just kind of depends at times it seems like the army is about a million men but we don't know i don't know what the exact numbers would be at this exact specific time but they're severely outnumbered that's unquestionable that David and his men would be outnumbered now a couple things we can notice from the first verses here and it's not necessarily part of the story but just some good advice is no matter what situation you find yourself in it's good to help delegate work because it's impossible for one man to manage even if it was simply two thousand men that's too many people for one man to manage and you know i don't know exactly what the perfect number is the the bible doesn't necessarily give a number i've i've read just generally speaking that pastors who typically have more than 200 congregants cannot like adequately uh pastor those people by himself he needs like an additional staff member or person to kind of assist when it starts getting above those kind of numbers and of course that's that's just an arbitrary thing that i've read online kind of a secular thing it definitely seems to make sense because especially uh at one point in time i had about four different churches it's like four different locations over 300 people going to all of these different churches and at times i was literally the only staff member and it was overwhelming you know it's definitely not really feasible and so i i prefer to have at least one employee and and really even even if it's not just an employee our churches are run by a lot of just volunteer leadership you know we have a lot of people that just simply work a secular job but then volunteer in a lot of great capacity and you know you got great people like tanner furr who works full-time secular job but then the evangelist or the oklahoma city church and you have people like brother duncan who's still working and trying to make a living but also then an evangelist down there at pure words baptist church and so it's great to have leaders like that and without them frankly speaking i mean i already feel like i'm wearing away but i would really wear away okay that's that's definitely too much for one person to manage and you know the bible says be not that righteous over much and that's a verse that i think about a lot and and i don't know i try to i want to be like at the at the furthest point where god wants me but then not crossing that line but i don't know what that line is you know and so sometimes it's kind of hard to decide like what's too much but you're also putting a lot of effort in and and there's definitely a balance there um i think that preaching four times a week is probably over the line and so you know hopefully at some point that won't be the case and i'm kind of planning by next year i won't be preaching four times a week for the foreseeable future again obviously i would always do it if i had to but you know that's that's one of those things where you want to manage things well and you want to delegate you want to let other people fill in the roles you know david isn't he arguably the greatest general the greatest leader but he doesn't lead the charge he allows other men to do that he allows joe abby loves abishai he lets these other men step up and take these important roles on and you know a good leader is not only good at the job he's good at helping other people fulfill their destiny and fulfill their role so a good manager a good leader is not only good at the job himself he's also good at helping other people do that job and to me what really defines a great leader or a great manager is one who can take somebody to do the job that they would do or so it's not necessarily just being able to do a job it's getting other people to do your job exactly the way it should be done and so that's you know something that i strive for that's something that's really important and of course it's it's even plausible that you could have people under you that do a better job than you would you know you have pictures of joseph in the bible working and the bible describes it where his uh you know master potiphar he doesn't even know what's going on he's just like joseph joseph's got it and even joseph later when he's running the entire country for faro it's pretty clear from the text itself that joseph's better at running the country than faro would even be by himself okay so you know a really good leader and again that's kudos to the faro for realizing and being humble enough to say you know what you're doing a better job than i would you have more wisdom and knowledge in this area and and taking people and empowering them into the positions that they need to be but other good thing about a leader is he will not empower people just for the sake of empowering people if you know if you don't have the personnel then you don't have the personnel you know if you don't have the right guy then sometimes you have to carry that burden now in this story he has about three guys under him right he has joab abishai and itti and it makes sense that management from a perspective is you're going to only have a small number of people that you manage and then they have a small number of people that they manage and then it's just this hierarchy pyramid system that allows you to manage a giant group even though you're only technically directly managing a small number of people and in fact this principle is applied into the world that we live in today you know you say why do companies do this why do companies have the ceo and they have their board and then they have their management team and then they have their low level people it's because that is the best way to excuse me structure something and one of the things you have to realize is anything that's true or anything that's good is biblical so the secular world does a lot of things well and they do a lot of things that are good but you have to realize it's because it's coming from the bible and and so you know it's it's okay to learn things in the secular world and often in fact i find that a lot of the things that uh you learn in the in the real world help you to understand the bible and they help you give you know think about jesus most of the time he's relating all of the parables in the bible the regular life situations or events or animals you know just take a reality of nature of how animals are and then help us understand that's how the things of god work or or how lots of different events work and again we just see this consistently in the bible where david and these men kind of have this kind of a hierarchy system they're appointing leaders and i the reason why i pointed out here is because whatever system they had before is probably completely shifted because they they had other people they have different numbers of troops different responsibilities they just happen to find themselves in a completely unique situation but what does david do immediately he immediately establishes leadership he immediately reappoints people and kind of reassesses and just just lets you're the next guy in just you're up you know or you're up or you got these people and and that's an important thing is that sometimes you have to just go with the flow and you just have to kind of ad lib as it were but it's important to still have some levels of leadership and organization and and trying to put people to practice you know our church has implemented some of this we have soul winning captains you know and and i believe that that's not while it's not necessarily a command in the scripture it's not like hey soul winning captains you can find anything like that you find this organizational structure consistently in the bible as a principle being taught and i think it makes sense to take really good soul winners in our church and i can kind of work with them and then they can work with smaller groups of people that way i don't have to necessarily lead the charge everywhere right i can have a abishai or i can have a joab or i can have an itti that are managing more groups of people and they're training them and they're doing good so i train them my guys and then they train their guys and then they train their and it's just kind of how the system works plus within our captain systems we even have lieutenants there that you know if one of my captains goes bad like joab or something you know it just plug and play it's high you know it's just like or bring in abishai or bring in whoever so that we're not even necessarily just worried or we're going to fall apart like jenga or something when one little domino falls we're ready to just take on all kinds of situations and negativity and people failing and people quit and look i've had tons of people quit on me that i never thought would or i've had people get disgruntled or mad or leave or friendships dissolve or people get backslidden and you know you'd like to think that everyone in this room will be here five years from now but anybody that was in this church five years from now or like five years ago will realize it changes a lot i mean it's it's not even the same crowd at all it's it's unrecognizable in some regards now fortunately it's unrecognizable because it's so much better i mean and i'm not trying to knock you know there's some good people in our church that aren't here right now but i'm just saying there was a lot of bad too there's a lot of rough element and a lot of issue and and i also would say this i personally believe the people that are in this church since i took over i've seen a lot of spiritual growth i feel like i've seen a lot of maturity spiritual maturity improvement people making really good life decisions and and you know it's definitely a privilege to to pastor a church like this and to have men that are willing to step up because i can't do by myself david can't do it by himself no one can do it by themselves we need other men to step up and to fill in roles and you know even if you're not joab you know just even being joab's right-hand man or just just stepping in and just filling in whatever gap you need to you know it's just best to just fall in line and get with the program and just do what the leader's saying and you know you have to realize that leadership itself is very valuable because notice that the people's opinion here in verse number three but the people answered thou shalt not go forth so they don't want david to be in a fight why well specifically in the latter part of this verse it says but now thou are worth ten thousand of us now i think the reason why this number is given is simply from the fact that kind of discerning how many people were there ten thousand would probably exceed how many people are with them so ultimately what they're just saying is that you're technically worth more than all of us like you are the only real thing that we're protecting here the only thing of value now you can take a lot of applications of this one would obviously be you know david pictures christ a lot of times and christ is more valuable than all of mankind put together right but another application you have to realize is that there is not a more valuable asset than the leadership itself in the tip of the spear because of the fact that many times throughout the scripture and you can see this as examples is when the shepherd has been smitten the sheep are scattered and if david goes down we've already been told in the previous chapter you know the leaders and the counselors are saying hey you take david out you'll get all the people and it's often the case you know the tip of the spear the main leader is a very crucial position and i believe in the church you know a pastor is a very important position it's in a very important role and you need you need good leadership at the top and that's why also when it comes to me appointing pastors or pointing leaders i don't want to take that thing lightly because whoever i put in charge is going to be such an important role in that church's history in that church's future that you don't want to just hastily put in a bozo you know a guy that says he's humble but he's not a guy that thinks he's all that but he's not all that at all right you want to you want to make sure that you have the right position now of course you're going to make mistakes sometimes people lie to you or flatter or flake or whatever the situation is sometimes they're not the best leader but you know even if they're not the best leader as long as they're still saved and doing the work for god you know at least you can just be uh you know glad that someone's doing something for god you know not everybody has to be my sending pastor pastor stephen anderson there's only one pastor stephen anderson okay and you know who's going to replace him no one okay it's silly to even try you know i don't try i'm not trying i'm never going to try and get that to send that out you know i just want someone to at least though be a strong leader someone that's going to take the charge going to be faithful and not just him his wife his children all of it it's a whole package because there are men i've seen men where i think like you would be a good pastor but your family's just not your family's just not a good example i don't want to replicate you and your family you know or uh they may be a good preacher but they wouldn't be a good pastor you know there's plenty of people that can preach the greatest sermon you've ever heard but it's like you just wouldn't be a good leader though you know you're just not the right person you're not the right personality for a particular pastor and that's okay because not everybody has to be a pastor there could be an evangelist there could be a deacon there could be just the soul winning captain you know there's going to be some people that are maybe even the greatest soul winner and they're never the pastor they can be better someone than i am and that's fine let's put them in that role right why would i take someone that's the greatest soul winner and turn them into a pastor when that's not the right fit and and basically take away some of their soul winning or some of their evangelism it's like we want to put everybody in the exact same in the right position you know wouldn't make sense to put me in as the piano player you know unless we have nothing because my piano playing while it's adequate you know i can i can bang on it it sounds like some music's coming out but arguably i'm it's probably just not the best fit for me you know like it's probably just not the fit that you know you want to put your pastor in and argue there's lots of people in this church that are better piano players than me like it's not even a question okay and so we want to plug them into the right position and we want to get people you know some of you need to you know step up and we'll get behind the piano you know what i mean and then you can play and then i won't even feel the need right you won't even ever have to hear me hit a wrong note again okay and that would be wonderful okay so we want to just we want everyone to be in the right place we want to constantly evaluate and and me as your pastor i'm constantly trying to evaluate and think about how to improve and put people in positions where they can be empowered and and you know it's okay to me that things constantly evolve you know i don't want things to just be a stick in the mud you know you could be a leader today and not a leader tomorrow you can be not a leader tomorrow yesterday and today you are and really you know i'm willing to change on a dime you know and i think that's an example here of david he's willing to change on a dime and put the right person in and we find ourselves in this situation let's go you know we show up at a soul winning marathon and it's just like you you and you lead you know i don't i don't even have to worry about i don't think about who's going to do it beforehand as much i'm just like we're here and we're going to organize right you you and you and it's going to be based on the needs of the people right we show up there's five people i'm not going to sign four captains okay and it's like you fight for the one person to be on your team right no no you know but you show up sometimes you show up and there's 50 people and it's like i'm not going to get maps out to 50 people very quickly so it makes sense to you grab a couple guys and say hey grab 20 guys and y'all get organized and y'all go send out and then you get all the numbers and you give them to me and then you go out and you get all the numbers and give them to me right that's just ad lib leadership and you need to learn that skill and that trade if you're in a leadership position in your work um even in your household you know sometimes you got to kind of a you got a lot of kids you got like 10 kids you know sometimes you got to just like you you got these three and you got these three and you got these three right you know let's get out the door you know let's go team and and sometimes you just have to improvise with what you got don't just be like well we can't do it because we don't have a hit the fell i mean i don't know what to do because we don't have a hit the fell and he's the guy it's like no no abishai get over here you're in you know you have to just be a good coach you just have to just work with what you got sometimes you have to make adjustments you know we don't want to be a type of person where you're going to make a meal and you're missing one ingredient it's like well i can't make anything then and it's just like just make what you got you know just improvise now if you're making enchiladas and your wife asked for uh you're making them for her okay and she asked for heavy whipping cream don't put cool whip in okay now that might have happened okay i'll be honest i did i didn't know what heavy whipping cream was okay so so i'm like making these enchiladas and i just i get cool whip and i'm just putting the cool whip in there so i i take a bite of this enchilada and she does he's like these are really sweet and i'm thinking like i don't even like committee i don't like that was kind of enchilada so much anyways so i just didn't to me it was just not very good but like to her she loves this meal and it's like this is weird you know it tastes like cleaning product or something and i was just like she's like what did you put in here cool whip cool whip and enchiladas okay so obviously that was the wrong substitute okay folks all right so you know how many times i made those enchiladas again i didn't all right so i was retired from the team okay they had to put in the the the real pros but i'm just telling you improvise improvise improvisation sorry improvisation is a really important skill it's an important trait leaders have to work with what you got you also have to quickly identify you know the people that you're working with and you know that can hurt feelings but unfortunately in the society we live in today it's hard because people's feelings get hurt for every reason you know what you need to just get over yourself and just wherever you fit in you're that guy and you just just go with it says in verse number five and the king commanded joab and abishai and it's i saying deal gently for my sake with young men even with absolom and all the people heard when the king gave all the captain's charge concerning absolom so the people went out into the field against israel and the battle was in the wood of ephraim where the people of israel were slain before the servants of david and there was there a great slaughter that day of 20 000 men for the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devalued or devoured now you know here's a good tip be on the right side of the lord because i mean think about this i don't know exactly again how many soldiers we have with david but i still think it's under ten thousand twenty thousand have died from israel's side i mean they are massacring them and not only are they massacring them really just god is through the wood you know he's just causing them to die and to perish and just bad things that happen to you know when you're not right with god just seems like a lot of bad things can happen to you you know and sin is often one of those catalysts that causes a lot of evil to befall you and cause you to die early prematurely that's why it's good to be on the right side of the battle now david wants them to deal gently with absolom deal gently with his son look at verse nine and absolom met the servants of david and absolom wrote upon a mule and the mule was under the thick bowels of a great oak and his head caught hold of the oak and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth and the mule that was under him went away now what's interesting about the bible is how god will typically use all various characters to symbolize great truths in the word of god and what's interesting here is absolom is probably one of the worst characters in the bible just generally speaking but what god does is he uses really bad characters to illustrate something he illustrates the ugliness of sin and often he'll take really bad characters to picture jesus and you'd say like why would you ever take a bad character to picture jesus well it's because of the fact that jesus had to become sin for us and honestly when you see this picture here it couldn't be clearer that we're talking about jesus christ think about this okay it's the son of david and absolom is going into this wood and he's caught in the oak well keep your finger here and go if you would to matthew 21 go to matthew chapter 21 and it says he's caught by the bows now a bow is a branch that's what that is it's a branch so it's basically the the wood branches all weaving through the forest he gets caught it's on his head from the bowels it makes me think of a really clear picture we have in the bible look at matthew 21 verse number five says tell you i'm sorry i'm before i get to this one i forgot where i'm going tell you the daughter of zion behold thy king cometh under the meek and sitting upon an ass and a colt the full of an ass so when jesus entered into jerusalem he entered in on an ass and we see that what absolom is riding on a mule now technically those are different animals but it's still got this interesting symbolism that he's interesting he's riding on this mule now a mule is a slightly different animal than an ass because an ass is also known as a donkey you know that's a donkey okay now a male donkey can mate with a female horse because they're the same kind of animal when they mate and they end up gendering a child that child is called a mule so a mule is a half breed between donkey and a horse and mules are typically almost every single time infertile so they're not actually able to reproduce themselves so typically mules don't mate with other mules and then get mules you just get mules from donkeys and horses mating that's specifically where that kind of comes from and so we kind of have the same symbolism they're both riding this animal but then go to chapter 27 real quick and he gets caught when he's riding on this mule with this bow and his hair and it says in matthew 27 look at verse 29 and when they had plated a crown of thorns they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand they bowed the knee before him and mocked him and sang hail king of the jews now is it any coincidence that absolom is literally the king of the i mean he's like kind of become the king of the jews in a sense because he's taken over the kingship of jerusalem riding on this mule then getting caught in the thicket or the bows of the forest and then what happens to him the the animal ends up going out from under him and he's just hanging so the way the bible describes this if you remember is he was taken up between the heaven and the earth that's a really interesting phrasing go if you go to john chapter number 12 john chapter number 12 because it's also signifying the way in which jesus christ is going to die because because all of these elements are significant to jesus christ's death him's triumphal entry into the city of jerusalem where they're shouting hosanna we see then they shove a crown of thorns on his head and then specifically jesus had to die a very specific way and what's interesting about is because the the children of israel always would put someone to death through stoning that was their form of execution there wasn't another alternative it was always stoning so for another type of execution to come into play is very interesting and jesus even alluded to this in john chapter number 12 look at verse number 32 and i if i be lifted up from the earth will draw all men under me so the way that jesus died is he was lifted from the earth and he wasn't in heaven he was what between the heaven and the earth so we kind of have that same symbolism of christ being hung with the crown of thorns having after he had that triumphal entry on the animal because when he came on when the mule at first it's all exciting he's going to war you know it's it's absolutely right but then in the heat of the battle he is basically caught by the thicket there's a slaughter all the people are scattered from him also symbolic of what jesus all of his men were scattered from him he's alone think about this isn't christ dying on the cross alone and we kind of have absolom in this moment of just being completely alone suspended from the heaven or sending in the tree he's got the crown of thorns on his head and as we keep reading it says and go back to second samuel it says in verse number 10 and a certain man saw it and told joe up and said the old i saw absolom hanged on an oak so we say him hanged on a tree right now go to galatians chapter number three go to galatians chapter number three now again you say i thought david was jesus well he is but here's the thing about jesus jesus is more complicated than any one singular man could ever be so we can't have one person in the bible to illustrate for us everything about jesus and everything about jesus life what rather we have is a huge book of prophets and all kinds of different men in the bible that illustrate all different facts about jesus christ in fact we even have animals picturing jesus christ how about the lamb of god how about the animal sacrifices the scapegoat we also have a serpent that was lifted up in the wilderness and of course a snake is not something you would want to symbolize jesus as but it symbolizes the sin again it symbolizes the ugliness and the evil of our sin being placed on jesus christ and how we look at absolom is how god had to look at jesus his own son as a transgressor as guilty and taking that ugliness of our sin also just another tip guys get a haircut and this can't happen to you okay so you know it's definitely not gonna happen to jason so you know he's really safe and uh he's he's learned his lesson and uh he's not the only bald guy i just like to make fun of him so but you know don't say go up without bald head because you don't want any bears to come out of the wilderness all right so we love brother jason he's great all right relations chapter three look at verse 13 don't pray to the lord you know to the lord for jason all right it says in verse 13 christ has redeemed us from the curse of law being made a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree so notice we have that same element you know the bible said in the old testament this this prophecy of the cursed one being hung in a tree and we have absolom literally hung in the tree and of course he's cursed at this point he's in a really bad position he's defenseless hanging it's embarrassing probably hurts a lot and it kind of even probably symbolizes christ you mean think about christ on the cross don't you think that crowd of thorns hurt don't you think it was pretty embarrassing to just be hanging there exposed and you're supposed to be the king you're supposed to be mighty and now all of a sudden you're just an embarrassment a laughing stock everyone's ridiculing you and you're going to be surrounded by enemies isn't that a pretty similar parallel that we have here with absolom and it's pretty incredible parallel and really just shows the cursedness and showing how christ had to take such an evil curse on himself he took our curse upon himself that we deserve so that we could go to heaven and blessing i mean what an amazing picture and what complexity the bible has to use all manner of characters and at some points absolom's the anti-christ sometimes he's the devil and sometimes he's christ you know isn't that kind of incredible how god can weave all of these stories into the scripture themselves the more i study the bible the more i'm wondering how the walk to Emmaus worked because it's like christ is like showing them all the places where he's in the bible and i'm like did you just read the whole bible i mean it just feels like you know i think he probably just highlighted some of the more obvious examples of his specific sacrifice probably just for sake of time because it's only like a couple hours you know and i can't even imagine how you could cram in every single type of christ in that short amount of time because they're just everywhere i mean it's just all over the place but obviously hearing that sermon the bible says that their hearts burn within them right doesn't it just kind of make your heart burn within you a little bit when you just see christ on every page i mean in every single one of these stories we just see the example of christ and we see this suffering you know we shouldn't forget that christ lived a life of suffering for us and i think sometimes we want to live a life of just constant pleasure constant joy constant satisfaction we want everyone to love us we want everyone to like us we want to have no pain we want to have no rejection but you know what christ didn't get that life christ had a life of a lot of ridicule a lot of shame a lot of uh evil mockery false accusation constant threat of death i mean you know i think that's one of the worst things is just the instability of your life just always having enemies always having people like wanting to hunt you down always everybody's trying to kill you i mean christ can't go anywhere he can't go in public very easily he has to go through byways he has to constantly worry about people throwing him off cliffs and and just all manner of things that people would do to him and hurt him they're always trying to trap his words now unfortunately for christ he can't make a mistake but you know for people like me i can make all kinds of mistakes and it's really easy to take something i said and and make it seem you know bad or poor or whatever because i'm not even jesus christ i haven't thought through everything as perfectly as him obviously it's the foolishness of preaching but we we realize that if christ has to go through all this suffering and all this evil why can't we endure a little bit you know we haven't even resisted under blood and then a lot of people get really offended easily had happened go through anything negative you know they can't even stand hard preaching there was a lady today tonight it was frustrating she was not safe i mean it was it wasn't even question mark she was saying you know salvation works it's not just faith you can definitely lose your salvation and i'm like you know i said and about the nicest way i could well you know the bible does say something different do you mind if i show you verses and she just instantly got a scowl on her face and wanted to give the invite back and just like no i already know it's just like it's just sad that you can't even like you really can't even withstand someone having a different opinion you know like you're just so offended but you know it's really a displaced anger she's really obviously just mad at god or something she's got some kind of an issue with the bible or with the gospel and and it just i'm just the vehicle by which she's mad at but it just is sad it's just sad that the state that we live in today where people can't endure anything it's like they just think everything you know the workplace you can't have any suffering anymore it's like you get all these breaks and you have all these programs like workers comp and you have all these different uh unions and you can sue your employer for just about anything these days and and it's just like every excuse for you to not be pampered at work it's like it's work it's like you can hardly even just tell people that they suck at their job or something you know it's like oh that's harassment it's like no you're just bad oh is it because i'm black and it's like it's because you suck at working you know oh is it because you hate white people no it's because you're not good at working you know it's like it's like you have to you have to like do this matrix of options to try and figure out how to even fire people anymore and the government won't fire you unless you're a christian and you know while saying that they protect religious liberties and everything like that they won't discriminate based on being a christian but if you preach the bible publicly then you're going to be fired right because that's not protected anymore i'm going on a rant let's get back to our story here because i could go on that all night verse 11 the bible says and joab said unto the man that told him and behold thou saws him and why didest thou not smite him there to the ground and i would have given the 10 shekels of silver and a girdle now you know it's funny to me is again the idea of giving money shekels of silver to betray absolom here who's the king's son who was told not to kill him now again we understand in this context absolom's wrong okay but if we kind of just think about the story a little bit this is the king's son the king told him not to hurt him and then he's basically saying hey i'll give you money to hurt him sounds like judas doesn't it hurting the king's son for money now this guy is smart though this guy is like not going to do that verse 12 and the man said in a job though i should receive a thousand shekels of silver in my hand yet would i not put forth my hand against the king's son for in our hearing the king charged thee and have a sign it's i saying beware that none touched the young man absolom now you know what's frustrating is when you give somebody an order or a rule and they don't follow it joe that's why joe is a bad employee is because you tell him to do something he just doesn't do it or he says or this is the worst i'll do that and then they don't do it you know and nothing tells you more like i don't want to use you i don't trust you when you're told to do something and just don't do it or you say you're going to do it and then you just don't do it or you go back on your word or you change your word or you do you know you want to be someone that if you say you're going to do something you do it you know not this backstabbing employee that's willing to undercut the authority and the leadership and praise god that this man has enough courage to say you know what that's not what david said and i'm really confused why you're even telling me this because i know you heard the right thing i know you heard what to do why are you saying this and i don't care how much money you offer me because money's not the coup de gras money's not all that you should want in this life you don't want the curse of god on your life verse 13 otherwise i should have wrought falsehood against my own life for there is no matter hid from the king and now thyself would have set thyself against me he's like hey you know look if you'd offered me ten thousand and i'd taken it you would have immediately ratted me out and said it was my like you would have blamed me and i would have like basically been killed and it wouldn't matter how much money i had like how much money does it matter if i said hey i'll give you a billion dollars but you're going to die tomorrow it's like no one would sell their life for a billion dollars for one day i mean that doesn't really make any sense so he says in verse 14 then said joe i may not tarry thus with thee he's like i don't want to talk about this anymore so obviously he would have done that and he took three darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart of absolom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak so when you when you can't get other people to just sin i guess you just sin yourself you just get the dirty job yourself three darts right in the heart of absolom and ten young men that bear joe abs armor compassed about and smoke absolom now he joe is a cunning person because he realizes i can't just kill absolom because then i could get hung to dry so i need to get a bunch of people involved so that it'll be just too difficult for david to want to punish all of us and that's what a lot of people that do that sin is they want to get a lot of people to sin with them so then it's harder to actually punish criminals and this really even happens in our country today where criminals are getting away with a lot of things because of just sheer numbers there's just so many people doing it that they then are just like well but we don't really want to get rid of all these people do we or we can't punish all of them can we it's just like well we can't put the death penalty on abortion thinking about how many people commit an abortion and it's like but that's not a good reason to not actually fulfill the law well we can't just put all the abortion doctors to death because think how many abortion doctors there are it's like put them all to death well we can't get rid of all the sodomites everybody's got a queer uncle get rid of all your uncles who needs them anyways they were creepy anyways okay you know it's it's a dumb philosophy but it works it works on a lot of people because they just you know i i think that my queer uncle's nice or whatever well you're an idiot okay frankly speaking you're just an idiot and you don't believe the bible and i'm sick and tired of christians telling me how wonderful fags are when it's like have you look read me one verse in the bible about them show me one verse in the bible and then make that statement i mean wouldn't you think if there's such great people in one of them you'd find one verse that's positive about them i mean you could find whores you could find prostitutes in the bible that get people saved you could find ray of the harlot saving and rescuing a lot of people you can find adulterers like david doing great works for god you can find murderers like moses leading the children of israel out of the wilderness and doing great things for god you can see liars and thieves and you can see blasphemers i mean the apostle paul persecuted christians but show me one time where a disgusting filthy age-filled monkey pox getting faggot ever did anything good in the bible show it to me god loves them well you know what god's angry with the wicked and you know what god sends a lot of people to hell that aren't even homos so riddle me that one i don't think god hates anyone well then why does john 3 16 why is it past tense i ever wondered that for god so loved did you know what does it say loves loved now if i said something to you say hey i loved you in the past would you what would that imply it wouldn't imply that i love you now and if i don't love you now that sounds like there could be another option how about hate okay folks now that was just another rant you're welcome okay we'll get through this chapter i believe it look what it says in the next the next part chapter 14 and then said job i may not tear you thus with thee and he took three darts in his hand trust me the heart of absolom was it alive in the midst of the oak then ten and ten men that bear jobs are a compass about and smoke absolom the slum and job blew the trumpet and the people returned from pursuing after israel for job held back the people now you kind of have israel and and again this is like a remnant of judah but what i think is interesting if we think about our parallel who is it that killed the absolom it's kind of the jews isn't it joab and these men kind of picture the jews and who kills jesus none other than the jews right now as we keep reading it says in verse 17 and they took absolom and cast them into a great pit in the wood and laid a very great heap of stones upon him and all israel fled everyone into his tent now here's another thing what happened to jesus after he died his soul descended down into hell the great pit and his body physically what did they do with it they buried it and they covered it with a great stone so his body covered with stones and thrown into a great pit symbolizes even more about what the lord jesus christ i mean all of these things just fit like a glove of what we actually know about the lord jesus christ himself verse 18 now aslem in his lifetime had taken root up for himself a pillar which is in the king's dale for he said i have no son to keep my name in ruins and he called the pillar after his known name and it is called into this day absolom's place now i want to go to another place keep your finger go to proverbs 16 for a moment go to proverbs chapter 16 for just a moment absolom is a picture of pride in the bible he just he's really worried about making a name for himself and recognition but here's the thing when you try to lift yourself up god will knock you down look at proverbs chapter 16 verse number 18 pride goeth before destruction and a hottie spirit before a fall you know the worst if you really truly in your heart think like i want to be someone great and i want to do some great thing for the lord i want the lord to be really pleased with me the last thing you should ever do is try to lift yourself up to try to make a name for yourself the the the way up is down try this is what you should try i'm going to try my hardest to not be recognized for anything i do that is the true if you say i struggle with pride pastor shelly how do i fix that here's how you fix it try your hardest to do things that you think no one will ever notice decide you know what i'm i'm done doing anything where i can get recognition for it i'm going to try my hardest to do things that i can't get recognition for you say what does that mean giving money where your left hand doesn't know your right hand do it i mean how are you going to get recognized if you gave money to somebody and they never even realized it or praying for someone in their closet how many people are going to recognize that no one except for god well you know i want to i want to preach some sermon that's going to get all the views on youtube well who cares about that because honestly most of the sermons that go viral i'm like surprised i'm thinking like that's weird you know how that even got you know and that's a dumb philosophy to have in fact usually what happens is when a guy tries really hard to preach a sermon for youtube i usually nuke it myself because it was a garbage sermon full of heresy okay it's usually the the humble sermons that end up going you know kind of viral or whatever kind of exploding but even if even if it does even if you did try to go viral and then you did like tyler doka then you turn into jesus christ you know except for you don't really okay you turn into antichrist i mean that guy's got 47 000 subs or something on youtube i mean you know what i've noticed about youtube is in order to make it to the top you have to be a literal idiot making garbage content in fact you should really almost think like i really hope i never make it the top of youtube because it basically just insinuates that you're a complete brainless idiot producing filth and smut because the only people that they promote and try to get really far up at the top are the dumbest people with the dumbest videos i saw something today it was like some guy he's like the number three youtuber on the planet and he was talking about he makes like 38 million dollars a year and he was like he was at least humble enough to say like he didn't deserve it he was like i don't he's like i don't deserve this for what i'm doing or what i'm making whatever and i'm thinking like i want to see what what is one of these videos right so i go to this thing and i look at the number one video and it's a cat video shocker and it just has he puts his mouth on the mouth of a cat and then just says dumb things and it has like i don't i don't want to say the number because i can't remember but it was just like an insane amount of views either hundreds of millions or maybe even billions of views on this stupid video of just a cat and it's like thinking like this is the top guy on youtube and i'm like i wouldn't want to be the i mean i think the number one guy is that pewdiepie guy that's like a bizarre freak or something it's like and really if it's not a personality it's just music videos music videos is pretty much the top which is just complete scum complete filth trash and everything like that and really these people lifting themselves up so highly they're going to have a giant fall oh i reared up this pillar well what is that pillar going to do for you when you get hung in a tree and killed and you have no sun i mean has anybody been to absence place lately doesn't seem to exist anymore does it nope it's just gone go if you went to verse 19 go back and let's keep reading here says in verse 19 then hi may as the son of zadok let me now run and bear the king tidings how that the lord hath avenged him of his enemies and jub said in them thou shalt not bear tidings this day thou shalt bear tidings another day but this day thou shalt bear no tidings because the king's son is dead then said job to kushai go tell the king what thou seen and kushai bowed himself unto joab and ran then hi may as the son of zadok yet again to joab but howsoever let me i pray thee also run after kushai and joab said wherefore wilt thou run my son sing to those no tidings ready but howsoever said he let me run and he sent him run for us run then hi may as ran by the way of the plane and overran kushai and david sat between the two gates and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate under the wall and lifted up his eyes and looked and behold a man running alone and the watchman cried and told the king and the king said if you be alone there's tidings in his mouth and he came apace and drew near and the watchman saw another man running and the watchman called under the porter and said behold another man running alone and the king said he also bringeth tidings the watchman said me think of the running of the foremost is like the running of a hi may as the son of zadok and the king said he is a good man and come with good tidings hi may as called and said unto the king all is well and he fell down to the earth upon his face before the king and said blessed be the lord thy god which have delivered up the men that lifted up their hand against my lord the king and the king said is the young man epsilon safe and hi may as answered when joab sent the king's servant and me thy servant i saw a great tumult but i knew not what it was so we have a story here hi may as and kushy joab is the the general essentially that's discovered what's happened in this event so he's got to bear the tidings and hi may as just really wants to be the guy to go he's so excited but joab doesn't want him to go but he wants kushy to go so he lets kushy go kushy goes and then hi may as is like i just i kind of just love running you know can i can i go like i just i want to be the guy he just wants to be the guy but joe's like you don't even have anything to say what's the point you have no message can i go it's like go and then he shows up and the king's like so what happened i don't know he's like well that's great you know but also you kind of think about his message his message is kind of like only positive isn't it oh bless this is the lord thy god and yay it's all exciting good good good but is that really the news that kushy has well look what king says and the king said is the young man have some safe and hi may as answered i'm sorry verse 30 and the king said him turn aside and stand here and turn aside and sit still and the old kushy came and kushy said tidings my lord the king for the lord of thevenge thee this day of all them that rose up against thee and the king said and kushy is the young man absolom safe because i answered the enemies of my lord the king and all that rise against thee to do the hurt be as that young man is and the king was much moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept and as he went thus he said oh my son absolom my son oh my son absolom would god i had died for thee oh absolom my son my son now there's two applications i want to make and i'll finish go over to first timothy chapter number one and we're going to kind of finish in that part of the scripture but the first application we can make here is about our picture of jesus again remember what is it that happened the death of absolom well what is the most important gospel message what is the most important message we can deliver the death burial and resurrection of jesus christ the death of christ the cross that we go out that's the message that we deliver right and ahima is is not given that message to deliver and here's the here's the point when you don't have the message of the cross to deliver you have no message to give but there's a lot of people they want to give a message but when you're not giving the message to the cross it's in vain it's in vain it's pointless there's no point in delivering a message when you don't have the message of the cross but kushy is willing to give the of the message of the cross. And what I like about Cushai is he's willing to deliver a negative message if that's the message he has to deliver. You know, a good messenger is not concerned with the message. Like, he's just going to deliver it. Now, also, a good messenger is not going to bring something, is not going to bring a non-message. OK, so I'm as he fails in regard that, well, I'm here to deliver a message, but I have no message to deliver. And again, the only message worth delivering is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we have to go out there and we have to preach the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we have to give a negative message. And a negative message, sometimes you're not saved, or your religion is wrong, or your Catholic church is damning you to hell. Or you need to do something different here, buddy. And that can be negative. And some people don't want to do that. In fact, a lot of people don't want to do that. Many people are unwilling to preach the gospel. Many people are unwilling to tell people the truth of what happened, because it will upset them and frustrate them. I also think here you kind of have a symbolism of David picturing God the Father. Notice that David's so upset about his son, it kind of makes me think of how God the Father would have felt about his son. You see a great love, a great distress from David towards Absalom. And it seems confusing to you, but when you kind of put in picture of God the Father towards Jesus, it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Because of course, you know, the Father was greatly grieved at his son having to go through that evil and having to perish, OK? Now, here's the second application I want to make, though. And it goes a little beyond salvation, is that there's a lot of people out there that want to deliver a message, but they don't have any message to deliver. And it's the preachers of our town, where they want to be a preacher. They want to be a pastor. But then when you ask them what happens, it's like, I don't know. And it makes me think of how they even present the gospel. Because you could go to all these churches, and I guarantee all of them, barring a few weirdos, would say Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. But you know what people ask? How do I get saved? I don't know. You know, they don't really know. Explain to me, do you think salvation by faith or what is it like? You know, it's confusing. I saw this like tumult, but I'm not exactly sure what happened. Or you ask them any question in the Bible. Hey, what does Leviticus 2013 mean? Well, I went to seminary, and we all sat around, and there was a tumult, but I couldn't discern what happened. I don't know what it means. It's like, well, get out of the pulpit. Turn aside and let Cushai get up and deliver the message. And if you want to be a preacher, if you want to be a pastor, let me tell you something. You cannot be a Chimaaz. You need to be a Cushai. You need to say, this is what happened. This is the message. I'm not going to water it down. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm not going to just lie to you and say, I don't even know what happened. You know, there's a lot of preachers that literally just lie. And they lie by obfuscation. You know, they just basically, they'll kind of just say, ah, you know, kind of, or whatever, or I'm not sure, even though they actually know the right thing. It's like, well, I know that the Bible says that homosexuals were put to death, but I don't know if that's right. It's like, what do you mean you don't know? It's either right or it's wrong. It's either Christians were right in the 1600s, and the 1700s, and the 1800s, or they were wrong. It's either in the Old Testament it was right, and it's still right, or it was wrong and it's wrong. But you can't play this stupid little hybrid game of like, well, I know it's there, but let's talk about anything else. No, no, no, no, let's talk about it. This is what we want to talk about. And you know what, it's the burning issue in question of everyone out there. Look, when you go soul winning and you know it, even if they have no idea who we are, they bring that topic up all the time. Why, because it's being crammed down their throat, because they want to know about it. They're so interested. In fact, it's funny, we were knocking on doors this evening, and some guy answers the door, and Brother Maldo is my partner, and he's out there. And this guy walks out, and he's like, oh, how's it going? He's like, hey, it's an invite. And all of a sudden, you just hear this beep, beep, beep. It's like, oh, it's that hate church, it's that hate church. And this woman comes out, all running at him, like, give that invite back. Give that invite back. And the guy's just like, here you go. He's like, that's that hate church. And he's just like, I don't know. And then they kind of like bicker for a second. And then he just turns around, he's like, have a good day, guys. And we're just like, all right, see you. You know. It's just like, what in the world? But then later, one lady was interested in getting the gospel, she got saved. And then when we were walking back, I saw this family leaving. And they kind of noticed us a little bit more than normal. You know what I mean? And I'm kind of just looking. I'm like, OK. And then they started just beelining it at us. I'm just thinking, OK, I don't know what's going on. And then she's like, y'all still having protests? And I was like, yep. And she's just like, well, we stand with you guys. And we're going to church tonight. And we just want to let you know those people are freaks. And they're gross. And we don't like them. And they're all going to hell. And I was just like, amen. Hey, I got a documentary for you. And it's like, people just think like, oh, man, we're so alone or whatever. Look, you guys don't even realize, I've been watching for the last 30 minutes. 20 people from that church across the street were arguing with all our protesters. And they're like super pissed at them. People hate these freaks. They're just afraid to say it publicly. But you know, a tide is shifting in our nation where I think a lot of our public is starting to realize, I need to stop just being quiet about this. The reason why is because everybody's so quiet about it. They're just ahaimayas like, I don't know what to say. Hey, we need some kushayas to rise up and just call it like it is and just say the message and just say what the Bible actually says. And you know what, I don't care if every pastor in this country is ahaimayas. You know what, I'll be a kushay to just stand in the gap and say this is what the Bible says. Thus saith the Lord. And you know what, not just even unpopular topics in the world, even unpopular topics in this room. You know, as a pastor, I am not your friend first. I am your pastor first. Not your pal first, I'm your pastor first. And you know what, even you men in this room, you have to realize, you are a father first, not a friend first. You're a husband first, not a honey. Now of course you're a honey, and of course you're a friend. But you know what, you're husband first. And you're a father first. And you know what, we need to have some men that are gonna be a pastor first and tell people things they don't like and make them uncomfortable because you know what, then maybe they'll change. But let me tell you something, they're not gonna change unless you make them a little uncomfortable. That's why people like hard preachings. They realize their life changed. I mean, my life changed in March preaching. Whose life in yours changed in March preaching? Okay, yeah. So you know what you need more of? Hard preaching. And it's frustrating to me how people, they're just so quick to basically tell you right off the bat they don't want any hard preaching. Like hey, I wanna tell you about a situation that's really horrible. Will you just love me anyways? Will you just tell me nice things anyways? It's like, no, no, no. Let's talk about the elephant in the room first. You know, faithful are the wounds of a friend. And let me tell you something. When you have someone in your life doing evil or wicked and you're unwilling to tell them, you are not actually their friend. So in fact, if you really think like, oh, I don't think pastor's my friend because he tells me all these things about me, I may be the only friend you got. I may be the only friend that these neighbors have. And isn't it so funny that you can slam the door and scream at the hate church because you're not hateful apparently? Right? I wanted to ask the lady, I'm like, hey, do you hate us? Because I know she would be like, ah! Well, we can hate you. You know, it's like, isn't it so funny that everyone wants to go around pretending like they love everyone while they hate us? What a bunch of hypocrites. The world's full of hypocrites and losers. And you know what, these pastors are losers that won't preach the Bible. If you're a pastor and you won't preach every verse of the Bible, you're a loser. You are a loser and a fraud and a charlatan and you should get out of the pulpit. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of how many churches there are in this country and in this state and in this city and in this very specific city and how it's just like so ungodly and everybody's so ignorant of the Bible. I mean, you would think with a church in every single street corner, people would know at least one verse in the Bible. But then when they bring up anything in the Bible, it's, well, you know, we're supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner. That's not even the Bible. You a high my ass? What are you doing? How is it that you go to church and you don't even know one Bible verse? The one thing you can even say isn't even in the Bible. You know what? We need some people to get mad and start preaching the Bible and start rebuking sin and educating this populace because let me tell you something. Our populace is morons. They are morons in the world and they're morons when it comes to Scripture. And you know what? The only thing that fixes that is the Bible. We need to get the right Bible in these people's hand and we need to start telling them to read it and we need to start increasing the knowledge of our area because my people are destroyed for a lack of what? Knowledge. And let me tell you something. This country is going to hell in a handbasket because they're dumb. They are dumb. They don't know how to read and write. They don't understand why we even have a constitution. They don't understand why we have a Bill of Rights. They don't understand why we have a religious freedom. They don't understand why we have, you know, the right to defend ourselves. They don't even understand why every law in our country was based on this book. And this is the only source of authority for that information. You know, and we need to stop being so worried about hearing negative messages and start just saying, I just want truth, good, bad, or ugly. Give me the truth. Tell me, Pastor Shelley. If I suck at something, just tell me. Don't be like, well, don't hurt my feelings, though. Did you have to be so mean when you said it? It's like, I would rather have a mean truth than the sweetest lie. First Timothy, chapter number one, look at verse six. From which some having swerved and turned aside into vain, jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor wherever they affirm. Now, you know what this makes me think of Bible college. Men that decide they want to be a pastor on their own, but then they have no message. And let me tell you something. I think it's wrong for people to ordain themselves. I'll always believe that. I'll never believe in the self-ordination model. God didn't call your cell phone and tell you to be a pastor. You know what? I believe that you should be appointed by another person that thinks you're gonna make a good pastor. And without that kind of a system, it's gonna be a train wreck. Have you ever seen the Pentecostals? I mean, have you ever seen these other churches? I mean, these self-appointed people. And show me the self-appointed person that's doing great things for God, by the way. Right, show me a pastor that you have respect for that ordained himself. It never happens, it never exists. They're always bozos. They always turn out to be freaks or something. You know, go to 2 Timothy chapter four, 2 Timothy chapter four. You know what, I would rather be the doorman at church than to be a self-appointed pastor or to be Greg Locke and just disqualify myself and then just run off and start another church. You know, God willing that, and I believe this personally, if I ever, for whatever reason, was disqualified from the church, I'm not going to start another one. I'll just go sit down at whatever church I need to and just serve there and help the church program there. It's stupid to sit here and just think you just have to be in charge or you just have to be the leader just because. 2 Timothy chapter number four, look at verse number one. I charge thee therefore where God and the Lord Jesus Christ which is the judge, the quick, and the dead that is appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. You know what, the Bible tells you to rebuke. But you know what, high man didn't have a negative message to deliver. And unfortunately, if you live in 2022 America and you're not willing to preach something negative, it's like you almost have no message to give anyways because nothing really applies. It's like, why are you so angry all the time, Pastor Shelley? Have you ever seen our culture? Have you ever seen the sin issues that we're dealing with? It's like I don't have, you know, I give some good messages, like positive messages, sometimes, but I'll be honest, I don't think that most of my preaching's very positive. It's probably a lot of negative. But you know, it's also because I'm trying to preach a lot of Bible and there's just not a lot of positive messages. There's like one really positive message called the gospel and I preach it a lot when I go soloing, but then when we're here and we're all saved, I'm not giving you that message that much, okay? I'm giving you a lot of different messages. You know, Jeremiah's not a real positive book. Lamentations isn't the most positive book. Okay, you just keep reading. It's just like negative, negative, negative, negative, negative, negative, negative, and then you're just like, then we're finally in the new heaven and earth. It's like, I'm sorry. There's the positive message, okay? Wait until then. But you know, what do you draw from this, Pastor Shelley? What do you draw from this story? You know what, just be a truth seeker because Absalom was not a truth seeker and it destroyed him. All the men that followed him, it destroyed them. Ahimaaz was not willing to follow the trite message. He cared more about just being the leader rather than just being a truthful person. He didn't tell the truth when he showed up. He knew that Absalom died. He's a liar. He's a hireling. He just wanted to run. Don't just run, just run. Live your life with purpose. Even if you don't, you know, even if someone else is like gonna do the, you know, oh, Kushai is the pastor. Okay, well, serve Kushai. Don't just then start your own church, Adam Phantom. You know, don't be an Absalom or Ahimaaz or any of these guys, okay? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the word of God. Thank you for giving us the truth, whether it's good, ugly, or anywhere in between. I pray that we wouldn't despise the truth, that we wouldn't despise prophesying because it may hurt our feelings or it may call us out or if we get judged as unworthy to do a task that we wouldn't decide to be upset about it, but rather we would just accept our place and that we actually motivate ourselves to be better. Instead of being mad about the truth and reality of a situation, I pray that we would take the truths of God's word and we would be motivated to be better Christians, better servants that we would accept with humbleness the positions that you put us in. And when you do call men to leadership, that they would be strong enough and bold enough to step on toes if that's what the Bible calls for, that they would be willing to preach the message unashamedly. And I pray that you would just help our church's heart to just not be ashamed of the Bible. There's nothing to be ashamed of for believing the Bible. This world's the thing that we should be ashamed of. And I thank you so much for your son and the sacrifice he gave for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. For our last song this evening, we'll go to Psalm 147 in your white handouts. Psalm 147, in your white handouts from your King James Bible. Psalm 147. Here we go. unto our God. For it is pleasant and praises come, lead the Lord doth build up Jerusalem. He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars. He calleth them all. He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power. His understanding is infinite. The Lord lifteth up the meek. He casteth the wicked down to the ground. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving. Sing praise upon the harp unto our God, who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass, grass to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry. He delighteth not in the strength of the horse. He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him in those that hope in his mercy. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem, for he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. He hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, and fillet thee. Finest of the wheat, he sendeth forth his commandment upon earth. His word runneth very swiftly. He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. Scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like more, souls who can stand before his cold. He sendeth out his word, and melteth them. He calls it his wind to blow. And the waters flow, he showeth his word unto Jacob. His statutes and his judgments unto Israel he hath not dealt so with any nation. And as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.