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

Though by sin oppressed, go to him for rest, our God is able to deliver thee. Great singing. Let's go ahead and open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this Wednesday night service. I pray that you'd please help us just to be filled with the Holy Spirit as we sing to you and worship you. I pray that we pay attention to the word God preached, that you just bless this service. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, for our second song we'll go to 158. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. 158. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. 158. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. My great redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace. My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad, the honours of thy name. Jesus, the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease. Tis music in the sinner's ears, tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of cancelled sin, he sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the phallus clean, his blood availed for me. Hear him, ye deafest praise he doth, your loosened tongues employ. He blind behold your Savior come, and we be lame for joy. Great singing. I really like that last chorus there, the last verse talking about the blind being able to see and the lame being able to leap. So, if you don't have a bulletin, lift your hand up nice and high, we can get you a bulletin. We have our memory verse, verse 24. And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. So, we've got a lot of candy over here to give out to youngsters, so hopefully you can quote that to one of our ushers, for the Dylan or myself. On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times, as well as our church stats. Great work on the soul winning. Make sure to continue to report your stats to your soul winning captains and turn in maps that you have to Brother Dylan. And then on the right, we have a list of expecting ladies. We also have a prayer list we're going to go over. It's really nice to see that we had six baptisms in April, despite not even having a building. So, you know, it's just see here is water, what does hinder me be baptized? If thou will leave us with all thine heart, thou mayest write. Prayer list, we have continued to pray for the Negira family for health, Ms. Lucy, her mother's tumors, Brother Cameron Hall, his leg. We've been praying for Verity Baptist Vanilla and Pastor Kevin Sepulveda. Pray for the Cardonas for comfort and recovery. Continue to pray for the Goodwin family for health and recovery. Malcolm Holden was asking for prayer for his cousin Taylor's baby. His name is Bennett and he has RSV's in the hospital. So, hopefully, he'll be out of there soon. Also, Jimmy Stewart was asking for his mother, Ms. Turner, ruptured eardrum. Brother Oz was asking for his father's recovery from a motorcycle crash. Is he still in the hospital? Okay. And then Brother Illy was for allergies and I think he meant everyone. So, you know, at least that's how I take it. So, I definitely need that prayer as well. And, I mean, they can invent an electric car, but they can't figure out how to, you know, get rid of allergies. Man, it seems like someone's making money on that deal. Brother Garcia, his foot got hurt recently and so I think he was fractured. So, let's pray for Brother Tony. And that's pretty much all I have for announcements as far as prayer. If you have anything else throughout the week, try to email those in and we update our prayer requests every week. But, we'll say a quick word of prayer as a church family. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this evening. Thank you so much for our church. I pray that you would just bless all of our expecting ladies with health. Give them strength. I pray that you would just bless those that are mentioned here with their various health concerns. Please give them strength right now. Give them comfort as they are going through a difficult time. I pray that you would also just bless our friends abroad that you would help them to be emboldened to preach the gospel. That you would give them free course. I pray that you would just give us free course here in this country. Give us a revival and that we can see many people saved. And we just thank you for the opportunities we have. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Talking about opportunities, we have the Austin, Texas Soul Waning Marathon sign-up sheet right over here. Make sure to sign up for that event. We also have the Men's Conference, August 18th through the 20th. And so that's always a lot of fun. We basically get to be men. So we get to be men for a few days. And I think everybody always seems to really enjoy it. If you've never been, I highly encourage you to try and make it for the days. If you can't make it for the whole time, no problem. We've had a lot of people just come for at least one day. And it's definitely better than nothing. But we'll pretty much be leaving in the morning. Show up Thursday morning. And then stay until about Saturday morning. And then kind of head back. And so that'll be a great time of just kind of relaxing, getting refreshed. And physically destroying ourselves. No, I'm just kidding. On the back we have the great announcements. Congratulations to Phillip and Lauren Milstead on the birth of their daughter, Paris Louise. And she was born Wednesday, April 27th. 1.33 pm, weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces and measuring 19 and a half inches long. Congratulations to them. Also congratulations to Sunny and Michelle Brooks on the birth of their son, Sunny Alexander. Little junior, I guess. And he was born April 30th, 3.13 am, weighing 7 pounds 2 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. So congratulations to them as well. Very exciting. And when I look at these pictures, it reminds me. So it's been a little while, but I appreciate your patience. We've been working on the church directories. We pretty much have them done and we're going to be ordering those. So hopefully we'll get them pretty soon. But they're going to come out really nice. And so thanks to everybody for participating in that. And I really look forward to also doing it next year. So that way we can put in some cool stuff that happened this year. So I was thinking about all the stuff and I was like putting it in there. But that actually happened this year. It's taken me too long to get these things done. But it's kind of coming together and I'm really excited to get those things ordered. Hey, turn that off real quick. I want to give a couple other announcements too. Thank you. Thank you. And the song two hundred and forty six Redeemed singing out like you're redeemed. All right. Two forty six. Redeemed. Redeemed. His child and forever I am. Redeemed and so happy in Jesus. No language my rapture can tell. I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell. Redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed. Redeemed. His child and forever I am. I think of my blessed redeemer. I think of him all the day long. I sing for I cannot be silent. His love is the theme of my song. Redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed. Redeemed. His child and forever I am. I know I shall see in his beauty the king in whose law I delight. Who lovingly guarded my footsteps and given me songs in the night. Redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed. Redeemed. His child and forever I am. As the offering plates are passed around, please turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel 5. 2 Samuel 5. We'll read the whole chapter before the sermon. Follow along silently starting in verse 1 where the Bible read. And they anointed David king over Israel. David was 30 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 40 years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months. And in Jerusalem he reigned 30 and three years over all Israel and Judah. And the king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, which spake unto David saying, except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither, thinking David cannot come in hither. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, the same is the city of David. And David said on that day, whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smited the Jebusites and the lame and the blind that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said, the blind and the lame shall not come into the house. So David dwelt in the fort and called it the city of David. And David built round about from Millo and inward. And David went on and grew great and the Lord God of hosts was with him. And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David and cedar trees and carpenters and masons and they built David and house. And David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake. And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem after he was come from Hebron. And there were yet sons and daughters born to David. And these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem, Shamwa and Shobab and Nathan and Solomon, Ibar also and Elishua and Nepheg and Jephiah and Elishama and Eliada and Eliphalet. But when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines came up to seek David and David heard of it and went down to the hold. The Philistines also came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And David inquired of the Lord saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? Wilt thou deliver them into mine hand? And the Lord said unto David, Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into thine hand. And David came to Baal-parism and David smote them there and said, The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters. Therefore he called the name of that place Baal-parism. And there they left their images and David and his men burned them. And the Philistines came up yet again and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shalt not go up, but fetch a compass behind them and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself. For then shall the Lord go out before thee to smite the host of the Philistines. And David did so, as the Lord had commanded him, and smote the Philistines from Geba until thou come to Gezer. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you for 2 Samuel chapter 5 and for the opportunity we have to listen to the word of God being expounded on this evening. I pray that you fill the man of God with your Holy Spirit and enable him to explain the chapter to us and help us to listen and learn. Be with us as we go our separate ways after the service. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. We're in 2 Samuel chapter number 5 and the last few chapters have been kind of a what not to do chapter. And I feel like chapter number 5 kind of bounces back where it's actually a chapter a lot about what to do. And it gives us a lot of good examples and some good instruction. And so it's kind of nice that we finally get a break from all the just beating over the head from chapters number 3 and 4. But we see in verse number 1 it says, Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Also in time past when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that led us out and brought us in Israel. And the Lord said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. All the others of Israel came to the king, to Hebron, and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. David was 30 years old when he began to reign. He reigned 40 years. So we have king David is in Hebron. And you can kind of remember Saul's already dead. They had a war between the house of David and the house of Saul. Israel, Ish-bosheth was their temporary leader and Abner was kind of really the one that had the strength. Abner was killed by Joab. Then Ish-bosheth was killed by some of his other lower level general lieutenant type men. So Israel is just basically without a leader. Now they make the right decision though finally and they decide to come to David and they're going to appoint him as the leader finally. And what I like about this passage and when you kind of think about this chapter is while the children of Israel really kind of screwed up and not even just one time. They really just kind of continually screwed up and for a long period of time. When they finally go back to David, he makes a league with them. He agrees with them and then they can have him as their leader and they can have success and victory in their lives and as a group of people. And what this illustrates is the fact that there's never a bad time to get right with God. Meaning you can screw up and do wrong even for years, for decades. You can basically get away from the Lord. And if you think about it, the children of Israel, they're kind of a back and forth. With Saul at first, it's kind of good and then Saul kind of goes down a bad path and it kind of goes poorly for the children of Israel. But then David is coming back into the kingdom. Some of the children of Israel kind of get right with David, Judah, and then essentially after Abner and Ishmael set, now they're kind of all going to get back right with the Lord. Also kind of notice that Judah's example helps bring revival to the whole nation. Because if Judah didn't rally behind David, if no one rallied behind David, we would have no one potentially ever get behind David. But because at least a remnant, because at least one tribe got behind David, it allows the other children of Israel to follow in suit, as it were, when the timing is right. And you have to think about it this way, not everyone is going to get right with God at the same time. And this sometimes is true with our family or with our friends or other Christians, where maybe you get right with God today, but your spouse, your brother, your parents, children, doesn't matter what relation, just other people, they're not quite ready. Or they're not ready to go to the same links that you're ready to go to. Or maybe they're still kind of mixed up. You know what, there's still hope that at some point they can get on the right page, they can start following David just like you are following David, and you're setting the right example. You know, by being a Judah and getting on the right path and getting behind David, it's going to allow and help the other children of Israel to end up making the right decision and rallying behind David. If nobody got behind David, they probably would have never became king, but at least we had a small group, and then we had several hundred, and then we have the entire tribe of Judah, and now we have the entire nation of Israel. And this is how revival works. Revival does not happen overnight. Revival is with one person doing that which is right. He stirs up a few people, and then that few people turns into a couple hundred, and then that couple hundred turns into thousands, and then that thousand can turn into hundreds of thousands, yay, millions. And when it comes to America, I think all of us to some degree would like to see our nation turn back to the Lord, have a big revival, have a Baptist church mean a Baptist church back again. You know, it would be wonderful if we could bring back even some of the biblical laws. You know, how about this Roe v. Wade thing? Wouldn't it be great if we could eliminate abortion even if it's not in every state? Let's just start with one, and then maybe it could be two, and then maybe it could be ten, and then maybe it could be all fifty, right? But you're probably never going to see revival in just all fifty just right off the bat. You kind of have to work slowly, and as you do right, others can see that example and they can follow suit. And so we don't have to worry about everybody being right all the time. Worry about yourself, and worry about the example that you're setting for other people to follow. You know, if you want your spouse to be more zealous for the things of God, let me tell you the best way to do it is you be zealous. Don't expect them to necessarily just flip a switch like you do or be at the same level you are, you know, or force them. You know, what you need to do is just be a really good example, and then over time through your consistency, you're going to enable them to have the ability to follow suit or to see that example being set and have the opportunity to grow. I think all of us, you know, it's kind of funny in my mind because I bet most of us in this room, if we were concerned with someone's growth, it's probably your spouse and not yours. Like a lot of times you like obsess or get so concerned about someone else's growth, like your spouse or your parents or your friend, like whoever it is that you're worried about, you're just so worried, I wish they would get right with God, or I wish they would do more for God, or I wish they would be more zealous. But it's like, you can't really affect that because everyone has free will, but what you can do is you could get more zealous, you could work on your growth, you could get more mature, you could do things and be more spiritual, and by you being more spiritual, it enables them to have a greater potential to follow your example, follow your lead. And so don't undermine this chapter in the sense of like, oh, I guess they got it right. No, I believe that Judah has a big impact on Israel getting right here. And also notice this, when you appoint the right guy into leadership, notice that it lasts. They appointed Saul and that wasn't really the right decision. Because if you think about it, Saul being appointed as king was actually a judgment and a rebuke against them because they rejected God. So even though Saul was the man that was picked by God and we get that, they really didn't have the right heart in picking a king and then it ends up falling apart very quickly. Now that they have a king, though, and they kind of entered in this type of a system, David is the obvious God-ordained, God-anointed person. So if they're going to do that, which is right, they're going to get on David's program. Ish-bosheth didn't really work out. And when you read the book of 2 Samuel, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here, but you're going to see every time they try to set someone else up and it's not the right guy, it just fails. It's utter failure, just total disaster, doesn't last very long. Because when you put the wrong person into a position of leadership, it's disaster. How about Joe Biden? Talk about a disaster. And that didn't take long. I mean, he's literally destroying our country as fast as possible. It feels like, and in my opinion it does seem like it's on purpose, but whether or not it is, when you have the wrong person in a position of leadership, things can go bad quickly. And it's not going to last. It's not going to have a good legacy. The same is with every position of leadership, but when you put the right guy, notice that he reigned for how long? 40 years. That's a long time. Four decades. Most people in this room aren't even 40 years old. So you don't even know what four decades is like from a perspective. Some of you are over 40, so you have some idea. But this is a really long time because they put the right guy in charge. He was about 30 years old. Kind of makes me think of Jesus Christ. He was about 30 years old when he started doing his ministry and working. What's kind of strange to me though, or what's kind of unique when I think about this, is everything that we read about David before he was king happened before he was even 30 years old. Isn't it crazy when you think about some of the works that David performed and some of the tasks that David took on and the leadership that he already showed at a very, very young age? And that helped him to when he gets into this type of position. I mean, you don't want to just walk into, I'm the king of millions of people. That's not a very good system. That's not very realistic, typically. It's better to grow into that kind of position. And David took all the different stages of his life very seriously though. He took the sheep that he had very seriously. Then he takes the fighting of Goliath. He takes even being in charge of the army of Saul very seriously. You know, when Saul asks for 104 skins, 200. Whatever Saul needs, he does it. Saul needs him to play him a song just to get over the evil spirit. He comes in and dodges the spear so he can come back in there and play another one, right? I mean, David is a great worker. He's a humble servant. Even the people that God is bringing out to him, he takes their life very seriously. He wants to protect them. He wants to guard them. Whenever he occasions the death of the priests, those that had fled, he's like, stay with us and you'll be safe. When he's out watching Nabal's flock, he is very good unto them. He's good unto their servants. He's good unto these people. You know, when David was on the run, he was being hunted down. He hears about a town that's going to be invaded and he goes and rescues the town. He didn't have to do that. But why? Because David has the right heart. David is a man that is just a natural born leader. He's someone that's always looking out for others. He's willing to lay down his life. He's willing to risk his life for other people. He's not interested in what it is, you know, what it's going to get for him because he didn't think that he was going to get anything out of this. He's just an obedient servant to God. That's why we find him in this position as being king and it being 40 years as a king. You can climb your way to the top in a wrong way, but it's going to end in disaster. But if you don't seek for the glory, if you don't seek for the fame, if you don't seek to rise to the top, you just sink. You just want to serve God. God will sometimes just put you in big positions or in great opportunities because you're the right kind of character. You have the right type of personality. And once he puts you in that position, it's going to stick because you have the right character. You went through the right testing and the right trials and you have the right kind of heart. So we see here all the hard work of David is paying off. David didn't beg to be the king. David didn't want to be king. David was just a humble servant. And now he's literally the king of God's nation, of God's people. What a great honor. What a great job duty that he has here that's given unto him. And of course, there's no better person to give it to, is there? David is the right guy. And it all makes sense. So when we think about this chapter, you've got to think about this. When you do things right, when you do it the right way, when you're following the scripture, God's going to make sure that it sticks, make sure that it lasts. One thing you can note about David's kingdom, though, even while ruling and leading, it wasn't necessarily stable from a geographical perspective. Right? I mean, they had to go everywhere. They're on this side of the mountain. They're on that side of the mountain. They're fleeing to a completely different nation. They're coming back. But you know what was stable? David being a leader. And sometimes when you're a leader, you have to realize that while everything's going to be haywire for you and chaotic for you, you kind of have to keep it all together, kind of have to keep going, keep leading, keep fighting, because people are looking for example. If David had folded at any point in time, where would the children of Israel be at this point? You know, people, if you're a man and you have a family, there are people counting on you, keep going. Like you going down, the whole family could go down. You know, it's going to cause a lot of problems for your wife. It's going to cause a lot of problems for your children. It's going to cause a lot of problems, you know, maybe even in church where we have people plugged in, working, serving, you know, we lost them. You can't necessarily replace every single person. You know, the work isn't going to get done all the same. You know, all the different soul-winning leaders we have on the sheet. You know, this church is not one person. This church is an entire body of body parts. And even the ones that we think are the most important, as the Bible describes, sometimes it's the ones that we think are the least important that are actually the most important. That really keep the church together. You know, you might think of all the men keep the church together. Maybe it's the women. Maybe it's the children. In fact, a lot of times when visitors come, they really like the children because they're thinking like, I've never seen this many kids be this, you know, well behaved. And I know, obviously, from our perspective, we get mad at all the crying and whatever. But if you had just 50 of the world's kids in here right now, I mean, it would be a madhouse. You ever go to Chuck E. Cheese? I haven't been in decades for a reason. My kids don't even know what it is. I don't want them to know, okay, what it is. Don't tell them, all right? But here's the thing. You know, the children are really keeping us in here. You say, oh, I don't think the kids are keeping us in here. You know, the Bible teaches that what keeps women on the straight and narrow is children. Childbearing. You know, keeps women from going out and going into the world or doing wicked things, becoming, you know, gossipers and having all these kinds of problems. I mean, children are a blessing. People think that children are a burden. They're a blessing. And we should teach that and we should emphasize that, that children keep us having good work to do. We always want to have good work to do. You know, it's a great privilege that we have good work to do, like going to church and reading the Bible. You know, there's some people in this world, they don't have any good work to do. They have nothing to do. And, you know, it's vain. Their whole life is just a vain existence. We don't want a vain existence. We want a rally behind David, which is Christ. And we want to get on his program and, you know, when Christ is set up, it's forever. When you put the right guy, when you put the Antichrist in charge, it's going to only last a few, forty-two months. When you put Jesus Christ in charge, it's a thousand years and then eternity. Because he got the right guy in the right position of authority. Look at verse number five, it says in Hebron, he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah. And the king and his men went to Jerusalem under the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, which spake unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come and hither. Thinking David cannot come and hither. Now what I would say about this also, what's another noteworthy thing, the majority of Israel's existence, they are a divided nation. They kind of have these two camps. They have the northern kingdom, they have the southern kingdom. So the fact that David was able to successfully rule over them for thirty-three years also illustrates that he had a better leadership than most. Because most kings are not able to have the entire kingdom as one. David has them as one throughout his reign. Now, he takes his men to Jerusalem, and specifically to the Jebusites, and he's going to take over more of the land. If you understand the narrative of the Bible from a big picture, when we had the children of Israel come out of the wilderness and they're coming into the promised land through Joshua, they didn't inherit everything. And they were supposed to continually inherit. Through the time of the judges, they basically just kind of were treading water, as it were. They're basically just kind of going back and forth, not really making any progress. Then you have kind of entering in Samuel, bringing in Saul. Saul kind of picked up that torch and started winning some battles and taking back some of that land, picking up where they left off. But then he kind of ended up giving back a lot of that, because eventually they kind of started failing again, and he died in battle and forfeited some of that land. So David, if he's going to take the right torch on, what is he going to do? He's going to go back out there, and he's going to start trying to conquer more of that land and going out there. This is kind of similar to us. You know, when it comes to the world today, God wants Christianity to dominate one hundred percent of this earth. And in Christians, it seems like we ebb and flow through decades where we basically take land, and then we kind of retreat land, and then we kind of take land, kind of retreat land. You know, our generation needs to take up the torch and go out to the Jerusalems of this world and go fight the Jebusites and take back this world. You know, preach the gospel and get people saved and dominate this world with Christianity. And I understand that not everybody's going to get saved, but you know what? We can make a bigger dent than we're making right now. Christianity can get bigger. It can dominate. Think about how much Christianity dominated this nation throughout its history, though. I mean, Christianity used to just dominate America, dominate its rules, dominate its culture, dominate everything. I mean, it was so dominant that no business was even open on Sundays. Now it's just like Chick-fil-A or something like that. But you know, and I saw someone tweet, or someone's like tweeting or something like, Elon Musk should buy Chick-fil-A and, you know, open it on Sundays. And I'm thinking like, you know what? I hope he buys businesses and closes them on Sundays. Let's bring church back. You know, it would be great if we got so many people in the church that people stopped doing things on Sundays because they said, well, no one's going to show up. No one's going to buy this. No one's going to go here. You know, we can't have the football games and the softball games and all this stuff on Sunday because everybody goes to church. Wouldn't it be great if the Dallas Cowboys had to have football games on Saturday instead of Sunday? Because they can't even get anybody in? I mean, you know, that would be the type of goal that Christians should have today. I mean, there's enough Baptist churches for everybody to fit into them. Why can't we get men that are actually fired up about the things of God that actually preach the word of God and actually turn people to righteousness in this nation? You know, we should have a big vision. We should have a big goal. We shouldn't always just try to look at this world in this defeatist attitude. Oh, you know, people aren't interested in the things of God. No, look, the truth is powerful. Why do you think that they're trying to censor us? Why do you think they're trying to, you know, always try to shadow-ban people and try to hide what we believe or try to discourage, put all this propaganda out there? Because they know that the truth is contagious. And they know that revival is contagious. You know, I know it's like Pastor Mejia's YouTube channel had like 9,000 subs, like only a few months ago, and now it's like 25,000. And the guy is just like catching fire. And the thing is, is if they let pastors like Pastor Roger Jimenez, Pastor Steven Anderson, Pastor Bruce Mejia, if they just let them go untapped, just no censorship, I mean, they would have just all the followers. I think Pastor Anderson would probably be one of the top YouTubers, just period, if they had never censored a single video of his. I mean, he could put up a sodomite deception on there and it wouldn't even get censored. I mean, you know, and I know, whether or not it was all sincere people, I mean, it would just be millions. I mean, millions and millions of people would be watching those episodes because that's where the truth is. And anything that's even just kind of a little bit truth is where all the followers are going, even though it's kind of a watered-down, weak version. I mean, people like Ben Shapiro, and it's like he's so far from the truth, he's a Jew. But he has so much more truth than the other Jews that it's like, you know, they like him. They like that version, because at least they'll say some things that are true. He basically isn't brain dead at this point. So it's kind of like Gamaliel or Saul or something out there. You know, he's the Jew that's just not like completely reprobate yet or something like that, you know. He's just on the path that way. But here's the thing. We have to go out there and fight. We need to go out there and take on the battle. And we need to rally behind David and get excited about David and go and fight these Jebusites. And the Bible teaches that there's enemies. I know, you know, modern-day Christianity wants to say everybody's our buddy and we're all pals and we're all friends and kumbaya. But the Bible teaches something different. The Bible teaches that there's enemies in the Old Testament, hey, and in the New Testament. And we war with the Jebusites. Now the Jebusites are a special group of people. Keep your finger here because we're going back to Genesis chapter number 10. Genesis chapter number 10. The thing you have to understand about the Jebusites is they are not possible friends. They are just sworn enemies. And the Bible has made this abundantly clear throughout all of the scriptures leading up to this point. And it's important to understand the Bible. You know, just as much as important for us, it's important for David to know what the scriptures said. And for the children of Israel to know what the scriptures said. And you run into a Jebusite and you say, okay, what's my attitude towards the Jebusite? Well, let's learn a little bit of history. Genesis chapter 10 verse 15. And then Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn in half. Verse 16, and the Jebusites and the Amorite and the Gergashite. So who is a Jebusite? He's of the Canaanites. And we've taken over the land of what? Canaan. And what was our instructions? To destroy all the Canaanites. Why? Because they did everything in Leviticus chapter number 20. Everything in Leviticus chapter number 20. And it's like, okay, so what do you do with those type of people? You have to destroy them. You have to destroy them. Go to Deuteronomy chapter number 7. Deuteronomy chapter number 7. You know, we don't vote them out of office. We don't have an intellectual debate and share ideas. We don't encourage them to go and protest and exercise their first amendment rights. You know, the Bible teaches that some people need to be destroyed. In Jude it says, made to be taken and destroyed. There are some people that are appointed under destruction. And you know who's not appointed under destruction? A newborn baby. Or a baby in the womb. That's not appointed under destruction. You know who's appointed under destruction? The guy that would kill babies. I mean, what kind of world do we live in where you kill the baby and then you celebrate the baby murderer? You celebrate the person that wants to go out and champion how much they want to kill children all in the name of health care or all in the name of what Satan really is what it is. I saw some TikTok video. Some lady said, oh, after I heard about all this abortion and controversy, I went ahead and joined the temple of Satan, the satanic temple, so that I could exercise my first amendment right in abortion. Look, this is not what the first amendment was about, my friend. If you lived in America when the Constitution was first delivered and you were practicing Satanism, they would kill you. They killed witches. They killed those that would blaspheme God. I mean, this makes absolutely no sense. You cannot just create a religion. What if I said, hey, I'm going to create a new religion where murder is really important to our religion. So, therefore, you can't arrest me for murder anymore because that's my first amendment right. This is not logical. And, of course, that's what the left does is they make up illogical arguments that they put forth that make no sense. And we need people to stand up that have a backbone that are going to say, no, that makes no sense. Men are men. Women are women. And pedophiles should be dead. I mean, that should be our stance, our policy in this country. And you know what? We need a lot of people to believe that. Not just our church. We need to wake some people. And I'll tell you this. I think a lot of people do. You know what? They're afraid to say it out loud. But the more people that start saying it, the more people that are bold about it, and the more we just get everybody saying it. You know, when one person's saying it, they're kind of like, oh, I don't know. Let's take away. Let's not let them have a commercial lease, you know. But then you get like 100 people saying it and it's kind of like, well, I don't know. Then you get thousands. Then you get a bunch of people. I mean, and I'll tell you what. Momentum in this nation right now is anti-pedophilia. There is an anti-pedophilia movement in our nation. And we need to capitalize on that and take people all the way to the sodomite deception, okay? And drag them kicking or screaming and say, hey, here's the truth. Believe it. Quit. You know, there is no logical conclusion. Oh, what they do in private, it's not hurting anyone. It's hurting me. It's hurting my feelings. I don't like it. It's hurting God's feelings. And you know, it's also, it's hurting the ground's feelings. You know, the ground doesn't even like it. The Bible says the ground wants to vomit these people up. Read Leviticus. Read the Bible. You know, this is a great opportunity for you to not just shove it down people's throat. Just say, hey, why don't you read Leviticus 20? Maybe we should just like print it out, like Leviticus 20 and just hand it to people. Like, read this. This is from the Bible. I'm sure people think like, oh, I'm not a Muslim. It's like, no, this is Christianity, my friend. Welcome to Christianity, New Testament Christianity. And you know what's also the Bible? Deuteronomy. Look at chapter 7, verse 1. When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whether thou goest to possess it, and hast cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites and the Gergeshites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou. And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and notice this phrase, and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them, not thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. And, you know, hopefully no one in this room would ever let their child marry into one of these like Sodomite or Satan type families or something like that. I mean, what kind of an evil could you do? These are Sodomite type people. When you read the Bible, you say, oh, they're Canaanites. Yeah, but the Canaanites did everything in Leviticus 20. That's because they're a Sodomite, too. And that's why God's saying, hey, you know how much mercy I show these people? Zero. None. What kind of covenant do I make with them? None. Hey, well, let's just kind of compromise. No, there is no compromise. No, there is no agreement. No, there is no mercy. No, your option is destroy. We destroy you. We get rid of you. We want nothing to do with you. You know, that is the right stance with this type of people. And you know what? These type of people still exist today. Now, of course, they're not a specific nation. They're not a specific ethnicity. It's a specific ideology and a specific behavior. And even back then, God didn't just hate Jebusites because they lived in, you know, this part of the country or because of who their parents were. He didn't like them because of their behavior. He didn't like them because of their sin. He didn't like them because they hated God, because they didn't want to retain God and their knowledge, because they were reprobate even back then. You know, sons of Belial are found all out through the Old Testament. Why? Because they were children of the devil. They were tares sown way before the New Testament ever even thought about being written. So you have to realize the tares have always existed and we as God's people need to educate the world on who the tares are and point out who the tares are and show them the consistent pattern of who the tares are. And we ourselves should make sure that we're not making covenants with them, that we're not showing the mercy under them. I mean, think about how many Baptist churches a day say anyone can come. How is that compatible with passages like this? Everyone's welcome. Anything's welcome. I mean, when Baptist churches are saying bring in the trannies, I mean, how do you expect the world to have any respect for the church? In fact, most people still think, like, I thought the churches didn't like those people. It's like, yes! Let's keep that stereotype going. Praise God. I remember when I first started going soul winning, anytime I'd run into these type of people and I would give them an invitation, they would say, you don't want me at your church. And I would say, why? And they'd be like, I'm a Jebusite. I'm a sodomite. And I'd be like, you're right. Hey, you got the right doctrine. You probably even have the right doctrine of salvation because I've met these people. They say, hey, yeah, the Bible says believe in Jesus. It's a free gift. Turn alive. Can't lose it. I don't believe in him. It's all fairy tales. And you're just like, well, that is what the Bible says. And you're right. I don't want you at church. See you later. No covenant. I mean, that is the world that you're supposed to live in. It's called, you know, the Old Testament. It's called the New Testament. It's called Christianity. Now, of course, most people aren't Jebusites, right? This is just a fraction of the world. But we want to make sure that we have the right doctrine here. And notice, whenever they get right with God and they're going to appoint King David, who do they go and what do they do first? Let's attack the Jebusites. Let's take back our land. Let's take back our territory. You know what? Let's take back Baptist churches. How is it that Baptist churches in this nation, I mean, because a Baptist church is not one man, how can people literally sit there and let their pastors lie to them on these subjects? You know, we like to talk about putting pressure on our politicians to make the right ideological positions known or pass the right laws. Why can't we have Baptist put pressure on their pastor to at least have the right statutes and laws for their church? And say, hey, if you're going to have that rule, I'm going somewhere else. You know, why do you think it is that we have a church where people are driving an hour, two hours, 45 minutes to go to church? It's because, you know, they want to hear the Bible being preached. And it's hard to find that. It's hard to find churches that are willing to take the right stand. But we need to make Baptist, Baptist again. And we need to take back some of this territory. Go back to 2nd Samuel 5. The Bible also said in Joshua 15, I'll remind you, as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out. But the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day. So at the time of Joshua, they were unable to drive them out. So that's why they were still there. But that job needed to get done. It's not like, well, we weren't able to do it, so might as well not do it. Kind of makes me think of, you know, you got kings like Hezekiah that are, you know, getting rid of the Sodomites. But then you have to have his son come in and remove the rest of the remnant of the Sodomites, right? You have to have kings coming in succession and saying, hey, you got 90% of the job done, let me get the other 10% done too. Right? And Joshua did a lot of work. They conquered a lot of land. But it's like, hey, we're going to take that too. We're not going to sit here and be content having 90% of the land give me 100%. I want that mountain. You know, and this is not a church that's content for this zip code. I want all the zip codes, right? I mean, I don't even know what they are. Just anything starting with a seven, right? Just seven, six, seven, five, seven, nine. I mean, I want that zip code. That's not my song. I want that world, right? Hey, if they get people on Mars, let's go give them the gospel too, okay? If they terraform Mars, then we're going to get people to give them the gospel out there too, right? Because we're not going to say we're settling for, you know, just this area. Just Hearst. I don't even want that. Just Hearst? I mean, give me something else, right? I mean, we wouldn't even just settle on Dallas. We wouldn't just settle on Fort Worth. Hey, give me all of it. Give me the North Richland Hills. Give me Keller. Give me Coppell, right? That's going to be a hard one. But yeah, all these rich areas, right? Arlington, right? We want Arlington. We want it all. Grand Prairie. And then not just that, Waco. Wichita Falls. Abilene. Let's go to Shreveport again. Hey, let's even go for this Detroit, Michigan. Hey, Sonora, Mexico. Hey, Reynosa. Hey, Matamoros. Hey, Bahamas. We need to make that happen. Hey, they got rid of that stupid like mass thing. Maybe we need to get the Bahamas spirit flowing again, right? I mean, talk about receptive places. You know, I heard that Detroit, Michigan was the most receptive place, but let's let the Bahamas be the test, all right? Let's do more soul winning. I mean, look, this is a chapter about revival. And you know what brings revival is soul winning. Why do people tolerate me getting up here and yelling for an hour? Soul winning. Why do people tolerate me ripping on people's sins and making people feel uncomfortable soul winning? Because they know that's what's right. It's nothing special about me because, you know, of other church, I'm sure there's plenty of pastors in this area that preach better than me if they would just, you know, start doing the soul winning program, get everybody on fire. Let's go join them, right? It's just the problem is there's just so few people that want to just stand up and do the right thing and get behind David, which is the Bible, Jesus Christ, and to follow Christ, not their own belly. They're more interested in that zip code, more interested in that building than they are getting people saved. And you know what? We want to put all those things on the altar. We want to say, hey, we're not going to sacrifice the gospel. We're not going to sacrifice the truth of God's word. We're going to bring about revival in this nation by hook or crook. Look what it says in verse seven. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, the same as the city of David. Now, I do want to explain something because he said, except out in the previous verse, he said, except I'll take away the blind and lame, thou shall not come and hither, thinking David cannot come hither. The reason why he brings up the blind and the lame, in my opinion, is he's like talking trash. He's basically saying like, oh, yeah, you're going to have to get even the blind and the lame people in here. You're going to have to get them out if you're going to come in here, kind of suggesting that everyone is going to fight them. Even the blind people are going to fight them. Even the lame people are going to fight them. And he's basically basically just talking trash, saying like, you guys aren't going to get in here. Everybody's going to fight you. Everybody's against you. Now, it says in verse seven, though, they took it. They took it on, right? It says in verse eight, And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smited the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore, they said, the blind and the lame shall not come into the house. Now, again, when I've read this so many times, I kind of thought like, why does he just hate blind people and lame people so much? But the way I read this, I think he's just saying that he hates Jebusites, okay? Obviously, it's the way it's structured. He said, he smited the Jebusites and the lame and the blind that are hated of David's soul. I don't think he's just saying the lame and the blind. I think he's saying the Jebusites. But he hates the Jebusites so much that he also hates their lame and blind, too. Now, of course, if you were going to show mercy unto a group of people, who would be the people that you would show mercy unto? It'd be the lame and the blind, okay, of a group of people. But he's saying, I hate all Jebusites, even the lame ones and even the blind ones. Notice what's the emphasis. No mercy. No mercy. Isn't that what God told him to do in the book of Deuteronomy? No mercy. Hey, and I like how he talks trash back. He says, hey, whoever goes to the gutter, you know, go ahead and go to the gutter where these derelicts are. Go down to the gutter and smite all these derelicts, all these freaks. You know, it's like that's where the antifa and all these freaks live is in the gutter, right? And a lot of these sodomites are homeless people. They live in the gutter. They're disgusting. They're filthy. They're abominable. And that's how we should treat them is with no mercy. I don't like that. Well, you know what? You don't like the Bible. Well, I show them mercy. Oh, I guess you're more merciful than God. You know, and you're not showing mercy by being nice to a pedophile. What you're doing is you're encouraging him to molest more children. So actually what you're doing is you're hating on children. And you're hating on the next person that's going to be victimized by these dangerous predators. You know, you can't say, oh, I love the sheep and the wolves. Because the wolf will eat the sheep. If you love the sheep, you just destroy that wolf. I mean, you rip them in half. You have no mercy on the wolf because it shows how much you love those sheep. If you pet the wolf and you give him, you know, you're like, hey, go watch the sheep. You hate the sheep. You cannot love both. And if you love children, if you love integrity, if you love that which is honest and pure, you're going to have no mercy to the violent man, to the predator, to the dangerous pedophile and these Jebusite type people. Even the lame and even the blind. I don't care. You're a Jebusite. No mercy. We're going to destroy you. And that's what they did. There's also other pictures here that we could kind of talk about. The blind and the lame shall not come in the house. What's the house? The house is kind of picturing the house of God, right? This is going to become, I mean, Jerusalem is going to become the new sanctuary city. It's going to become God's city, as it were. It's going to be his, you know, capital city, as it were. And that's where the house of God is going to eventually dwell, is in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is a very significant place in scripture, of course, we understand. And he's saying that the blind and the lame, they're not allowed to come in the house. Well, this is actually coming from the Old Testament as well. Keep your finger and go to Leviticus 21. Leviticus chapter 21. Whenever David gave that instruction, we know from 1 Chronicles that Joab is the one that actually led the charge. And he's the one that smote the city first. Therefore, that's the reason why he became the captain for David. And it was kind of a permanent position. He's basically captain for a very long time. But I think that there's a spiritual picture here, too. And to understand spiritual pictures, I think it's really good to understand the carnal picture. It says in Leviticus 21 verse 17, Now, go over to the New Testament and go to John chapter number nine. Go to John chapter nine. The thing you have to understand is in the Old Testament, God used physical pictures for spiritual truths. In the Old Testament, you could not be a priest of God if you had any kind of physical blemish. Now, this is for a couple reasons. One reason is going to picture Jesus. Jesus Christ also didn't have any blemish. He's a perfect and spotless lamb. He's a perfect and spotless priest. Another aspect is the fact that when we get saved and we become the servants of God, we believe in the priesthood of the believer, meaning that we're all servants of God and we're all in the priesthood, even though we have different functions within that priesthood. And as a priest, we can't have any blemish and serve God. Now, the only way this can be understood is in the New Testament, understanding the doctrine of the new man, the old man. And your old man, obviously, we still sin. We have sin until we die. But in our new man, we're made in righteousness and we have no sin inside of us. And what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to worship God in spirit and in truth. And when we serve God, we do it in the new man because the only ones that can serve God have to do it in perfect righteousness, meaning an unsaved person cannot serve God. He can't offer anything of God. God is not pleased with any of his offerings, any of his sacrifices, anything he has to bring to the table. You know, Cain brought all of his sacrifices to God and it was rejected because he wasn't saved. And he wasn't doing it by offering through faith. He was trying to basically offer his works. And there's no different in the New Testament. You have the Sadducees, you have the Pharisees, you have all these people offering sacrifices and gifts to God and their servants to God, and God's not pleased with them. Jesus Christ didn't like the Pharisees. I don't know if you read the Bible. He's not buddies with them or anything like that. And he's often rebuking them. But when he talks to the Pharisees, he talks about them in a very specific way. I'm going to read a few verses and we're going to read John 9. Matthew 11, Jesus said, the blind receive their sight and the lame walk. The leopards are cleansed and the dead are raised up and the poor of the gospel preach to them. So when Jesus is saying what he's doing is he's making the blind people see, he's allowing lame people to walk. Matthew 15, Jesus said about the Pharisees, let them alone. They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Now, what will be another colloquialism for the word ditch? How about a gutter? And when whenever we have David describing the Jebusites, he's like, go up to the gutter. And it's the same picture here in the sense that the Pharisees are blind, but it's a spiritual blindness. And the spiritual blind are never getting into heaven. They're not going to go into the house of God. They're not the saved. Whereas those that get saved, it's like a blind person getting sight or it's like a lame person being able to walk. And Jesus performed all these physical miracles to illustrate the spiritual truths of what he was actually teaching them. He was physically healing people to show them, hey, that's great and all. But, you know, it's more important is the spiritual picture here of going from spiritual blindness to spiritual sight. And if you look at John chapter nine explains it in greater detail, verse thirty nine. And Jesus said, for judgment, I am coming to this world that they would see might not. I'm sorry, that they would see not might see and that they would see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees, which were with him, heard these words and said unto him, are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, if you were blind, you should have no sin. But now you say we see, therefore your sin remain. And so what Jesus is saying is, hey, I'm coming that blind people can hear the gospel and believe on Jesus Christ. And it's like seeing the light. It's like going from being completely blind to being able to see. This is also why unsaved people aren't getting anyone saved because the what is the unsaved person doing? He's leading other blind people into the ditch. The only person that can get you out of the ditch is someone that can see. And they come up to you and they preach you the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they're turning those people that are blind into seeing. And I think today, you know, we get confused about the miracles because there's so much false teaching out there. And you have all these Pentecostal groups, all these charismatic groups, and they're so focused on one thing. What is that one thing they're so focused on? A physical miracle. Right? Taking a blind person and making them physically see. Taking someone in a wheelchair and pulling them out of the wheelchair to where they could walk. Having someone having some kind of terminal illness or some kind of physical ailment and miraculously healing them. And you know what? That would be great. And the Bible does teach that God still heals physically. And I believe that. But I think the majority of the time He doesn't. Because the only thing He's really emphasizing is the spiritual healing. You can take blind people and give them sight. You know how you do that? You go out to their door, you knock on their door, and you preach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you can literally perform the greatest miracle of taking someone that's born blind and make them see. And you say, oh, I want to do the physical miracle, though. Why? So then you can brag. So then you can get fame and glory and all this accolades. You know, that's not the mission. That's not the journey we're on. We're on the journey of taking people that are blind spiritually and giving them sight spiritually. Taking the unsaved and making them saved. Taking those that can't walk and helping them leap. Say, hey, not only are we going to get you saved, we're going to teach you how to get other people saved, too. We're going to help you go out there and you're going to be able to leap for joy and have the joy everlasting of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Know you're on your way to heaven. You know, why are we getting so excited about these physical miracles? Because Jesus healed all kinds of people that were Jews and they still died and went to hell. What would be the benefit if our church went out and we healed 10,000 people physically and they also went to hell? What did we accomplish at the end of the day? Nothing. Because that's not what it's about. What it's about is getting people saved. What it's about is the spiritual aspects here. And when they're going in and destroying the city, you know, they're destroying all the blind and there's no mercy. Let me tell you something. The spiritual blind, even though they might be lame, they're still going to hell. The sweetest person that's unsaved is still going to hell. The person that doesn't deserve it the most still deserves it and is still going to hell. I mean, you like to think like, yeah, but it's a blind person, right? I mean, think about you're going into a city and destroying all the men and there's a person that's just, they're crippled and blind. Wouldn't you think like if there was somebody you'd be like, can't we at least spare him? I mean, he doesn't even have a chance. But guess what? No chance. No mercy. And that is how, you know, some people get offended by this doctrine, but you know what it should do is it should motivate you to go out and preach the gospel to everybody. They say like, oh, you really think these people in these countries that they've only heard about Jesus, they're still going to go to hell? And it's like, yes. Yes, I think that every person born in a Muslim country that doesn't get saved is going to hell. I believe every person that's born in North Korea that doesn't get saved is still going to hell. And yeah, they might be the blind and the lame, spiritually speaking, but guess what? There's no mercy. That's why we should have an urgency. That's why we should have a zeal to get people saved. And those that are twice dead, no mercy anyways. OK. So we went back to Second Sandwich Heaven number five. There's so much in this chapter that we could probably explore. Let's just try to kind of finish real quick. It says in verse number 10, And David went on and grew great, and the Lord God of hosts was with him. And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons, and they built David an house. David perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake. David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem after he was come from Hebron. And there were yet sons and daughters born to David. And these be the names of those that were born unto him in Jerusalem, Shemua, Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, and Ibar also, and Elishua, and Nepheg, and Jephia, and Eli-shammah, and Eliada, and Eliphaleh. So one thing that I note in this chapter is this chapter is really about kind of revival and doing that which is right. But notice that even though they're majorly doing that which is right, David still is a sinner. He's still taking on concubines, still taking on other women, and he's got some issues here. He's going to have to deal with the consequences of some of these sins. But you know what I know is true? God still uses sinners. And that should be a little bit comforting to us when we read chapters like this to know, like, okay, what if I screw up? Just keep fighting. You know, let me say this. There's never a bad time to preach the gospel. It's like, well, what if I sin really bad? Okay, but go preach the gospel. Like, no matter what you do, you can always preach the gospel. Like, I've thought about it, I'm like, even, it's like, I don't care what sin you committed. Even if you were, like, thrown out of church and you're in prison, you could still preach the gospel to your soul, like you're a cellmate. Right? There's never a time when you can stop serving God. You can always serve God wherever you're at. Even Samson, he's got his eyes poked out. He's in chains. He's a mocker of the Philistines. But it's just like, let me just tear the house down at least. And he gets more people killed in that one event than his entire life. So that tells me, no matter where you're at, God can still use you. God can still, you know, even if you sin, we all sin. If you think, like, well, I have to be perfect for God to use me for the rest of my life, that's stupid. And I think some people, they get plugged in, and then they make a bad mistake, and they decide, like, they can't come to church anymore, or they can't serve God. That's the mistake. Yeah, sin's a mistake. But the worst mistake is quitting on God. The worst mistake is stop fighting. The worst mistake typically is quitting rather than the sins that you commit. Because we're all sinners and no one's perfect. Look at verse 17. But when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines came up to seek David, and David heard of it and went down to the hold. The Philistines also came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? Wilt thou deliver them into mine hand? And the Lord said unto David, Go up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines in my hand. This also tells me, you know what? Even though you may be a screw-up, the Gospel still works. Saying, hey, of course you're still going to win because you're on the Lord's side. You know what I also like about this? Even if you screw up and you quit on God, he won't quit on you and you're still going to heaven. Isn't that good news? I mean, think about this. You can't lose the game. You could literally score a touchdown for the other team and you're still going to win. I mean, there's no way to lose. You can't buy enough refs off. You can't score enough points for the other team. You can't, you know, quit enough to lose the game. I mean, we're going to win. He's like, I'm doubtless going to deliver you. And you know what? When you're on the, when the Lord's on your side and you're fighting against the wicked people, you should just say like, hey, we're going to win. I don't know how it's going to happen, but we're going to win. And think about how much setback David's had with the Philistines. The children of Israel had a lot of back and forth, back and forth. But then finally, it's like, now it's just downhill. And I believe the same could be for us. I believe the same can be for the New Testament church. That even though we might have a little bit back and forth, they might have some temporary battles. There might be coming a day when we just have a downhill win or we're just, it's just win after win after win after win. And we just show them the losers that they are. And it's just the token of their perdition. That we're just constantly victorious and we constantly thrive. And every one of our setbacks, we just keep growing and getting stronger anyways. And they just keep being losers and dying and being destroyed. And it's just like, nobody likes you anyways. No one came to your funeral. Verse 20, And David came to Belperazim. And David smote them there and said, The Lord has broken forth upon mine enemies before me as the breach of waters. Therefore he called the name of that place Belperazim. And there they left their images and David and his men burned them. And the Philistines came up yet again and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, Thou shall not go up, fetch a compass behind them and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself. For then shall the Lord go out before thee to smite the host of the Philistines. And David did so as the Lord had commanded him and smote the Philistines from Geba until thou come to Gezer. Now, what's interesting about this latter portion is obviously they're just having victory after victory. But God wants them to fight in a really unique way. He's saying, don't just like come right up and just kind of fight them like front on or front facing. Rather kind of come behind them. And then it says, because it says a compass about them, right? And then fetch a compass behind them. And then it says, come up, come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And then there's this sound going through the tops of the mulberry trees and then they go out. That's kind of a weird thing because it's like it doesn't it doesn't really mulberry trees aren't really mentioned very often in the Bible. It's kind of like only really about this story. And and you kind of scratch your head at this. But I'll just give you my thoughts on what this is saying. But go to John, chapter number three. Go to John chapter number three. This is what I was thinking about this passage. A mulberry tree, if you if you look up in like a dictionary or encyclopedia, a mulberry is a fruit. So we're talking about fruit trees. Now, fruit trees in the Bible have an interesting symbolism because it really pictures a saved person, but not just a saved person. A saved person is bearing fruit. So we would liken this unto a soul winner. You know, a soul winner is often a fruit bearing Christian. Also, the Bible, when it talks about pastors or talks about leaders, it often compares them to trees. The wicked ones are having no fruit. They're dried up at the roots. They're made to be plucked up. That's a false prophet. OK. And a good prophet or a good preacher would be known by his fruit because, you know, a tree by its fruit. So if it's a mulberry tree, this is a good tree. So we could liken this unto a soul winner, to a leader. When I think about this sound that's coming through the mulberry trees, it kind of makes me think of wind. You know, because you've got to have what makes trees move, what gives sound to trees? It's kind of the wind, right? If it's a calm day, I don't really hear the trees like saying anything. But when it's a windy day, I mean, the trees, you can hear all the leaves and you can hear them rattling together. And it's pretty loud. It can be pretty loud if it's a windy day. Right. Well, the Bible actually compares the wind to a lot of different things. A lot of times it's I would say that it's just typically like doctrine. Sometimes it's false. Sometimes it's good. But there's another parallel here. And this is kind of related to the word of God. But look at John, chapter number three, verse eight. The wind blows where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell when it cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit. So actually, the Bible's likening wind unto the Holy Ghost or to the Holy Spirit. So there's kind of the same parallel. And it's similar in the sense that you can't really see them, but you can feel them or you can hear them. You can see the effects of both. Right. And what does wind do? Wind influences you, if you think about it. Like, what does wind do? Ultimately, the wind can't really force you to do anything, but it influences you. If you're downwind kind of helps you go faster, kind of speeds things up. If you're contrary to the wind, you're against the wind, it slows things down. It's coming out of sideways. It can blow you off course. So the wind can be a help. The wind can be a hindrance. But it's just basically a force that's influencing you. And I would say that the same attributes kind of apply when you think about it to the Holy Ghost. That the Holy Ghost, when you're walking in the direction that the Holy Ghost wants you to go, He's going to guide you into all truth. He's going to assist you. He's going to help you. He's going to help you get there quicker. He's going to make it easier on you. But if you're going down the wrong path, you're going the exact opposite of the Word of God, going the exact opposite of the Bible, what is the Holy Ghost going to be there? It's going to be there to convict you, to hopefully slow you down, to kind of help stop you from going down this path that you shouldn't be going down. And if you're getting off course, He can kind of blow you back on the right course. So you kind of have these same effects of the wind. So we take all these pictures. And again, this is just kind of my personal opinion. Obviously, when you come to pictures in the Bible, there's probably a lot of different things we can look at. But if we have these mulberry trees that are fruit-bearing trees, and then they're making this sound that's kind of the wind, you know, it makes me think of just preachers, the pastors of this world. And when is David supposed to go into the battle? How is David supposed to know what to do? Well, he's led by the sound that's coming from these mulberry trees. And to me, it pictures the fact that God's people, God's leaders, are supposed to basically follow the fruit-bearing men of God when they're preaching through the Spirit of God. It's through the foolishness of preaching that people get saved. It's through the foolishness of preaching that God's people are led, and we're supposed to be led by the Spirit of God. Now, that's why you have passages like in 1 John 4 saying, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits. Try the spirits whether they be of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. And here's the two-fold test when it comes to what direction we're supposed to go to and who we're listening to. Number one, are they fruit-bearing? We want to pay attention to the fruit of the people that we're listening to. And then secondly, we want to wait until we hear the Spirit of God coming out of the mouth of that preacher, don't we? And when you don't have both, that's not the person to follow. That's not the person to go out in a battle. That's not the person you want leading you in your life. And you know what? There's a lot of pastors out there that are not fruit-bearing. And let me tell you something, that's not the guy to follow. That's not the tree to follow. Or they might, you know, seem to have some fruit, but then there's not the Spirit of God coming out. That's a bad combo too, because we want to see both. We want to have both in our lives. But when you have it, what do you do? You go out to the battle. You go into that fight. And who wins the fight for them? God. God is the one leading the charge ultimately. God is the tip of that spear. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one whom we're following. But you know what? If you're a leader in your household, you need to make sure that when you hear that sound, you're listening for that sound, you're waiting for that sound, but then when you hear it, you go. If you don't go to church, you know what you're doing? You're not waiting to hear the sound from the mulberry trees, are you? If you're going to a church where they're not even soul winning, you're not even in the forest of the mulberry trees. I mean, you need to get into the church where the mulberry trees are, and then you need to just listen. Notice, how is David going to know what to do in his life? By listening. And let me tell you something. You know how you know what you do in your life? By listening to the Word of God. And you let that sound that's rushing the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, come into your ears, sink down into your hearts, and you let that motivate you. You let that lead you to take you out and to go into the battle. This is how God has ordained it. God has ordained it that we would get into the forest of the mulberry trees, that we would listen to the Holy Spirit of God, and then we'd be obedient under that voice, wouldn't we? We'd be obedient to that sound, and we'd go out there, and you know what? When you walk with the wind, when you walk with that sound that's going out, God just basically knocks everybody down for you anyways. God just gives you all the victory anyways. All He wants you to do, though, is He wants you to go to the right place, listen for His Word, and just follow Him. Isn't it all about just following Jesus? At the end of the day, you know, I think a lot of Christians today, they're not evaluating church on if there's mulberries on the tree. They're not evaluating church if the Spirit of God is coming and thundering through the forest. But rather they're worried about how nice the building is, or is it close to my house, or is there coffee, or you know. Get off the coffee can. No, I won't get you off. He's like, that's not the Spirit, all right? But you know, we need to encourage people to get into the right forest, around the right trees. Start hearing the Spirit of God. That's what's going to change man's life. And you know what? When we hear it, we need to follow it. We need to be like Judah and get on David's program so that Israel can also get on that program. Let's go to the prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for this chapter. Thank you for the pictures that you've given us. Thank you for giving us the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to guide us. That we're not here alone. That we have a comforter. That we have someone to guide us. I pray that we would be listening to His voice. That we would read the Bible on our own. That we would get plugged into church. That we would listen to good preaching. And that when we hear the sound going through the trees, that we would get ready to fight and we would be obedient followers of your Word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All nature sings and round me reigns The music of the spheres This is my Father's world I rest me in the thought Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas His hand the wonders wrought This is my Father's world The birds their carols raise The morning light, the lily white Declare their Maker's praise This is my Father's world He shines in all that's fair In the rustling grass I hear Him pass He speaks to me everywhere This is my Father's world Oh, let me ne'er forget That though the wrong seems oft so strong God is the ruler yet This is my Father's world The battle is not done Jesus who died shall be satisfied And earth and heaven be one