[0:00] All right, if you've got your Bibles, just hang on to them. It'll be a little while until we get somewhere, I think. I'm not sure where we're going to turn you to right away. But thank you for being here, and I hope you don't feel gypped because there's some clouds in the sky somewhere.
[0:22] And it's raining somewhere, too, and it's dark somewhere, too. So, all right, get on an airplane and get up above those clouds. You'll see the sun. All right, I want to preach today something that's kind of fitting for the day, I believe.
[0:37] And I want to try to do it justice here. But I want to preach a message I'm calling Dress-Ups and Disguises. Dress-Ups and Disguises.
[0:48] Today's Halloween. Kids all over the land are going to dress up and disguise themselves. And they're going to go around the door to door, and they're going to yell out, trick or treat.
[0:59] And I really never understood what that meant. And some years ago, I looked it up and found out that it's saying that if you don't give us a treat, we're extorting you right here and right now on your own front doorstep.
[1:11] We're going to play a trick on you. And so, in the olden days, the inception of all of that, they weren't dressing like princesses and fairies.
[1:22] And they were dressing as scary of a costume as they can. The idea was this fear. We're going to mess with you. And so, they put on this intimidating look to make this threat.
[1:33] And it's all in fun and festivity for the kids, I understand. But the kids aren't the first one these days to disguise themselves in hope of getting something. And in the Bible, we'll see there's a lot of disguises, and they're not good.
[1:48] And I began thinking on this earlier this week and just kind of skimming through the Scriptures. And I was almost shocked to see how many disguises and dress-ups there are in this book.
[2:01] And they're not good. And they're not good at all. One of the biggest ones, and some we'll look at in detail, and then some I'll just brush by.
[2:13] But one of the biggest ones and most fearful ones that we ought to be aware of is that the Bible says, Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. And that should be a scary thing to you, to realize that your greatest enemy and deceiver is putting on something glorious and dressing up like something wonderful and something godly to deceive folks.
[2:38] And he's dangerous. Disguises aren't good. In other places, Jesus Christ warned against false prophets. And there's plenty of them, too, today. And he said this. He said, they come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravening wolves.
[2:56] And so not only Satan and not only his ministers, as 2 Corinthians 11 calls them, or men that have a false spirit or a spirit of antichrist, the way John references it, but men as well.
[3:09] Men and women. And maybe us. Maybe you. Maybe me. If we're not careful. And so I want to take a look into the Bible this morning with you at some men and some women that put on a costume and sought to disguise who they are.
[3:24] And we want to expose them and expose their sin and learn something from them, if we can, along the way. And I hope that nobody here is in here this morning with the disguise on. And if you are, I hope the Lord exposes that and reveals what you really are.
[3:41] I hope that that's not you. And I hope you're not posing as something that you're not and pretending and faking and being something that's not real. So let's get into the... Let's pray first before we go anywhere.
[3:52] Father, I pray now that you'll bless this time. And Lord, help me to speak only words that you would have me speak. And Lord, I don't want to step into anything that doesn't belong.
[4:02] I just want to preach the Word of God and expose some of these things as you've shown them to me from the Word of God. And so Lord, you just take control of this time, I pray. Lord, I submit myself to you and my tongue.
[4:14] And I pray you'll help me to just lay this out here and let it be received. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So you don't need to turn here, but in Genesis 27, there's a guy named Jacob.
[4:25] And Jacob dressed up for Halloween one time. Do you know what he dressed up as? Do you know who he was trying to be? Yeah, Esau. His brother Esau.
[4:37] He dressed up, put on Esau's clothing because it smelled like the field. His mom helped him out with this, of course, just like a mother would, helping her son dress up.
[4:48] And kills a kid of the goats and takes his coat, puts it on his smooth arms. And the Bible says on the smooth of his neck. And so he's trying to deceive his father. And Jacob dressed up and disguised himself to get something that didn't belong to him.
[5:05] And Jacob is a picture. It's a whole study here that we won't get into at all, but he's a picture of the flesh. Because he lies and he deceives and he uses circumstances to his own advantage just to get something that doesn't belong to him.
[5:19] And the Bible calls him a supplanter. He's a thief. And he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. And he's got a costume on. He's got a disguise on. It's not good.
[5:30] Later in Genesis 38, there's a woman named Tamar. And Tamar is, well, Judah had two sons, Ur and Onan. And Tamar married Ur, but the Bible says that he was wicked before the Lord and the Lord slew him.
[5:45] And so her husband's dead. She's a widow. She's got garments of her widowhood on. And Jacob's, or I'm sorry, Judah says, hey, don't sweat at Tamar. When my other son, Shelah, is grown, then I'm going to make sure that you two are married and you can stay in the family.
[6:01] It's all good and just hang tight. And, well, things didn't go as planned for her and Shelah's grown and Judah didn't give her to him to be his wife. And she decided I was wronged and I need to do something about it.
[6:15] And somebody owes me and so I'm going to take matters into my own hands. And so she dressed up. The Bible says she dressed up like a harlot. Now, not like the harlot you might picture in today's age.
[6:27] She sat by a public place in the wayside and had a veil over her face. She put off the garments of her widowhood and she posed herself to be available to men.
[6:39] And there's obviously something going on there. She's going after one man, Judah, the one that she felt did her wrong. And long story short, she ends up delivering twin boys to Judah.
[6:49] Judah, and after that, the Bible describes that he had nothing to do with her. And he couldn't give her to Shelah either, to his son. So she messed that up because now he's got boys, children of this woman.
[7:01] And in essence, she's his wife. And so what this woman did in trying to take matters into her own hands and dressing up and disguising herself, she ended up shooting herself in the foot.
[7:12] She ended up messing up something for her own self. And now her life is going to be a mess. She's going to end up hurt. She's going to end up forsaken. And she's going to end up regretful. Because Tamar dressed up to take matters into her own hands.
[7:26] And a quick little lesson here before we move forward is you should be careful when you're tempted to do that, to take matters into your own hands when you don't have a word from God on it.
[7:37] When you have voices telling you you need to do this, pressuring you to do that, you better be careful and seek counsel. Because in the multitude of counselors, there's safety.
[7:48] Because you could be the one that's ended up hurt or ended up forsaken. And a mess on your hands because you didn't get the word from God. Now there's another one. And moving through the Bible, Joshua chapter 9, we run into a people called the Gibeonites.
[8:03] I trust you're familiar. If you read through your Bible, you run into this. God is, Moses is dead. Joshua is the captain now and he's leading God's people across into the promised land.
[8:14] And in that land is nations that God says you need to wipe them out. And if you want to know why, you can read back in Leviticus 18 for some of the filthy practices of those heathen in that land.
[8:24] The Bible says that the land spews them out. That's how wicked they were. It wasn't because God's an evil God. It was because of the sins and the filthy practices of the people in the land.
[8:35] In that land is a people called the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites dressed up. The Bible says in Joshua that they were neighbors. They lived in that land. They were close by.
[8:47] But they dressed up as if they were ambassadors from a far country. And if you've read that account, you know what they did with their clothes, with their food. They pretended that they traveled from a very far place because they've heard all that God is doing.
[9:00] That God is with you and he's taking out everybody in the land. And we just want to make a pact with you. We're from way, way over there. Don't worry about us. But we just want to make sure we're on good terms. And we like you guys.
[9:11] We're for you. And they're lying to their face. They're trying to preserve themselves so that they can stick around. And they're enemies of God, the Gibeonites are. They're part of the reason that the land is defiled.
[9:24] And that the Lord wants to get rid of all of it. And keeping them around was against God's will for his people. Because they would be a snare to his people, as he warned.
[9:36] And these Gibeonites, they picture a worldly crowd. Saved, lost, whatever the case is. They don't belong mingling with God's people. Because they bring them down.
[9:48] This worldly crowd, they don't bring God's people up. God's people don't bring them up. They bring God's people down. It happens like that every time. But because God's people don't seek the Lord.
[10:00] In Joshua 9, it says that they did not ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord. And instead, they reacted on sight. And instead, they believed these worldly liars.
[10:11] They created an issue that was going to plague God's people for years to come. And I wonder if there's any Gibeonites in here. I wonder if there's any Gibeonites in Bible Baptist Church that are disguising themselves.
[10:25] That are putting on a costume when they come in here. They've got a worldly spirit, a bad spirit about them. And they're a snare to other believers who want to love for God.
[10:35] God's plan for His people in the Old Testament was that they be a holy nation. Not mixed with the heathen. And not learn the ways of the heathen.
[10:46] A peculiar people that's supposed to be different. I wonder if there's any Gibeonites that are in here. I'll just say this. This Bible Baptist Church will be better off with ten peculiar people than with a hundred Gibeonites that are walking in with disguises on.
[11:05] Amen. Turn to 1 Samuel 29. Let me take you there. 1 Samuel chapter 28. Sorry. And let's look into the Scripture at another person who put on a disguise.
[11:18] It's always bad. It's always wrong. 1 Samuel chapter 28. Here's a king.
[11:30] An upstanding king. The highest man in the land. But he's going to put on a disguise. And he's going to pretend that he's somebody that he's not.
[11:44] Look at 1 Samuel 28. And look at, we'll just see in verse number 4. It says, The Philistines gathered themselves together and came and pitched in Shunem.
[11:55] And Saul, King Saul, gathered all Israel together and they pitched in Goboa. And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid. And his heart greatly trembled.
[12:06] And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not. Neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire of her.
[12:20] And so they pointed out a woman that had a familiar spirit. Now, Saul, look in verse 3 quickly. Saul, when Samuel was dead, all Israel lamented him, buried him in Ramah, even his own city.
[12:30] And Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits and wizards out of the land. So Saul had already done this, made this proclamation. Any of this stuff, this witchcraft, it's got to be, this land can't have that in it.
[12:42] And so he put them all away. Well, he didn't put them all away, apparently. But it had to be something done on the down low. And so there's still one that exists, at least. And when Saul can't get an answer from God, he decides that he's going to put on a disguise and pretend that he's somebody else.
[12:58] Verse number 8 says that, And Saul disguised himself and put on other raiment. And he went and two men with him. And they came to the woman by night. And he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee.
[13:13] The woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land. Wherefore then, that layest thou a snare for my life that calls me to die?
[13:24] And Saul swear to her by the Lord. What a thing. Saying, as the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. And so she brings up Samuel.
[13:36] And they have a little conversation there. But before we get to that, why is Saul disguising himself? Well, because he's afraid. He's got a situation in front of him that he doesn't know what to do.
[13:48] When he saw the Philistines, the host of the Philistines, he got afraid. He wasn't afraid when they came and pitched against him. He wasn't afraid to go out to battle. But when he saw him, Oh dear, I'm in trouble.
[14:01] I can't lick this army. This is going to be bad for me. And so he inquires of the Lord. And God has nothing to do with him. Nothing to say to him. And so the Lord's not helping.
[14:12] The Lord's not answering. So he hypocritically goes against his own decree to find this woman and to get a hold of Samuel. And now Samuel tells him like it is.
[14:24] Samuel's a prophet. And even after his ministry is fulfilled, he comes back up and he's still a prophet, or a preacher anyway. And in verse number 16, then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord has departed from thee, and has become thine enemy?
[14:40] What a statement. What are you calling me up for? God doesn't want anything to do with you. What do you think I'm going to do for you? So Samuel's got his head on right. And the Lord hath done to him as he spake by me.
[14:52] For the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbor, even to David, because thou obeyest not the voice of the Lord, nor executest his fierce wrath upon Amalek. Therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day.
[15:05] Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me. The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel in the hand of the Philistines.
[15:16] And now Saul is done. He is fallen down to the ground. He's afraid more than he ever was before. So what's going on here? Saul's trying to get around the judgment of God.
[15:28] This army is here to kill him, proclaimed by the Lord God. And Samuel lets him know, look, handwriting's on the wall for you, bud. You've lived this wicked life.
[15:38] God told you he's taken the kingdom from you. And today's the day you're going to answer for it. It's your day. You're not getting around with it. This has been determined by God. Now Saul doesn't want that to be the case.
[15:50] But let's get a little background. Let's think about the king Saul, what kind of man he was before the Lord. When he first took the throne, seemed like a good guy. Seemed like he was going to be the one.
[16:00] That was their first king. And he's head and shoulders above everybody. But we see some cowardice in him. And we can overlook that. We can move forward. And he does this thing with Jabesh Gilead and going down and fighting with those Philistines then.
[16:15] And what a wonderful thing that he wrought back in, I think it's chapter 8 maybe. And so Israel's kind of getting behind this guy. Yeah, he's our king. But early on he messed up in chapter 13 of this book.
[16:27] He messed up when Samuel told him specific instructions about waiting for him, offering this sacrifice. And then they're going to go on. And Saul couldn't wait. Saul didn't want to do it.
[16:37] Saul decided I'll take matters in my own hands. I'm going to do this my way. And he starts to offer a sacrifice. And right when he does, there comes Samuel, popping up out of nowhere. And he messed up. And he got rebuked by the prophet that day for trying to offer a sacrifice.
[16:51] He had no business doing it. He wasn't patient. He wasn't following the instructions that were given to him by his mentor, by the man of God. In chapter 14, his son Jonathan, the Bible says he wrought with God that day.
[17:06] He went up to that parcel of land and he and his armor bearer went up and fought against the Philistines and wrought a great victory. And Israel got the victory that day. And Saul throws this little boo-hoo fit about himself and says nobody's allowed to eat anything.
[17:19] And the Bible even describes that if, as Jonathan says later, if you would have let him eat, my, how much more of a slaughter it would have been for the people of God. He would have been, we would have dominated this day.
[17:30] But Jonathan, ignorant of his dad's foolish statement and decree, dips his staff and has some honey and so forth. And when the whole thing comes back around, Saul declares that his son has to be put to death for eating some honey.
[17:48] And the people are like, far be it. We are not putting that man to death. But it just shows you a little bit about this selfish man and what kind of a king he really was. In the next chapter, in chapter 15, he rebels against the word of the Lord.
[18:01] He's told to go perform the commandment of the Lord. He's told to go wipe out Agag and the Amalekites, whatever they're called. The Amalekites, is it?
[18:13] And as Russ would say, easy for me to say. I'm picking that line up from you. I'll probably use it more than you too. So he's told to go wipe them out and he doesn't do it.
[18:25] He saves the king and he saves some of the sheep and so forth. Samuel shows up. Did you perform the commandment of the Lord? Yes, I did. Well, what needeth then the bleeding of the sheep that I hear? Oh, the people did it.
[18:36] The people did it. The sacrifice. That's the time in chapter 15 where Samuel says that God is done with you. He grabbed ahold of his garment and rent it and he turned and said that God's going to rent this kingdom from you and he's going to give it to another who's got a heart for him.
[18:52] And so Saul rebels against the word of the Lord. That's the passage about rebellions as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry. And that's chapter 15 where he doesn't perform the commandment of the Lord when it was his sole job to do so and he blames the people.
[19:10] He blames other people for it. Pretends he's innocent. In chapter 16, the spirit of the Lord departed from him and an evil spirit is troubling him. In chapter 17, he doesn't have the guts to fight Goliath or to lead his army out there against the Philistines.
[19:25] Instead, God has to bring a young shepherd boy that has more faith than any of them to go out there and do something miraculous for the Lord. And he says, I stand here or I come to you in the name of the Lord.
[19:37] And Saul's like, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm not getting involved in this. That's the kind of king he was. And then after that took place, David gets exalted. The women are singing songs to him.
[19:48] The Bible says that he eyed him. Saul's keeping an eye on this guy, David, and seeing the nation go after him. And he tries for the majority of this book, from chapter 18 all the way through 26, the majority of what we read about David's life here, Saul is trying to kill him.
[20:07] Just one thing after another, I can't count it and even taught you on a Wednesday night that 18 different times, Saul sought to kill David. David, that's the kind of king he was, that one mission is to hunt down and slay this one that Samuel said was going to take the throne.
[20:24] One of the worst things on this, one of the biggest blemishes of this king that God is not going to overlook in chapter 22 while he's bent on killing David, he comes to this town where David was and he sees that, he perceives that, oh, they helped David get away and escape, so he says, kill them all.
[20:43] And he told his footmen, the soldiers that were with him, to slay the priests of the Lord. And they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't lift up their hand against the priests of the Lord, but Saul didn't give a rip about the priests of the Lord.
[20:57] And so Doeg, this Edomite, he don't care about the priests of the Lord, some Edomite, so he falls on them and kills 85 of them. And later in that passage, it's worse than that, that this city is called Nob, it's called the city of the priests.
[21:11] And he goes through there and the Bible describes that he slayed the women, the children, the animals, I mean, just wiped them out. This place, a city of priests, and this king comes through here and just cleans house.
[21:26] That's the kind of king he was. And yet here in chapter 28, he's about to face the music, and he thinks, he just wants things to be okay.
[21:38] And he pretends to be somebody he's not. And so he puts on a different face, puts on a disguise, and dresses up because he wants to go find an answer. And who's he going to find it from?
[21:48] Who's he going to disguise himself for? Well, this woman, but he's trying to call up his mentor. He's trying to call up Samuel, the old man, the prophet, the one that anointed him, the one that taught him and led him early in his ministry and rebuked him and taught him the right ways and wrongly, surely this man will have something good to say to me because the Lord doesn't want anything to do with me.
[22:12] So he goes and finds his mentor. He just wants things to be okay. He's hoping that God will give him a pass and that it'll help him fight. But do you really think that Saul's concerned at all about the Lord in all of this?
[22:25] No, Saul's disguising himself because he's concerned about his own neck. What you don't see from Saul in this passage is Saul saying, I have sinned. You know, there's many kings in this book, some very wicked kings, Ahab and Manasseh.
[22:40] There's not two kings that are worse off than those from what the scripture tells. And both of them, there's a time in their life where they repented before God and they humbled themselves before God and God acknowledged their repentance and he had mercy on them.
[22:55] Both of them. Terrible men. But Saul, he doesn't repent. He doesn't bow his knee to God. He just wants to get out. He wants to find a way out. Fix his problems.
[23:06] Make things better, but don't make things right. And so Saul here is a picture of an unrepentant sinner. They could be saved or lost in this day, but they're putting on a different face, hoping for their brother to help them out.
[23:21] Hoping that their mentor will give them a pass. When God won't do anything for him, God knows who he is, God knows what he's done, and he's done with him, but he'll disguise himself to get some counsel from his old mentor.
[23:37] And thankfully for Samuel and for the sake of the land, Samuel, he didn't get anywhere with him. But instead of repenting and owning up to his guilt and seeking mercy, Saul tries to run around just like an unrepentant sinner.
[23:51] And I want to caution you today, church, if you're a Samuel, if you're an older, wiser mentor, so to speak, and people come to you for help and they come to you for advice, you better be careful.
[24:03] You better be careful. You better be sure you know where God stands. You better be sure you know the facts and you're on the side of righteousness and be cautious because Christians, even Christians, know how to put on a disguise.
[24:17] They know how to dress up. Just like Saul, they want to downplay their guilt. They want to overlook what they've been doing and blame other people and let somebody else take the fall.
[24:28] You be careful. Disguises, dress-ups, they're all over the Bible. And it's never good. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 14.
[24:40] Just keep moving here a little bit more to your right and we're going to come across another king who's a coward. And he comes up with a plan. A plan for a disguise to fool the man of God.
[24:59] 1 Kings chapter 14. And look at verse number 1. It says, At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.
[25:11] And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam. And get thee to Shiloh.
[25:21] Behold, there is Ahijah the prophet which told me that I should be king over this people. And take with thee ten loaves and cracknels and a cruise of honey and go to him and he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.
[25:35] And Jeroboam's wife did so and arose and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see for his eyes were set by reason of his age.
[25:46] So I guess it doesn't matter if she disguised herself or not. And in verse 5, And the Lord said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son, for he is sick.
[25:58] Thus and thus shalt thou say unto her, for it shall be when she cometh in that she shall feign herself to be another woman. And it was so when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in at the door that he said, Come in thou wife of Jeroboam.
[26:14] Why feignest thou thyself to be another? For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. And notice his tidings are Go tell Jeroboam. Now this is a tough one here for this woman.
[26:27] She's the wife of the king. The king of the northern ten tribes. Remember with Solomon, God split the kingdom from Solomon, gave the two southern tribes to Rehoboam and the northern tribes to Jeroboam.
[26:40] And at that time when he gave the kingdom to Jeroboam, he told him, I will covenant with you, Jeroboam. If you do right, if you do like David did with me, I'll take care of you and I'll honor you and treat you like I treated David.
[26:53] It's up to you. You can take this thing. And Jeroboam messed up. I mean, he made these idols, these calves, and you can read that in chapter 12. And he took Israel down the wrong path hard.
[27:06] And his name pops up all over the history of Israel with these kings saying that the sin that Jeroboam made Israel to sin, a great sin it's called. So I mean, this man really messed up.
[27:18] And so he sends his wife to the prophet. And his wife then is told to dress up, disguise herself, just to be an ordinary woman. You can't let them know that you're my wife. Now, a quick lesson.
[27:30] Obviously, you can't deceive God. And his spirit can reveal the truth and God can reveal the truth when he needs to. But why is it that Jeroboam is telling his wife to do this?
[27:42] Why feintest thyself to be another is the question. Well, I think the reason is that they're trying to hide something from the man of God and Jeroboam, there's no way he's going to go face Ahijah.
[27:57] The last thing that when he dealt with Ahijah, Ahijah said, God's given you this kingdom and given you ten pieces on the garment if you remember that. He said, God's given you this kingdom and he's going to bless you and be with you if you obey him.
[28:09] And man, the last thing he heard from Ahijah was this is what God wants. Well, Jeroboam didn't do what God wanted. He is definitely not going to go face the man of God. Not himself.
[28:20] Not a chance in the world. So the coward sends his wife and disguises her. And the idea is he doesn't want any connection to be made back to him and to his guilt and to who he is.
[28:34] So just pretend you're another woman. I mean, let's just show that this is concern over a sick child, but what we need to do is not have any connection or concern back to my sin.
[28:46] And in chapter 13, verse 34, he's not just destroying himself, the nation. It says in the last verse of chapter 13, this thing became a sin unto the house of Jeroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.
[29:00] So this guy's in a bad, bad way and God is dealing with him and God's the one that's causing his son to be sick. And I'm not going to read through what Ahijah tells the woman, but it's a tough message.
[29:15] It is heavy tidings as he calls it in verse 6. And it's a shame that Jeroboam put that on his wife and made her deal with all of that and she's coming home with these heavy tidings, this broken heart, her son's going to be killed and it's her husband's fault.
[29:33] And all this prophecy and it's hard stuff or 7, 8, 9, 10, I mean, it is hard stuff that this preacher is putting on this woman and she's got to bear it.
[29:44] And all the way down to verse number 17, Jeroboam's wife arose and departed and she came to Terza and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died.
[29:57] This is a bad situation here and they're trying to cover something up. He's trying to cover up who you are and she's trying to cover up what's been going on, all this disconnection from my sin so I'll disguise myself.
[30:16] And it's a shame here that that's really what the bottom line is. It's pretending to have this concern over the child but it really, it's about keeping my sin away and not letting you, the man of God, see and know what's going on.
[30:31] And Christian, you can try to cover up who you are or what you're doing but you can count on God seeing it. Amen. God sees it. The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil first and the good and something else God can do is He can reveal it when He wants to, to who He wants to.
[30:47] I mean in this case and I'm not trying to apply myself into this, the man of God, I don't talk about myself like that, the pastor, but in this case it's the man of God, the prophet, that the Lord told this is what's happening and this is who's coming.
[31:01] He couldn't even see. His eyes were set. He's an old man. He had no way of knowing who that was and what was going but the Lord put in his heart and in his mind what the situation was and man tried to cover it up, man tried to, tried to put on a disguise but you can't get it around God.
[31:20] Look at 1 Kings chapter 22. Disguises are bad. People trying to hide something, trying not to let people know who they are, trying to keep a disconnect from themselves and their true sins and show a concern for something else.
[31:43] Dress-ups and disguises. Why do people dress up? Why do they disguise? It's always the cover up. 1 Kings chapter 22, here is a wicked king, Ahab.
[31:56] And this is a tremendous story. If you read your Bible, you read this twice, once here and you read it in 2 Chronicles and really I assume what stands out to you is what stands out to me is the prophet Micaiah.
[32:07] He's the one that, I mean there's 400 prophets for the king, Ahab, and then there's this just, there is this one that's not here with him and he never has anything good to say. And Micaiah, he stands out in the word of God here.
[32:21] Now Ahab is a king. The king over Israel and in chapter, look at chapter 22 and let's just begin at the beginning here. They continued three years without war between Syria and Israel.
[32:35] Now before this, there was two major battles between the king of Syria and the king Ahab, the king of Israel. So there's a booth going on between Syria and Israel. And that's settled down for a little bit.
[32:48] But here's verse 2. And it came to pass in the third year that Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel. And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth and Gilead is ours and we be still and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?
[33:02] And he said unto Jehoshaphat, Will thou go with me to battle Ramoth-Gilead? And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses. And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today.
[33:17] So ask the Lord. And if you know this story, all the prophets of the king of Israel, all 400 of them in verse 6 say, Go up, the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king. And Jehoshaphat's just not quite buying that.
[33:29] He's got enough spirituality, enough discretion or discernment that something's fishy here. Why is he worried about this king of Assyria and what his lands are?
[33:41] I mean, there's something wrong there. But he's going to go forward with it. But you know, let's ask the Lord first to bless it. And it's all good. But isn't there anybody else? And so here comes Micaiah.
[33:51] And he comes and he prophesies and says, in the end, he's like, no, God's not going to bless it and you're going to die, king of Ahab. And he doesn't want to hear that. He thinks he can get out of it.
[34:02] So look later now in verse 29, 29, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth Gilead. And look at this.
[34:12] The king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and enter into the battle. But put thou on thy robes, the king's robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle.
[34:26] So isn't that strange that this one king, the one that has the idea, decides not to be himself, not to go out as a king. But, well, Jehoshaphat, I'm so thankful that you decided, why don't you go forth as the king over this battle?
[34:45] Now, do you think the king of Syria knows that these two are talking? Do you think he knows that he's got two different kings coming at him? All he's ever going to see is one and there's only one that he cares about.
[34:56] And look at verse 31, the king of Syria commanded his thirty and two captains that had rule over his chariot saying, fight neither with small nor great save only with the king of Israel.
[35:07] He whipped me two times but this is the third time is a charm for me. I'm taking him down. I don't care about anybody else. Ahab. That's who we're after today. Ahab.
[35:19] Now, what's Ahab doing? He's disguising himself just to be a captain in the army, an ordinary officer perhaps, nothing significant, just blending in. For what reason? Well, Ahab's a, I think he's a master manipulator.
[35:33] He's deceitful. He's a wicked man. He thought this whole thing is his scheme from the beginning. I'll have a bigger army. There won't be any attention on me because I'll let him take the fall.
[35:45] I'll let him go out to battle. I don't care about that king. I don't care about his soldiers. I don't care about his horses. There's a history here with Israel and Syria. There's unfinished business and this king is trying to use another person to his own advantage, disguising himself to get his own way so that he can come out on top.
[36:06] Ahab's not a man of his word. He's just manipulating others. He's a snake is what he is. This king's a serpent using other people to get what he wants, using a disguise to accomplish his own plan for himself.
[36:21] You know, church, there's plenty of that in the world. There's plenty of that in business. Using one another, lying or deceiving or setting somebody up to take the fall while they can go and get the win and promote them.
[36:33] That goes on in the business world all over the place. That goes on on the street all over the place. Somebody hustling somebody else. Somebody looking out for their own back. Deceiving other people.
[36:44] Using other people. Dress-ups and disguises. But you know what? It can also go on in the church. It can also go on in a church where you'll be willing to let somebody else take a fall.
[36:57] Throw them right under the bus and walk away. Use somebody else. Manipulate somebody else to your own advantage. In Proverbs 26 and verse 28 the Bible says a lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it.
[37:13] And a flattering mouth worketh ruin. There's another king we won't turn but in 2 Chronicles 35 Josiah does the same thing. In a different way he disguises himself and goes into battle and he gets shot.
[37:29] We didn't read this but Ahab he gets nailed with an arrow and dies. And so does Josiah. Some years down the road he does the same thing disguises himself goes into battle and gets nailed and dies because of it.
[37:43] There's something going on about getting involved in battles that you have no business in with these kings. And in the Proverbs it says you're like one that taketh a dog by the ears messing with strife that doesn't belong to you.
[37:59] It's a shame some people dress up some people disguise themselves because they're just manipulating. They're just wicked they're deceitful and they're like this king a snake using other people to get what they want let somebody else take a fall throw them under the bus and pretend things are fine.
[38:19] We're going to run out of time here there's more there's so many more in this Bible I'll just mention I'll mention one more here that's that's got a pretty ugly disguise on in Matthew 23 Jesus Christ is dealing with the Pharisees and he is just he's going right at them and he says this out he says outwardly that ye appear righteous unto men but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
[38:48] Christ didn't have anything for these religious men that loved their position and loved the respect of other people and the biggest issue that they faced was the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ called them out and told them what they were and said you're just putting on a disguise you're just dressing up with your holy garments when there's nothing holy about you at all these were hypocrites they rejected the Son of God as their Messiah and those men are burning in hell today they had no idea we touched on them in Sunday school just a bit they rejected Jesus Christ rejected his authority rejected his miracles and all that God was doing through him and what God was doing to the nation attempting to they didn't want nothing to do with it they were hypocrites they put on a costume they dressed up there's one more I don't want to leave on this note there's one more that's worth turning to let's do that Philippians 2 and we'll be done come to Philippians chapter 2 with me just quickly and let's read let me back up let me just read the whole passage here it seems to fit verse number one if there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the spirit if any bowels and mercies fulfill me ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus and here comes an illustration of this mind who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and here's his dress up here's his disguise he took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross here's the only positive one that the Lord Jesus
[41:20] God's not a servant God can't die but the Lord Jesus Christ took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men so that he could die and so they could offer himself a sacrifice to God God dressed up as a man and subjected himself to human flesh and to all that goes on with being this lowly creature thirst and hunger and pain and torment and humiliation and all the distress and shame that he feared or that he faced as a man and he subjected himself to all of those things ultimately to suffer a cruel death on a cross for you and I that's one disguise that the world didn't see through that's one that's a positive one that turns out so good for us but it was humiliating for him to leave his position and to come to earth to become like one of us so they're not all bad maybe there is that one silver lining in all of this what the Lord Jesus Christ did in paying for our sins on the cross but getting back to the other thoughts this morning it's just a warning church be careful be careful this morning dressing up and disguises they're often bad they're misleading they're deceitful somebody's trying to get their own way somebody's taking matters in their own hands somebody's not telling the truth and it's a warning to us to be cautious and be careful what we hear and see and say and who we are on the inside the Bible tells us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and when you come in here put on the Lord Jesus Christ put off the old man and his deeds and come in here putting on what the Bible calls it says put on charity which is the bond of perfectness above all these put on charity come in here with a gracious heart and a fervent spirit and humbleness of mind and may we serve
[43:25] Jesus Christ together I'm going to close and we're just going to I'm not going to have an invitation today or just doesn't feel like that's the fit for this morning I'm just going to close in a word of prayer here in a moment and that's all I'm going to say about anything I just praise the Lord for his word and for giving us some insight into what goes on in the hearts of men and I pray to God that we're not guilty of it ourselves and that we are above reproach and that we see and we're honest before men Father thank you for this morning and Lord I pray that what was said would be a blessing and help that your spirit would take it and use it and apply it where it needs to be Lord I pray that we'd be a peculiar people in this church and Lord if it's just ten righteous that want to stand for you then praise the Lord and Lord help us to stand for you and if it's a hundred that come in here that want to glorify you then let's go so Lord I just commit this church to you the folks that are here
[44:26] I pray there be no Gibeonites that there be nobody disguising themselves no ulterior motives or agendas but Lord that your son could get the glory that the Lord Jesus Christ would be preeminent in this place and in our hearts forever and unto him be praise and glory forever we love you Lord we love your words I thank you for Bible Baptist and for the folks that are here and that love you and I want to see you work here in this place please bless our time this afternoon with the things here in the neighborhood I pray that you'll be glorified in it all I pray that the gospel of Jesus Christ could get in the hands of some sinners that need to hear the truth I pray this in Jesus name Amen Amen you are dismissed