[0:00] Take your Bibles, if you would, and turn with me to 1 Samuel, the very last chapter. 1 Samuel chapter 30 and verse 22. And Lord willing, we will get through 2 Samuel and chapter 1 tonight.
[0:15] The passage of Scripture is about not letting the enemies of the Lord, the enemies of God, rejoice. Not letting the enemies of God rejoice. Read with me, if you would, starting in 1 Samuel chapter 31, verse 9.
[0:27] You know what's happened. There's a battle. The Israel, look at verse 1. The Philistines are fighting against Israel. And in this battle, Saul and his sons will all be killed.
[0:38] And they're going to cut off Saul's head. They're going to hang his body on walls. You won't hear it. It's going to be pretty terrible. And they're going to brag to their gods, their false gods, about how they have defeated the people of God.
[0:55] And that's the emphasis here is that shouldn't happen. Verse 9.
[1:30] 2 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 14.
[2:04] This is how David responds to what happened to Saul. Before we read it, you do know who Saul is. He's the blood enemy of old David. He's been trying to kill David.
[2:16] But he's the king of Israel, anointed by God. And David has been more than willing to wait on God to open up the position and put him where he said he would. In verse 14.
[2:26] And David said to him, there's this Amalekite who has escaped and comes running. And he's covered up in dirt. And he comes running up to David. And he's excited. And he says, I have killed Saul.
[2:40] That's what he tells David. I killed him. I went ahead and finished him off. Finished off his son Jonathan. I killed him. Which wasn't true. But he said that. He's hoping he can get some points with old David. And David said, how was thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?
[2:57] And David called one of the young men and said, go near and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. And David said to him, thy blood be upon thy head. For thy mouth has testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's anointed.
[3:11] I don't know if you would now to verse 20. Down to verse 20. Tell it not in gath. Publish it not in the streets of Ascalon. Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice.
[3:23] Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. So here's your basic story. David's been over in Ziklag. The city was destroyed. Wives were taken. You recall that.
[3:33] They had lost everything. 600 men started out to make an attack. 200 people are too tired. They can't go. They stay by the stuff. The 400 men take off and they go out and they fight.
[3:45] Win. Capture it all back. Come back to camp. When they get back to camp, 200 men are there and didn't do anything. 400 men are angry with them. We saw that Thursday night. They don't want to give them anything. David says, that's not how we're going to do things.
[3:57] They give it to them. The next thing is that David will begin sending gifts to all of the people back in Judah. All the cities where he used to hang out. All the cities where he'd like to run with his guys.
[4:09] He sends gifts to them out of the stuff they took from the Amalekites when they just got through destroying them. Now they're in their land and he has made his way back to Judah.
[4:19] He's going to Hebron because the Lord told him to go to Hebron. And so he's going to go to Hebron and he's going to set up his kingdom there in Hebron. And a man shows up to him and makes these comments.
[4:31] So let's have a word of prayer. And then we'll kind of go through that story a little bit and see how it works in our lives. Father, I pray that you would deal in our hearts and help us.
[4:42] That we would not give the enemy, your enemy, the right to mock and make fun of you, of your gospel, of your word. That we would be careful to live lives that bring honor to your glory, honor and glory to your name.
[4:56] And that we would not hinder your work. I pray God that you'd help us and strengthen us and help us to take seriously this privilege we have. And I'll give you praise for all that you do in Jesus' name.
[5:07] Amen. 1 Samuel chapter 30 and verse 26. David began making peace with the men of Judah. I'm just going to show you this verse and we'll move on. It says in verse 26, When David came to Ziklag, he sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you of the spoil of the enemies of the Lord.
[5:27] So he's making peace. He said, Hey, I used to run around in your area. You've heard a lot of bad things about me because I've been down here in Ziklag working for the Philistines. But I wasn't really working for the Philistines, if you recall.
[5:39] He was really attacking the enemies of the Lord, but he killed everybody. Nobody knows exactly who he is. And now he is sending these gifts. He's trying to make peace. He's headed towards becoming the king. 1 Samuel chapter 30 and verse 31.
[5:51] And to them which were in Hebron and to all the places where David himself and his men were wont to haunt. The places they used to hang out. David says, I want to make peace. I want you to know I'm a good guy.
[6:02] And I'm sending you some gifts. Now, let me go. I want you to. First, I want you to get where we ought to stand. I want you to understand the story. The story is Saul dying.
[6:13] The story is the man of God being destroyed. But the backlying story is that Satan's going to rejoice. You remember when Samson was captured and his hair was cut and they treated him like an animal and they had him threshing out the wheat.
[6:31] And the people used to come down to the temple of Dagon and they were mocking him. And they were enjoying it that their God had conquered God's man. And they'd want. That's what's going on here. So when Saul dies, they send all the word and say, hey, man, our gods are better than his God.
[6:46] Our gods gave us victory and they're mocking the God of the Bible. So tonight, what's our lesson? I hope you, if you take anything home, this is it. What's going to make David mad is the heathen are rejoicing because of God's man being killed and I don't like it.
[7:06] And as Christians, it ought to be my heartbeat that I would live in such a way and I would act in such a way that I don't bring reproach on the name of Jesus. I am marked by him.
[7:17] I am owned by him. I belong to him. I represent him. The very word Christian is like little Christian, little Christ-like one. And I don't want that to be my story.
[7:28] So go with me to 1 Samuel chapter 31 and verse 4. And watch Saul and his sons die. Then said Saul unto his armor bearer, draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me.
[7:44] But his armor bearer would not, for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it. Now, why does Saul want to die that way? He wanted to die that way so the Philistines couldn't brag about having killed him individually.
[7:57] So they couldn't torture him. So they couldn't make a lot of light of that. They had attacked Israel. The Philistines had. The men of Israel have now run for their lives. And they have just gotten through killing Jonathan and his brothers.
[8:08] 1 Samuel 31.2. You got your Bible? 1 Samuel 31.2. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons. And the Philistines slew Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchisua, Saul's sons.
[8:21] And now Saul falls on his sword to kill himself. And his armor bearer does the same thing in verse 5. And Saul is dead. 1 Samuel chapter 31 verse 6.
[8:34] It's going to be interesting for your story. So you want to know that. And Saul died. So Saul died. And his armor bearer and all his men that same day together.
[8:44] Verse 8. And it came to pass on the morrow when the Philistines came to strip the slain to take off their armor, take off any valuables they have on them. They found Saul and his sons fallen in Mount Geboa.
[8:57] And here's what you want to learn with this death. Please remember this. This is a secondary lesson for you in the message I want to share with you. But that is this. Saul's judgment had come.
[9:12] Saul had been warned. You're not honoring me. You're not putting me first. Samuel had warned him. Samuel had ripped his garment and told him just like that. The kingdom's been torn for you.
[9:23] And now Israel is defeated. And Saul is dead. I just want to remind you here's a consequence of sin. And here's a big lesson in Saul's life because Saul was warned of that.
[9:34] But years, over 10 years have gone by. And it would appear that Saul got away with his wickedness. It would appear that Saul has done wrong and God hasn't done anything about it. It would appear that everything's been okay.
[9:46] But today's the final day of reckoning. And God says that's over. You're paying now. It can seem that sin has no consequences. But sooner or later, it'll happen.
[10:00] R.G. Lee, Southern Baptist pastor from 40 or 50 years ago, preached a message called Payday Someday. And in that message, he said, there will be a payday someday. Might not be today, but there will be a payday someday.
[10:14] And he had this poem in there. This is the price I pay just for one riotous day. Years of regret and of grief and sorrow without relief. Suffered I will, my friends.
[10:24] Suffered until the end. Until the grave shall give relief. Small was the thing I bought. Small was the thing at best. Small was the debt I thought. But, oh God, the interest.
[10:36] He said, though the meal of God grinds slowly, it grinds to powder. Yes, the judgments of God often have leaden hills and travel slowly. But they always have iron hands and crush completely.
[10:50] Saul, most likely a lost man. If he's saved, he's so far from God. Seems like he got away with it. Seems like he mistreated David. Seems like nothing happened.
[11:01] But when it was time, it was over. Sin always has consequences. And that's why God calls us away from it. But here's what I want to go to tonight. And I want you to spend some time thinking about it with me.
[11:14] Satan was praised when God's man falls. 1 Samuel chapter 31 and verse 9. 1 Samuel chapter 31 and verse 9. They cut off his head. They stripped off his armor.
[11:26] They sent him to the land of the Philistines round about. That's a normal process. But you do know they have their territorial gods. There's one great big God, the God of all the universe.
[11:37] These other guys have little gods, gods they've made. Little idols, little images. You know Dagon couldn't stand up in the presence of the ark. You know the God's the real God. But in the story here, all of a sudden in verse 9 it says, they sent it to publish it in the house of their idols and among the people.
[11:55] You're going to find in this chapter and the next chapter, here's what God's saying. And I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't want that being published in the house of their idols. They boast that God's man is defeated and destroyed.
[12:07] In verse 10 the Bible said, they put his armor in the house of Ashtaroth, another false god. They fastened his body to the wall of Bashan. Good men, they go get Saul's body and they bring it back and they bury the bones and they show the right attitude, which is a tremendous attitude in 1 Samuel chapter 31 and verse 11 and 12.
[12:30] They go get the body. I want you to think with me. I'm going to show you some other Bible verses. When all this is done, you remember when David kills Goliath? David says, watch this.
[12:40] When I kill Goliath, everybody will know there's a God in Israel. When Saul falls, the idols say, now you know he's not such a great God. And through the Bible, there's a lesson taught, and I'm just going to give you a handful of verses, that you and I want to be careful that we never let the enemies of God brag, which could happen by us committing adultery, which could happen by us falling into drunkenness, which could happen by us getting caught in some crime, which people make fun of Christians all the time because of our junk we do.
[13:12] But you and I don't want to do that. Say amen. We want to honor God. We want to live a life that brings glory to him. So look if you would at 2 Samuel chapter 12 and verse 14. We never want God's name to be blasphemed because of our failure.
[13:26] But David gave the enemy cause to mock God. That's what's written in the passage. 2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 14. Just another example. The Bible says, Would you underline this in that verse?
[13:48] Would you look at it? You have given the enemies of the Lord great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, to mock God, to laugh at God, to make fun of God.
[14:02] We can complain about our lack of religious freedom. We can complain about how we think people ought to be treating us. We can get on Facebook and make all kinds of comments. But the truth is, we, not you and I personally, but our group, Christians, we've given the enemy of the Lord great opportunity and great occasion to blaspheme the Lord.
[14:25] To blaspheme the Lord. Look if you would at Romans chapter 2 and verse 17. The legalistic Jews taught things, but they didn't live what they taught. And that was the way they caused people to blaspheme God.
[14:36] That could be what we would be guilty of. So many Christians do that. They teach one thing and live another thing. And that ought not be our policy. That's not what we want to do. Look at what the Bible says in Romans 2, 17.
[14:47] Behold, thou art called a Jew. And you rest in the law and you make your boast of God. Verse 18, you're instructed out of the law. And verse 19, you're a confidence that you're a guide.
[14:59] In verse 20, you're an instructor to the foolish and a teacher of the babes. In verse 21, you teach another. But don't you teach yourself? Boy, that's tough, isn't it?
[15:10] You teach another. Don't you teach yourself? You preach that a man shall not steal, but do you steal? Verse 22, you say a man should not commit adultery, but do you commit adultery?
[15:21] You say a guy should hate idols, but do you commit idol worship, sacrilege? You make a boast of the law of God. Through breaking the law, you dishonor God.
[15:33] We put ourselves in a pretty bad position when we serve God, don't we? We're kind of held to a pretty high standard. People are watching us. And look what it says in verse 24. For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
[15:50] Now, that's about those Jewish people, and that's about those Judaizers, and that's about those legalists. The fundamental churches have been really famous for making lots of big, strong, bold statements of, bless God this, and bless God that, and making all sorts of rules, and we don't keep them.
[16:04] And that's what's happening. So in the story, Saul is dead, and they're praising their idols in the temples of the idols. The things are hanging in Ashtaroth's place, and it's being published there.
[16:16] We hinder, cause, give occasion for God to be blasphemed, and we don't work right. Hang on. You won't like this one, but 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 1.
[16:29] 1 Timothy chapter 6. We'll be back to 1 Samuel 31 in just a second. But look at 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor.
[16:43] Look at what it says. That the name of God and his doctrine not be made fun of. We're Christians. We arrive late.
[16:57] Leave early. Halfway work. Steal things. Lie. Cheat. Like we're lost. And people say, you're no different than a lost man.
[17:09] That's pretty much what the verse says. If you think that's what it says, say amen. Is that what it says? That's what it says. He says, and they're making fun of. Look at what it says. That the name of God, that's our Father, our Savior, our Lord, and his doctrine and his teaching, be not blasphemed, mocked, made fun of.
[17:27] Titus chapter 2 and verse 4. Last verse to show you. But those verses say exactly what's happening in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel chapter 1.
[17:39] We don't want to give the enemies of God a right to make fun of God. Amen? I want my family to be such that my neighbors say, you can't say anything bad about that guy. I don't know.
[17:50] I mean, he's kind of weird. He likes to go to church every Sunday. We see him come out there in a suit and tie every week. But at least one, you know, he hadn't shot his wife. Amen? He hadn't committed adultery. Come on.
[18:01] You can say what you want, but our group's been guilty of that us Christians have. Not you, praise the Lord, but anyway. Titus 2.4. That they teach the young women to be sober, love their husbands, love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands.
[18:18] And notice why. That the word of God be not blasphemed. It would appear to me from the passage and from the verses, that's a big deal to God that we don't give the enemy an occasion to make fun of him.
[18:34] He bought me out of sin. He saved me, made me his, called me his, made me a new creature, gave me a new life, guaranteed my eternity. This isn't about being saved or not being saved, but it is about living a life with a good testimony for the honor and the glory of the Lord Jesus.
[18:51] If you see that, say amen. If you don't, maybe you can talk to me afterwards. I don't see how you can get hardly anything else from it. Go back with me to 2 Timothy chapter 1, 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 11 now.
[19:04] How do we handle failure among our ranks? How do we handle failure among our ranks? There's some lessons here, I think, for all of us.
[19:14] When Saul dies, do you remember who Saul is? The guy's tried to kill David. He's had David running for his life and hiding in caves.
[19:26] And it's like one Baptist preacher trying to kill another Baptist preacher, or one deacon out to get another deacon. It's one Christian out to get another one. It's one of God's people out to get another one. And do you see what, to be honest, if I'd heard Saul had died, I'd have been like, well, praise Jesus.
[19:42] Glory to God. Finally, vengeance is mine, saith Austin. But that's not what David does. Look at 2 Samuel chapter 1 and verse 11. He has a broken heart that Saul has died.
[19:53] Look at verse 1, chapter 1, verse 11. Then David took hold on his clothes, and he ripped them, rent them. And likewise all the men that were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until even for Saul and for Jonathan's son, for the people of the Lord, for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword.
[20:13] He did not rejoice at the death of his enemy. He did not rejoice at the death of his enemy. He called his men to mourn, not celebrate.
[20:25] These 600 men have been running for their lives. These 600 men have been living in caves. These 600 men have been harassed and chased for a 10-year period. You could almost think that they'd say, well, thank God he's dead, and we can go ahead and have our lives now.
[20:42] Next chapter, they're going to be setting up the kingdom. That's not what they do. And we should never be happy when a Christian leader falls.
[20:53] No matter what group he is, I don't care if he's from Joel Osteen to charismatic to independent Baptist, that's never our heart. Because that's what old David's pretty well showing me, that David's on one side and Saul's on the other, and David's heart is broken.
[21:09] 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 6, talking about love. It talks about the love as the governing feature of a church, the governing feature of this church at Corinth that was eat up with all kinds of problems.
[21:23] He said, y'all got to find a better way, a more excellent way, and that's the love that God gives us. It says in verse 6, love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.
[21:35] Just a comment for you. You know what rejoicing in iniquity means, don't you? It means that I look for people that are doing worse than me so I can feel good about me. I'll show you one of my ways to rejoice in iniquity.
[21:47] I've always dealt with my weight. I always tried to think, you know, I'm fat, but, you know, I love seeing guys that are fatter than me. I used to live in Peru, and in Peru I was always, like, massive. You don't understand.
[21:58] I mean, I come down the road, I am like a giant. I'm like three people in one. I can remember one time when they were telling me how big you had to be to be in the Peruvian military, and I said I could go in for two and one left over, height-wise, width-wise, in every way.
[22:11] And so I'd love to come to America because I'd go to Golden Crow in America, and I'd say, hey, hey, that's fat. I'm not. That's rejoicing in iniquity. Hey, I'm a better husband than he is. I serve better than they serve.
[22:25] You know what that is, isn't it? It's not saying what does the Lord want. It's saying let me find somebody doing worse than me so I can feel good about it. David didn't do that, and we shouldn't do that, rejoicing rather in the truth.
[22:36] Look at 2 Samuel 1.14 now. 2 Samuel 1.14. David couldn't believe that the man had raised his hand against the anointed of the Lord.
[22:47] 2 Samuel 1.14 says, And David said, How was thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?
[22:58] You remember, you've gone through 1 Samuel. At least two times, David had Saul right there where he could have taken his life. His own men were encouraging him to kill him, and David said, no, he's God's man.
[23:11] He's anointed. This isn't about a pastor. This is about the king of Israel and the Old Testament. David knew God had put Saul into place, and David would wait for God to take Saul out. It's not about an independent Baptist preacher, by the way. It's about a king and Israel.
[23:22] But the point being, David wouldn't try to hurt him. Now, here comes a man running up to David. And the truth is, we know, because we read 1 Samuel chapter 31, we know Saul was already dead.
[23:33] We know Saul fell on his own sword. We know that they found him dead. But Amalekite thinks to himself, David will surely be really happy with me because I killed David. He brings some of David's stuff so he can say, hey, I found this stuff.
[23:46] I took it off of Saul. And so here I am, and you should be happy. I killed your enemy. I mean, I don't blame the guy for thinking that. I think I'd have thought that he would have been happy about it. But instead, he said, why weren't you afraid?
[24:00] How could you kill the man God made king? And so in 2 Samuel 1.15, he said, kill him. I can only imagine what Mr. Amalekite was thinking when that happened.
[24:12] I think Mr. Amalekite walked up thinking, I'm about to be rich. I'm about to get the bounty for killing David's enemy. Everybody's going to like me. Watch this. I'm fixing to be a hero of the day, even though nobody knows because there's nobody sending news reports back from the battlefield.
[24:25] And David says, kill him. David said, kill him. I would just like to say that we are quick to judge and be harsh.
[24:39] We can do it about a Methodist preacher, a Presbyterian preacher, a charismatic preacher, or some other dingbat out there that we don't respect. We could even do it about each other. But David had great respect, even for a guy you know he didn't like him.
[24:54] You know he didn't like him. You know he didn't really respect him. He respected his position. But David's attitude was, let's not let that happen. So let me go with you, if I could, to 2 Samuel 1 and verse 20.
[25:08] This is a verse, I think, that we ought to memorize and consider and think about in our own personal life and in all of this. 2 Samuel 1 and verse 20 says, don't tell it on Facebook.
[25:24] See that? How many of us are, man, we're attacking, we're disrespectful, we're shooting at everybody else?
[25:38] David said, don't y'all tell it in Gath. Now, Gath, that's over among the Philistines. That's over among the lost people. And what David didn't want to happen was for lost people to be able to rejoice at seeing a problem.
[25:50] And yet in our society today, we go right on Facebook or some other social medium and we blast everything out where lost people can read it and everybody else can read it.
[26:01] And we rejoice. I got to, I took some pot shots. I took him out. But David said, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want this told in Gath. I don't want the Philistines to hear this.
[26:12] I don't want them to know it. Look at verse 20. Publish it not in the streets of Escalon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice. The Philistines are the godless people.
[26:23] They're idol worshipers. They're people who hate the God of Israel. And he said, we don't want God's enemies to be happy with God's people fallen.
[26:35] So how would I handle it if a brother failed? We'll read a couple of verses here in a second. But how would I handle it? I certainly don't want to announce it. I certainly don't want to gossip about it.
[26:46] I certainly don't want to put it where the world can see it. Now, you know that doesn't mean we're not going to cover up sin. Okay? We're not covering up sin. We're definitely not covering up sexual sin, which has been done by our people a lot.
[26:58] We're not going to do that. We're going to take a stand about it. But it's never our goal to see it announced. It's never our goal to see the world bragging about it. It's never our goal. Don't tell it where the daughters of the Philistines can rejoice, where the godless people are like, see there, I told you God wasn't real.
[27:14] See there, I told you the Bible didn't work. See there, I told you Christianity wasn't real. I told you that, and there's proof of it right there. So David's like, guys, how in the world could you go about letting this be told?
[27:29] Saul's body, Saul's weapons, Saul's things, the news has been sent to be published among the idol worshipers.
[27:40] David's philosophy is, let's don't do that. Let's don't do that. It should not be announced among the enemies of the Lord. It should not be published, made public before lost people.
[27:53] There's no desire for lost people to get excited about God, about seeing God fail in their opinions. Here's a hard thing, and I don't know that we like it, but when Saul died, lost people said, basically, our God beat your God.
[28:15] Our God beat your God. The Amalekite thought to himself, there's no way David's not going to be happy about this. And David said, I'll never be happy about something like that happening.
[28:28] His heart was broken. 2 Samuel 1, verse 25, if you would. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? O Jonathan, thou wast slain in high places.
[28:41] Of course, he loved Jonathan, but there's at least two times at the end of that chapter, how are the mighty fallen? How are the mighty fallen? How are we going to deal? How are we going to deal with sin?
[28:53] We've been given biblical instructions, haven't we? We've looked at it before. In Matthew chapter 18, if I know somebody's not living right, doing right, and what they ought to do in a loving, kind spirit, to desire to restore my brother and love my brother, I would go to my brother and talk to him in private, never telling anybody else, keeping it quiet between us and help to restore my brother.
[29:13] We saw it in Galatians chapter 6, those of us that are spiritual. Instead of saying, I saw one of my brothers doing wrong on Facebook and I just want to publish it. That's never what we would do. We would go talk to him.
[29:24] Matthew chapter 18, we would tell him his fault between me and him alone and nobody else knows, but I'm not out to spread the word. And if he doesn't listen to that and I can't help him, it's not about trying to hurt him, it's about trying to restore him.
[29:36] And so I would go to him in private with another person to open the Bible and show him this adultery is not right, this fornication is not right, this pornography is not right, this filth is not right, what you're doing is, hey pastor, you're not above it, we need to talk to you too for something going on.
[29:53] And if that doesn't happen, we'll get the church to help him understand. And our goal is to restore, but never to try to hurt. Sin has to be dealt with, can't be covered up.
[30:04] So Christians do one of two things, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, I don't know if you've ever paid attention to it, but Christians said they either cover it up and act like nothing happened, or destroy, and both would be wrong, wouldn't they?
[30:17] David's not going to cover it up, the fact is in the next chapters you're going to find out that, in the New Testament, we're not going to cover it up. Even if it's an elder, even if it's a pastor, even if it's a leader, with two witnesses, you rebuke him.
[30:28] That's what the Bible says. No one's above being accountable. But it's not a matter of taking this to Gath, to Ascalon, to the Philistines, to the uncircumcised.
[30:42] It's not a matter of airing, dirty laundry. So what do we do if we see somebody we don't know for? We don't brag about it, we don't get on Facebook and say, man, I'm glad that happened, I'm glad he got in trouble, I'm glad he got caught.
[30:57] They're just a stinking wicked cult because we just, hey, shh, shh, shh, you don't need to spread it anymore when it's been spread. That's basically what David said. Hey, his body's already been there.
[31:08] Those guys went and rescued his body and David's like, hey, I don't want it told in Gath. I don't want this discussed. I don't want that attitude being pushed around. We would deal with the person. As a church, as leaders in our church, even you as a member, you would deal with it, but we wouldn't cover it up.
[31:24] We have no desire to spread this or attack even those that are not our stripe. Churches ought to be ready to practice church discipline. Well, that puts us in a different light, but we ought to be ready to say, this is what the Bible teaches and we'll take a stand.
[31:39] And that's 1 Corinthians chapter 5, by the way. You can find out even about what things we ought to take a stand on. Our goal is always to restore our brother. Our goal is always to restore our brother.
[31:51] And we ought to be accountable so as not to avoid, so as to avoid sin as much as possible. Let me sum it all up and I'm finished with this with 1 Samuel and we're finished with 2 Samuel chapter 1. The wildest story in the world.
[32:04] David's been wanting so desperately to be king. He has been running for his life. It's been over 10 years. It's finally chance. Saul dies. You would think everybody would be happy. The Amalekite thinks that David will be happy.
[32:16] The wicked people take all of the stuff that's been happening and they run and put it in their newspapers and they run and publish it and they tell all their false gods and their idols. They tell all their girls, sing and dance and praise our false gods because the man of God has fallen.
[32:32] The Amalekite comes running to David and he says, hey David, I killed your enemy. I brought proof. I killed him. I know you're going to be happy with me. I'm waiting on my reward. And David said, I can't believe you would do that.
[32:43] I can't believe you would attack him. I can't believe. By the way, he didn't really kill him, you know. He just wanted to brag about it. And David said, well you said you did so you're a dead man.
[32:54] Take his life. You can't lift your hand against the anointed of the Lord. But we're not going to do that here at the church. Amen. Nobody's killing anybody. But that's what happened. And then he said, and then he said, I don't want this told.
[33:05] I don't want this told. So could I just remind you of this? We don't want the enemies of the Lord to rejoice. I need to always bear in mind that if I'm not honoring Jesus and I'm not living out my faith, I could easily hurt the testimony of the Lord Jesus.
[33:25] Now I've been married to the Holy Spirit, her name's Betty, for a long time. And in Peru, we had a TV station and I was on there probably 30 hours a week or more preaching and I'd be driving down the road and you'd have to drive and I'd keep an understanding there's not traffic like here where there's two lanes they can make four or five lanes and everybody's cutting everybody off and road rage is about every three second thing.
[33:49] And so it's constantly happening and so I'd be driving down the road and somebody cut me off and I would just blow my horn, I'd jerk my car out and I'd start around him and Betty'd be patting my leg. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
[34:00] Testimony, testimony, testimony. Channel 33, channel 33, they're watching you preach and now they're watching you beat somebody up. Stop. But you know I needed that.
[34:13] Do you think it's a light thing when you let sin take over your life? Do you think it's a light thing when you let adultery or fornication or pornography or drugs or addiction or alcohol destroy your marriage?
[34:27] Do you think it's a light thing? Do you think I don't hurt anybody else? Do you think it's okay for me to do what I want to do? Well, here's what's going on in this story. Every time we fail, the enemies of God rejoice and we don't want that to happen.
[34:43] that's what I want to do. I don't want that to happen. So, let's do what I want to do, and lastly, click the button. Somebody Chor. Say that, just surprise somebody you got him. Sound from self. But you don't want me to get down in this story.
[34:54] I want you to awry .